What the hell?
In cycling, athletes who dope get caught. Why can’t the MLB do this?
Amen, Supertanker. Why did he lie and say he thought this clear substance was flaxseed oil? Because that’s the only thing he could say in the face of the evidence. He knew he was cheating. Giambi just wasn’t quick enough on the uptake to say the same unconvincing lie. (He appears to actually have a guilty conscience.)
There’s no asterisk. You can’t change it now. You just hope the next record holder is clean. I’m sure MLB will be able to keep up with the guys like Patrick Arnold now that they know what went down. Yeah, maybe…
You people should just have the doping sports leagues and the non-doping sports leagues, and then let people decide which one they want to watch more. Wouldn’t that make everyone happy?
Reminds me of that old SNL sketch where the power lifter rips his arms off.
I love the game, but MLB has allowed things like this to get out of control. I remember seeing Aaron hit his record setting home run, the entire lead up to that point, and how America was caught up in the story. Bonds - nobody cares much and those who do actively rail against Bonds. The commissioner and company know what’s going on with the steroids and other drugs, but they would prefer there to be a lot more home runs because they think that makes the game more attractive and exciting.
This is the same organization that said Pete Rose couldn’t come into a major league stadium, even though he’d never been convicted of anything, at the same time that a convicted felon (Strawberry) was actively playing in right field.
People who pay attention to cycling tell me that whether you get kicked out or not has more to do with politics than evidence. In the recent Tour, most (all?) of the cyclists who got banned didn’t actually test positive for anything. So you have a bunch of people getting convicted on hearsay and circumstantial evidence. Is that better?
Until there is drug testing effective enough to say that person A is not using anything, I think it’s hypocritical to ban person B when neither of them actually failed a test. It’s a form of willful ignorance–people want to pretend their sport is mostly clean and they’re catching the cheaters, but really they’re just catching the odd one who gets careless. We have no idea how widespread the problem is.
Okay? I guess you’ll be pretty sad when latinos hold most of the key records (Hello Mr. Pujols, Mr. Rodriguez)?
Anyway, there’s a big difference between Bonds and Rose. If Bonds does make it in to the baseball Hall of Fame I can’t imagine Rose having any worthwhile argument against him. If Shoeless Joe can’t get in, then Pete shouldn’t get in either.
That’s not true at all. Cyclists are usually banned for testing positive. The one cyclist that left the Tour de France and did not test positive, Michael Rasmussen, was kicked out by his team. That one you could argue was politics, but he failed to report to drug testing and lied about it. Lance Armstrong had many politically motivated people trying to ban him, but they never could because he never failed a drug test. Meanwhile tons of other big names in cycling did get caught and banned.
There will always be controversy, but the Olympics and Cycling are able to catch cheaters. Drug testing works, maybe not perfectly but it is far from a hopeless cause.
From Slate:
Barry Bonds broke baseball’s all-time home run record last night with a towering, eighth-inning long ball against the Washington Nationals. After smashing his 756th career home run, the seven-time National League MVP pumped his fists in the air repeatedly. Bonds then reached into his back pocket and pulled out a large syringe labeled “DRUGS FOR CHEATING AT BASEBALL.” The San Francisco Giants slugger lowered his pants, injected himself in the buttocks, and extended both middle fingers before setting off on his record-setting jaunt around the bases.
—Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 10, 2007
No, I haven’t. I should, but I’m admittedly lazy (which means I don’t go to the library) and cheap (I tend not to buy books. The Juice by Carroll was a great read, but a xmas gift). I have a duplicate book to return, so maybe I’ll pick up Game of Shadows.
But your post is basically my point. All we KNOW McGwire took was Andro, which was both legal (buy it at GNC!) and not banned by MLB at the time. How is his using it tainting anything? At the time, what was the difference between that, creatine (still legal), of drinking 2 cans of Jolt pre-game? How about the decades of amphetamine usage? Leaded and unleaded (with and without the amphetamines, not caf or decaf). Likely illegal in the “real world”, it was commonplace in clubhouses (I think that they even were banned a year after steroids and the like). Nobody really cares, even though it might have been more important than steroids in helping stats (a team plays ~15% of their games as day game after night game, the most common reason a player would “need” a pick-me-up to let them play that 2nd game at the same level as the 1st).
All of the stuff Bonds did take MIGHT have been against the rules of MLB. It depends on how much of what Vincent said in his memo to the teams actually made it into MLB rules, and on how well defined it was. If it wasn’t against the rules of MLB, then “I just think it’s wrong” isn’t really reason for an asterisk, or scuttling an entire era of the game. In fact, the reality is that no discussion of the “steroid era” (what exactly does that cover, btw?) will happen without some mention of it, and that’s really all that’s needed.
The FDA didn’t ban THG until well after the 73 home run season, which means it must have been some sort of legal before then.
I get the point of view that wants no drugs of any kind in baseball (or sport), regardless of if they’re banned by the sport or not. But that’s not the actual rules. You can take asthma medication in baseball, but not in track and field. Shawne Merrimen served a drug suspension and went to the Pro Bowl at the end of the year. Other sports don’t matter in this specific discussion.
I don’t like players that go in to 2nd base spikes high, or who set up in the batters box with their back foot outside the box, or catchers who frame pitches to fool umpires. I don’t want flopping in basketball or rushing to the line of scrimmage to get a play off to thwart a replay attempt in football, because they’re not “sporting” IMO. But that’s life, because both are “in bounds” (flopping is in theory an infraction, but so is travelling and that gets called about as often). Hell, some of the stuff that IS illegal in baseball just gets a wink and a chuckle (the batter’s box thing, or doctoring the ball for example).
What you or I think should be the rule doesn’t matter, in terms of the Hall of Fame or validity of records.
