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Barry Bonds* (Steroids)
- Thread starter treblah
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you don't seriously think that A-rod takes steroids and Bonds doesn't do you?
I hope you were playing devil's advocate because there is no way that is possible, there is no doubt in my mind that Barry took steroids or HGH or something, And if a-rod did take steroids, i would imagine that he would have hit 100 HR in a season by now
you don't seriously think that A-rod takes steroids and Bonds doesn't do you?
I hope you were playing devil's advocate because there is no way that is possible, there is no doubt in my mind that Barry took steroids or HGH or something, And if a-rod did take steroids, i would imagine that he would have hit 100 HR in a season by now
mostly devil's advocate, but you never know...
you don't seriously think that A-rod takes steroids and Bonds doesn't do you?
I hope you were playing devil's advocate because there is no way that is possible, there is no doubt in my mind that Barry took steroids or HGH or something, And if a-rod did take steroids, i would imagine that he would have hit 100 HR in a season by now
I refuse to join in the hate-fest on Bonds.
I simply don't care if he took steroids because I have yet to hear a convincing argument why steroids or HGH or whatever are horrible and cheating but LASIK, TJ surgery, special contact lenses from Nike, not to mention modern surguries are just fine.
If it weren't for career saving surgery, Roger Clemens would probably be working at the local gas station right about now. And that goes for many major league players.
Personally, I think taking some scrub and giving him the eyesight of Ted Williams is a hell of a lot more of a "cheat" than pumping your body with some steroids which isn't going to help you hit the ball, but will probably help you play more games due to faster recovery.
Not this argument again, its been proven that roids help with a swing by speeding up the bat. The health risks alone should be a good reason not to use it. Fixing ones eye site or getting surgery to repair what was broken is not the same as pumping your body full of chemicals to get an unnatural edge.
Well, firstly all the other things you mentioned are not against the law, like steroids are.
Secondly, why I agree that steroids wont help you hit the ball, they will help you hit the ball harder and further, perhaps turning fly ball outs into home runs.
What's legal is entirely arbitrary. Why steroids should be illegal and cheating but taking a ligament from one arm and putting in the other is normal medicinal treatment is just completely arbitrary.
Even so, it was only in early 2005 that steroids became controlled substances.
Through the 2004 season Barry Bonds had clubbed 703 HR and he has not tested before or tested positive since.
What exactly did he do wrong other than annoy the media?
Steroids making balls fly farther is a myth. To the extent that it helps at all, it is to such a small degree that it is meaningless.
More likely the surge in HR is due to a changed approach at the plate, particularly as Bonds changed from a more speed oriented player to a slugger.
From ESPN:
"From 1987 to 1998, Bonds' average ground ball to flyball ratio was 0.81; between 1999 and last season, it was 0.62 -- an increase of about 19 extra flyballs for every 300 balls put into play."
Really who proved it? If it's that simple, one link will do.
Most of what steroids do is recovery. How is recovery on a day-to-day basis -- the recovery from micro injuries -- any different than a massive surgical intervention?
How are chemicals, many of which are completely natural and occur in your own body an unnatural edge but taking machines to transplant a ligament or shave your eyeball is normal?
Even if the steroids in question are artificial, that's no different than using artificial means to repair a rotator cuff or a broken leg.
Nick Johnson the injured 1B for the nats broke his femur and has titanium in his leg. How is that "natural"?
Isn't him using titanium an unfair advantage over people who didn't have that option?
Think for a minute, the illogic detector is going off.
When I was talking about legal vs illegal I wasn't talking about with respect to the laws of the game, I was talking with respect to the laws of the land.
I'm aware of that, and my answer reflects that.
As for why they are banned in competition, that's simple because the world has a preoccupation with drugs and these are seen to be "unfair" and "cheating" because they can improve performance.
We all know how well banning things works. Just look at cycling. Those guys are tested like crazy and they still can't keep the sport clean.
I agree your argument is rather silly, Macnut.
The only real sound reason for banning the use of steroids in sports is not that they give you an "unnatural edge," but because the benefits come with a significant health risk to the user. Medical science moves forward, just like training techniques, and all of it helps the ballplayers of today gain an edge over those of yesterday. No one should suggest that a drug that helps players heal faster should be banned, if it were not for the negative consequences to a player's health of the overuse of these drugs. The problem is, of course, that the financial incentives for players and owners to abuse steroids are too great and can lead to a real threat to an athlete's health.
