And amphetamines. And if Pete wasn’t using steroids (he did hang out with big steroid users), it was only because “it was too late to try something new”. Let’s not forget that Pete comitted baseball’s biggest crime. What he did as far more potentially damaging than steroids.
Add Ozzie Smith, Bob Gibson (who would yell at batters to get back in so he could pitch, and would throw at them if he thought they were leaning over “his” part of the plate), Lou Brock, Kirby Puckett, Dave Winfield, Orlando Cepeda, Derek Jeter (who’s a mix), Rod Carew, Fergie Jenkins, Willie Stargell, and Frank Robinson. Those are just some of the HOF players (and future HOF players) who are black and liked just fine by the general public and sporting press. A few of them are fawned over.
I didn’t know that. However, I personally think steroids are in a whole different league from amphetamines. I’ve never taken steroids, but I have taken several different kinds of amphetamines on more than one occasion, and they may make you temporarily happier and more alert and strengthen your reflexes, they have no effect whatsoever on muscle mass. Easier to track a ball or something, or maybe you’ll make a better baserunning decision in a pinch, but you’ll still be hitting doubles, not upper-deck home runs, if you were hitting doubles before.
And he’s reviled for it all over the baseball world, as much as (probably more than) Bonds. But if he’s more respected as a player, it’s because his records weren’t artificial.
Wasn’t Aaron using “greenies”? I thought I saw that somewhere.
Psst: Henry Aaron.
I’d like to point out that Bill Buckner, as white as they come, allegedly had to move his family out of the Boston area to Idaho because he was getting death threats. As if his error in the ‘86 World Series, which effectively negated a long and distiguished career in baseball as far as Red Sox fans are concerned, really would have made a difference. *That’s[/I’] some baseball hate for you. Bonds is a juicer gunning to take down the record of one of baseball’s most beloved icons. If you ask me he’s getting off too easy.
Reflexes are kind of important when hitting a baseball.
The truth is, we don’t know how big of an effect steroids or amphetamines have. It’s safe to assume that they have some, but we have no idea how much. It may not be as much as everyone thinks (people aren’t exactly rational on the subject of steroids…AKA the Great Satan). Or maybe it’s more. But I don’t see how using aphetamines is not considered a big deal while steroids(!!!) are TEH EVIL. Both are using illegal chemicals to gain an advantage. Athletes ahve been doing this for as long as there have been athletics. Obviously, Bonds’ unlikeability has a lot to do with it (compounded by the idiocy of the sports press…and I’m sure that racism is part of it too). But steroids had a stigma even before the Bonds stuff. WADA propaganda?
Great guy, great homerun hitter, he’s no Babe Ruth. Just my opinion.
I dunno. Seems these more and more that atheletes are getting better in their 30s and 40s in a way that is difficult to explain. I know strength and muscle mass aren’t all it takes to hit a ball out of the park, balls have gotten harder and bouncier, etc., etc., but the arc of some recent careers rather defy unaugmented human biology.
I love Hank Aaron. He’s probably my favorite non-Phillie player, out of all the ones I’ve seen. He is legitimately the home run king. But his achievement is not as great as Ruth’s. I’m with ya.
True, but none of the players we’ve noted are contact hitters, and most home run kings strike out swinging at a ridiculously high requency whether or not they eat bennies.
Steroids are just a way different story from amphetamines or, really, any other drug, and they have a unique function and pharmacology. Every drug is different, some more different than others (so to speak). If anything, it’s refreshing that the distinction is made; too often people assume that all illegal drugs are fundamentally the same. During my experimentation period I was lambasted by another Doper for going to class on methamphetamines–even though the same exact drug is prescribed to kids so that they can pay better attention in class. I was ‘being disrespectful’ by coming to class “on drugs”. :rolleyes: Ain’t sayin’ that doing illegal drugs is a good thing–believe me, I’m not–just saying there are different shades and they’re not all one and the same. In their acute effect, amphetamines are really pretty mild compared to a lot of drugs, although their withdrawal and dependence effects are pretty heinous.
In support of this viewpoint, we ought to note that Babe Ruth hit most of his homeruns in the deadball era, when the balls were harder to drive out of the park and a lot of home runs were inside the park.
This is nonsense. I have seen several columnists (all of them white) defending Bonds, or at least, saying that his records should not be denigrated.
You only think that Bonds doesn’t have defenders because of utter ignorance about the issue.
Whoa, when was this?
I hate him because he seems like a dick.
Baseball nerd: “The dead-ball era is a baseball term generally used to describe the period between 1900 (though some date it to the beginning of baseball) and the emergence of Babe Ruth as a power hitter in 1920.” From Wikipedia. Ruth didn’t fully retire until 1935.
