Update: RYAN BRAUN added to A-Rod, Gio, Cruz, Melky, Colon, etc. implicated for PEDs

[WhiteSox5187]

Originally Posted by TaylorStSox

I honestly don't believe that for a second.

You can choose what you want to believe but there is a lot of evidence to suggest a causal relationship between the implementation of steroid testing and the decline in the home run rate. I haven't heard or seen anything to suggest there is a difference in the way the ball is wound now that is different from how it was wound in 1998.

[TaylorStSox]

Originally Posted by WhiteSox5187

You can choose what you want to believe but there is a lot of evidence to suggest a causal relationship between the implementation of steroid testing and the decline in the home run rate. I haven't heard or seen anything to suggest there is a difference in the way the ball is wound now that is different from how it was wound in 1998.

Stricter testing hasn't changed doping in football, boxing and mma. I don't believe it's the kinds of PED's. Obviously PED's have a made a difference, but I believe the ball was the biggest catalyst.

[Bob Roarman]

Originally Posted by mzh

What I don't understand is the stance that we should just accept it because it happens. It'll never be a 'pure' game and it never has been, but that don't mean we shouldn't fight to preserve some sort of semblance of integrity.

Ugh. Define integrity of baseball. Or of any game. Is it what an organization thinks of a substance where the tipping point of it's "acceptance" broke back in the 80s when it contributed to an embarrassment for the US on the world wide stage of the Olympics (Carl Lewis losing in '88)? Because that's where the seeds of this modern day moral panic of PEDs originated from. The Good Guy only lost because the bad guys cheated. So like a lot of solutions presented to us by any type of people in power, it's based on sensationalism and outrage off of an event which, in this case, ultimately makes them out to be hypocrites...

.....because years before that, Good Guy US doctors administered the now illegal steroid (which happened directly in response to what happened at the 88' Olympics) that is known as Dianabol to US weight lifters in order to compete with athletes from the USSR in the Olympics. It's just....no one likes to talk about that. And that's just one example that we know of. If you watch the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary "9.79" (about Carl Lewis' defeat by Johnson in those Olympics) you'll also see a part where one of the doctors that tested the Olympians decides to go back and re-test past Olympian's samples from years before. He said he kept getting positive results and just stopped, he didn't want to open a huge can of worms.

It is part of the competition, in damn never every competitive sport, all over the world. It is in the "fabric of baseball" as it is in the NFL and NBA and NHL. No doubt. Trying to get rid of it is futile, there will always be advancements, there's no way of keeping it out. Trying to do that arguably makes it more dangerous, has players taking more risks, unknowingly. The smart thing to do is educate athletes in these drugs, educate them on the risks, on how to properly use them if they decide to go that route. Do that or fight the half assed war against drugs which does more harm than good.

And again all this goes to another point that I keep stressing: We need to stop calling professional athletes heroes. That's the big thing in all this, the hero worship bull****. Sports can be an entertaining escapism, but you can't hold those people up as role models for life. It's a profession with it's own set of dangers and risks that need to be known about before diving into or considering a career in or even not seriously considering. Knowledge and education about it is never a bad thing. The sooner that it is learned, the better.

[Lip Man 1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8vh2MwXZ6o

Lip

[mzh]

Originally Posted by Bob Roarman

Ugh. Define integrity of baseball. Or of any game. Is it what an organization thinks of a substance where the tipping point of it's "acceptance" broke back in the 80s when it contributed to an embarrassment for the US on the world wide stage of the Olympics (Carl Lewis losing in '88)? Because that's where the seeds of this modern day moral panic of PEDs originated from. The Good Guy only lost because the bad guys cheated. So like a lot of solutions presented to us by any type of people in power, it's based on sensationalism and outrage off of an event which, in this case, ultimately makes them out to be hypocrites...

.....because years before that, Good Guy US doctors administered the now illegal steroid (which happened directly in response to what happened at the 88' Olympics) that is known as Dianabol to US weight lifters in order to compete with athletes from the USSR in the Olympics. It's just....no one likes to talk about that. And that's just one example that we know of. If you watch the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary "9.79" (about Carl Lewis' defeat by Johnson in those Olympics) you'll also see a part where one of the doctors that tested the Olympians decides to go back and re-test past Olympian's samples from years before. He said he kept getting positive results and just stopped, he didn't want to open a huge can of worms.

It is part of the competition, in damn never every competitive sport, all over the world. It is in the "fabric of baseball" as it is in the NFL and NBA and NHL. No doubt. Trying to get rid of it is futile, there will always be advancements, there's no way of keeping it out. Trying to do that arguably makes it more dangerous, has players taking more risks, unknowingly. The smart thing to do is educate athletes in these drugs, educate them on the risks, on how to properly use them if they decide to go that route. Do that or fight the half assed war against drugs which does more harm than good.

