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Pete Toms
14 years ago

“If these bonds don’t sell, however, it will end up having cost the taxpayers of New York a lot more than they bargained for.”

Hmmmm….are you certain about that?  Won’t it cost the Mets more $$$$?  Aren’t they responsible for paying back this money?

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

You know, now that you mention this, I’m not certain of that, even if it felt right when I wrote it this morning.  If anyone has any info on this I’ll post an update (I’m kinda slammed at the moment and can’t track it down).

David
14 years ago

At a website full of snarky humor, I find it amazing that nobody observed that during last night’s ‘Baseball Tonight’ on ESPN, when Olney and Plaschke were taking turns trying to see who could be more outraged at Manny, ESPN repeatedly ran commercials for….

….Steroids!!!

http://isitlowt.com/

These “Is it low T?” commercials are nothing but pharma ads for testosterone!  Once more, pathetic, modern American men prove that all their attitude and all their tough guy rhetoric is all just posing.  Of course, the good folks in the government and the pharmaceutical industry say it’s good for you, so we really shouldn’t be outraged.

Of course, because the government and other entities have, somehow, been systematically reducing men’s testosterone at the rate of 1% each year for the past 25 years, this is the greatest scam of all time.  It’d be like if I stole your car and then made you lease it from me.

http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&category=sexual.health&conitem=a64b455ae9824110VgnVCM10000013281eac____#

Matt M
14 years ago

I’m not a financial guru, but, if I’m reading the story right, the bonds in question were sold in 06 at a fixed 5%, maturity date 2046. I.E., the bonds’ status has absolutely no bearing on either the team or the City (unless they’re still trying to issue bonds for a project that’s already complete, which doesn’t make sense). The bad news is for the people who bought these bonds last month and are trying to sell now.

Chipmaker
14 years ago

Duh! Steroids make one fragile and injury-prone.

Junior must have been clean, because he kept landing on the DL due to being…
so…
fragile…
and, um…
injury-
prone.

Oh dear.

/snark

Junior really has been getting a free pass, and maybe that is not only fair but absolutely correct, because he hasn’t been able to go yard while riding the pine. His career since leaving Seattle has been one long, inexorable slide down the mountain and into the sea.

His peak HR output, which I don’t think tells us much of anything but is a popular talking point/metric with the more vocal, less cerebral crowds, came in 1996-99, years for which other players get roundly excoriated.

But, there’s one dot, here’s another dot… maybe the dots need connecting.

Or maybe they’re just dots.

David
14 years ago

Hey, at least with Griffey, they’re leaving one black guy alone.  Usually, the formula dictates that black or Latin guys receive endless outrage and hysteria from pathetic Americans, whereas whities are, well, just ignored.

Brian Roberts?  Andy Pettitte?  Troy Glaus? 

Etc., etc., etc. 

Nobody gives a damn about them.

kranky kritter
14 years ago

There’s one huge flaw in your other post about Manny coming back after the suspension to lead the Dodgers to a series title. It’s not just a suspension, it’s an opportunity all right. An opportunity for Manny to think. For two months.

As a longtime mannywatcher, I can tell you right now there’s AT LEAST a 50% chance Manny comes back doing his grouchy Greta Garbo routine. How do you suppose he’ll react the first road game he gets really booed at?

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

kranky—good point.  Worth watching. I have to think that the fact that this team and his manager thus far seem to be behind him will help.  Also, isn’t the grouchy Manny usually trumped by the something-to-prove Manny? He was public enemy #1 around the time of the trade last year and look how he responded. Isn’t there a chance he comes back with an “I’ll show them” attitude in July?

kranky kritter
14 years ago

Oh, and don’t think Theo Epstein is not enjoying how clean his white shirt stayed when the sh!t hit the fan 3000 miles away.

kranky kritter
14 years ago

That’s a good one too Craig, you’re right about the “something to prove” Manny.