It’s instructive to note, though, that Ruth hit 714 homeruns though he spent three seasons as a pitcher, one as a part-time position player, and had the 1918 season cut short for WWI. Of course, Bonds had the 1994 season cut short also. Ruth obviously also wasn’t taking horse steroids or human growth hormone, two of the charges “Game of Shadows” makes that Bonds doesn’t directly deny.
Why hasn’t Bonds sued the authors for libel? They make specific and horrible claims about his actions, even including his extremely threatening phone messages to his girlfriend. Apparently the authors really did hear the tapes, because it’s another thing Bonds isn’t in the mood to discuss.
It is also very important to note that Ruth never had to face a single black player in his career. At best, he played against the best 60% of players in the country at the time.
FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, IT’S MCGWIRE! WITH A GODDAMNED W!
In the specific case of Rose, because what he did is difficult for many fans to grasp. We’ve had a lot of discussions about Rose and Joe Jackson and whatnot, and I’ve been in a lot of discussions about it on other boards, in real life, etc. etc., and even very ardent baseball fans quite often do not understand the issues and are not appraised of the facts, and often don’t even know why baseball has rules against gambling on games.
Now I’ll do another post on the central issue.
Yep, Ruth didn’t get protected by a single great black player hitting behind him in the line-up. Who knows how many more homers he would’ve hit? 
BTW, black players accounted for 10% of the population, but 40% of the best players?
Seriously, it’s a disgrace that the league was segregated then. But Ruth was a beast of a ballplayer–the greatest offensive player ever–period. Ruth was, well, Ruthian.
As has already been pointed out, Roger Clemens, the pitching equivalent of Barry Bonds, seems to skate through all HIS attitude problems; he’s a prima donna, a jerk, broke a contract with one team and is jerking the Astros around now. He’s also been accused of steroid use, and yet none of this stuff sticks. He tried to hit a man with a broken bat in the middle of a game, and he wasn’t even ejected and the incident has been largely dismissed outside of Queens. But Roberto Alomar, a Latin player, spit on an ump (who had started the fight) ten years ago and people still talk about whether or not it will cost him his rightful place in the Hall of Fame.
I don’t really want to weigh in on Barry Bonds one way or the other; he is what he is. But that black players are treated differently - slightly so, but differently - is really, really obvious to me. Yes, some are treated well. Some white players are hard done by in the press. But overall, you just do not see white players with obvious personality deficiencies treated the same way as black (or Latin) players.
I think if it was Mark McGwire approaching 755, and Barry Bonds who had retired a few years ago with back problems, McGwire would still be under heavy fire for being a cheater. But no, I don’t think it’d be as bad.
There aren’t any white players who’ve been treated that way.
I am reminded of the NBA’s recent plan - I don’t remember if it ever came to pass - to ban teams from drafting teenagers. This was said in a cloud of malarkey about how the 18 and 19 year olds weren’t “mature” enough. Strangely, you never hear about the NHL or baseball banning the drafting of young players. Nobody talks about how drafting Sidney Crosby et al. is ruining the NHL, despite the fact that there’s just as much evidence (e.g. very little) that teeangers ruin the NHL as they do the NBA. But they’re mostly dealing with white kids, right? Sidney Crosby’s a fine young man. But I guess an 18-year-old young black man is… a boy.
My senior year of high school. The lambasting took place on #straightdope, not on the Boards.
Well, I knew that the deadball era ended some time before he retired–but I think the ball compisition changed pretty much entirely because of Ruth; MLB and the Yankees in particular realized for the first time that, yeah, fans really like home runs. So in a way you can kind of blame him for the steroid use too. Anyway, my point–using somewhat flawed information–which is that Ruth did things nobody else could do during the dead-ball era and changed the game of baseball forever, and thus set a “record” that goes beyond mere numbers, still stands. Agreed?
Very true. There were a lot of fantastic black players who never made it, and can you believe it took until 2006 for the MLB to go back and search for Negro League HOFers?
BTW, I think a ton of NHL-quality black hockey players have missed out on the call up to the Show, and it’s odd that nobody ever really wonders why. Willie O’Ree “broke the color barrier” in the 60s but not very many black players have played since. I haven’t followed hockey as closely the last couple years as I used to, but IIRC there are less than 5 black NHL players, at least one of whom (Jarome Iginla) is mixed. One of the minor league teams O’Ree played for–Montreal Aces, I believe–was and still is well-known for consistenly fielding teams full of black players with big-league talent. How come they’re not getting called up? It’s a shame if you ask me.