MLB's new testing policy

"cap"

still haven't read about the new policy but i will do so.

And why ppl persist in comparing this to amateurs who have NO leverage is beyond me.

#2 - RICKEY

WAS HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE BANNED?

Theoretically, yes. But realistically, no.

While HGH was added to the list of illegal substances, don't expect anyone to be suspended for using it anytime soon -- because both sides admit there is no test for it yet. A blood test is being developed, but this agreement allows only urine testing.

Manfred said that when a "validated urine test is available, we will use that test." But for now, Human Growth Hormone still falls into the category of undetectable substances -- even though it's technically banned.

What will be the best way to judge baseball’s new steroids testing program -- by the number of home runs in 2005 or the size of Barry Bonds’ head?

Will Carroll in BP: "I'm optimistic that this policy will do what it's intended to do. While I believe that Commissioner Selig does feel that he has the game's best interests at heart, he is also smart enough to realize that he is not fighting a war on drugs, but a battle against bad public relations. There are few outside the halls of NFL management that would argue that pro football is steroid-free. It is almost completely steroid-controversy free, due to a proactive policy that accomplished nearly a decade ago what baseball hopes to do now."

Who said it would? That's what it should be designed to do though so obv the Olympic comparison is still apt.

Morbius, do you ever get tired of jocking the Baseball Prospectus crew? Not that I particularly want to know your personal opinion of anything, I just imagine that so much cutting & pasting of other folk's would just get a little stale.

And like gygax said, we have no idea what else McGwire was taking, just like we don't have any idea what every other player in the last four decades might have been taking. The scapegoating has to stop.

Scapegoating haha.

No, there were no rules declaring that andro was *illegal*. That's not the same as legal.
Um, yeah it is. If it ain't illegal, it's legal.

Does McGwire actually compare to Bonds aside from "they both hit home runs"?
McGwire had four 50+ home run seasons from ages 32-36, was always a slugger, and his slugging rose ~.200 over his career average before (and recovering from three injury-ridden seasons) the four seasons.
Bonds picked up ~.200 points over his career slugging peak at age 36, stayed .100-.200 points over his earlier average % and shows no sign of declining.

McGwire may have been using something else, we can't know. But the two situations don't look analgous.
re: Canseco, Caminiti claims - has there ever been any kind of evidence to substantiate those?

Alex: a crime is a crime. Rules are rules, no matter who breaks them. If a homeless junkie commits armed robbery, and an upper-class father of two commits the identical crime of armed robbery, who is more guilty? Do we make an example out of the more successful criminals in the hope of setting an example for the deadbeats?

You're arguing that there are rules for Barry, and completely different rules for everybody else. So we're supposed to make the punishment fit the crime, dependent on the (perceived) guilty party's social or professional standing? Do you think the entire North American legal system should work this way? Is is fair for poor people and rich people to be viewed differently in the eyes of the criminal justice system too?

No, you are arguing that I should feel bad that Barry is getting shit on. It's called the "WE SHOULD ALL FEEL SO BAD FOR MARTHA STEWART CUZ SHE'S JUST BEING MADE AN EXAMPLE OF" defense. Fuck that shit. Barry's a completely dishonest scumfuck (not just because he used, but also because he bold-facedly and repeatedly lies through his teeth about what he is doing and how it has affected his perfomance) and just because there may be other completely dishonest scumfucks around doesn't make me want to feel the slightest bit sorry for him for being singled out. But I'm sure Barry appreciates all the sympathy he's getting from dipes who share his name, so if you want to waste your tears crying over him go right ahead. Maybe he'll send you a signed syringe.

Since my viewpoint obviously hasn't penetrated your thick skull, let me summarize my position yet again:

1) everybody must be presumed innocent except in the case of either a positive test or a confession.

2) every MLB player is equal under the rules -- i.e. no scapegoating.

This is called equality. In my view, everyone caught doping is equally guilty. To all dopers: I feel equally NOT sorry for each of you.

Alex in SF: "just because there may be other completely dishonest scumfucks around doesn't make me want to feel the slightest bit sorry for him for being singled out".

translation: "I have no problem with Barry being a scapegoat. Regardless of whether or not other people are also cheating, I have no problem with Barry being singled out above all of the rest".

No, I mostly ignore your pointless ramblings (really even Morbo's whingings on this subject makes more sense than yours, most days--of course he's cribbing from "smarter than [he] is" so maybe I shouldn't give him too much credit.)