And hey, to be fair, if there’s a player who could be telling the truth about it being an accident, it’s Manny. We need affirmative evidence of that to believe it though, I think. Show me the RX, mannhy.

Anyway, one more thing. There is yet another side to Manny which arises from time to time,. and that’s the one to worry the most about. It’s the “I don’t need this aggravation” Manny. If the Dodgers are smart they find someone like Enrique Wilson to pay to hang out with Manny and keep him away from the TV. I would send him to Nepal, frankly.

PB
14 years ago

after the ped issue blows over or gets put to bed…i can’t wait to see the hue and cry over genetic manipulation that’s going to be coming in the next several years…

the main stream media, whatever that means as things shake out…would be doing all of us a favor if they’d worry more about…you know…journalism.  facts.  information.  educating, even…rather than working themselves (and their target audiences) into ill informed, self righteous, and frankly ridiculous lathers.

David
14 years ago

I agree with PB’s post 100%. 

While here in America we’re dizzily working ourselves into this mania, in the Eastern countries (specifically China and India), man, it’s the Wild, Wild West!  They’re doing such mind-boggling things with drugs and germ-line engineering that, I mean, pretty soon we’re going to have a bunch of Easterners who run like Carl Lewis, think like Stephen Hawking, and work like Thomas Edison conquering us.

But we won’t mind because there are no “steroids” in baseball! 

Also, please don’t overlook my earlier post about how ESPN is running ads during ‘Baseball Tonight’ for pharmaceutical steroids.  The irony is just too damn rich!

MJ
14 years ago

@ David

At a website full of snarky humor, I find it amazing that nobody observed that during last night’s ‘Baseball Tonight’ on ESPN, when Olney and Plaschke were taking turns trying to see who could be more outraged at Manny, ESPN repeatedly ran commercials for….

….Steroids!!!

http://isitlowt.com/

There’s a huge difference between low levels of testosterone and taking anabolic steroids.  Stop spouting out about this.

Of course, because the government and other entities have, somehow, been systematically reducing men’s testosterone at the rate of 1% each year for the past 25 years, this is the greatest scam of all time

No where in the article are those two linked.  In fact, the article says:

Most men can expect their testosterone levels to drop by about 1 percent a year beginning in their 50s

That’s normal, not the gov’t’s systematic destruction of the male testosterone level. 

Also, no where in the article is anything gov’t related ever mentioned.  The listed possibilities are things such as cologne, tick-and-flea powder for pets, lawn treatments, and common insecticides.  Also contributing to the low count is obesity and smoking, which we all know is prevalent in the country.

Richard in Dallas
14 years ago

Just like the day the Rangers took on the Giants to inaugurate interleague play, the baseball books as we know them have been changed forever. Although sad, it is something we will now have to live with.

Al Capone was a gangster in 1920’s Chicago. He owned every illicit business going on in the second city, centered around bootleg whiskey. Try as they did, the Feds couldn’t make any of the mob charges stick to him, and finally had to settle for busting him on tax evasion charges. He was sentenced to prison and now, nearly 100 years later we all think of him as an all around bad guy.

At about the same time, Mr. Capone had a counterpart in Boston by the name of Joseph Kennedy. Allegedly involved in many of the same illegal activities as Mr. Capone, he was able to completely evade the long arm of the law, and had a bunch of kids that got Ivy League educations and went on to change America. We have sort of come to think of him in a patriarchal way, to be admired for spawning such impressive offspring.

The point is, there will always be those that we suspected, but never caught. If their performance warrants it, we will consider them the heros of the era. Those that are caught, however, belong in the Hall of Shame, not the Hall of Fame, and if they are still active in the game should be removed from it in perpetuity.

tadthebad
14 years ago

David,

    I don’t disagree with your overall point.  However, what about Mark McGwire?  Roger Clemens?  Pretty significant figures to be ignoring in making that point, no?

