CSNbbs

Sad....if true.




http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/...579a1.html

Yep. Clark made some great points in that article.

No way Jose. As much as I dislike Pujos for leaving the Cards, I think he is clean. He is just looking for ratings.

Dayum

Who isn't?

Like college football... if you ain't cheatin, you ain't tryin. The contenders, the stars, are alllll suspect.

Wouldn't surprise me. Heck if Ripkin took something or Ozzie or Bo or Griffey (all favorite players of mine) I wouldn't be surprised. Part of it is that the players (and the league) until this year shrouded the truth and condoned behind a "blue line" like insulation and cover. You know legitimacy behind claims of opposition when players start expressing resentment at how the cheaters are tainting all of their names and start supporting punishment. Hopefully baseball doesn't think one "sting" eliminates the prob and goes back to previous years like its all cured. If the players continue to separate themselves from the cheaters then the league will get better... but that does not address baseball's complicity and hypocrisy. The Cards knew. The cubs knew. The Yankees knew. Knew, did nothing, and profited.

If baseball cared, they'd revoke wins and titles and make contracts voidable, with a two strike you're banned policy. But ... to their credit they're better than the NFL. Anything goes until you sue them rofl...

To be the best in individual or team sports it seems like you have to cheat these days...sad culture we live in and it's an epidemic.

Clark's just trying to get an audience for his radio show. He also tried to claim Justin Verlander was using, no proof just that he seemed to have slowed down considerably. Who doesn't as we get older?

Was there ever really a doubt. He was an unheraled draft pick who didn't pop huge numbers in A ball, yet came to majors and blew up.

(08-09-2013 12:43 PM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]Who isn't?

Like college football... if you ain't cheatin, you ain't tryin. The contenders, the stars, are alllll suspect.

Wouldn't surprise me. Heck if Ripkin took something or Ozzie or Bo or Griffey (all favorite players of mine) I wouldn't be surprised. Part of it is that the players (and the league) until this year shrouded the truth and condoned behind a "blue line" like insulation and cover. You know legitimacy behind claims of opposition when players start expressing resentment at how the cheaters are tainting all of their names and start supporting punishment. Hopefully baseball doesn't think one "sting" eliminates the prob and goes back to previous years like its all cured. If the players continue to separate themselves from the cheaters then the league will get better... but that does not address baseball's complicity and hypocrisy. The Cards knew. The cubs knew. The Yankees knew. Knew, did nothing, and profited.

If baseball cared, they'd revoke wins and titles and make contracts voidable, with a two strike you're banned policy. But ... to their credit they're better than the NFL. Anything goes until you sue them rofl...

I wouldn't believe it with Griffey....dude just is too clean.

(08-09-2013 05:38 PM)uofmcamaro Wrote: [ -> ]

(08-09-2013 12:43 PM)kabluey Wrote: [ -> ]Who isn't?

Like college football... if you ain't cheatin, you ain't tryin. The contenders, the stars, are alllll suspect.

Wouldn't surprise me. Heck if Ripkin took something or Ozzie or Bo or Griffey (all favorite players of mine) I wouldn't be surprised. Part of it is that the players (and the league) until this year shrouded the truth and condoned behind a "blue line" like insulation and cover. You know legitimacy behind claims of opposition when players start expressing resentment at how the cheaters are tainting all of their names and start supporting punishment. Hopefully baseball doesn't think one "sting" eliminates the prob and goes back to previous years like its all cured. If the players continue to separate themselves from the cheaters then the league will get better... but that does not address baseball's complicity and hypocrisy. The Cards knew. The cubs knew. The Yankees knew. Knew, did nothing, and profited.

If baseball cared, they'd revoke wins and titles and make contracts voidable, with a two strike you're banned policy. But ... to their credit they're better than the NFL. Anything goes until you sue them rofl...

I wouldn't believe it with Griffey....dude just is too clean.

Well, with all those guys I mentioned, they had a good image, and didn't really change body wise too much during their careers. Griffey, in his defense, his body never really bulked up (although that doesn't mean one is clean, the conventional use of PED's in those days was to Canseco one's body -- yes I verbed Canseco), his performance never really spiked up, and he did recover from injuries in a way that might suggest PED use (unless there were big injuries in his Seattle days I don't remember). He seemed to age either normally or too quickly, unlike the other PEDs of his day. Bo, unless he was using in high school, never changed, even when he left the game (unlike, say, McGwire, or the Rock).

