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I think it just indicates how big the problem is. How many players are left that are unsullied by the whole 'roid scandal? And what is worse: the players that used drugs, or the fact that MLB is just giving everyone a pass?Quote:
Originally posted by Darion
Well, Bonds tied the record. Does anyone find it ironic that it was off a pitcher who tested positive for steroids in 2005?
I would say 'the pass', but it's cutting off your nose to spite your face at this point. It was given a wink and a nudge throughout the 90s when baseball was enjoying a rise in popularity due to the bombs being dropped by Sosa and McGwire, and now it is epidemic. Not the fault of the players, really, but a simple consequence of how professional sports runs. I outlined my steroid position in the MMA thread, insofar as a massive steroid purge will never happen, because it will require the MLB to act against its own financial best interests.Quote:
Originally posted by Aristotle
And what is worse: the players that used drugs, or the fact that MLB is just giving everyone a pass?
I wonder if it would have made a difference had the 1994 strike not happened. They needed the McGwire/Sosa home run chase to save their butts from the strike season fiasco. Perhaps they would have put a stop to the steroid abuse sooner if they'd never let that idiotic strike ruin the 94 season.Quote:
Originally posted by Darion
It was given a wink and a nudge throughout the 90s when baseball was enjoying a rise in popularity due to the bombs being dropped by Sosa and McGwire, and now it is epidemic.
We will never know, but it is interesting to consider.
I am of the opinion that it would be at worst a short term loss, with a significant long term gain. Sports are a gigantic business, but their entire value hinges upon the shared belief that the results are legitimate.Quote:
Originally posted by Darion
I outlined my steroid position in the MMA thread, insofar as a massive steroid purge will never happen, because it will require the MLB to act against its own financial best interests.
If the results were perceived to be manipulated, that would open things up to competition from anyone willing to be more creative than the existing sports federations.
I mean, if people started to believe the NFL, MLB, NBA, etc. were basically fixed (through drug use, cheating refs, or whatever), then it would be a lot easier for a competing organization to create their own league and find a way to script more compelling story lines. The whole monopoly they hold relies on the belief that they have the *best* players and completely unpredictible and legitimate results.
That whole house of cards comes tumbling down if enough people start to think the sports are rigged in some way. It could collapse pretty quickly as well.
Oddly, that is exactly what happened to the sport of rowing. It was very popular throughout the 1800s, but rampant cheating and race fixing (due to the influence of gambling) absolutely killed the sport. Obviously, we live in a much different time than the 19th century, but a professional sport CAN be ruined if people stop believing it is legitimate.
What is the long term gain? What is the short term loss?Quote:
I am of the opinion that it would be at worst a short term loss, with a significant long term gain.
I will say that a large part of the appeal of baseball is the idea that the results are legitimate - the randomness inherent in the game is part of the appeal. The games themselves, however, -are- legitimate. Permissive but hush-hush steroid use is a far cry from actually fixing games, and to draw the line is a pretty big step.Quote:
If the results were perceived to be manipulated, that would open things up to competition from anyone willing to be more creative than the existing sports federations.
Sure, if it was uncovered that the MLB was actually fixing games then I am willing to bet that the sport would take a HUGE hit - but that is not actually occurring.Quote:
Oddly, that is exactly what happened to the sport of rowing. It was very popular throughout the 1800s, but rampant cheating and race fixing (due to the influence of gambling) absolutely killed the sport. Obviously, we live in a much different time than the 19th century, but a professional sport CAN be ruined if people stop believing it is legitimate.
(This has become a big enough tangent that I should split this thread off from the MLB Catch All thread.)
The short term loss would be things like slowly declining ratings when people are at first disenchanted by less impressive statistics. This is worse in baseball than other sports, but it would probably have some effect in any sport. But the thing is, ultimately, when everyone's juiced up performance is taken down a notch, overall stats (offense vs. defense) will retain general parity. I think the sports could easily rebound from such short term losses.Quote:
Originally posted by Darion
What is the long term gain? What is the short term loss?
In some sports, there could be both short term AND long term gains. I believe one of the biggest reasons the NFL is so tremendously injury plagued is a result of the massive roid abuse. There absolutely should not be 275 pound defensive ends running 4.4 forty yard dashes and bench pressing Mack Trucks. This is a big reason so many QBs and RBs get absolutely demolished.
The long term potential loss is the absolute end to the sport when it teeters over the edge into feeling like WWE. That is an absolutely critical precipice for professional sports.
Right up until it goes over that edge, everything will be totally fine. But the moment a critical mass is reached of people who think the results are not legit, the sport will die a horrible death. It hasn't happened to any of the big 4 because they are well aware of this fact.