Arguing with someone who actually believes that the fact that people focusing on STARS (gosh, people write more about STARS and they cheer and boo STARS more and they bitch and complain more about STARS--really who'da thunk it) is some kind of failure of the equal protection clause of the US Constitution has got to set some kind of new record for ridiculousness. FTR though Barry hasn't been sent to jail. He's not going to be punished by MLB. He's not having his money taken away from him (unlike what they will try with poopoor Jason Giambi and I've not heard any pundits say they either think THAT is a good idea or that it is fair--most people seem to think it's one of the more scummy and hypocritical things the Yankees have ever done.) He's not going to have his records or MVPs stripped. All this talk of scapegoating is bullshit. STARS get cheered more, they get booed more, their lives are exposed to more scrutiny, they appear more in the tabloids, etc. It's the price of fame and if the price was too high for poor poor Barry, Barry, well he either shouldn't have played the game so well or he shouldn't have juiced and the LIED ABOUT IT REPEATEDLY AND BOLDFACEDLY.

i can't believe no one has taken issue with the "a crime is a crime" defense itself though.

Remember, MLB announced last winter than they'd tested for steroids, and what, 10% of them were positive? Obviously, you guys don't think that's important.

Remember, the actual objective here is to clean up the game of baseball, NOT to prove that Barry Bonds took steroids. You guys are becoming characatures of Boswell. This whole "fuck the rules, we'll punish whoever the fuck we want to punish" stance is so cartoonishly militaristic, I'm glad you're not a politician running the country the same way that you believe baseball should be run.

No, I mostly ignore your pointless ramblings

No suprise -- because if you'd read anything I wrote, then you wouldn't be mischaracterizing my argument so badly. When having a discussion, it's customary to actually pay attention to what is being said.

Hello Mr. Pot meet Mr. Barry. You guys will have a lot to talk about concerning black.

Also Barry I think you might want to think about how ludicrous your application of the word scapegoat is (it's not like people are BLAMING Bonds for bringing steroids into baseball--they are pointing fingers at him, quite rationally, for using them and then lying like a motherfucker about it.) Just because you are marginally intelligent enough to be aware of a word's definition doesn't mean you are capable of actually using it in a sentence.

source: Funk and Wagnall's standard college dictionary, Canadian edition.

scapegoat (n.)

1. In the Bible, the goat upon whose head Aaron symbolically laid the sins of the people on the day of atonement, after which it was led away into the wilderness.
2. An animal, person, or group chosen to bear symbolically or suffer for the bad luck or sins of an individual or group.
3. Any person bearing blame for others.

So,

Barry I think you might want to think about how ludicrous your application of the word scapegoat is (it's not like people are BLAMING Bonds for bringing steroids into baseball

The definition doesn't specify that BB had to bring steroids into the game to be a scapegoat.

just because there may be other completely dishonest scumfucks around doesn't make me want to feel the slightest bit sorry for him for being singled out.

That's pretty much definition #2 right there. You're advocating for the justice in having Barry take the blame regardless of who else may be doing the exact same thing.

QED

"When having a discussion, it's customary to actually pay attention to what is being said."

I'm responding directly to the points you raised. Happy now?

And let me say this again, but I'll put it in boldface so that maybe you'll notice it:

the actual objective here is to clean up the game of baseball, NOT to prove that Barry Bonds took steroids

I'm advocating the former. That is not scapegoating. You are maniacally transfixed upon the latter, and are remaining willfully blind and unconcerned about the former. That is scapegoating.

Stay in school, Barry. Really.

Hahahahaha good lord even when you are pretending to actually engage with what someone else is saying you are so willfully detached from reality that you have to mischaracterize their argument completely in order to make whatever stupid bit of pedantic one-ups-manship has struck your fancy.

It doesn't make a whit of difference that you started the thread -- as soon as the serious discussion started you went headlong into your crazed Bonds-bashing tirades just like you always do.

You're clearly in favour of instituting a tough drug testing policy. Stop playing Wild West Sheriff with these vendettas against particular players that you don't care for and start talking about, you know, POLICY. Then I'll be able to take you seriously.

xpost, I know, I thought it'd be 17-3 at the half

Are you dense? With the EXCEPTION of Giambi (and I seriously doubt the Yankees are going to be able to void his contract) they are ALL getting away scot free for what they may or not have not have been doing for however many years. I don't call getting articles written about one's obvious and then self-confessed drug use "punishment". I'm not even going to talk about your concept of "blame" which is just bizarre.

And you're right -- lots of people are going to get away scot-free. Including Bonds (maybe). If Bonds knowingly took steroids, the only difference between what he did and what others did is that Bonds will have perjured himself in front of a grand jury. Which is a different matter altogether, with its own separate penalties (i.e. jail).

