Steroids in Baseball pt.2 (Bonds, Giambi, Sheffield, BALCO, etc.)

"I believe a large majority of power hitters were drug-assisted over the last 10 or 15 years," Yesalis said, "and I'm outraged by it."

Yep. Please to replace "power hitters" and "10 or 15 years" with THE ACTUAL WORDS that will make that sentence less laughable.

But, of course, (I think someone else made this point, probably Alex) as long as you're not officially breaking the rules, anything's fair game, and any advantage that can be exploited will be exploited for the sake of making the big bucks and winning the big game, whether it be hitters erasing the back line of the batter's box or GMs looking the other way when players are supposedly using not-yet-illegal performance-enhancement drugs.

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Yeah, I conveniently forgot that bit about him saying he "had a feeling". Still, I'd love to know what this "feeling" consisted of - whether it was him eyeballing Caminiti in the locker room, or players and coaches whispering about needles and vials. And, regardless, what's the point of coming forward like this if you have no damn proof (and no book to sell)? And, again, if you have this "hunch", and you're concerned (as he should've been), why not follow it up? Coming forward like this, acting powerless and distraught, when you were in a position to affect change, is not the brightest thing one could do.

It's impossible to say whether Towers knew about Caminiti's cocaine habit. Did he ever show up to the park high, or in no condition to play? It's not that hard to keep a drug addiction secret from the people you work with.

if it was really a big deal to Towers, the Padres could've done some tests on their own to make sure this shit wasn't going down.

I don't think so. A ballclub can't just pull a player aside and force him into doing medical tests of their own choosing. I'm fairly sure that the MLBPA's CA doesn't allow that. In the 80's, everyone was worried about cocaine, and the drug testing policy was basically nonexistant. I think guys like Steve Howe kept getting suspended due to things like prior probations, or disappearing on two day drug binges. MLB was doing very little to keep drugs out of the game, because the policies weren't in place.

MiR OTM. Of course, most ballclubs wouldn't want to either, but even if they did I don't think an individual ballclub could have administered a testing program without it going to court and causing a huge union stink.

That's not the case with steroids, because steroid-related health issues take years to develop. Degenerative injuries get worse over months or years, and it's impossible to prove definitively whether they're naturally occuring or a result of steroid use.

I WILL NOT HEAR OF IT!!! STEROIDS HAVE ONLY BEEN IN BASEBALL SINCE 1999-2000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(*year of Alzado's retirement from the NFL)

If a guy signs a contract and three years into it he develops some freak degenerative hip or back injury like Belle/Vaughn/Giambi did, there's no possible way to conclusively connect such an injury to steroid use in a way that is legally binding. You could never firmly say "steroids caused this injury" in a way that would convince an insurance company.

Major League Baseball players of course stayed far away from the chemicals for almost 20 years*.

*except for Ken Caminitti and Jose Canseco.

If Bonds isn't juiced, then he's a freak of nature. And as gygax said, if he is juiced then he's still a freak of nature because his body hasn't disintegrated like the body of every other steroid user has. (granted, if he didn't start taking steroids until he was 35 or so, then it's different from the more typical cases, i.e. where guys start in their 20's and fall apart by age 35).

This has little to do w/ the steroid thing, but since I thought of it: has Bonds had back problems? I know Canseco & McGwire (& other power hitters) have had back issues up the wazoo because of the way they swing & the stress their technique caused. They were fine early on, but I know both Bash Brothers were waylaid by back problems (& other things) later on, especially McGwire (who was all sorts of busticated before he retired). The only Bonds injuries I can recall involve his hammies & ankles...?

Hey, you're right!

And said what? Make accusations? Offer assistance? Obviously Caminiti would have said that everything was fine, denied everything, said that there were no problems, etc. What would have been accomplished?

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Schuerholz has suspected Braves of steroids use

> By GUY CURTRIGHT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
> Published on: 03/01/05

Lake Buena Vista, Fla. -- John Schuerholz admits he suspected over the years that a few Braves players were using steroids. He even confronted several, he said Tuesday.

"Yes, I was in that position, and yes I did," Schuerholz said, not divulging names. "But I suffered the same frustrations that all other general managers did.

"If we had our suspicions, all we could do was ask the player, and if the player said no, we were done. We had nowhere to go. Our hands were tied behind our backs.

"We had no capability of testing a player to validate or verify whether a guy needed help to get off performance-enhancing drugs."

Schuerholz's revelation comes after San Diego general manager Kevin Towers said he thought Ken Caminiti, briefly a Brave in 2001 at the end of his career, was using steroids when he won the National League MVP award with the Padres in 1996.

"I want to make this clear: As general managers, we didn't turn our heads away from players who might be using steroids because it was a benefit to us," Schuerholz said. 'No, if we turned our heads, it out of frustration because there was nothing we could do about it. Sadly, we didn't have the authority to test players or fix the problem."

