Nobody. Nobody will break my heart and everyone is suspect. Of course, I don’t assume they do before it’s proven.
Besides, even if we are to pillory these people, they made baseball enjoyable through some tough times.
Hell, I wouldn’t guarantee that if I were in that same position, my name wouldn’t be on that list.
You can take a short cycle of steroids to promote muscle repair and be done with it, or you can take repeating cycles of steriods to become a bulging hulk of home run prowess.
IMHO it’s the differance between medical marijuana and being in Cypress Hill. Both are illegal in most places but really only one shows abuse.
I wonder what the Steroid Difference is. Would a pop fly to the warning track make it out of the park? Is the ball just hit harder?
Is it 80% a mental edge?
There have been some studies on this subject, but I don’t know if it’s possible to draw a firm conclusion. I remember one suggesting that the ball could fly 10 percent farther, which would certainly turn some pop flies into home runs, but I don’t remember the methodology.
I would think some of it is simply bat speed that adds up over time i.e. getting the bat around quickly to foul off a ball that totally had you fooled, rather than swinging behind it for strike three.
That’s what I heard as well, but I didn’t hear anything definitive before. Apparently that hasn’t changed.
My guess is that the physical effects, while existent, are relatively little. I’m guessing the difference is mental. Someone could get rich selling placebos out there.
I don’t think it’s fair to split hairs over the assumed reasons why some guys took 'roids vs. others. I mean, how do we know what their motivation was? And maybe the effect on some guys (Bonds) were more evident than others (Everett).
Not to steer this convo in another direction, but I always have felt there’s an ugly racial undertone to the Bonds hate among many fans and journalists. I would hope that the vitriol will be applied far and wide to all of these guys. Because that would prove that people weren’t targeting Bonds for some other reason, right?
Disappointed to see Johnny Damon, Trot Nixon, and Jason Varitek on that list. Ugh. And while I wouldn’t say that I’m happy to see Clemens on the list, it’s almost karmic. (If the list posted here is the accurate one.)
I wonder if any of these guys will man up and admit to it right away, no excuses - or will there be constant backpedaling, parsing of the question, and half-truths.
That makes sense, Clurcaun, and it does make me feel a LITTLE better!
ETA: Sorry for typos and bad coding…I’m typing this on my Blackberry! 
Crazy thing about Bonds is, that in addition to being black, he was also a complete asshole and easy to dislike, regardless of color. Trying to find a fair jury for him would be like trying to find a fair jury for OJ.
I see them backpedaling and not owning up to the juice.
I guess it wouldn’t be surprising if Pujols is on the list (and if the leaks can be believed, he is). But it would break my heart. As a Cardinals partisan, I have to ask, “Where have you gone, Stan Musial?”
I’ve heard players say that the kind of advantage it give to hitters is that the extra power gives them a larger margin of error for connecting with the ball. They can still muscle a ball out of the park or off the wall without “getting all of it.” So yes, a pitch that ordinarily would be a deep fly ball can carry all the way out. It turns warning track power into homerun power.
That’s not to see it would make the average Joe, or even a mediocre Major Leaguer into a slugging machine, but it can turn mediocre into good, good into great or great into superhuman (Bonds). It can also extend careers. It doesn’t give anyon a better eye at the plate. You still have to get wood on the ball, but steroids allow you to get more bang without necessarily hitting it on the nose and that much more carry when you do hit it on the nose.
You can Dope on a Blackberry?!?!?!
<runs off to the store>
So does that mean they’ll award the 1993 World Series to the Phillies. (Not that any of them were taking anything.)
Yes, and I agree. But being an asshole is totally within his right. Hell, sports is full of assholes who don’t get the hate that people seem to have for Bonds.
Jim Rome is right now saying that if Clemens did indeed juice up, he should be getting the same blowback as Bonds got. I always felt Bonds was the scapegoat for the whole steroid issue, while people were way too willing to ignore the fact that it probably wasn’t just him.
That was that poster’s addition the heartbroken list. Halladay and Carter haven’t been named so far.
I just don’t want anything to tarnish that memory. Since the likelyhood of the Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup in my lifetime (I’m 24) is zero, nothing will ever top that homerun.
Oh, yes siree! I have to have the damn thing for work, but this is one benefit of it! I can’t write nice long posts, though, and coding is tough, so sometimes it’s frustrating.
Not with Lenny D on the list.
Power, and perhaps more importantly, better recovery time from injuries.
Added: No wonder the Rays suck – not a single name on the list. We need more juice to compete in our division!
I participated in this and everything, but I think it’s too bad - it sounds like people are already focusing just on the names (which reflect the sources who talked to Mitchell) rather than on the larger issue for baseball.
SI is adding other names not on the list: Chuck Knoblauch, Mike Stanton and David Justice.