I’m not trying to defend Bonds as a person. I’m not a Bonds fan (at the same time, I don’t loathe him like many do). But there’s plenty in sports that goes on that’s illegal in “real life”. Look at violence in hockey, for example. There are fairly clearly two sets of rules, and if you break the rules in one “world”, it doesn’t require punishment in the other.
Given that there are players in the HoF that HAVE broken the rules (Perry, I’m looking at you), I’m not sure how you can argue that someone who HASN’T broken the rules (that I’m aware of. I clearly don’t have 100% of the info, and am happy to hear something I missed) doesn’t belong. Character doesn’t much matter, or Ty Cobb would be out.
Especially since performance enhancing drugs were used on both sides (the pitcher that gave up #755 had served a suspension for PEDs in a previous year), and nobody really has any solid evidence of what benefit they do/don’t provide in baseball. What if the boost (if any) Bonds got was directly opposed by the benefit pitchers he faced got? If we each cheat in a race by setting up 2" over the starting line, does it matter?
Here’s what I know: Bonds has hit 756 pitches out of ballparks during regular season games. There is virtually nothing the same about his effort and Hank Aaron’s, just as there’s virtually nothing the same about Aaron’s and Ruth’s. The mental stress Aaron was under (death threats, general racism) was insane. Bonds plays in a totally different era. Steroids aside, the parks are generally smaller, the ball is probably harder, bats are lighter, and physical fitness is almost certainly better (just that fact that salaries are what they are means players don’t need to work in the off season to make money, giving them time to keep in shape). Bonds hitting 756 or 780 doesn’t lessen what Aaron did a single bit.
Here’s the case against Rose in brief:
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He agreed to a lifetime ban. Part of that agreement allowed him to appeal to have it lifted, but there’s nothing that says it has to be lifted, or even that it would be if he did certain things.
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After years of lying (I didn’t bet on baseball! Okay, I bet on baseball, but never on my team! Okay, I bet on my team, but always to win! And so on…), he has zero credibility. Nothing he says can be trusted, unless he comes out and says “There are the games I bet on, and I even bet on my team to lose at times.” and much of that info needs to match up with the evidence he’s denied for years.
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Since he’s admitted to betting on baseball, he should never be allowed in the HoF. It’s the one rule clearly posted in EVERY clubhouse. It’s the one rule with a pretty clear punishment. It’s the one rule everyone knows is like asking for a death sentence.
That’s it! There’s no Shoeless Joe “But he really tried hard and played well” (bogus, IMO) argument to be made in his favor. He bet on his team, he admitted it, and that’s it. Do not pass go, do not collect a bronze plaque.
If Bonds retired and then said “I did steroids” you’d at least have the debate about if he should go in or not. There’s no debate on Rose.
Wow dannimal, you have a lot of buckshot flying around there. I’ll concede a lot of your points about the nature of fair play and drug use in sports because it really is a widespread problem that existed before Bonds and will exist after him.
But your argument that just because THG wasn’t banned by the FDA until 2003 makes it fair game to be used by athletes for performance enhancement is an interesting argument to say the least.
It was created specifically to get around testing procedures and is essentially a synthetic anabolic steroid. The FDA took action on it when a track coach sent a syringe of the stuff into the government. I would argue that they would have banned the substance prior to 2001 had they known of its existence.
Much as Lyle Alzado and others have found out, there is potentially a very high price to pay for the use of these drugs. We’ll see what the future holds for these athletes.
Just because some people got away with it doesn’t mean it’s alright for Bonds.
Fuck Barry Bonds. He cheated. You can’t compare him with Hank Aaron. He cheated by using all kinds of drugs, pure and simple. He knew he cheated, the grand jury knows he cheated, we know he cheated. Doesn’t matter whether the MLB dodges the drug question, doesn’t even matter if they are legal. One question. Does the drug use affect his performance at all? Yes? Then he’s a cheater. Fuck him.
Awesome, thanks. I was having trouble digging that up.
Guapo, have you understood a single thing dannimal’s been saying? It doesn’t matter if the drugs were legal? Hello? How is doing something that’s not against the rules cheating? You want to ban people for using anything that affects performance even if it’s legal, so that would include caffeine, cold medicine and protein powder. You’re gonna run out of players in one day if that’s your criteria.
Here’s my litmus test. If the commissioner of the MLB walked in on you drinking a cup of coffee, taking a teaspoon of NyQuill, or drinking a protein shake, would you try and chuck them into the nearest trashcan and claim they weren’t yours? Would you be embarrassed? Would you know it was wrong? Would you try and hide it from your fans and the media?
How about injecting a syringe of steroids or human growth hormone?
Clearly there is a line, and though it has a lot to do with legality, it also has to do with knowing you are a big fat cheater. I don’t buy this “it’s all the MLBs fault for not making it against the rules” argument. If someone created some kind of synthesized super serum that gave you unbelievable athletic abilities, aka The Super Soldier serum, but it technically wasn’t illegal or against MLB rules, would you still be a cheater if you used it?
The answer, is YES.
The entire discussion is pointless, and only going to grow much more so. Back in the 1930s, the advantages you could get were genetic, nutrition (money impacts), time available to practice (money again), and talent (not sure how to categorize). Now we have weight training (money again), and drugs (money and technology availibility).
Drugs are suddenly very bad, because they’re…fuck, I don’t know. They’re clearly visible, and a type of capability we’re not already used to there being wide inequalities in?
They’re bad because they have severe health impacts, and setting up a system where people are forced to take them just to be able to compete is just wrong. Ultimately, banning steroids is about protecting athletes’ health.
Besides, you don’t need money to train - didn’t you watch Rocky?