The baseball thread.

[Benny Profane]

I've been eating a lot of peanut butter recently. My hair is falling out, and road rage is daily occurence. wait, I live in New Jersey......

[dbp]

Is cholesterol really a steroid?

It seems steroid is a very broad term...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid#Classification

[MassLiberal]

Actually, depending on when he took them (if he did), it may not have been cheating. Steroids were not banned until after the 2002 season.

Also, Murder isn't banned by the MLB rule book, so is it alright if a baserunner whips out a glock and guns down the first baseman on a tight play?

[Benny Profane]

hmmmmmm...........

[Brock Landers]

Also, Murder isn't banned by the MLB rule book, so is it alright if a baserunner whips out a glock and guns down the first baseman on a tight play?

Like in 'The Last Boy Scout'?(except with football). I think its legal from a baseball perspective. He may go to jail, but I dont think he would get ejected or suspended (might get taken away in cuffs)-seems kinda weird though, but it isnt in the rulebook.

Anyone see the Rickey Henderson story on espn.com? Absolutely hilarious. The guy is awesome to see or hear in person, and a first ballot HOFer.

[Benny Profane]

Like in 'The Last Boy Scout'?(except with football). I think its legal from a baseball perspective. He may go to jail, but I dont think he would get ejected or suspended (might get taken away in cuffs)-seems kinda weird though, but it isnt in the rulebook.

Anyone see the Rickey Henderson story on espn.com? Absolutely hilarious. The guy is awesome to see or hear in person, and a first ballot HOFer.

He is the most "mentioned" non inducted player in the Hall of Fame if you have a chance to visit. Amazing numbers.

[Brock Landers]

He is the most "mentioned" non inducted player in the Hall of Fame if you have a chance to visit. Amazing numbers.

Hes going to have to wait another 5 years after he makes his comeback this summer. Best leadoff hitter ever, by far, and Id say one of the top 25 players overall.

[Benny Profane]

Yeah, but, let's face it, Rickey is displaying serious emotional problems. He just won't give it up.

[Brock Landers]

Whether he plays or not, he needs a reality show

[smmokan]

I'm pretty sure he was just playing along with the interviewer in his latest statements... he knows that he's done, unfortunately.

Being a special assistant with the Mets, I wonder how much influence he's had in Reyes' amazing progression this year and last? It'd be nice to groom one of the league's best leadoff hitters with THE best leadoff hitter in history.

[powpig]

Allow me to throw some gasoline on the fire.

http://www.protrade.com/content/Disp...1-83f05e1a00a7

STEROIDS GROUND ZERO: 1973 ATLANTA BRAVES
(Or what you will NOT read in Game of Shadows)

One of the more distressing fabrications which has emerged from the BALCO case has been the erroneous contention that the so-called 'Steroids Era' began in 1991 with Jose Conseco as its architect.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The San Francisco Chronicle, in a May 3rd 2005 article quoted former Major League pitcher Tom House of the Atlanta Braves as saying that steroids were rampant in the game in the late '60s and throughout the '70s.

House, perhaps best known for catching Hank Aaron's 715th home run ball in 1974 in the Atlanta Braves bullpen, said he and several teammates used amphetamines, human growth hormone and 'whatever steroid' they could find in order to keep up with the competition.

"I pretty much popped everything cold turkey', House said. "We were doing steroids they wouldn't give to horses. That was the '60s when nobody knew. The good thing is, we know now. There's a lot more research and understanding."

House, 58, estimated that six or seven pitchers per team were at least experimenting with steroids or human growth hormone. He said players talked about losing to opponents using more effective drugs,

"We didn't get beat, we got out-milligrammed", he said. "And when you found out what they were taking, you started taking them".

According to Rep. Henry A. Waxman in his March 17,2005 opening statement before the House Government Reform Committee:

"Congress first investigated drugs and professional sports, including steroids over 30 years ago. I think perhaps the only two people in the room who will remember this are me and Commissioner Selig, because I believe he became owner in 1970".

In 1973, the year I first ran for Congress, the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce concluded a year-long investigation that found--and I quote--"drug use exists...in all sports and levels of competition...In some instances, the danger of improper drug use--primarily amphetamines and anabolic steroids--can only be described as alarming".

Bowie Kuhn, and the powers that be at the time, quietly squashed the entire tawdry episode and with good reason: it would cast suspicions on an African-American slugger who was challenging one of baseball's most cherished records: The career record for home runs.

Compare Hank Aaron's stats at the beginning of his career and then notice how his HR% began to increase beginning when Hammerin' Hank was 37 years old.

HR% is defined as being the number of HRs per 100 ABs.

Age HRs HR%
33 44 7.3
34 39 6.5
35 29 4.8

Nothing unusual about these statistics; it is a typical profile of a slugger in decline as he ages. But then Hank began to undergo an 'enhancement.'

Age HRs HR%
36 44 8.0
37 38 7.4

What explains this spike at a latter age? Expansion? Perhaps. But then what happens?