Now, baseball does have a drug testing policy with meaningful penalties, and Schuerholz thinks that management and players alike will benefit.

"It's the best thing that could have happened for the integrity of the game," he said. "It's too late coming, but I'm glad that we've finally got here. It's the right path.

"Sure, it could be stronger, but it's a good start. I think the players and the union will realize how beneficial it is. We had to clean things up."

The new drug agreement goes into effect on Thursday with random year-round testing. First-time offenders will be suspended for 10 days without pay, although the public outing might be the greater penalty.

Catcher Johnny Estrada, the Braves' player representative for the union, is confident that the new policy will work, and he said that general managers shouldn't be blamed for anything that happened in the past.

"It was out of their hands," Estrada said. "They didn't have any right to do anything. It was against the agreement between the union and management."

Of course. Is anybody here saying that they shouldn't be banned? The disagreement is to what degree steroids can affect performance.

Milo -- fair enough, then you could have just said so and not directly criticized the BP article that Morbs cited.

there's no disagreement here as no one on ilb has said steroids affect performance! man we do this everytime, it's tedious.

"wes helms didn't play well tonight, not that i want to name names."

huh.

Or, as one of the BP guys said (quoted earlier in the thread), steroids might make the difference between a few warning-track flyouts and home-runs over a player's season. You have to be able to regularly hit them to the warning track for that to matter.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-roids0422,1,1187727.story?coll=bal-sports-baseball

and idle speculation (bob ryan has written a column making not so veiled suggestions that nomahhh is the latest victime of 'roid decline).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13894-2005Apr24.html

will saletan on the nfl hearings and the cluelessness of congress...

http://slate.msn.com/id/2117568/

http://www.mesomorphosis.com/articles/carroll/radio-silence.htm

"The screeching voices of talk radio were left silent, the witches not worth the wood to burn them. Instead of changing the story’s plotline or changing their now-challenged opinion of how ‘their game’ had ‘lost its integrity’ due to these ‘juiced-up sluggers,’ they merely ignored the evidence and looked for other witches.

On the night the first suspension was announced, while most of America was trying to watch baseball’s best rivalry, Joe Morgan, lead analyst for ESPN’s national telecasts and the author of the oh-so-appropriately titled 'Baseball for Dummies', was pointing out that baseball was not releasing the type of substance that resulted in the positive test. Morgan ignored the fact that he couldn’t tell Winstrol from Winn-Dixie and once again railed against common sense, personal privacy, and anything else that didn’t fit the approved storyline of 'steroids is bad.'

...As fans watched the Red Sox and Yankees play in high definition, as they saw more home runs in the first week of 2005 than they had in years previous, and as they bought more jerseys, hats, and tickets than they had in history, it was hard to say that the offseason cloud of steroids, the so-called 'weak policy' that came in an historic agreement between the owners and players, and positive tests had hurt the game. It barely seemed to hurt Alex Sanchez or any of the minor league players that came up positive under an admittedly confusing minor league testing program...

If the fans don’t care, why do journalists, talk radio hosts, and TV personalities? The steroid controversy has never been about the health of players, the integrity of the game, or even saving our children from the dark cloud of illegal substances. It’s been about telling a story they controlled. They just didn’t get the casting right this time."

i mean...seriously.

"Put me on the record as saying that's ridiculous--I mean, until they come up with a list of banned substances. They still don't know what you can buy over the counter and what you can't buy."
--Dodgers catcher Jason Phillips

On top of that, it's unnecessary (we're up to what, five major-leaguers who tested positive? do we need to up the punishment on them?) and doesn't address the real problem with all American professional-sports testing, which is that they're not thorough enough and in baseball's case ill-defined.

Another criticism (and I'm surprised that people aren't making a bigger deal of it): Bud wants amphetamines on the banned list. Essentially, he's outed baseball's not-so-carefully-kept amphetamine secrets. What will the old-timers have to say about *that* when questioned about "the way things were in their day"?

Full denial? That is, if the media even dares to broach the topic and pierce the hallowed aura of Willie, Hank, Schmidt, etc.

Vic Conte is to plead guilty to Steroid distribution/trafficking

Barry Bonds changed his opinion to doubtful for his return this season.

OMG I JUST AGREED WITH JOHN ON SOMETHING

Everybody in MLB could confess to using steroids tomorrow and there would still be people saying "I'm glad Bonds is gone -- let's play ball".

Heredia became the 11th major league player suspended for steroids. The announcement came Tuesday.

Traded from the Yankees to the Mets during the offseason, Heredia appeared in only three games before going on the disabled list in April with a strained left thumb. Doctors then found an aneurysm in his left shoulder after he began having circulation problems and he missed the rest of the season following surgery.

Heredia is 28-19 with six saves in 511 career games -- all but two in relief.

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