And again all this goes to another point that I keep stressing: We need to stop calling professional athletes heroes. That's the big thing in all this, the hero worship bull****. Sports can be an entertaining escapism, but you can't hold those people up as role models for life. It's a profession with it's own set of dangers and risks that need to be known about before diving into or considering a career in or even not seriously considering. Knowledge and education about it is never a bad thing. The sooner that it is learned, the better.

I'm not even going read this post. Go profess your philosophy about what we need to do as sports fans to a ****ing brick wall. I'm a baseball fan because I love baseball, and all I'm saying is that I would prefer a game in which players aren't OPENLY or blatantly cheating. Is that such an insult to your intelligence that it merits a 500 word diatribe of how full of **** I am? I roll my eyes every time every time I have to waste my time reading your holier than thou condescension. Go troll someplace else.

[TDog]

Originally Posted by Bob Roarman

Oh bull****. Come on, the 70s and 80s alone. Don't even have to go into the first rumblings of steroids around McGuire and all the backlash that got from fans and fellow journalists when he was first questioned. Those people were outcast who dared to do that. When will you stop believing this sanctity of the game act? People knew. Fans were more than happy to ignore it until it became unavoidable. Writers until it became a viable story.

People want a clean game. They want to believe they are following a clean game. It was difficult for people reach the conclusion that they weren't following a clean game. That does not mean they accepted a dirty game. It does not mean that they are hypocritical for wanting a clean game today and in the future.

You are operating with the benefit of hindsight and leaps of cynical and logical faulty reasoning.

[Domeshot17]

Bob has a point, cheating has always been a big part of baseball. Spit Balls, Loading the ball up with vasoline and pine tar etc, corked bats, stealing signs, steroids, amphetamines, the wind direction in the twin dome, the black sox scandal etc etc etc. These are some major cheating links to baseball.

I don't like it. I played in college, and I heard some guys talk of taking steroids. The funny thing was there, I played small D3, good enough to hold my own, not good enough to play D1, thats a level of baseball where it should never happen. And it was not the best guys, it was the ones who barely belonged, who wanted to get better.

[Bob Roarman]

Originally Posted by TDog

People want a clean game. They want to believe they are following a clean game. It was difficult for people reach the conclusion that they weren't following a clean game. That does not mean they accepted a dirty game. It does not mean that they are hypocritical for wanting a clean game today and in the future.

You are operating with the benefit of hindsight and leaps of cynical and logical faulty reasoning.

You had doubles hitters batting 50 homers a year. It wasn't hard to see. Horrible excuse.

[Bob Roarman]

Originally Posted by mzh

I'm not even going read this post. Go profess your philosophy about what we need to do as sports fans to a ****ing brick wall. I'm a baseball fan because I love baseball, and all I'm saying is that I would prefer a game in which players aren't OPENLY or blatantly cheating. Is that such an insult to your intelligence that it merits a 500 word diatribe of how full of **** I am? I roll my eyes every time every time I have to waste my time reading your holier than thou condescension. Go troll someplace else.

The only real reason it's today seen as "cheating" is that once upon a time the US got butthurt about being outplayed at their own game and decided to make rules about it. I'm not saying you're full of **** or don't love baseball, you just don't know the history of this.

[TDog]

Originally Posted by Bob Roarman

You had doubles hitters batting 50 homers a year. It wasn't hard to see. Horrible excuse.

People, a lot of people assumed it was the baseball, as it was in the 1920s. MLB considered introducing a livlier ball in 1970 and experimented with it in some spring training games. Many people believed that baseball officials changed the ball without announcing the change. Others believed the change had more to do with production changes in the baseballs that were unintentional. Some believed the latter because the 1970 experimental X-15 ball would have produced more offense, and the increasing number of strikeous along with the increasing number of home runs showed that smaller parks and a greater emphasis on sacrificing contact for power played the biggest role in the power surge.

Fans and the media had plenty of reason not to believe the power surge was attributable to criminal illegal performance enhancing drugs.

[Hendu]

Originally Posted by Bob Roarman

You had doubles hitters batting 50 homers a year. It wasn't hard to see. Horrible excuse.

Yup, and when Jose Bautista jumps from 13 to 54 HRs at age 29, do we take out the pitchforks? No, we draft him to our fantasy team.

We know many of the players are still using prolifically. We know that only the dumb and sloppy players get caught. And we'll turn a blind eye as long as they don't make it obvious by bulking up too much or smashing records.

It's why people are still talking about Bonds, Sosa and McGwire in this thread when we should be talking about the 2011 and almost 2012 NL MVP who has now been linked to PEDs twice. And most baseball fans keep buying the excuses.

[Hitmen77]

Originally Posted by mzh

There are talks now that this may force A-Rod into retirement.

What a way to end what could have been the greatest career ever. What a scumbag. If this is how it actually ends, he'll have a stain at least as big as Barroid and Clemens going down the road.

The rise and fall of A-Rod:

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/508776...orts-baseball/

[shingo10]

Originally Posted by Hitmen77

The rise and fall of A-Rod:

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/508776...orts-baseball/

Great article. Learned a lot about him that I never knew.