If you really believe that, i’ve got some Florida swampland for sale.
Or he has been partaking of Mr Burns’ Revitalizing Nerve Tonic.
Baseball’s angst is understandable. It’s sister psort circket faces an upcoming travesty of similar proprtions. Muttiah Muralitharan is about to forever disgrace the 130 year history of Test Cricket when he claims the world record for most wickets in Test Matches. That will be a sad and terrible day.
Completely different situation, barely even comparable to the case of Barry Bonds in baseball.
Whatever you happen to think of Muralitharan’s bowling action, the fact is that cricket’s international body, the ICC, has, after extensive investigations including biomechanical tests conducted by scientific institutions, made alterations to the rules regarding the angle of the bowling arm. Muralitharan’s action is legal under those rules.
Now, some have argued that the rule was changed purely due to pressure from Sri Lankan cricket officials and supporters of Muralitharan, but the committee that recommended the rule change noted that slow-motion video analysis showed that many bowlers previously thought to have perfectly legal actions were actually exceeding the limits of arm straightening during their deliveries. As committee member Michael Holding, himself one of the greatest bowlers ever to play Test cricket, said:
Now, you might argue that the ICC, instead of changing the rules, should have booted out all of those who could not conform to the earlier standards, but the fact is they decided otherwise, and the rules they have in place apply not only to Muralitharan, but to every other player in cricket.
Also, if Bonds has been taking steroids (which he has), he’s been doing his level best to hide it, even when taking them during the period before they were made illegal. He has consistently denied taking them, and even in his grand jury testimony he claimed (laughably) that he didn’t know and didn’t believe that what he was taking were steroids.
Muralitharan, by contrast, has been performing his controversial bowling action out in the open for anyone to scrutinize during the whole of his career. There is no duplicity involved, because anyone turning on a game of cricket can see exactly how he bowls, commentators have spent hours of TV time analyzing his action, and cricket authorities around the world have devoted even more time trying to address the issue. Whether or not you believe that his action is wrong, i don’t think it’s right to attribute to him the same amount of duplicity and underhandedness that we’ve seen with Barry Bonds and other steroid takers in baseball.
The only level at which these two controversies might be comparable is in the area of how the controversies were handled by the sports’ official bodies.
Not true. Whether or not the flaxseed oil was steroids (something never proven or admitted), Bonds was using it in front of players, reporters, and everyone.
Of course, that doesn’t prove it wasn’t steroids. If Bonds did use steroids, then he got in right at the end of the era in which MLB tacitly approved steroid use for everyone. Nobody would have done anything about it then. More than 100 MLB players not named Barry Lamar Bonds tested positive for steroids in 2003.
History will look much more kindly on Barry Bonds than we, who desperately need a scapegoat, do now.
Hank Aaron admitted to doping with amphetamines that are currently banned, but over the course of time, and with the knowledge that so many were using, we accepted his record.
Bonds’ records will eventually be seen the same way. Especially since the progress of performance enhancers will only continue. There will be substances with more benefits than the marginal gains of steroids, but without the horrible side effects. Substances that have general health and anti-aging benefits, not just benefits for athletes. Trying to stop athletes from taking these things will be a losing battle.
For now though, by all means, let us loose our venom on one of the five greatest players of all time, who may or may not have tried to even the playing field in the waning years of the steroid era.
Hank Aaron in his biography admitted to taking a “greenie.” He did not admit to “doping with amphetamines.” One greenie does not amount to doping. Do you have a cite for this?
Cosimo, please understand that I don’t hate Barry Bonds. In fact, his assholosity (it is so a word, and I learned it on the Dope) notwithstanding, I’ll be the first to say that he is one of the greatest players of all time, and arguably the greatest of his era. I don’t think his records are tainted (there are numerous variables which make one era’s stats distinct from another era’s stats, and steroids are one such variable in recent times), nor do I think he should be banned from the record books.
But you are playing games when you deny he used steroids.
#1) Bonds admitted taking 2 substances, saying he was told those substance were flaxseed and arthritis balm
#2) Those substances were demonstrated to be steroids
It doesn’t matter if Bonds never admitted to taking steroids. He admitted to taking substances, which were shown to be steroids. (He also, interestingly, asked for a steroids test). Couple his admitted use of these substances (again, substances which test show to be steroids) with the physical changes to his physique, and the statistical changes to his performance, and it seems pretty clear that he used steroids.