But there are other ways to benefit from PEDs, and given the shroud of protection of each other that all players seemed to give, nothing would surprise me anymore. I think they all deserve doubt and blame for complicity and profiting from the deception of the fans. The thing is, I don't know how far back it went. Not so much steroids, but PED's. The stories of what "caffeinated" or "leaded" meant in the clubhouse in the 60s and 70s.

But baseball isn't alone... I mean, Adrian Peterson? Hello? ESPN radio is scared to go all out and say it (are they afraid to challenge the shield, or challenge their own comfort), they'll just suggest it. The thing is, football fans won't apply the same scrutiny to AP even if he ever did test positive for it. These OL's that run as fast as WR's in the 80s but are 300 lbs? Not only would it not surprise me with baseball, but NFL either.

Zbo, I can believe that guy is clean. At least with steroids and PED's, lol. Can't jump. Can't run. The PED's don't explain his shot. And he runs out of gas toward the end of the season as he gets toward the end of his career. I'm probably too skeptical, I know if I evaluated them all, there would be legitimate distinctions, but pro athletes deserve it. I'm on their side when it comes to their CBA stances, almost every labor stance I'm pro-player. Until I see public stances of players expressing embarrassment and shame at association with their cheating peers, I think they should all be lumped together. To baseball's credit, they have (only recently) begun to do this. Hopefully, they stick with it.

Shoot Lebrons fivehead amd hairline says enough for me
oh yeah and he is Miami. Hmmmm.

(08-09-2013 04:33 PM)salukiblue Wrote: [ -> ]Was there ever really a doubt. He was an unheraled draft pick who didn't pop huge numbers in A ball, yet came to majors and blew up.

I was going bring that up. I haven't given a great deal of thought to steroids, but I've wondered about that all these years.

Bradlee: "All non-denial denials--we're dirty guys and they doubt we were ever virgins but they don't say the story is inaccurate.
Bernstein: What's a real denial?
Bradlee: If they ever start calling us g**d**n liars, it's time to start circling the wagons."

Albert better be careful of the Oscar Wilde defense. Just ask Rafael Palmiero and Roger Clemens.

The trainer started his defense with, "I haven't talked with the guy in 10 years." Not "that lying sack of S***!"

Watching Alberts early season struggles the last few years, followed up by mid season turnarounds, his "miraculous" propensity for healing from injury, his coming up in a roid happy Cardinals clubhouse, and it would be naive to assume he was always 100% clean. Even Dave McKay's kid, Cody, turned out to be using, as the Mitchell report noted. McKay was responsible for the Cardinals weight program, as Tony La Russa notes in One Last Strike. McGwire, Rick Ankiel, and Ryan Franklin have all been implicated or caught, and La Russa's Oakland A's weren't exactly choir boys, either.

I'm not big on keeping all of these guys from the steroid era out of the Hall of Fame, and I don't think we should all pile on Pujols now, but I think we know now what was going on.

I've assumed pretty much anybody who is good in baseball has been using the past 5 years. That includes miguel cabrera and chris davis this year. They're just using something new that isn't being tested for yet, that's all.

You have a pretty good sample size for baseball, like 150 years, and basically, it's nearly impossible to hit 50 home runs unless you're an all-time great. From the beginning of baseball stats through 1990, it was done 18 times:

Babe Ruth x4
Hack Wilson
Jimmie Foxx x2
Hank Greenberg
Johnny Mize
Ralph Kiner x2
Willie Mays x2
Mickey Mantle x2

That's it. Now, since 1990, it's been done 25 times
Cecil Fielder
Mark McGwire x4
Sammy Sosa x4
Alex Rodriguez x3
Cecil Fielder
Albert Belle
Brady Anderson
Ken Griffey Jr x2
Greg Vaughn
David Ortiz
Luis Gonzalez
Jim THome
Andruw Jones
Ryan Howard
Prince Fielder
Jose Bautista

On this recent list, you basically know McGwire, Sosa, Arod, and Ortiz were using. Based on common sense and career trajectories with abnormal late, large power spikes, Luis Gonzalez, Brady Anderson and Greg Vaughn were almost certainly using as well. Jose Bautista's power numbers are also hilariously suspect.

I'll buy the kid, Jim Thome,Cecil and Prince Fielder, and Ryan Howard I suppose, though Cecil Fielder's story is, um, unlikely, to me.

(08-10-2013 08:44 AM)jgardne Wrote: [ -> ]I've assumed pretty much anybody who is good in baseball has been using the past 5 years. That includes miguel cabrera and chris davis this year. They're just using something new that isn't being tested for yet, that's all.