Richard in Dallas
14 years ago

@tadthebad

I assume you meant to direct your questions to me.  I agree that it paints a really cloudy picture to overlook what we’re fairly certain, but not absolutely certain, the two guys you mentioned have done.  In fairness to those we suspect who are actually innocent, we have to assume that a lack of hard evidence, combined with a lack of a conscience on the part of a player that makes them unwilling to fess up, means they are not guilty.  If they really did it, but get away with it, they have to live with it.  If you’ve ever read Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Telltale Heart”, you can get a feel for the guilt that will consume them unless and until they come clean, and withdraw their names from consideration for all accolades….

tadthebad
14 years ago

Richard,

    No, not directed towards you.  David mentioned Roberts, Pettite and Glaus.  Course, now that I’ve considered it further, David mentions guys who failed drug tests.  Than again, did they fail tests, or were they simply mentioned in the Mitchell Report?  Confusing.

    However, in this instance, I disagree with your premise.  “In fairness to those we suspect who are actually innocent, we have to assume that a lack of hard evidence, combined with a lack of a conscience on the part of a player that makes them unwilling to fess up, means they are not guilty.”  Honestly, I may be jealous of you as you live in a simpler, more honest world.  I’m way too cynical and jaded to take their words, or lack of confessions, at face value.

David
14 years ago

MJ:

I’m sorry if I linked to the wrong article.  There have been several studies showing that modern, pathetic American “men” are being assaulted by some entity – probably the government and the military, considering their joint love of eugenics and black ops – showing that testosterone has been being artificially lowered at a rate of 1% a year. 

The prominent medical review, ‘The New England Journal of Endocrinology’ probably performed the most comprehensive study of the creepy phenomenon.  If that article was the wrong one, then just read this one:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/44441

There is no difference between Joe Republican buying “pharmaceutical” steroids and a baseball player buying black market steroids.  It’s like Oxycontin and heroin: they have the exact same active ingredients.  The only difference between them is that rich Republicans use one with the approval of the government while poor folks use the latter and are chained and thrown in cages for it. 

If you think that the fact that the steroids advertised on ESPN’s ‘Baseball Tonight’ are valid because they’re being dealt by a big corporation, then I don’t recognize that distinction at all and so we’re at an impasse. 

I find the weak American “men” who are taking artificial testosterone from pharmaceutical companies more outrageous than pro athletes, because the latter are doing it for the sake of their careers and their teams whereas the former are simply doing it because, well, they’re pathetic. 

If you’d like, I can send you a lot more information on the government and the military’s assault on our biological integrity.  In short, our fertility, neurological precision, and metabolism are, indeed, being insidiously attacked.  If you don’t want to believe the New England Journal of Endocrinology and a slew of other studies….that’s your call, once again.

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

David—please don’t take this the wrong way, but you are a profoundly weird person.

David
14 years ago

Tadthebad:

Funny you should mention Roger Clemens.  In a sense, his situation is, perhaps, the most egregious evidence of racism in this whole thing.

Roger Clemens perjured himself for sure.  Perjury is difficult to prosecute, but his is that very rare case where it’s open-and-shut.

Barry Bonds might have perjured himself if you interpret his testimony the way the government wants you to and if the government could prove that he was lying and if you can prove that his lie was of material importance to the case at hand.  (For the record, the government was poised to fail at every one of those “ifs”.) 

The Republicans in the DoJ have spent $100 million trying to prosecute Bonds.  The case is a clear-cut loser in every single way.  As easy as it is for prosecutors to even get indictments, it’s amazing that he was ever even indicted.  There was no possible way he would ever be found guilty.  It was a dogsh—case, from top to bottom.  (Greg Anderson’s courageous stance against the government only made the prosecution’s crap stink that much more.)

Conversely….we’re 15 months removed from Roger Clemens’s real perjury – on national TV in front of millions of people – and there are still no charges.  Odds are, there never will be. 

Explain that one to me.  I think that melatonin would play a part in any honest explanation.

