Yeah, this is true. Even here in Houston, I’m not sure you’d get much more than a token drive to get Bagwell elected to the HOF. He was good for his team, but I wouldn’t want to be the person to argue he’s HOF worthy.
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I understand that. But you said amphetamines were different from steroids because “everyone” was using them. How does that work? You don’t know who used what when, and isn’t cheating cheating?
But the unique difference with amphetamines is that they were routinely dispensed by team trainers. So I’m not sure if they fall into illegally obtained and they weren’t against MLB rules before 2006, right?
Also, I don’t know of any player or team that even tried to hide the fact that they used greenies. Johnny Damon said that in most clubhouses they had bowls of them available, like after-dinner mints.
Based on this (and I may not know everything) I wouldn’t call amphetamine use “cheating” – at least before 2006. Right?
They were against the rules long before that. Anyway I thought the claim was that performance enhancing drugs were bad. If they’re bad, they’re bad, aren’t they?
Thank you “Mark”. You articulated my position quite well.
It’s my understanding that greenies were analogous to Red Bull or strong coffee. I find it impossible to believe Marley, that you’d compare roids to Red Bull.
Steroids are not necessarily, inherently bad (and that’s another argument, altogether), but if you obtained them illegally and were violating mlb rules, then players, in order to keep up with the big boys, were put in a position to break the law and violate mlb policy.
Your link states that amphetamines were made illegal by MLB in 1971 is interesting and has some significance, but the fact that they were regularly dispensed by team trainers diminishes some of the import… but not all, I concede.
If Steroids had been freely offered and administered by team trainers to any and all who wanted them, then I wouldn’t place any blame or penalty on those that opted to use.
He was wrong, since baseball banned the use of prescription drugs (unless the player had a prescription, of course) in 1971. If you think players and trainers were getting valid prescriptions for greenies that were left in bowls or mixed into coffee, you are kidding yourself.
Then why were players like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Mike Schmidt so reluctant to admit using them?
Unsurprisingly, your “understanding” is, at the most generous end of charity, faulty.
It was pretty easy to get a prescription for amphetamines for a long while, so greenies might have been technically administered after the 1971 ban. Just sayin’.
[(Back in my college days, just before cramming for finals week, we’d send the fattest friend we had to go up to the infirmary to get diet pills, so that we could stay up and cram (and play cards, but that’s another story.) One semester we got this really, really fat kid to conspire, and they must have given him an elephant size dose of dexamil, because I didn’t sleep for two weeks.) Live and learn, I say.]
Somehow this seemed a lot more clear cut a couple of posts ago, didn’t it?
DAMN! I just wished someone had told me about Greg Maddux’ Red Bull addiction BEFORE I supported him for the HOF.
I’m not sure what etv78 though about this in the first place, but I’ll be interested to know if this affects his views.
Not sure either.
Only a small percentage of cheaters get caught before 2004-05 got caught, but I have no problem with penalizing those that get caught as part of an attempt to discourage cheating. And that penalty can extend towards consideration for the HOF.
Great athletes, that are already major league starting players, who chose to use steroids, don’t get my sympathy. Not satisfied to make millions, they tried to make tens of millions (or in the case of some, hundreds of millions.) I could care less if Roger or Barry or ARod will lose revenue from diminished sales of their autographed memorabilia, because they’re not yet HOFers. They already took the baseball world, and it’s fans, for hundreds of millions.
I’m not a Red Bull fan, but if players want to take it intravenously, more power to them. Marley, by your logic: resin, pinetar and batting gloves are performance enhancers, and thus should be against the rules.
Only if players were swallowing them.
Did his body type change all that much? I’ve been looking at pictures of Bagwell from his rookie season and comparing them with 2000s era pictures and he’s bigger, but not impossibly so.
Most, if not all outfielders, catchers and corner infielders bulk up as they age. Even regular folks, too, but…? I guess it’s all perception.
Bags circa 1991
http://thegoldensombrero.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Jeff_Bagwell_1991_TSC.jpg
vs. Bags late 90s
http://eephusleague.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/jeff_bagwell1.jpg
Look at his arms in that 1991 picture. They’re pretty freaking big.
I think it’s all in the eyes of the beholder. You see one thing, Ken Gurnick sees another.
I would be surprised if Bagwell never used PEDs… and it could have just been OTC, legally obtainable stuff that was used before it was banned by baseball. Or maybe more in the offseason when he was getting his body built up for the rigors of a 162 game season. In any event, he wasn’t caught, so any speculation is moot.
But I do make the distinction between players who may have used PEDs casually vs players who relied upon a weekly regimen of pharmaceuticals.
It’s not a black and white issue to me. I find it amazing how many writers and fans do see it in absolute terms, and polarize around the extreme positions of, “They almost all used, so let them all in the HOF,” and “They almost all used, so none of them deserve to be in the HOF.” To me, each player is a case-by-case basis, and I realize that even those who are far more knowledgeable than me, are going to be guilty, at times, of being inconsistent and contradictory. But that’s the way it is with most things in life.