I agree with the comment about maintaining general parity. Really, the MLB has other ways of padding stats that are perfectly acceptable - being generous with assigning a hit as a hit rather than a defensive throwing/fielding error (you see this all the time), stressing OBP as opposed to BA, so on, so on...Quote:
But the thing is, ultimately, when everyone's juiced up performance is taken down a notch, overall stats (offense vs. defense) will retain general parity. I think the sports could easily rebound from such short term losses.
You've identified the drawback to instituting a massive steroid crackdown. By crackdown, I do not neccessarily mean a 100% test of every member of the league, but MUCH stiffer penalties for popping hot on a drug test and a much more equitable testing system that does not discriminate against career double-A guys as opposed to lifetime Majors players.
Declining ratings, though, is not a short term problem - look at the NHL. It never rebounded from the strike, and now I would hardly consider it one of the 'Big Four' that you mentioned later in your post (I assume you were referring to MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL). A lack of interest in a sport can simply kill a league.
Really? I would have said it's the fact that the average NFL lineman is essentially suffering a car crash's worth of impact every time the ball is snapped. ;)Quote:
I believe one of the biggest reasons the NFL is so tremendously injury plagued is a result of the massive roid abuse.
I do not agree that steroid use is going to lead to the scripting of MLB, NFL, or what-have-you in the same manner as the WWE is faked up, though I do agree that such a thing would generally be the end of that particular sport. I'm just saying that the step from saucing to Lou Pinella hitting an umpire with a folding chair is a pretty big stretch. Well, maybe not for Lou, but you get the idea.Quote:
The long term potential loss is the absolute end to the sport when it teeters over the edge into feeling like WWE. That is an absolutely critical precipice for professional sports.
NOTE: For simplicity, I use "roids" as a catch all for steroids, HGH, stimulants, and all other banned or illegal performance enhancing drugs.
For linemen, yes, but keep in mind one of the reasons that impact is so tremendous is partially from the roided up players smashing into each other. Even the roids the o-linemen are using plays a role in the total impact force being generated.Quote:
Originally posted by Darion
Really? I would have said it's the fact that the average NFL lineman is essentially suffering a car crash's worth of impact every time the ball is snapped. ;)
But people don't tend to have a favorite o-linemen they go to the game to see. The players most folks watch are the skill positions - QB, RB, WR, LB, etc., and I think one of the big reasons those folks are getting injured more than ever is roids. Not only the roids used by the people smashing into them, but the roids they use themselves which puts a lot of strain on their joints and ligaments (since their muscle growth often outpaces ligament and joint strengthening).
I don't know. I am certainly not saying it is GOING to happen (roids single handedly destroying the legitimacy of pro sports), but I do think it is possible. What is more likely is that roids could be one significant part of a suite of problems that bring down a pro sport. Add roid abuse to cheating refs, wife abusing players, rapists, dog fighters, gambling abuses, point shaving, suspicious rulings to help teams that got new stadiums from their cities, weird scheduling moves or umpiring that seems to push more series' to 6-7 games, etc. and you may start to have a very real, very significant problem.Quote:
Originally posted by Darion
I do not agree that steroid use is going to lead to the scripting of MLB, NFL, or what-have-you in the same manner as the WWE is faked up, though I do agree that such a thing would generally be the end of that particular sport. I'm just saying that the step from saucing to Lou Pinella hitting an umpire with a folding chair is a pretty big stretch. Well, maybe not for Lou, but you get the idea.
But then again, look at what roids are doing to cycling. It is tough to make a comparison, since cycling was never much more than Lance Armstrong, but there is definitely a lesson to be learned there. We have not reached it yet in the big 3 sports (NFL, NBA, MLB), but I think there is some boundary beyond which people will not accept further pollution by performance enhancing drugs. The legitimacy of performance and results can only be threatened so much before people's interest will fade irretrievably.
I'll buy this as a common sense sort of thing, even though the statistics are not provable. The bottom line, however, is that a player is not going to go play in the NFL for 20 years and not come out with totally messed up joints, not even at a skill position (excepting kickers, of course).Quote:
The players most folks watch are the skill positions - QB, RB, WR, LB, etc., and I think one of the big reasons those folks are getting injured more than ever is roids. Not only the roids used by the people smashing into them, but the roids they use themselves which puts a lot of strain on their joints and ligaments (since their muscle growth often outpaces ligament and joint strengthening).
This right here is actually a good argument -against- a steroid purge in professional sports, and I tend to agree. Steroids themselves are not capable of tainting a league to the point where its financial viability collapses, but as a single problem present within a host of other problems, that possibility can arise.Quote:
What is more likely is that roids could be one significant part of a suite of problems that bring down a pro sport. Add roid abuse to cheating refs, wife abusing players, rapists, dog fighters, gambling abuses, point shaving, suspicious rulings to help teams that got new stadiums from their cities, weird scheduling moves or umpiring that seems to push more series' to 6-7 games, etc. and you may start to have a very real, very significant problem.
