These players justify it because "everyone else does it" and they get paid a load of cash. Might look like crap to us but the friends and family of these players will support them.
That was really baseball's last chance at getting its records back. The one thing it really had going for it compared to other sports was meaningful, comparable, and memorable records. No sport has the stat geeks that baseball has.
As it is, those records have lost all meaning except with a token few. By the time the next generation comes along, they'll be all but gone.
Sure, people might get into it while it's happening, like they did with Manning/Brady's TD pass record. But the aura will fade just as quickly.
These players justify it because "everyone else does it" and they get paid a load of cash. Might look like crap to us but the friends and family of these players will support them.
Before 2002,
MLB had no official policy on steroid use among players. As part of a collective bargaining agreement, players and owners agree to hold survey testing in 2003. If more than 5% of results from the anonymous tests are positive, formal testing and penalties will be put into place the next year.
2003
• Baseball announces after the season that 5% to 7% of test results were positive, triggering the new policy in 2004.
A-Roid was one who tested positive. No penalty for using till 2004.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_L...ll_drug_policy
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/lege...baseball.shtml
Last edited by Biernutz; 02-08-2009 at 04:05 PM.
Disappointing but unsurprising, I won't be surprised to see Pujols get tagged for roids as well. And it's also blatantly obvious that MLB has something to gain to protecting these guys from getting busted...
It's one thing to throw guys like McGwire, Bonds and Palmeiro who are at the end of their careers or out the league, entirely under the bus when people are calling for heads...
Entirely another for them to do it to their present and future with guys like Arod and Pujols...but it's prettyy easy to imagine that in an era when everyone is doing roids, the guys putting up the best numbers, not only of the era, but also in MLB history, are the most likely culprits to be using roids.
As for Griffey Jr...he's never been busted but Griffey Jr is the freaking poster boy for steroids symptoms, I won't be surprised to find out he did them...I'll be surprised to find out he didn't.
He has the freak seasons, the freak injuries, he had the puffy face and packed on some muscle...he also had acne that got worse as he progressed into his 30's
(and his numbers went through the roof)...he has some at ude issues, he has at least one attempted suicide via OD in his past...and he also has a football background.
Jr isn't the last guy I'd suspect of roid usage...outside of McGwire, he'd be the first.
And he has a career path similar to McGwire...only not quite as injury prone.
Who's to say that the records held by previous players weren't tainted to begin with?
Baseball has a long history of cheating. Everyone knows this.
What if Banks, Mays, DiMaggio, Mantle, Marris, etc. were all taking something to give them an edge? Before steriods came around, didn't a lot of baseball players take amphetamines to give them an edge?
All this is bull .
Sure, they took steroids and should be called out for it, but to say that there's some kind of sanc y to previous records is bull . There's no way to know if previous record holders took something to give them that extra edge.
If you can establish Aaron, Ruth, Mays, etc. cheated, then their records should be tainted. That link is unquestionably established for Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, etc. I don't blame the players nearly as much as the commissioner who saw this happening and let it be swept under the rug because the home run chase took all the heat off him for the strikes.
In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we can be blissful in our ignorance of how the records were previously achieved.
But when you get your hand caught in the cookie jar, it can't be ignored or swept under the rug.
I'm not saying to ignore it, not at all.
I'm saying that people place too much faith in previous records. Sure, there isn't any evidence, but there is a high probability that those records are tainted as well.
Baseball has a loooooooooong tradition of cheating.
There are currently 2 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 2 guests)