Yah, but I gots to know.
I must admit that I feel similar to Cluricaun. Intellectually, I understand that it’s wrong for player’s to cheat by taking banned performance enhancers, and I think there’s value to banning and testing for the most effective PEDs so as to keep players from getting too much of an edge . . . but I no longer feel any kind of negative *visceral *reaction to these stories.
Look, it ain’t golf. Professional athletes are expected to cheat to help their teams win. If you trap a baseball or football against the ground, you’re expected to get up screaming at the ref/ump that you caught it. If you foul the hell out of a Power Forward who’s going for a lay-up but the refs deem it a clean block, you’re expected to keep your mouth shut. If the norms for these sports were different, I imagine I would care a lot more, but in fact the prevailing ethos – from stealing signs to spitters to greenies – is that if you can get away with it, it isn’t really cheating (or, rather, it is cheating, but we only care a tiny bit). Why, then, are steroids a hanging offense?
So ban the chems, and test for them, and if a player gets caught, punish him. But this business about tainted legacies and fraudulent numbers seems hypocritical to me (especially in light of the fact that no one seems to care at all about the widespread use of amphetamines prior to the “steroid era”). When Gaylord Perry is expelled from the Hall of Fame for throwing spitballs, or when outfielders start to trap fly balls then pop up, point to the ground, and shake their heads, I’ll feel differently.
The difference–and it’s a huge one–between the kind of cheating you’re talking about and the kind I’m talking about is that we all know, including the umpires, to discount ballplayers’ claim to have caught the ball on the fly, to have thrown spit-free pitches, to have blocked the basketball without touching the driving player etc. as self-serving bullshit. If a fielder makes the claim he caught a fly ball clean, and the umpires all agree that they saw it bounce, then it’s going down as a hit, even if the fielder screams so loud and long his guts fly out his mouth.
The equivalent, which I’m advocating, is that if you think that steroids have been used (not if you KNOW beyond all reasonable doubt, but simply if you think) then you need to disqualify that player from the HoF, regardless of his self-serving claims. Bonds and Clemens can protest how pure and innocent they are until doomsday: I’ve made up my mind on the basis of ALL the evidence, of which their self-serving testimony plays only a tiny part.
If I’ve learned anything from this, it’s to treat all violations seriously at the time they occur. “What’s the harm in admitting Perry to the HoF? So he threw a few wet ones–what’s the BFD?” The BFD, as it turns out, is that more serious violations get ruled on with that small violation as a precedent. We can’t throw Perry out of the HoF (I don’t think) but we can act on the candidates before us now. I choose to act.
A-roid.
I heard on ESPN radio that the player’s union rep had also warned Arod before the test even happened…to me THAT’s the part of the story getting swept under the rug…if all the players tested had advance notice, and they still had too many positives, then how many positives would there have been without the warnings?
I honestly don’t care if they juice, or don’t, or even how much they do. Most people would take the health risks that these guys were taking if it meant a 15% increase in work performance and led to a 75% higher income. Very few of the baseball players were using them like pro wrestlers or the pro football players did in the past who have had such serious health issues
Why is Gaylord Perry’s cheating a “small” violation?
With his involvement with Madonna, and then the “AFraud” story, Alex has been involved in a couple stories over the last few months that have paired him with someone with loose lips. 
This will vary by person but for some of us the mastering of the use of a scuffed/doctored ball is a skill and part of the game. Stealing signs is a skill and part of the game. Even corking/super-balling a bat* is just messing with equipment. Taking performance enhancers crosses the line in dangerous and unacceptable cheating. Anyone can try to learn to throw the spitball but few can master it and the techniques to get away with it. Using steroids and HGH is not time honored and is general not found acceptable.
Additionally the use of steroids and HGH has helped shattered many long standing and nearly holy Home Run records. Perry’s cheating was a form of cheating that was continuous since it was first made against the rules around 1920. To complicate things, some pitchers were grandfathered and allowed to keep using the ‘spitball’ legally until they retired. The last legal spitball was thrown by Burleigh Grimes in 1934. Perry followed a long tradition of pitchers that learned and threw the ‘spitball’.
Then we come to the use of Bennies or Greens since at least the 50s. This step up from caffeine to amphetamines is so old that everyone just seems to give it a pass. As this did not lead to the shattering of the homerun records, I think is why it has got a pass and further shows where a large part of the outrage over steroids and HGH comes from.
I wasn’t criticizing any Dopers in particular with what I said earlier, What Exit? - I’m thinking more of sports writers who glommed onto the idea that baseball Mr. Clean Rodriguez was going to break the record in a few years anyway, and rescue baseball from having to stare down the specter of steroids in the home run record.
Rodriguez hasn’t been caught sice 2003, but the problem is there’s now no way to prove, and little reason to believe, he didn’t just switch to another regimen. I’m pushed more and more toward VarlosZ’s opinion as the steroid investigations have gone on. I don’t like the idea of letting cheaters win, but it’s become more clear to me that this has always been part of the game, and always will be, and there’s little chance anything can be done about it.
Separate issue: I’m not sure why baseball turned a blind eye to Gaylord Perry since he always cheated openly. That was stupid.