Age HRs HR%
38 47 9.5
39 34 7.6

Hank...What's going on buddy? Aaron's HR% were TOPS in the NL in both 1971 and 1972. Hmm.

Age HRs HR%
40 40 10.2

Which leads us to 1973 when at age 40 in just 392 at bats, juiced 40 HR's for a HR% of 10.2. Once again TOPS in NL for the THIRD STRAIGHT YEAR and the HIGHEST HR% in the ENTIRE 23 year career of Hank Aaron.

Hank Aaron at 40 was not the only Atlanta Brave to hit 40 Hrs that season. Teammates Darrell Evans and Davey Johnson blasted 41 and 43 HRs respectively.

Darrell Evans

Year HRs HR%
1971 12 4.6
1972 19 4.5

1973 41 6.9

1974 25 4.4
1975 22 2.8

Notice a statistical anomaly? Let's see what Davey Johnson did.

Davey Johnson

Year HRs HR%
1971 18 3.5
1972 5 1.3

1973 43 7.7

1974 15 3.3
1975 Played 1 game
1976 Did not play MLB

Notice a statistical anomaly? It would be one thing for Hank Aaron to undergo an 'enhancement', but what are the odds that not one but TWO teammates would both have career years in HR's and HR% in the SAME YEAR as when a Congressional Committee issued its final report saying that anabolic steroids were rampant in the game? Why did Darrell Evans and Davey Johnson both experience career spikes in HR's only to return to earth the following year? And how did Hank finish up?

Age HRs HR%
41 20 5.9
42 12 2.6
43 10 3.7

So what happened? Enquiring minds want to know.

The 1996 Baltimore Orioles set at the time the team HR record for one season. Brady Anderson's 50 HR season was viewed suspiciously.

The manager of the 1996 Baltimore Orioles? Davey Johnson.

The only question remains: What did Bud Selig know and when did he know it?

Fay Vincent circulated a draft steroids policy in 1991. Selig knew that if the scab of steroids was picked off, the puss of the 1973 Atlanta Braves would be oozing all over the game. The scandal of Hank Aaron's HR record being tainted by steroids use would have been a PR disaster at the time and. personally, extremely painful to Bud Selig who, after all, is a long-time friend of Hank Aaron.

Hence the boardroom coup which ousted Fay Vincent and made Bud Selig 'Acting Commissioner', while still maintaining his position as the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, a blatant conflict of interest.

So long as Bud Selig remains in charge of Major League Baseball, the American public will never get to the bottom of the steroids scandal which has sullied the game. He has too much of a personal vested interest in Hank Aaron.

Besides, after this season, Barry Lamar Bonds will BE the HR KING.

LONG LIVE THE KING!!!

[powpig]

Another interesting read by Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05086/478215.stm

Cook: '70s Steelers are guilty like Bonds

Sunday, March 27, 2005
By Ron Cook, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It's so easy to look at Barry Bonds as a fraud. We don't like him. We never liked him, going back to his first season with the Pirates in 1986. We don't want to believe he hit those 73 home runs legitimately or that he'll ever be the true home run king no matter how many more home runs he hits than Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron. It has to be the steroids.

But it's a lot harder to come down on the Super Steelers. They were our heroes. They won four Super Bowls. They made us proud. It wasn't the steroids. It was all talent and hard work. That's our story and we're sticking to it.

You know what?

We're hypocritical as heck.

Bonds and the Steelers of the 1970s became uncomfortably linked last week when New Orleans Saints coach, former NFL player and Avalon native Jim Haslett shared his thoughts on steroids use with the Post-Gazette's Ed Bouchette. Haslett admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs when he played and estimated that 50 percent of the NFL players in the 1980s -- including all of the linemen -- were users. He also said he believed the rampant use of steroids started with the Steelers of the 1970s, a contention that instantly made him something of a pariah in his hometown. The backlash was so sudden and so acute that Haslett felt the need to apologize the next day for mentioning the Steelers.

How sad.

The man merely spoke what he believed to be the truth.

For the most part, he was right.

Steroids use in the NFL didn't start with the Steelers. It was around for more than a decade before they won their first Super Bowl after the 1974 season. But there's little doubt the success of those Steelers teams helped to popularize performance-enhancing drugs. Haslett wasn't wrong about that.

It's understandable why Dan Rooney, who went so far as to question Haslett's sanity, wants to protect the Steelers' legacy. For the same reasons, he wants you to believe the NFL's current steroids-testing plan is an enormous success even though the experts will tell you the players always have and always will find a way to beat the system because their chemists are one step ahead of the league's testers. It makes it easier to sleep at night. Steroids make everyone feel so dirty, especially now that they are under so much scrutiny because of Bonds and Mark McGwire.

But not even Rooney, probably the most powerful and respected man in the NFL this side of Paul Tagliabue, can rewrite history.

Go to one of the old book stores. See if you can find Steve Courson's "False Glory," published in 1991. It was a fascinating read then and is even more fascinating now. Courson, who played for the Steelers from 1977-83, detailed his and his teammates' steroids use.