Really, my argument is that steroids are entrenched in professional sports and to remove them would be extremely difficult and generally undesirable from a commercial standpoint. It would make great sense, however, for sports to crack down on the other particulars that you mentioned (which is beginning to happen), thus the worst-case-scenario never actually comes to fruition.
Yeah, the inherent problem is that the "drug war" is almost unwinnable. As far as I know, they still don't have a test for HGH. Then there are all these weird analyses they do to try and figure out if your testosterone levels are too high. They basically just have to compare you to what they THINK is a typical value, and punish you if you exceed this.
My pair partner when I was on the national team (rowing) was a guy with an absolutely outrageous VO2 max. He kept at the sport after I retired to go to law school, and eventually made 2 olympic teams. He had to voluntarily submit to an incredible frequency of blood testing in order to prove that his own natural blood oxygenation levels were legit. The guy was just physically gifted, and had to have blood tests done 30-40 times per year to justify it. They just don't have any real way to test for blood doping, so its all educated guesswork based on "typical" statistics.
By the same token, I would still love to see extremely harsh penalties for when they DO catch people. And as you have alluded to in previous posts, I want to see the big boys getting rocked - not just the peons.
Perhaps I never understood your exact point from the beginning. Is your point something more akin to this:
"The efforts and methods you would have to take to completely purge roid use from sports would have to be so extreme, intrusive, draconian, and outrageous that it would harm the sport worse than the actual abuse of roids harmed it."
I can certainly see the merits of that point.
You have already outlined the difficulty of actually testing for some steroids with a minimal margin of error - it is not possible. My original point (I think I might have actually outlined it more in-depth in the MMA thread) was that actually instituting a steroid crackdown is a net loss in terms of a league's worth, so policymakers for that league would never do it.Quote:
Originally posted by Aristotle
Perhaps I never understood your exact point from the beginning. Is your point something more akin to this:
"The efforts and methods you would have to take to completely purge roid use from sports would have to be so extreme, intrusive, draconian, and outrageous that it would harm the sport worse than the actual abuse of roids harmed it."
I can certainly see the merits of that point.
That having been said, if a draconian, intrusive, outrageous method to test for most known steroids was without error for the most part, I would say go for it and the players can consider it a cost of doing business in the bigs. I am not pro-steroids and neither are the leagues (despite the permissiveness), but I recognize the impossibility of removing them from professional sports in this day and age.
Not that shocking, but still... damn.
Report says Jones used steroids for two years before 2000 Games
Quote:
Marion Jones admitted using steroids before the 2000 Olympics in a recent letter to close family and friends, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
Jones, a triple gold medalist in Sydney, said she took "the clear" for two years, beginning in 1999, and that she got it from former coach Trevor Graham, the newspaper reported. Graham told her it was flaxseed oil.
"The clear" is a performance-enhancing drug linked to BALCO, the lab at the center of a federal steroids investigation. Until now, Jones had steadfastly denied she ever took any kind of performance-enhancing drugs.
Jones also said she will plead guilty Friday in New York to two counts of lying to federal agents about her drug use and an unrelated financial matter, the Post reported.
"I want to apologize for all of this," the newspaper reported, quoting a person who received a copy of Jones' letter and read it to the paper. "I am sorry for disappointing you all in so many ways."
They're oh so apologetic after it happens, aren't they. Or to be more accurate, after they're caught. Why, if they know how wrong it is, did they do it anyway? Makes the apology sound a tad hollow.
Surprise! Surprise!
Clemens 'swears' in interview he's never used banned substances
Whatever.Quote:
Roger Clemens says he was injected with "Lidocaine and B-12" and not steroids or human growth hormone by former trainer Brian McNamee, according to a portion of an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" released Thursday.
"Lidocaine and [vitamin] B-12. It's for my joints, and B-12 I still take today," Clemens told Mike Wallace in the interview, which is scheduled to be shown Sunday night. It is Clemens' first interview since the release of the Mitchell report in December.
I wish Clemens would just admit he used roids before he gets caught perjuring himself and is fucked in every orafice?
Report: Clemens, McNamee had lengthy conversation Friday night
Fan comments for the win:
andQuote:
Excerpt from the Clemens-McNamee call (source: Patriot Act phonetap):
Clemens: Hey, Bri. Rocket here...
McNamee: Umm, Roger, are you sure that we should be talking?
Clemens: I had to let you know that what you said really stings, buddy. I mean, didn't I take good care of you, get you the job with the Yankees, give you new business?
McNamee: You were great, Roger. But if I lied, the Feds were going to bunk me with Greg Anderson. I hear that the dude snores and he is a lousy lay.
Clemens: Well, on Sunday night everyone will see that I am telling the truth. Mike Wallace is a tough interviewer and negotiator - he had me sign 100 baseballs for him.