See, I don’t want people to kill themselves for my entertainment. This saddens me. A player dieing at the age of 40 bothers me a lot more than the sanctity of home-run records. I’m not outraged by the use of steriods. I don’t expect baseball players to be moral leaders, and the choice to take steriods is an understandable one. I’d say a mistaken one as well, but not everyone shares my priorities.
I like what Buck O’Neil said about steriods. That he wished we wouldn’t call them performance enhancing drugs, but rather just drugs. Steriods aren’t disallowed because they enhance performance. If they had no negative side effects they would be legal and encouraged. Rather they are not allowed because we don’t want individuals to have to choose between taking steriods or being beaten by those who do.
This has to be the goal. It shouldn’t be about punishment, but rather protection. These hunts just aren’t worth he effort. No 16 year old is going to not do steriods, because he is worried about his hall of fame chances. He is going to do it, because he wants to make varsity, or get a scholarship, or get drafted. Do we seriously believe Arod being outed will act as a deterrant? For any high-schooler becoming Arod is an amazing outcome.
We have a wealth of people who can talk about the dangers of steriods to youth, and we are wasting it. I’d much rather Arod talk about his experiences with juicing open and honestly, rather then attempting to hide behind the union. I understand his actions though. If we continue to treat steroid users as the scum of the earth, players will deny it until their death beds.
That saddens me too. McGwire from all accounts is a good person. He has done a lot of work for children’s charities. I just wish we would treat him a bit better. I’d much rather follow a sport where players sometimes pass blurry lines to achieve peak performance, than one in which players feel the need to bring guns into a nightclub
Yep - that’s the important question: which corruption of “A-Rod” will become the enduring one?
- A-Roid?
- A-Fraud?
- Stray-Rod?
So many to choose from.
As for the issue - the tone of the NY papers seems to capture it all: they are portraying A-Rod as a bringer-of-scandals who isn’t really worth the attention. Kinda like what the Cowboys went through at the end of the season, when, once again, they caused a sound and fury, but signified nothing. You can only hold up MVP’s and other individual-performance awards for so long in NY, while stirring the pot as much as A-Rod has, and not get a lot of heat. This season is NOT going to be pretty in NY unless the newly-purchased pitching comes through in a big way…
As for how this fits into the steroid era issue - I suppose it isn’t surprising, but it is, as they say, disappointing…
No problem on the criticizing, I wasn’t worried about it, just admitting to being that naive.
As to Perry, I don’t think you got to see him pitch. It was not that he cheated openly. He did not admit to it until after he retired and he was good, very good at not being caught. Perry was just one of many. It is well established now that Whitey Ford used a scuff ball or cut ball and used it well. I’ve heard that even Ryan adopted it late in his career and mastered it. It is suspected that even David Cone used it occasionally. There is very little negative press associated with using a ‘spitball’. As an older fan I am firmly in the category of fans that doesn’t care about it and considers it part of the game.
The numbers of pitchers that used the ‘spitball’ illegally is probably very large. I would guess in the hundreds. They just used it to varying success. Perry was greatly aided by it. Ford was helped by it and Cone appeared to use it sparingly and usually only when the ball was tossed back to him scuffed. I recently heard an old catcher (Rick Cerone I think) say that Rags could not throw a spitter at all and would toss back a scuffed ball. He seemed to indicate that it was not honesty but a lack of skill and control. In fact the catcher did not seem to think there was any negative stigma to throwing a good ‘spitball’.
The spitball was once legal. The scuff ball is often a group effort. When they toss the ball around the infield some other player may be scuffing it.
Arod acknowledges using steroids.
Should be interesting to see how this plays out.
The Texas Rangers of the early 2000s were really an all-steroid all-star team. Rodriguez can’t be suspended, but we’ll see if he’s smart enough to be forthright instead of just being self-serving about this. (Yeah, I know, but there could be a first time.)
There is, of course, always the slim chance the leak is false, or that the test was a false positive.
Doubt it, though.
And now he’s admitted it. Eh. sigh.
Here is what is surprising/interesting to me…
This test was made to determine how much better testing in baseball needed to be, the results were gonna by anonymous with no repercussions for the ones who tested positive. As it has already been mentioned WHY are those test results still around and a new question I have…
Were they actually illegal at the time? Or was this added to the list once these tests were had.
Also don’t forget, A-rod was never told he failed the test. He was told he “may or may not” have failed (which is just stupid to say) and the news that he failed was just as big a shock to him right now as it is to us.
Do you mean illegal or banned by baseball?
Cite please?
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The reason the tests and lists were still around is strangely enough the Union’s fault. They were trying to fight the results saying many of the positives were actually false positives and it held up the destruction of the tests and results long enough that when the Government subpoenaed the results, they got all 104 names that failed and not just the 10 they wanted for the Balco case. So three factors came into play; all three were the Union’s fault. They did not want testing and negotiated that there would be no testing unless 5% + failed the anonymous testing in 2003. When the results came in less than 6% they dug in their heels and tried to throw out enough results to end testing. They also stonewalled the government on the Balco test results and so got all the testing taken instead.
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The substances were both illegal by law and illegal by baseball rules. However by baseball rules there was no penalty.
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But he knows if he did them and apparently he is now willing to admit that he did.
Ever one to get up on his high horse, Curt Schilling is now demanding the players’ union violate its agreements with all 104 players who failed the test.