The things McGwire has admitted using are legal - they have not been banned by the governing body and he cannot be punished for using them, ergo they are legal.

Too bad they lost. If Alex is a fan, they're obviously drug-free!

Enough, Already

The steroids crusaders, Dr. Gary Wadler and Dick Pound most prominently among them, obviously understand the difference between legislating against steroids use by Olympic athletes and by athletes in professional sports. But they ignore that critical distinction and sound ignorant when they talk about steroids in baseball.

They say that the union should cave in to their beliefs and that the penalties agreed upon in the new steroids-testing program are still not sufficient. But like any union, this one has the right to negotiate a plan it believes is right for its members.

If the members - the players - wanted something more severe, they would let their labor leaders know. The players could have done that in 2002, when the two sides negotiated the first steroids-testing program, and they could have done it the past year as the two sides conducted talks for a revised agreement.

Contrary to what some uninformed critics think, union leaders, even Marvin Miller, the patron saint of sports union leaders, listens when players talk. Otherwise, they don't hold their jobs. Ken Moffett learned that as Miller's successor in the early 1980's when he talked and the players listened, then dismissed him.

To hear Wadler, Pound and others talk, baseball somehow should run roughshod over the union. They might be able to do that with Olympic athletes, but they wouldn't get away with it with a union of players.

Even Commissioner Bud Selig, who wanted the strictest testing program, defends the union.

"I think it's an unfair criticism of them," Selig said. "We've done it now; they've done it. No matter what these two parties do, it'll never be enough for some people."

Jesus, do I have to spell out everything around here ... I know that because it wasn't banned in 1998, then officially it was legal and McGwire can't be punished for using it.

However, by 1998, andro was banned by the IOC, NFL, and NHL among others. It wasn't banned in MLB ONLY because MLB had their heads up their asses when it came to drug testing. It's not like the drug was some obscure secret, since other major sports leagues already having banned it. And had McGwire not been caught with the stuff (turning it from a non-issue into a pressing issue for MLB literally overnight), then it's certainly possible that it still wouldn't be banned, even today.

So, it was basically on a technicality that McGwire was able to use the stuff, because if MLB had been the least bit competent It's like being granted a mistrial because the prosecution mishandled evidence. And I'm saying this is NOT the same as "it's safe and healthy to use this stuff, it's legal".

because if MLB had been the least bit competent then the issue of andro would have been addressed years earlier.

Right. It was legal. Not a banned substance. Which was, you know the point:

Here was the exchange that led here:

bnw - What McGwire took was legal.
you - No, there were no rules declaring that andro was *illegal*. That's not the same as legal.

Which was then, as now, bullshit. It was legal.

"If you tell me steroids help you hit major league pitching more often and farther, I see no evidence whatsoever. None...I think if you tell me that using steroids and bulking up like that will help the performance of a football linebacker, maybe. If you tell me it will help a professional wrestler, maybe. If you tell me it will help a beer hall bouncer, maybe. If you tell me it will help somebody become the governor of California, maybe.

"Did you ever see a picture of Babe Ruth in his youth? Slender as a rail, with skinny legs, which he maintained always, and [a picture of] Babe Ruth in his prime? People get older. Athletes train differently. This is what I mean by anecdotal evidence. So Barry Bonds is heavier and has more muscle at 41 than he had at 21. OK, that's a fact. Now, link it up with his ability to hit, and I don't see the evidence.

"To say that now you're going to reopen that agreement because there are outside pressures is about as unstabilizing as you can imagine. I say bluffing, because what is there that McCain could do, or what could George Bush do? Government cannot order random testing. Government cannot legislate that way. The Constitution forbids it.

"In most locker rooms, most clubhouses, amphetamines—-red ones, green ones, etc., were lying out there in the open, in a bowl, as if they were jellybeans.... They were not put there by the players, so of course there was no pressure to test. They were being distributed by ownership. I can't remember ever having a proposal from the owners, that we're going to have random testing or testing of any kind.

"When I say you ought to start from what is, the fact of the matter is that not one player has been tested under that provision. Of course clubs don't do it, it's such an impossible concept when you think about it. What's a club employer supposed to do, bring a player before the committee because of probable cause, and when asked what's the probable cause says, 'He's hitting too many damn home runs?' That's the most illogical thing I've ever heard."

--Marvin Miller, former executive director of the MLBPA (Boston Globe)

I'm not sure I believe this number, if only because the MLB has said for years that the teams/owners are losing money, but have never released any numbers indicating that is actually the case. The players aren't the only ones in baseball with a lack of credibility.

If the owners were bluffing about the number of positive tests, wouldn't the players be calling their bluff right about now?