If you're looking for another Jose Canseco tell-all book, you're going to be disappointed. Courson did not name names. He didn't out teammates the way Canseco did to McGwire. The purpose of his book wasn't so much to make money as it was to shine a light on a long-standing NFL problem and maybe, in the process, educate a few young athletes about steroids. He had made national headlines six years earlier by admitting his steroid use to Sports Illustrated.

Courson exonerated the Steelers' defensive linemen -- "In those days, few defensive linemen did [steroids]," he wrote -- which is why L.C. Greenwood could go on a national radio show the other day and say, with good conscience, that Haslett's assertion was the damnedest thing he ever heard.

But Courson wrote that 75 percent of the Steelers' offensive linemen took steroids at one time or another and would sit around as a group discussing their usage the way other men might discuss their wife or girlfriend, a night at the bar or a good hunting trip.

"Disgruntled players throughout the league called us the 'Steroid Team,' as if performance-enhancing drugs were the sole reason for our success," Courson wrote, adding how maniacal the Steelers' linemen were in the weight room.

"The fact is, our [steroids] usage was the same -- give or take -- as most of the NFL teams at that time."

Rooney's contention the Steelers didn't have a steroids problem because Chuck Noll preached against their usage is almost laughable if you believe Courson's book.

"Chuck never encouraged steroid use on the Steelers, but he conveniently and most definitely turned his head to it," Courson wrote. He cited an example of Noll calling him out in front of the team and screaming -- "All you want to do is body-build and take steroids!" -- after his hamstring was pulled in training camp in 1983. "That was a full two years before I admitted my steroid usage in Sports Illustrated," Courson added. "Evidently, [Noll] was not as blind or ignorant of the steroid issue as he would have the politicians and public believe."

If that's true, that doesn't make Noll a bad guy. It just makes him the same as any other coach who isn't against an edge that might help his team win a championship. It also makes him the same as the baseball owners who really didn't want to hear about steroids as Bonds, McGwire and Sammy Sosa were hitting home runs and bringing fans to the ballparks.

Sadly, it also leaves us with a conclusion we'd just rather not face:

If Bonds' achievements are tainted in any way by steroids, then so are the Super Steelers' triumphs.

We can't have it both ways.

[pappag]

I'm pretty sure he was just playing along with the interviewer in his latest statements... he knows that he's done, unfortunately.

Being a special assistant with the Mets, I wonder how much influence he's had in Reyes' amazing progression this year and last? It'd be nice to groom one of the league's best leadoff hitters with THE best leadoff hitter in history.

Reyes has just gone stupid this year. One of the most exciting players to watch.

He went from 26 AB/BB in his first full season to 12 AB/BB in his second season to less than 8 AB/BB this season. Talk about improvement. And yes, Rickey has had a lot to do with this. His SB attempts are also way above average: 120 this year compared with 80 each of the previous two years.

[smmokan]

Powpig- that's some interesting stuff. Too bad baseball wants that hidden.


In my mind, Reyes is THE most exciting player in baseball, hands down. Reyes legging out a triple? So much fun to watch.

I think he's got more BB's than K's this year, which is amazing considering where he was last year and two years ago. I wonder if Hanley Ramirez is going to increase production the same way?

[MassLiberal]

Reyes has attempted to steal 120 bases this year? hmmm, I find that hard to believe.

[pappag]

On pace for 120 attempts.

[Long Duck Dong]

Lets please not mention Hanley Ramirez's name again, ever. Thanks.

[smmokan]

Heh... Beckett's start has to make it more tolerable, at least.

[Brock Landers]

And Anibal Sanchez is at Triple A. He did throw a No-No, but between Lowell and Beckett, I think it was a pretty good deal for both sides. Beckett was going to get big money (too much for FLA) after the year was over anyway, and the Sox got 2 starters for not-a-ton-of-money-relatively-speaking, including a potential Cy Young winner and a Gold Glover.

[smmokan]

I think Sanchez is still going to end up being good.

Was it just Sanchez and Ramirez, or was there a third minor leaguer involved?

Nothing will ever be as bad as the Pierzynski for Liriano/Nathan/Bonser trade SF and Minnesota did a few years ago.

[Brock Landers]

Or Derek Lowe/Jason Varitek for Heathcliff Slocumb

[smmokan]

Bartolo Colon for Brandon Phillips, Grady Sizemore, and Cliff Lee. Not on the scale of the others, but pretty bad in its own right.

[pappag]

1989:
Montreal's Randy Johnson is traded to Seattle for Mark Langston who only had 24 starts with the Expos before ending up with the Angels.

1994:
Dodgers send Pedro Martinez to the Expos for Delino DeShields.


Looking back now, Expos had crazy talent: Johnson, Pedro, Cliff Floyd, Alou, Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Wetteland, Gruzeilanek, the candy bar guy.

[iceman]

Babe Ruth for cash.

[half-fast]

re: powpigs article

the braves moved the fences in at their stadium the year johnson and evans started hitting homers

on a side note, what about jimmy rollins? he was a 10-15 homer guy until last year when he hit 25. he already has 9 this year