McNamee: Got to go, Roger. Please don't call me again, ok?
Clemens: Call you? This conversation never took place...
Quote:
Roger: Hello?
McNamee: Hey there, it's me.
Roger: (coldly) What's up?
McNamee: Oh don't be that way. We can't let the press ruin what we once had.
Roger: I guess. It was special, wasn't it?
McNamee: Yeppers. I'm sorry that meanie George Mitchell used the Feds to strong arm me into telling the truth to them.
Roger: It's OK. I would have flipped on you, my wife and every kid I have that I named with the letter K as soon as I knew I could save my own hide.
McNamee: I know.
Roger: So now what?
McNamee: Well that depends on how bad you trashed me in the "60 Minutes" fluff job that's airing tonite.
Roger: Not too bad. I used the 'deny deny deny' approach and I hope everyone buys the the "B12 + Lidocaine" excuse. It's a new one, I think.
McNamee: Good, the gullible public will surely buy it. I mean, it's not like your performance spiked at a time when you should have been continuing to fade like Dan Duquette predicted.
Roger: Ha, that's a good one. Wanna come over and help me re-frost the tips of my hair?
McNamee: Sure, what are you wearing?
Roger: Cut-off t-shirt, pink Juicy sweats, Hannah Montana slippers.
McNamee: My favorites. Be right over.
The three most annoying and disturbing statements from the Clemens 60 minutes interview were:
1)
Huh? Since when do steroids cause a genetic mutation like that?Quote:
"If he's doing that to me, I should have a third ear coming out of my forehead. I should be pulling tractors with my teeth," said Clemens, who wore a lavender button-down shirt during the interview, taped Dec. 28 at his home in Katy, Texas.
2)
Yeah poor guy never got an inch of respect. Like, nobody paid him $28 million to go 6-6 with a 4.18 ERA and start a couple months late in the season.Quote:
"It's hogwash for people to even assume this," Clemens said. "Twenty-four, 25 years, Mike. You'd think I'd get an inch of respect. An inch."
3)
Yeah, illegal drug dealers are always jumping at the chance to confess to their crimes.Quote:
"If I have these needles and these steroids and all these drugs, where did I get 'em?" he said. "Where is the person out there [who] gave 'em to me? Please, please come forward."
Idiot.
Oh please please please please be legit:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3233878
Dude, saving bloody syringes? Wow. That's like Lewinsky's spooge stained blue dress.Quote:
The lawyers wouldn't discuss what the evidence is, but a source told the Daily News that McNamee gave vials with traces of steroids and human growth hormone, as well as blood-stained syringes and gauze pads that might contain Clemens' DNA, to the Justice Department's BALCO investigators.
The evidence has been sent to a lab for testing, and prosecutors might seek a court order for a DNA sample from Clemens if the evidence contains traces of drugs and blood, the Daily News reported.
McNamee kept the vials, gauze pads and syringes from the 2000 and 2001 seasons because he feared Clemens would deny using performance-enhancing drugs, the source told the Daily News.
Clemens could be so horribly owned. If he lied to Congress his ass will be grass.
If it pans out like this, and Clemens goes to the slammer for lying, I hope that will be the end of the "I did not knowingly take steroids" canard. I hope athletes will realize the PR hit is a lot better than jail, and will just own up when caught.
It's hard to buy what Clemens says, but his lawyer has a point here:
I wonder which of them (Clemens or McNamee) is more full of shit. My initial reaction when all this started was that Clemens was totally guilty and McNamee was just scared/covering his ass. This strikes me as really fishy though.Quote:
(Lanny Breuer, referring to McNamee) "He claims to love Roger Clemens, he says he modeled being a father on Roger Clemens, he said Roger treated him like family -- but he now claims he kept blood, gauze and needles from Roger Clemens for seven years. It defies all sensibility."
Trust, but verify.
When you are engaging in illegal activity with someone, it is a good idea to keep an ace up your sleeve.
It doesn't mean he doesn't respect the guy. It just means he was smart enough to save some evidence to save his own ass if need be.
LOL
Ex-Bronco Henry tests positive for marijuana
Why do they suspend guys for smoking pot, when Leonard Little plays on after murdering a wife and mother?Quote:
A source close to free agent running back Travis Henry has confirmed he has tested positive for marijuana again and is subject to a one-year suspension by the NFL.
Ortiz wants season-long ban
So, how long until Ortiz tests positive?
That seems to be the way these things shake out nowadays.
ROFLCOPTER!
Commish doesn't want steroids blame
Bug Selig dodging blame? I'm shocked.
He should forfeit his $18 million salary and resign. He knowingly used the roid era to save baseball from the titanic failure of the 1994 work stoppage and lack of a WS.
He is more to blame for the ruinous roid era than anyone.