As well it should have. The union’s job is to negociate how and when their players are tested making sure it was done in a safe, fair, and private matter. Players volunteering would undermine any testing program, and subject every other player to suspicion who didn’t want to be tested in that matter.
Site?
For the benefit of other players as is, you know, their job. Contracts are based on other contracts so the more one player gets the more others do too. Howver, the union can’t force players to sign where they would like them too, they just advise.
I completely disagree with the OP that the players are not to blame for this, but I would really, really strongly suggest that it is foolish to think you can divine steroid usage for a player’s statistics.
Sammy Sosa is often claimed to be a roider, though to my knowledge he’s never failed a test or actually been implicated in roid use; people just say "Wow, he hit a lot of homers.) But Sammy Sosa’s home run stretch in particular is not really all that unusual by the standards of great home run hitters, if you look closely at the context. He was always very strong and an immensely talented player, a major league regular at 21 years old; his limitation was a complete unwillingness to learn the strike zone. He’d already hit 40 homers in 124 games in 1996; had he not gotten hurt and missed 38 games, he was on pace to hit 51 dingers that year. His 1997 season, he he hit 36 homers in 162 games, was actually his WORST home run year, in percentage terms, in the four years prior to the 1998 explosion. The guy could hit the ball hard; he just didn’t hit the ball often enough.
One thing that changed visibly when he made the transition into being a great player was that he started taking pitches and being selective, especially in terms of laying off pitches low and outside. By staying away from the unhittable pitches low and away he was drawing more pitches up and in, where he could use his bat speed to crush them.
So an argument can be constructed that Sosa’s home barrage can be explained by him simply being a naturally gifted power hitter who changed his hitting approach to lay off some bad pitches, and did so in a time and place aprticularly suited to swatting homers. I’m not saying I know Sammy Sosa didn’t take steroids - maybe he did, maybe he didn’t - but weird home run fluctuations have happened throughout baseball history. Hank Aaron had his best home run season at age 37 in a season where he missed 23 games, and in fact his home run rates were better in his mid-to-late 30s than they were in his prime years. Davey Johnson, a temamate of Aaron’s, had one of the great fluke homer seasons of all time. Larry Sheets, Norm Cash - Phil Bradley hit not a single homer in 1984, then hit 26 in 1985. And how about Babe Ruth? Kirby Puckett’s home run totals are just bizarre.
And of course, all evidence suggests that taking steroids doesn’t necessarily help you at all; a lot of the roiders have turned out to be scrubs like Mackey Sasser. Mackey didn’t win any home run titles. So the guy who suddenly pops out 45 may be the clean out and the guy who hits three homers might be the dirty one.
Like Selig has cowed, cajoled, and controlled dissenters during his reign? Producing a united front has value, even if all your members don’t agree with every decision.
I still see profiles of college athletes in which it is mentioned that somebody added 50 pounds of muscle over the summer. Apparently the guy developed a rhinoceros neck and arms like trees with the aid of a diligent workout program and a few milkshakes. No questions are asked.
And for the pro athletes who are shocked, shocked that the Sooper Energy Protein Eight Hundred Herbs and Spices Mainframe Blast that they bought at GNC contains some banned substance, and whine “I didn’t see it on the label”, get real.
I guess we disagree, mostly anyway. Bonds’ stats, as the supreme example, defy any other explanation, a conclusion I came to well before all this current perjury noise came on the scene. BTW, I am not suggesting these guys should be sent to jail based on the type of supposition I’m making. Standards of proof and all that. I am saying, though, that the statistical trajectory some guys have shown defies any other reasonable explanation, particularly when combined with the physical changes and other circumstantial evidence.
I don’t buy this as exculpatory either. I think it’s a progression:
[ul][li]Guys so aged and with such diminished talent (through aging or perhaps to begin with) take steroids and see little or no effect. That’s plausible to me.[/li][li]Solid players become All-stars and MVPs (Caminitti)[/li][li]One-dimensional players exploit that undeniable dimension to enormous effect (McGwire)[/li][li]Players who were already all-stars or MVPs hold off the effect of aging (Palmeiro)[/li][*]Players already of HoF calibre become Superman (Bonds)[/ul]None of these examples are contradictory, IMO. Mackey Sasser doesn’t make Bonds or Sosa less plausible as steroid abusers.
As to the mini-rebellion it was only 16 members of the White Sox. Sorry for the delay it is not easy to cite sports columns from 2003-2004. Thankfully the LA Times had the same or similar story to the one I read.
BTW: Most players actually wanted the testingand the MLBPA resisted the tested despite this. See the bottom of point 3 in the link. Again it is hard to find cites to things remembered in reading and listening from 2003-2005.
What evidence do you want? I have basic logic instead. The MLBPA in doing what they felt was their job protecting those players cheating. (Steroids, HGH and Bennies). In doing their job they therefore enabled the cheats. In enabling the cheats they put players in the position of needing to keep up. Especially the borderline players that were losing out on jobs and the wanna-be home run hitters and strike-out pitchers.
Not related to **Hawkeyeop **questions: I thought this long PDF letter from Donald M. Fehr EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of MLBPA to Chairman Waxman and Ranking Member Davis of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reformis interesting. This does not support or harm my case. Just very interesting look into the mind of Fehr himself.
