Thank you Woolen, I wanted to post that too.
On the other hand, if all the pitchers are also using steroids, doesn’t Bonds using them just level the playing field? Anyone know how much faster fastballs are now than they were in Aaron’s day?
I think I would be more impressed if he used his Penis as a bat. I’m just sayin…
Oh sure, if we let scrawny people use steroids we’re going to have to start letting fat players run the bases on segways and armless people bat with robots. Why do you want to ruin the sport??? </slippery slope argument>
He cheated, so it doesn’t count.
End of story.
Wait a minute. This guy is a known cyborg and people are bitching about drugs? I didn’t think it was possible for my opinions of sports fans and prohibitionists to fall any further, but, hey, there you go.
Elbow guards helped him more than increasing his strength and durability at workouts dramatically, and lowering his workout recuperative times? Not a chance. It was obvious to anyone who follow his progress that he magically became bigger, stronger, and a deeper hitter when he allegedly took roids.
It’s 5 years after retirement or were you being ironic? Mark McGuire comes to mind and it will be interesting to see his vote totals in the coming years as he should have been a HOF lock (moreso than Sosa or Palmiero for example).
(edit: Hmm… just reflected on McGuire’s, Sosa’s and Palmiero’s career stats and Mark wasn’t quite as ‘head and shoulders’ above as I thought… still; will be interesting to see how THEY play out collectively before Bonds’ time comes.
Zero. In the '70s, 100MPH was the benchmark when Nolan Ryan brought the heat. That hasn’t changed. He still holds the official record for fastest pitch in a ballgame in 1974 at 100.9MPH. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone break 100MPH.
Err, not that I disagree with your larger point, but your details are wrong. Several pitchers have broken 100mph in recent years. Zumaya, Verlander, Wagner, among others. Zumaya, in particular, regularly hit triple digits, prior to his injury. Whether he’ll retain that velocity after he recovers, who knows?
I’m not saying no one else has broken 100MPH. I’m just saying that, after 30 years, it’s still the benchmark. It’s not like 100MPH has now become commonplace and average pitchers are throwing 105MPH every night.
Greatest. Baseball. Moment. Ever.
And Ryan knows it, because he keeps autographing this photo. :)
Even better than the specious claims from that article is what came out of it’s publication.
Will Carroll (who writes for Baseball Prospectus, Pro Football Prospectus, and has written his own book on Performance Enhancing Drugs) read that article and decided to talk to (and record an interview with) the guy who makes that elbow guard for Bonds.
Carroll’s article is subscriber only, so I’ll summarize it here:
For the past 12 years, the guy has made a new custom brace for Bonds. For the first several years, he made a mold of Bonds’ arm so he could custom fit the brace without Bonds needing to be there more than twice (to make the cast, and later to try it on as a final fitting).
About 6-7 years in, he was busy enough that he stopped making the full replica of the arm, and just went to precise caliper measurements and worked off existing casts.
Why? Because Bonds’ arm hasn’t gotten bigger in the past 12 years. The measurements from year to year are remarkably consistent for someone who’s supposedly jacking up on steroids and HGH and what not.
Side question: At what point did steroids (and more specifically, at what point did different steroids/performance enhancing drugs) becomes against the rules in MLB?
http://thesteroidera.blogspot.com/2006/08/baseballs-steroid-era-timeline.html
This article is kind of confusing, since it lists Fay Vincent saying “This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs … including steroids.” and from what I can tell steroid usage prescribed by a doctor isn’t an illegal drug at the time (1991) (it’s only criminal to distribute or possess with intent to distribute) Vincent makes this statement. Also, “steroids” is a painfully vague term in this regard. It wouldn’t necessarily cover HGH, for example. It certainly didn’t cover Andro, which McGwire had in his locker in 1998 and was buyable over the counter. “Controlled substances” cover lots of things that you need a prescription for, were all of them on the list too? Did the memo ever get follow-through (it seemed to indicate that the substances WOULD be added, not that they already had been). Also, if (for example) morphine is a controlled substance, and a player having surgery got morphine as anesthesia, that would have been in violation based on the memo.
The next mention illegal or banned substances is when MLB follows the FDA in banning THG by adding it to the testing list for the 2004 season (the first season of testing that will come with actual penalties). If I’m remembering right, THG is the “cream” of BALCO fame.
Also in 2004 (after the end of the 2004 season), “[legislation] added hundreds of steroid-based drugs and precursors such as androstenedione to the list of anabolic steroids that are classified as Schedule III controlled substances, which are banned from over-the-counter sales without a prescription. By virtue of MLB’s own agreement with the union, all of the drugs banned by Congress are now on baseball’s own banned list.”
This would seem to indicate that all of the things added were NOT illegal in MLB in 1998 (McGwire) or 2001 (Bonds).