David
14 years ago

Craig:

I definitely won’t argue your judgment, but I think that the fact that our fertility and testosterone are being systematically assaulted (both men and women’s fertility is down considerably, too) is far bigger than some of my quirks.

(And if you think that the testosterone thing is creepy, try this on for size:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2E65WTxd1U )

Tom
14 years ago

Congratulations Craig, you managed the bring in the strangest comment ever about Manny Ramirez and steroids in sports!

I’m in the military and a Republican David so does that mean I don’t need to worry about my testosterone level being lowered by 1% a year?

David
14 years ago

Tom,

For better or for worse….no, you’re not being spared, either:

http://www.wlwt.com/news/13271378/detail.html

However, you have everybody worshiping you as their lord and savior, so I’m sure that that compensates for some of the lost testosterone.

But seriously, we’re all in this together.

tadthebad
14 years ago

David,

    That’s not the point you made.  You wrote “Nobody gives a damn about them,”  ie. the white PED users in MLB.  That’s not the case.  If you meant that no one in the government cares, you should have written that.

Now that the federal government is controlled by Democrats, is my testosterone safe?  Why hasn’t Holder ended the Bonds prosecution?  Any Joe Democrats getting prescribed testosterone?  Any pathetic Democrats?  I’m under 35, do I still need to worry?  Is this a scheme for Dick Cheney to live forever?  Please advise.

David
14 years ago

Tom,

(While I regret that I sometimes go overboard with snarky political comments (incidentally, I’m actually quite conservative myself, just a real Ron Paul conservative, not a phony George Bush, military-worshiping conservative) I do want to say that I honestly suspect – although I could never prove it – that Republicans (or, more specifically, neo-cons) are probably on the worse end of this stuff, considering that they’re the ones who need Viagra and they’re the ones who pathetically participate in this idolatry of the military.  Those are two signs of weak men, I believe.)

PB
14 years ago

well, david may be a little weird, but he’s also correct about some of what he’s written, and as he sort of says…you can look it up.

the cognitive dissociation that goes on in our country is just…amazing.

you’re a lawyer, craig, yes?  how is it that it’s unconstitutional for me to be forced to say things that may incriminate me…but, any old employer can, for cause or even no cause at all, require me to pee in a cup, and to use that against me.  isn’t the product of my bodily functions a little more personal and private than my…you know…words?

it *is* unconstitutional…but somehow (and you’d think the folks who set up the pee testing labs and make kabillions may have had something to do with it) it’s being done…and you know…i’d understand pee testing adults who have lives in their hands…truck drivers, pilots, doctors, etc…

convenience store clerks?  plastics recycling facilities?  phone workers?

and this takes place in the nation where big pharma has (oddly enough, at the same time pee testing/blood testing/spit testing/hair samples has become de riguer and accepted)sold and sold and sold…new improved wildly successful drugs…we’re a nation of addicts, government/pharma approved…but we’re worried about folks blowing a joint on a weekend?

and insist that blowing a joint on a weekend is worth destroying someone’s life/career over?  and the same person making that call…has a pocket book full of xanax or percodan or oxy…

cognitive dissonance.

why can adult professional athletes *not* avail themselves of things to enhance their performance?  really…why is that?  who’s making that call, and why, exactly?

laser surgery is okay, but hgh is…ooo…bad and unfair?  tommy john surgery is okay, but responsible steroid use would be…awful in some way?

murky thinking, man…

David
14 years ago

Tadthebad:

Do you seriously expect me to have all the answers about why American men’s testosterone has been systematically eradicated over the past 25 years? 

Do you really think that I know why so many male babies are born with un-descended private parts that, basically, mean that they’re 25% female? 

Do you honestly think that I know why American men can’t make love to women without Viagra? 

Dude….I don’t frickin’ know the answers to this stuff!  It’s creepy and scary and, yeah, it’s <u>real</u>, but just because I’m honest enough to look at the information doesn’t make me an Oracle.  Do your own research and, perhaps, you can figure it out and help us out. 

