Interesting question that has been tangentially raised here. As someone who feels all drugs should be legalized, I don’t see a problem with steriod use. As someone who values a level playing field not dependent on health risks in all jobs (and, let’s face it, being a professional athelete is a job) I also support any action by MLB or others to discourage their use by stat penalties, fines, expulsion, and whatever else is necessary.
It is bad enough what professional atheletes put their body through that can affect them for the rest of their lives, there’s no need to increase this factor. I’m no more entertained by one guy winning seven MVPs than I am by seven different players.
I am not sure as of yet that Bonds does 'roids. Patience is usually lacking in a person who habitually 'roids. I have been around some so I know. If he was roiding, Bonds would most likely be free-swinging like Sosa does and McGwire have done, and get a lot of strikeouts. Yet Bonds is no free-swinger, and in fact twice broke the walk record. And he doesn’t have the in-game temperament of say, Roger Clemens or Pedro Martinez. Yes, he treats his body like a temple, and thinks that hitting him with a pitch amounts to sacrilege in the religion of (him)self. He is no Dave Kingman (who runs to first on an HBP) in that regard. And as for physical changes: everyone knows he has a fat head; only recently has it physically manifested. But that being from roids, I am not sure yet.
With the heat on steroid and andro use just this past year, he like the others, would more likely have stayed off the powders. With him winning the MVP this year, it is harder and harder to say that he needed the edge in the first place.
Bonds is a patient hitter, but he is intentionally walked a lot. There are overt intentional walks and then there are “unintentional” intentional walks. Worth keeping in mind. Bonds unquestionably works and trains hard, but he still put on 18 pounds of muscle in the offseason prior to setting the HR record.
And all those walks that Bonds gets corrupts the game just as much as the home runs. No steroids=less muscle=fewer home runs=fewer intentional walks=whole different outcomes to a whole lot of games.
I hate to show off my tinfoil hat, but isn’t it possible that he hasn’t stopped using, because he knows he can’t be caught? Literally, because he can’t be caught.
If Bonds got off the juice, what would have likely happened? He would have undergone a Giambi-style reduction in size, probably down to a size proportional to his… oh, never mind.
This transformation would make evident that Bonds was using. Is it in “the best interest of baseball”, to recall the famous phrase, for this to happen? Remember, we’re dealing with the savage tag-team of Bud Selig and Donald Fehr. These guys are legendary for having the scruples of a groundhog. Can this troika keep their secret safe, if indeed it exists, in the face of a Federal grand jury and people starting to sing like canaries? Probably not, but then again, thats probably true of my premise, right?
-Rav
P.S. I’ve read reports that use of steroids can improve your eyesight. Could this account for his increased selectivity at the plate, in opposition to the “roid rage” effect mentioned earlier?
You mean ‘can’t be caught’ or ‘can’t get caught’? The powers that be at MLB are more than happy to do a Pete Rose job on media-unfriendly Barry, for any excuse that sticks.
I’m just suspicious that MLB and the MLBPA have tried to protect Bonds’ reputation as he approached the HR record, thinking they could control the situation. What benefit, in the short-sighted world of two of the slimier guys you’ll ever meet, would baseball have gained up 'til now in throwing Bonds to the wolves?
News flash: The SF Chronicle is reporting that Bonds testified that he “unknowingly used a steroid cream” supplied by his trainer.
I hate posters that throw up a link and quote without comment. I understand now why it happens sometime. I’m outta words on this one after reading that.
How fair is it to team owners that sign players to huge contracts only to later see their production completely tank a la Giambi when they quit taking them? Players could use the steroids short term in order to get a fat contract and then decide they don’t want to take then any longer. Steroids suck and so do the palyers that use them.
What really gets me on this issue is how the media cry about how an athelete lied to them. As if someone sticking a microphone in your face and asking if you took illegal performance enhancing drugs is expecting any answer other than “No”. It is preposterous to think that Jason Giambi or anyone else would answer otherwise, even after he gave grand jury testimony which should have never become public. Even “No comment” implicates the athelete, whether or not s/he is juiced.
If you want to implicate anyone, implicate the player unions who fight tooth and nail to keep their members from being tested. Implicate the designer drug laboratories, who are constantly thriving to stay several steps ahead of the testing laboratories (which is exactly what this grand jury is doing; the players received immunity for their testimony). Implicate the owners who cave to the unions on drug testing policies and procedures, and who almost assuredly know that a fair number of the players on any team are using performance-enhancing drugs and choose to do or say nothing. Implicate the players who choose not to “juice” and say nothing. Giambi doesn’t do this in a vacuum. Depending upon whom you ask, somewhere between 25% and 75% of any professional locker room uses steriods. Giambi and Bonds and Sheffield and Caminetti (sp?) and Sosa and McGuire are not isolated incidents. They’re the norm in sports, and the organization from top to bottom enables it while publicly decrying the problem.
I’m still reeling over Bonds’ chutzpah in claiming that he “didn’t know” that he was taking steroids. Right–you’re a man who makes millions of dollars by performing physical feats, and you’re going to take something when you don’t know exactly what’s in it. The mind boggles.
Anyway, I am in a way comforted by one thing: the two superstars who have admitted (or sorta admitted) to steroid use this week are perhaps the two MLBers who have been most dogged by rumors of it. Bonds and Jason Giambi were the two guys almost every sportswriter hinted at when the subject of “steroids in sports.” Likewise it was no real shock when Caminiti or Canseco admitted use, or when McGuire admitted to use of andro. It’s hard to hide when a player suddenly puts on several pounds of muscle in an off-season, when a fairly skinny player like Bonds in his Pirates days now looks like an NFL linebacker. Maybe–just maybe–steroid use isn’t that easy to get away with, and maybe–probably a false hope, but just maybe–not everybody out there is using.
I’m not surprised by this news, not shocked by it, and can’t even claim to be upset by it. I always admitted the possibility that some of the players were using steroids, though I really hoped that in some way it would be proved false.
What bothers me is the long-term repercussions. Baseball is about statistics and history and “the first player who…” What do we do with these records? Do we just put them in? Asterisks? Leave them out? Attempt to adjust them? Refer to this as the Dead Ball Era Redux? (Pardon the poor taste of my joke, I beg.)
The problem with this line of reasoning is that Mark McGwire was NOT a free swinger at all; he almost broke the old walk record in 1998 and drew a lot of walks. Sammy Sosa was a free swinger until 1998 and then started being far more patient, which is the main reason he started hitting so well. He’s drawn as many as 116 walks in a season. Jason Giambi, who we now know was on roids, was and is an extremely patient hitter, with five straight years of 105 or more walks. There is NO evidence that roiding up affects plate discipline.
While it is true that steroids can cause aggression problems, to suggest that they would make the very specific skill of not swinging at bad pitches impossible is silly. Giambi proves it’s false.
As for Barry Bonds, steroids weren’t against the rules until what… 2002? 2003? You can’t be cheating if there’s no rule. So a big question is, were these guys ‘roiding up AFTER steroids were banned? I mean, the evidence is awfully strong that Bonds used them - looked at the guy’s swelled-up head, a classic symptom (I mean it’s literally swelled up. His head is enormous.) How much did it help him? Hard to say. I doubt he’s been doing them for the last two years and he’s still friggin’ amazing. But now the fan doubts.
Of course, Question #2 is why it took baseball that long to ban them.