After all, macnut, what is the problem with a pitcher being able to get back on the mound within a shorter period of time because their arm heals quicker? Or is there some horrible problem with someone being able to work out more often and train harder with the help of medicine the helps them recover faster? I don't think so. The player still has to throw the pitches and has to do the weight lifting to build the muscle. An inconvenient fact the hysteria around steroids ignores. Give us a version of steroids that doesn't also give us the health risks, and I'll be all for its legalized use in sport.
btw there is something cultural and pervasive in boosting attributes beyond what is considered "normal" or "natural" and it does not just cover baseball in particular or sports in general.
Take genetic screening, diagnosis, and treatment.
People are generally ok with negative selection using IVF (for example, screening embryos for Tay-Sachs disease then only using those who test negative). But once you start getting into positive selections, people get very very nervous.
Positive selections would be things like selecting the color of your kid's eyes or for genes associated with intelligence or height.
I believe that is what is at the core of the tension between performance-enhancing drugs and modern medicine. Most medical techniques are used to repair things that are broken and bring you back to a normal status. Steroids or EPO or other substances are positive selectors, improving beyond what was already present.
Of course even this is a dubious distinction because we already have things like Nike's Vision contact lenses.
Don't believe me? Listen to doctors themselves:
"It's for anybody who takes their sports seriously who wants to crank their game up to the next level," said Dr. Hal Breedlove, an optometrist at Coastal Vision in Virginia Beach, Va.
What exactly is "the next level" if not enhanced performance?
Let's look at the example of Brian Roberts (whom I love as a player).
Taken from ESPN:
In the 384 games Roberts played in his major-league career heading into this season (2005), the 27-year-old hit 16 home runs. In his 110-game 2005 season, he's smacked 17 homers. Before this year, he had a .264 batting average. This year, he's batting .321 and started in his first All-Star Game.
If someone had told you that Brian Roberts had been using something that a doctor told him took him to the next level but didn't tell you what it was and then showed you those numbers, I bet 99 out of 100 people would assume steroid use.
In fact the change he made was to the Nike Vision contact lenses.
Take genetic screening, diagnosis, and treatment.
People are generally ok with negative selection using IVF (for example, screening embryos for Tay-Sachs disease then only using those who test negative). But once you start getting into positive selections, people get very very nervous.
Positive selections would be things like selecting the color of your kid's eyes or for genes associated with intelligence or height.
I believe that is what is at the core of the tension between performance-enhancing drugs and modern medicine. Most medical techniques are used to repair things that are broken and bring you back to a normal status. Steroids or EPO or other substances are positive selectors, improving beyond what was already present.
Of course even this is a dubious distinction because we already have things like Nike's Vision contact lenses.
Don't believe me? Listen to doctors themselves:
"It's for anybody who takes their sports seriously who wants to crank their game up to the next level," said Dr. Hal Breedlove, an optometrist at Coastal Vision in Virginia Beach, Va.
What exactly is "the next level" if not enhanced performance?
Let's look at the example of Brian Roberts (whom I love as a player).
Taken from ESPN:
In the 384 games Roberts played in his major-league career heading into this season (2005), the 27-year-old hit 16 home runs. In his 110-game 2005 season, he's smacked 17 homers. Before this year, he had a .264 batting average. This year, he's batting .321 and started in his first All-Star Game.
If someone had told you that Brian Roberts had been using something that a doctor told him took him to the next level but didn't tell you what it was and then showed you those numbers, I bet 99 out of 100 people would assume steroid use.
In fact the change he made was to the Nike Vision contact lenses.
Sobe if you don't care that he took steroids, that he cheated to get all these records, then would you mind if he didn't actually have the all time record for HR, HR in a season etc? Or if he had an asterisk next to his name in the record books?
So Bud Selig swallowed his morals and is going to be in San Francisco to watch Barry Roids ruin another record.
Bud Selig has never had any morals. None of the owners who pushed the use of steroids with a wink and a nudge in order to boost attendance and profits have anything close to what can be called "morals." They risked other people's health and lives so they could make lots of money. At least the players only risked their own bodies.
btw, MacNut, isn't it time you took the blinders off and stopped blaming Barry for the use of steroids in baseball? If Bonds did use steroids, he is hardly the only player to do so. That includes on your own beloved Yankees. I realize the trash talk is part of sports, but your "roid" talk around Bonds is getting tiresome.