I’m still trying to figure out about Building 7, for God’s sake.

(Don’t misunderstand me: I have my theories, some of them well substantiated, but they’re still very vague theories, at best.) 

RE: Bonds & Clemens.  I wasn’t saying that the government is racist to the exclusion of pathetic baseball fans and hysterical opinionists like Lupica, Olney, and Plascke.  I was saying that they’re both racist.  It’s just that the government’s psychotic, nightmarish prosecution of Bonds is far more interesting than is Bill Plaschke and Mike Lupica wagging their weak little fingers at Manny.  So that’s why I went off on the rant about the Bonds case.  Simply, it’s more interesting than the closet-gay sports commentators obsessed with steroids.)

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

PB—the cold legal answer is that protection from self-incrimination is a constitutional right preventing the government from taking official action against you. Workplace drug testing is a simple workplace rule.  The former proection is there because you can’t easily stop being a citzen of the United States. With respect to the latter, you can thumb your nose at your employer and refuse to pee in a cup if you want to and then go live your life (only thing is, since you don’t have a Constitutional right to your job, they can fire you for it).  Different beasts altogether, is what I’m saying.

The more cosmic answer is, well sure, maybe we as a society shouldn’t be so uptight about what we put in our bodies as long as we’re not hurting anyone else (hell, as a blogger, lord knows that doing lots of coke would probably help me, at least for a little while).

But though you and I may see that as a no-brainer, not everyone does, and this country is made for them too, and they are free to make whatever non racially, sexually, etc. discriminatory rules they’d like to manage their businesses.

That’s democracy for you.

tadthebad
14 years ago

David,

No offense, you have the right to your opinions.  But how can you expect to write outrageous things and not be challenged on them?  The articles you referenced reported nothing about military black ops to systemically reduce testosterone levels in American men…sooo, what, I should take your word for it?  (Is your last name Roberts?)  Lots of attacks on Republicans and American men.  And everyone seems to be pathetic in your world.  Interestingly enough, much like Ms. Roberts, you seem to be throwing stuff out there to see what sticks.  Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.  But don’t make outrageous claims without supporting documentation and then be surprised when someone asks for more info.

BTW, aren’t all males born with their nads not fully dropped?  Isn’t that the genesis of the line, “…his balls finally dropped…”? and similar crass statements?  I’m going way back into the LT memory banks here, but I thought that was normal.

David
14 years ago

Tadthebad:

First off, I was only hypothesizing that it’s the government that’s engineering the systematic drop in men’s testosterone.  I think I made it quite clear up above that, no, I don’t know exactly who’s doing it.  (However, I can say with 99.9999% certainty that, whoever is doing it, it is being done by design, as the pattern of the drop off is far too precise and global for it to be an accidental side-effect of something.  If it were an environmental or cultural side effect, than the drop would be far less stabilized and their would be regions that are immune.) 

Now, I surmise that it is the government because of a whole host of reasons: their past love of eugenics, repeated claims by people in power that “There are too many people in the world”, and many, many other motives.  There’s also some evidence.

But I don’t know who’s doing it.  It is happening, and it is being done intentionally, though.

Regarding the undescended testicles (and I don’t wanna get too graphic), let me just say that….well….there are a large number of young males who have freakishly small private parts.  CBC did a report on this and it was terrifying.  Recently, young males’ testicles are not dropping and so they need to have it done surgically.  Further, females are having their first menstrual cycle 3-5 years earlier than they did in 1950. 

All of this is happening because there’s a combination of estrogen-mimicking and testosterone-suppressing assaults on the people. 

(I’m sorry that I don’t have the time to provide links.  I’m busily working right now.  However, if you’d like, I can link you to a whole bunch of medical journal studies and media reports about these things tomorrow.)