Okay, but a rebellion kind of implys you ignore the advice of your leadership. That sounds like they wanted to prove they were clean, but after consulting with union leadership, agreed it was a bad idea. Of course we don’t know exactly what was said, but I see no reason to think the union forced them to not get tested. Maybe they used logic and reasoning?
So about the time the union agreed to testing? I’m not sure how that can be considered resisting.
Yeah it is number one on the union’s agenda must is protect cheaters. No other reason that the Union might not want it’s members subject to a witch hunt.
There isn’t any actual evidence that performance enhancing drugs are actually performance evidence.
RickJay just gave you a list of players with unusual career trajectories, who nobody suspects or accuses of using steroids. So you can’t just point to Sosa and say “Look at his career arc! It is impossible for me to imagine how he got that good or strong, therefore I conclude that he cheated!” Especially considering the evidence I posted in post #30, that everyone was the beneficiary of juiced balls during the “Steroid Era”. Everyone also benefited from a shift in the culture of baseball that saw widespread adoption of strength training and encouraged “home run derby”-style games. I’m not saying steroids weren’t a part of the huge increases in home runs during the 90s, I’m saying they were only a minor influence. And the current backlash against the players is a witch hunt, pure and simple.
If Hank Aaron played during the 90s, he probably would have hit 1000 home runs, the majority of them after he was 30, and everyone would want his head on a stake in the Hall of Fame with an asterisk branded on his forehead.
Got it. All these steroid accusations ultimately being proven true, mere illusions.
If your burden of proof is that there must be a scientifically predictable, unambiguous in every instance, statistical proof, um, okay, that doesn’t exist. Neither does anything like Bonds’ late-career stats. A guy who later admitted to using steroids, don’t you know.
If he said he took steroids, then he did. I’m not disputing that. I’m saying that for guys we have no evidence took steroids, you can’t point to their statistics and say “There’s your proof”. It doesn’t work that way.
Furthermore, Bonds didn’t say “I started taking steroids right before I hit 73 home runs, and then kept taking them consistently for 5 more years.” There is no evidence that steroids helped his career in the slightest. Bonds was a product of his time, pure and simple. To try and tease out what was and wasn’t caused by steroids is a chump’s game. The “Steroid Era” happened, for better or worse. Let’s move on and stop trying to ruin people’s lives over it.
Nobody is suggesting there be unambiguous statistical proof of anything. What we’re cautioning against is assuming you can tell steroid usage from statistics.
Yes, Barry Bonds’s case is bizarre. Quite frankly, the evidence against him goes one hell of a long way past his statistics anyway - the man’s head looks like a beach ball - but Bonds’s statistics are unlike anyone else who has ever played major league baseball. If you’re saying HIS stats, personally, prove he took steroids, it’s sort of hard to argue against that because we know he took steroids anyway so your point is proven after the fact.
I’m just saying you can’t extend this to anyone who hits a lot of home runs. Bizarre jumps in home run production have happened throughout baseball history, and big home run totals are often at least partially created by other contextual effects; let’s not start accusing everyone who has a big year of being juiced.
But I’d agree with this. The overall statistical trajectory, combined with other evidence like physical appearance, etc., all contribute. Somebody who has a career year, yeah, that’s plausible. Someone hits 60 homers a few times–hmm, I have to wonder and look at his career and other evidence. Some cases are no brainers (Bonds), others suspicious but less conclusive.
DrCube, steroids helped Mr. Potato Head’s career, you need to resign yourself. He was great before he juiced, he was the Man of Steel after. “No evidence”? You’re not paying attention, friend.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Yet another fallacy, pal.
For all I know, steroids are like Dumbo’s feather. You think you’ve got something secret and special on your side, but really it just increases your confidence in your abilities, placebo style.
Not that I’m denying the possibility that steroids helped Bonds; I just don’t feel like that fact has been established yet. And again, it is going to be very difficult to isolate the effects of steroids from the background noise of harder balls, stronger players and changing styles of play.
It’s not a fallacy, brother. The effects of steroids on strength and conditioning are well-known. Placebo effect? Stop it. Bonds juiced, produced super-human results completely out of whack with the statistical trajectory of his career, and grew a head that possessed its own gravitational field.
What evidence would satisfy you? I’m curious. Should we have the Enterprise send us back through a time warp and replay all the games sans steroids and see if your Dumbo’s feather theory holds water? Or should we use known medical facts, statistical and physical evidence, and the admission of a steroid abuser (currently being charged with perjury for lying about the breadth of his abuse)? At what point does do we believe our lyin’ eyes, huh?
The fact never will be established to the level you seem to imply you want, since we cannot replay Bonds’s career. It seems VERY likely to me - Bonds hit home runs at a per-at-bat rate completely unprecedented in baseball history in his late 30s, playing in a pitcher’s park, after a long career during which he didn’t do anything like it, and his home run rate beginning to rise coincides exactly with the time that a vast array of accusers say he got into the juice. That sure is one hell of a coincidence, and to be honest I don’t for one second believe that without steroids Bonds could have come near Aaron. But hey, if you want to hold on to a sliver of doubt, knock yourself out.
But in any event, it’s not relevant to his culpability. He cheated.
Everybody who was paying the slightest attention knew about it. Everybody is to blame except the very young fans.
Steroids is emblematic of how business is done in America. Credit/Debt Swaps were nothing more than financial steroids. Voter caging is political steroids. Political leanings of judges are legal steroids.
The question to each of is: are you corrupt and do you do business with those who are corrupt?