I’m at a loss to understand how you can deny this, except for a blind desire to not believe he was juiced.
Jesus Christ in a sidecar. What does our OP’er have to say about these photographs. It appears ( unless of course he’s going to scream “PhotoShop”… ) that the first image is of one baseball player and the second image is of one and a half of the same man crammed into one uniform.
Sorry, but that’s very damning evidence.
I wrote out this same message, but with much more cursing and decided not to post it. You’re a more patient man than I.
Cosimo face it, the guy admitted to taking substance X. Substance X is known to be a steroid. Ipso facto, the guy admitted to taking a steroid. No amount of hair splitting changes that.
He admitted to taking the “cream” and the “clear”. Unless you’re seriously going to make the argument that he took the “cream” and the “clear”, but unlike every single other person that went to BALCO and took the “cream” and the “clear”, Bonds got creamy arthritis balm and a lovely clear flaxseed oil, then he admitted to taking steroids.
Part of growing up is realizing that heroes are flawed people (and supermodels take dumps).
You’re an idiot if you think that’s the same as the issue of a cricket player’s bowling action. If i use something that looks like, for example, flaxseed oil, but is actually steroids, and i tell everyone that it’s flaxseed oil, and they have no opportunity to take a sample of what i’m using and evaluate it for themselves, then that’s the same as using it without people knowing.
Actually, moron, if you bother to actually read the rest of this thread, you’ll see that quite a few people, including me, have stated very explicitly that we believe that Bonds is serving as the scapegoat in the steroids issue. That still doesn’t mean he’s not a cheat.
Oh yeah, forgot we were in the Pit and not Great Debates. Cosimo, you’re a fuckwit and you smell funny.
In fairness, you would expect a 40-year-old man to be a lot bigger than he was when he was 23. You can’t tell, through Bonds’s baggy uniform, if he’s more muscular or just fatter.
What IS rather bizarre is if you compare Bonds in 1998 to Bonds in 1999 - a sudden, dramatic gain in muscle mass in a span of just six months.
[QUOTE=dgrdfd]
This article seems to contradict you:
So obviously we shall now call into every record from the late 1970’s to 200X because they were all enhanced athletes, right?
That’s an interesting distinction you make between a performance enhancer and a performance enabler. Consider this hypothetical: A player has played in 100 games this year. He’s dog tired and sore. His performance is going to drop if he doesn’t take the amphetamines to get “up” for the next game. Was his performance enhanced or enabled? I don’t see the distinction you are making. If he doesn’t take them, then his performance drops. If he takes them, his performance stays sharp and is “enhanced” because he continues to put up stronger numbers than he otherwise would have. What’s the difference?
[/QUOTE
If he takes them he is enabled to play at the same high level (perhaps) If he takes steroids and bulks up he cannot only remain in the lineup everyday but he also performs at a higher level, hence his performance has been enhanced.]
In fairness, unless people are screaming PhotoShop, I can see the bare skin shown as well as anyone else willing to look past the God-Like Icon and examine his physique.
His face and neck have changed. Yeah, I know. I’m 45 and don’t look like I did at 25. We all know that there is more there than just aging. The structure of his face seems to have changed. He’s more muscular in his arms in a significant manner.
Look, I don’t care. I’m not a sports fan at all. It sure seems that there’s a lot more of him there than there was there. Doesn’t it?
For the last time; just because some league official hasn’t caught up with biotechnology that’s no excuse to allow an unfair advantage.
Here’s something that’ll happen in the not too distant future:
Some doctor figures a way to graft non-human muscle onto human muscle to make it “unhumanly strong” without rejection concerns (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor, a sort of Tommy John surgery on steroids.)
Some player who’s already talented decides he will risk his career to try this surgery outside the USA. It is successful.
He now can hit a ball 700 feet with relative ease. He makes a mockery of all existing slugging records; hits 95 homeruns in a yseason.
Without a doubt there’ll be tons of assholes who will line up kissing this guy’s butt because this surgery isn’t against the rules.
I submit that your thinking is backwards. Namely, anything that is done to improve performance has to be given explicit permission or it’s an illegal/unfair advantage.
Designer drug? Unusable by default until it is presented to the league for analysis. Crazy surgery? Great if it helps a disabled person, but illegal for pro sports unless agreed upon beforehand.
So those of you out there who crave bigger/better/farther; I hope you enjoy your primate-enhanced sports when they come; because it’s not far off.
Is the sky blue in your world?
Okay!!