As far as my anger at the American male, let me say this: I spent the past year and a half – and thousands of dollars and countless hours of my time (and I’m neither wealthy nor do I have much time) on my small business which was heavily dependent on engineering and creativity.  It involved intrinsically male-oriented technologies.  Well….American men can’t build sh—.  One Indian or Swedish or Chinese engineer is worth a hundred Americans.  American men, simply….they were useless.  That’s all.  My partner was Chinese.  All of my consultants were from other countries (Sri Lanka, Canada, and India, to be precise), and they put Americans to shame.  I’m sorry, but that’s just the fact of my experience.  American men all want to work for the government, they want to get DoD contracts, they want to get into marketing and have MBAs and all this completely worthless crap.  Men are supposed to build.  That’s my basic, inherent feeling.  Like the monkey in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ staring at the bone and figuring out how to make it a tool, men are supposed to build and create.  But believe me, if you’re in engineering, you know that American men no longer have the ability to.  They’re useless.  (Obviously, I don’t mean that all of us Americans are useless, but, proportionally, the Easterners – often Muslim – are far, far more productive.  That’s just my strong, strong opinion and experience.)

The military doesn’t create wealth.  Nor does marketing.  Nor do MBAs.  There are far too many bureaucrats in today’s world.  We need men who can build and create.  But too American men simply don’t have it in them.  There are over 2 million enlisted Americans in the military.  Soon it’ll be fully 1% of the population, and nearly double-digit percentages of the young male workforce.  These people are supposedly “defending” everything.  Okay, fine.  Let’s pretend everything the government says about their wars and the evil Arabs is true.  (It’s absurdly bogus, but let’s just pretend.)  If there’s nothing created, then there’s nothing to defend in the first place.  And American men haven’t created a damn thing.  Thank God for the Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists, because without them, we’d still be living with 1970’s technologies. 

(Sorry for the rant.  As you can probably tell, I’m kind of embittered about the experience with my failed business!)

David
14 years ago

Here’s a link to the CBC documentary about the creepy, terrifying phenomena with modern young males and their biochemical androgenization:

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2008/disappearingmale/

I was looking for the ‘Time’ magazine article about the average age for girls to have their first menstrual cycle (honestly, I can’t even remember the year), but I could not find it.  However, I’ve heard and skimmed over other studies which have confirmed the same thing.  So, if you really want to check it out, just work on Google and I’m sure you’ll find it. 

As I mentioned before, I can dig up more links, if you’re still skeptical.

Sara K
14 years ago

David – I’m no expert in this (and I really try to avoid straying from the main topic, so this will probably be the only time I post about this subject), but it was my understanding that the increasingly earlier average onset of menses was due to a parallel increase in average % of body fat. 

As for the Men’s Health article that has apparently spooked you, the answer is in there.  It’s chemicals.  How many chemicals were on our crops and lawns 30 years ago?  How many chemicals were in our processed live-forever-on-the-store-shelf foods 30 years ago?  There is a conspiracy out there, but it’s not a conspiracy to shrink your balls, it’s to shrink your wallet.  It’s kind of ironic that the competition to make more money or to have more and better stuff than the next guy may have contributed to reducing the hormone that makes you more competetive in the first place, but there it is.

I hope you feel better enough to talk about baseball again soon.

PB
14 years ago

no, craig.  that’s not democracy for you.  if it were…then the law would certainly be different.

it’s the powers that be, for you…which is significantly different than what your answer was.

and that’s the reality.  as a grandfather, with five grandchildren i have to look in the eye…reality and responsibility…and what used to be known in my heart as the american dream…are always there.

what we’ve got now?  ####.  is it much different than fascism?

in any event…thanks for the answer.

here’s the thing i really have against the ped reportage…

of the three legs of the stool…only one fell down.

leg one…the players.  do i want my heroes to do everything they can do to be the best they can?  ubetcha.  ‘if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying’

do i have a problem with ped’s?  nope.  with surgical state of the art…nutrition state of the art…groundskeeping state of the art…keep going…and management allowing or encouraging all of it…well…why would i?