You have a pretty good sample size for baseball, like 150 years, and basically, it's nearly impossible to hit 50 home runs unless you're an all-time great. From the beginning of baseball stats through 1990, it was done 18 times:

Babe Ruth x4
Hack Wilson
Jimmie Foxx x2
Hank Greenberg
Johnny Mize
Ralph Kiner x2
Willie Mays x2
Mickey Mantle x2

That's it. Now, since 1990, it's been done 25 times
Cecil Fielder
Mark McGwire x4
Sammy Sosa x4
Alex Rodriguez x3
Cecil Fielder
Albert Belle
Brady Anderson
Ken Griffey Jr x2
Greg Vaughn
David Ortiz
Luis Gonzalez
Jim THome
Andruw Jones
Ryan Howard
Prince Fielder
Jose Bautista

On this recent list, you basically know McGwire, Sosa, Arod, and Ortiz were using. Based on common sense and career trajectories with abnormal late, large power spikes, Luis Gonzalez, Brady Anderson and Greg Vaughn were almost certainly using as well. Jose Bautista's power numbers are also hilariously suspect.

I'll buy the kid, Jim Thome,Cecil and Prince Fielder, and Ryan Howard I suppose, though Cecil Fielder's story is, um, unlikely, to me.

Interesting observations.....and the first four on your list got their 50+'s with a relatively dead ball.

(08-09-2013 08:12 PM)salukiblue Wrote: [ -> ]Shoot Lebrons fivehead amd hairline says enough for me
oh yeah and he is Miami. Hmmmm.

ESPN to its credit is beginning the discussion in the NBA. It reminded me of DRose raising concerns one day, then the next mysteriously feigning amnesia. Its far more pervasive than fanatics are willing to acknowledge. Your favorite team is involved. Any player can go to a big city. And that's where these clinics are. Atl, Dallas, Houston, LA, SF, NY, Chi, Boston. Major sports with a criminal underbelly experienced in intimidation. Players in smaller cities have access to these cities anytime they want. The desperation to preserve money, jobs, status, championships and wins. Heck, look at meatheads like Gronk. We don't speak up because either we fool ourselves or are selectively ethical. Silence is complicity. Or fear.

Heck, that Cowboy inducted this year who said all natural, I wouldn't take his word for it. Maybe Manning, Jeter, Duncan. But nothing surprises me. Its in Hollywood, and Hugh Jackman and the Rock set as poor examples in doing that as Arod or Lebron (if he is using) or Gronk (again if). Jamaican world record gold medalist who so far has not tested dirty? Give the tests time as long as the IOC itself has reformed and they preserve blood samples. With the pro leagues until they collectively bargain to make the tests tougher and year round, our favorite athletes will get away with it.

Ref fixing and Stern's manipulation are lies by conspiracy theorists when it comes to the NBA.

PEDs are a true problem. Massive self preservation across several leagues. And consumers who want to believe, and have irrational emotional investments in the belief. Not mythologyzing one individual's power and ethics to fictionally demonic levels. But. hundreds of people trying to make bucks by keeping silent.

Edit: PEDs don't explain all excellence. Bat on ball. Ball in hands. Precision of passes and throws in basketball, football, baseball. But recovery, speed, strength. Yes.

Ps: Cuban (brilliant entrepreneur) even made a ridiculous claim about HGH, thankfully publicly so discussions can be sparked about ridding this. The simmering atmosphere of intolerance in baseball must spread to the NFL and NBA. I don't have faith that fans will subordinate their self centered enjoyment to tolerate the cleaning up of the games, ESPECIALLY in the NFL. NBA might have a chance but more from the haters of the league. In this regard the polarized nature of the NBA could save it. They could motivate the purists to speak up.

Unless there are lawsuits against the league. Then the leagues would wake up. But I can't envision players doing that for PEDs with the same force as the clearer subterfuge and deception by the league in CTE litigation.

I wanted to separate my unfounded conspiracy theory, 1) because there's no hypothesis, and 2) because I'm somewhat a prisoner of the moment.

I see a frayed thread I want to pull. Whitey Bulger and history of organized crime and continued criminal atmosphere almost unrepentant when you see how other characters are behaving during the trial (or winding up dead!) as well as location near other major population centers. Aaron Hernandez (Boston, Florida, Miami?). Gronks meathead. Success of Pats, Cs, Bruins, Red Sox. It would be salaciously unfounded for me to concoct a tie among it all. Hence I didn't want to discredit a sincere post by associating it with this.

But one of my eyebrows is raised. Rock-style. No smirk though...

Talk about a short career. Even on talk radio, if you put it out there, you really need some facts and not third hand hearsay.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2013/08/radio-ho...-steroids/