As far as the record goes, Bonds is the best player of his era, and the best homerun hitter of his era not because he will pass Aaron, but because if you have watched baseball in the last 20+ years it is an undeniable fact. Passing Aaron doesn't diminish what Hank did, nor does it make him the best player of his era (that honor goes to Mays or, perhaps, Mantle - with Robinson and Clemente as closer runner ups that Aaron.) What Aaron did, with all the benefits of the training and medicine available to him in his day (and unavailable to Ruth,) was to last longer at a higher level than most people thought possible. He was never the homerun hitter that many of his contemporaries were. That's not a put down of The Hammer, but simple objective reality. I've all the respect in the world for Aaron as a person and as a great, great player, and when Bonds passes him in numbers of career homeruns it will diminish none of it. However, the record and who holds it has to be looked at in the context of the era in which each player played.
^True but most of the players who took steroids didn't break any HUGE records, except for Bonds and McGuire.
I know people on the Yankees have taken steroids (cough *GIAMBI* cough), I would guess at least one player on every major league team has taken steroids or HGH. I have no respect for these players, they shouldn't cheat to get where they are, but as for bonds, he's gonna brake the biggest record in baseball by cheating, and that's not right
I know people on the Yankees have taken steroids (cough *GIAMBI* cough), I would guess at least one player on every major league team has taken steroids or HGH. I have no respect for these players, they shouldn't cheat to get where they are, but as for bonds, he's gonna brake the biggest record in baseball by cheating, and that's not right
Would I mind? As a big fan of the game yes I would mind very much.
Unless you're going to go back into time and make sure every single player was clean from amphetamines, cocaine, steroids, who knows what else, singling out Bonds is absurd.
On top of all that, a ton of his jacks were hit when (even if he did take them, which he probably did) it wasn't even officially cheating.
Don't you recall the whole andro thing with McGwire?
So yeah I would have a problem with it. Leave the asterisks out and leave the records in. It's slectively applying rules of conduct that never applied to people in the past.
Wether or not they were legal in the game is besides the point that they are legal period. As for Bonds and the rest of the league the difference is that Bonds is going after the biggest record ever. Giambi will never come close to that record.
Just because the game didn't test for it doesn't mean that it was right that they used the stuff.
Just because the game didn't test for it doesn't mean that it was right that they used the stuff.
Don't you remember Barry's pre-73 HR days?
The guy was a hall of famer even if he never hit 73 or approached 755.
Look at the numbers:
He has 514 career stolen bases.
A career OBP of .444
8 gold gloves (by my count).
7 MVPs
2 batting crowns
*********
ARod has many feww plate appearances and Bonds walks so much that it's even bigger in reality, but still as great as ARod is...he cannot touch Bonds in a few areas.
only 251 career SB
only a .387 career OBP (which is good but hardly elite).
2 MVPs
2 gold gloves
1 batting crown.
*****
Bonds has roughly 8 years in the bigs prior to ARod coming up so calling them of the same generation is probably not really fair.
Even so, when you consider golden gloves, MVP awards, stolen bases, home runs....everything...there is simply no comparison.
^True but most of the players who took steroids didn't break any HUGE records, except for Bonds and McGuire.
I know people on the Yankees have taken steroids (cough *GIAMBI* cough), I would guess at least one player on every major league team has taken steroids or HGH. I have no respect for these players, they shouldn't cheat to get where they are, but as for bonds, he's gonna brake the biggest record in baseball by cheating, and that's not right
You, of course, have the copy of Bonds' failed drug test to prove this, right?
The truth is that Barry has failed no test that we know of, and he hasn't admitted to the use of any illegal substance. Nor, unlike Sosa and others, has he ever been disciplined or caught cheating in anyway. There are rules in baseball and if you get caught breaking them there are rules for how you are disciplined. Check back with me if and when Bonds is actually caught breaking the rules.
MacNut, the idea that Bonds is not an "all around" talent is silly. The only member of the 500-500 club? How many Gold Gloves? Eight, I think, off the top of my head. How many MVPs does Bonds have? I've got nothing against A-Rod, and if he goes another 5 to 6 years at this pace we can have a discussion. Otherwise, we could argue that Pujols who reached 200 at a younger age is clearly the best player ever or of this era. I'd have like to see what A-Rod would have done playing in other parks than in the band boxes he played in in Seattle and Texas. No doubt he is a great player, however. Just not of Bonds' caliber - yet.
there's no way to test for HGH, Seyhey, but looking at what he did, nobody can hit 73 HR in a season without some insane aides. I believe he took steroids or HGH just looking at the pictures.
Before:
After:
I seriously doubt he was on a strict exercise regimen to get these kind of results
Before:
After:
I seriously doubt he was on a strict exercise regimen to get these kind of results