leg two…management…put the best on the field.  er.  where am i supposed to be disappointed?

leg three…MSM.  if there’s any of the three legs that actually let down on their goddamn job…its the MSM.  isn’t it?

the players used drugs that allowed them to work harder…that’s it.  they used drugs that allowed them to work harder (and cause breakdowns because of it)…but dammit..they worked their asses off to be the best they could be under the circumstances…and that also means they’d work harder (do even more) to be the best they could be…

so…er…rather than cheating (in the traditional sense of defrauding the public, or fixing games, or trying not to win)…the players are…innocent.  the worst thing they did…was try to hard to be the best.  oooooo.

management…allowed this to go on…cuz…they wanted the best, most popular product.

hard to fault them for that.

so…leg three.  the MSM.  journalists.  facts.  reporting.  a cocksucker like peter gammons, who has all kinds of ins a guy like you (or me) doesn’t have and will never have…knew that this ‘cheating’ was going on…and let it go.

of the three legs of the stool…the only ones who actually #### on their actual job…was the reporters.  sort of like that ass olney who just ten days ago or so…said he couldn’t say anything about selena’s reporting…cuz she was a well respected friend.

what?  are you fucking kidding me?

and game playing assholes like that…and yes, i’m still including gammons…or…holy ####…vin scullyl…went along and went along and went along…and suddenly…

now..

have a thing to say?

they are the only truly lying bastard in the entire equation.  aren’t they?

hmmm.  not too bad, for being mighty drunk on my forty eighth birthday.

i spent a bit earlier trying to get jeff pearlman to address this…idea.  i reviewed his ‘86 mets book (via his publisher) several years ago, and slammed the hell out of it.

cuz jeff’s always struck me as a decent guy…and it irked me that he’d allowed his heart to lead him to pumping his boyhood heroes…as heroes…when they were drunken druggying thugs who actually disrespected the game we all love…

he has the place…

someone really needs to speak out against the idea that ped’s make the game a farce.

cuz if it’s a farce…well, folks…it’s been one for the last two or three decades.  and man…they still pitch, hit, and catch the ball in real time.

it’s not a farce.  it’s as real as real can be.

MJ
14 years ago

@ PB

For the love of all that’s holy, please…. stop typing…. like this….  It’s extremely difficult…. to read…

However, I agree that the reaction from the MSM has been absurd.  Many, like Olney, professed only a few years ago that they were complicit in the steroid problem in baseball.  Many whispered that they heard rumors before ‘98 about the problem and did nothing. 

someone really needs to speak out against the idea that ped’s make the game a farce.

This may not be what you are looking for, but I really enjoyed Mike Schmidt’s view on PED’s

MLB Article

“I’d welcome him [Arod] if he got elected to the Hall of Fame,” Schmidt said Wednesday just outside Bright House Field. “I always seem to walk down the middle of the fence. I understand the old hard-line guys that use the words, ‘He cheated. He cheated.’ And the other guys that go, ‘It was a culture thing back then.’ If you played then, you would have been tempted, too. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. I don’t want to get that wrong. We’ve all got some things in our closet.”

Would Schmidt have gotten caught up in the steroid culture had he played in that era?

“Most likely,” Schmidt said. “Why not?

and from an article quoting the Philly Daily News (link is gone)

“I think Mark McGwire, along with [former Chicago Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa], sort of saved the game back in the late ‘90s,” Schmidt said…

“I don’t see how we all could ride on the shoulders of Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa for 4 or 5 years and not write much or say much about the steroids element in the game.”

Schmidt questioned why people watched those players and wrote about them, and then, when it came time for Hall of Fame considerations, they “all of a sudden bring up the issue of steroids and connect them to it.”…

Some Hall of Fame members are like Schmidt and think the steroids issue is overblown with respect to Hall of Fame credentials.