So my question is what rule(s) did Bonds break that makes him a cheater? Not just “He did steroids, he’s a cheater”, but what is it people think he took that was actually on the MLB Banned Substances list at the time he was taking it? I’m not terribly interested in righetous indignation, if it wasn’t against the rules of MLB it doesn’t much matter how morally or ethically wrong someone says it is.
I don’t know what Bonds did or didn’t take, or when he might have taken it. But if he did take something prescribed for him that wasn’t on the list of banned substances at the time, the anger should be directed at MLB for having their head in the sand, not at Bonds.
Putting aside that the number of pitchers hitting 100 MPH has probably gone up since the 70s (there are probably a handful or more in MLB right now that can do it), and even MLB has-been Matt Anderson (ex-Tiger) could hit it, the point isn’t that steroids make you throw harder (or even that they make you hit the ball farther).
Steroids, in theory (if I understand it right), make it easier to recover after workouts, and make it easier to keep the physique you had on Opening Day through the end of September, when you gradually have less time and energy to spend in the gym. When you NEED to spend time and energy in the gym, but are nicked up, or wiped from playing a 15 inning game last night and having a 1pm start today.
For pitchers, this might mean being able to go into the 7th/8th inning in September, when you could only get to the 6th otherwise. Or, for relief guys, it might mean being able to go 2-3 days in a row without a dropoff in velocity or movement or be able to throw 80 innings instead of 65 in a season.
No, it’s not. It’s anectdotally “obvious”. Bonds, from 1990 through 2004 hit less than 33 home runs ONCE, in 1991 when he hit 25. He was in the mid-30s to upper 40s every year for basically 15 years (25 in 1991, 73 in 2001).
Seeing as he went 16, 25, 24, 19 in the 4 seasons before 1990, when did he magically become a bigger, stronger, deeper hitter? When did he start the “roids”? Was it JUST 2001 to hit 73? He hit 49 the year before, and 34 in 1999 (in only 102 games, so I’m assuming he was hurt that year, and 34 in 102 is a pace for ~50, right in line with the times.
One of the arguments I see is “nobody has done that at his age!” Yet when they make the same argument about Lance Armstrong (although replace “at his age” with “after beating cancer”) it’s not a cynical “proof” of drug use, it’s an astonished marvel at human will.
2001 is a pretty freakish outlier year. But lots of players have had freakish outlier years for a given stat and don’t match it again. Tom Glavine had 3 years of sub-3.00 ERA and then threw up a 4.12. Then a few years later went from 2.96 to over 4.50 and then back to 3.60. Yes, I know ERA is a pretty bogus stat and all, but my point is some goofy stuff happens in baseball sometimes.
For once Rimbo and I agree about something sports-related.
“Welcome to the Bigs, rook!”
I pretty much agree with dannimal right down the line here.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/craig_biggio_blames_media_pressure
This makes for pretty funny reading if you’re a baseball fan and have been following the whole Bonds saga no matter which side of the fence you’re on.
Me too. I find the whole steroid controversy kind of nonsensical, because testing is so far behind masking technology that almost no one ever gets caught. You end up with people saying that ‘everyone knows’ this guy uses and this guy doesn’t, even though the evidence in both cases is sketchy.
I happen to believe that there are a huge number of athletes using banned substances, probably more than half, and the rest of them are going as close to the line as they can because you need that edge to stay competitive.
Assuming he uses them, all steroids have done is allowed Bonds to do it faster, which is probably a favor to Hank Aaron so he can die knowing that the home run record remains in the hands of blacks.
Have you read Game of Shadows yet? The most telling thing about that book to me is that Bonds didn’t sue the authors for libel, he sued to prevent them from making any profits from it because he alleged they illegally obtained Grand Jury testimony. He doesn’t want a libel suit, because that would require testing the truth of their assertions. He knows he would lose if he called them liars.
Now, assuming the authors of Game of Shadows are correct, Bonds used many steroids that were banned in other sports, and which got other athletes banned from other sports. Other steroids and drugs he used could not be prescribed by a doctor. “The Clear” was an untested animal steroid, there is no way to prescribe it for human use. He took Clomid to mask steroid use - that’s a fertility drug, it would never be prescribed to a healthy male. He used insulin to enhance HGH, but again there’s no need for insulin for a healthy adult. These may not have been against MLB rules at the time, but there was also no possible medical need or justification.
So as far as righteous indignation, to me it is not less wrong to use these substances just because the MLBPA was successful in keeping them off MLB’s banned list for a long time. That’s just a strong collective bargaining unit in the face of weak management. Sports not dominated by a bargaining unit had banned those substances long before.
It’s not just Bonds to me, I also consider McGwire and Sosa to have tainted accomplishments. The whole “Steroids Era” should have asterisks next to it. Baseball is not supposed to be the All-Drug Olympics.