Clearly you didn’t understand Jeff’s post that you refererenced. Here is a clue “poor, innocent players of the good ol’ days” is sarcasm. Such players do not actually exist. These so called “innocent players” you invest so much hero worshiping into are only “innocent” in the false memories or you and so many others that are just too blinded by your “hero worshiping” to see the truth.

Jeffs post above me says it all- it is why people like you idolize the numbers and make illlogical leaps trying oh so hard to justify the illegal and ill gotten anabolic steriods. Everything is explained away as essentially OK, instead of indicting the game and it’s fakeness from the top to the bottom. people fight long and hard to justfy it, why? well because they idolize a game that’s numbers use to mean something, now you can’t believe a word from any of them, or the writers that cover them.

It is what it is.

I remember sometime I believe in 1988 when Ozzie Canseco got called up in September and I was at a game. He was doing the pregame stretching and Jose came out to chat with him. You don’t expect twins to look exactly alike but the contrast between the two of them was like a father and his young teenage son. They look alike, are roughly the same height, but the musculature is way different. I was at the game with my sister and I remember her saying “wow Jose Canseco is on steroids.” I’ve known for years that McGwire was juiced, and Giambi, and Tejada, even a guy like Vellarde (Adam Piatt was a revelation). Anyone with any common sense could see it on their teams. Was I outraged? No. Some of the names that came out surprised me, more because of the lack of physical tells than anything else and to show just how prevalent it was within the game.

The other thing that gets me with fans and the media is how prevalent it is in other sports, football especially. I actually do have some issue with football because I don’t think the game is as entertaining as it was in the 80’s. I liked seeing a difference between the skill positions and the grunts. Now linebackers look like lineman and run like receivers, and running backs are the size of linebackers and run faster than ever before. That doesn’t mean I am outraged of course. These guys even if they aren’t juiced take their lives at risk playing a violent game and usually live shorter lives as a result. Playing that extra season or two can make the difference in being able to secure the long-term stability of their family and it’s hard to fault a guy for that, even if the way they go about it is dangerous.

Let’s not even talk about the Olympics.

Please refrain from posting untrue statements in the future. Before you speak up with such a strong opinion, you could try doing some actual research to find actual facts. Nobody has ever said it’s ok for kids to do steroids – based on the articles I read and posted, though they generally advocate supervised steroid use to some degree, it is a 100% consensus that people who aren’t fully mature (aka kids) should not use steroids. Second, just because a wrestler has mental issues does not mean steroids had anything to do with his killing himself and his family (I assume you mean Chris Benoit). Try reading the wikipedia article on his death. Lyle Alzado is not a doctor, and even though he thought his steroid use contributed to his brain tumor, actual doctors who know what they’re talking about have ruled this out as impossible. As for greenies, there have been multiple deaths directly linked to their usage, so I don’t see how you downplay that? Tommy Simpson is an example. Basically, if you want to continue to be so strongly opinionated despite the fact that you have no idea what you’re talking about and are unwilling to read actual facts, I don’t know what to tell you. If you’re more open minded than that, check out the 4 articles I posted in a comment farther up. Otherwise, you’re making the world a worse place and I have to ask, can’t you please stop?

Sad.

It seems that steroids, if used properly under a doctors supervision, would have many benefits with limited negative health effects to a professional athlete. Thus, it is very comparable to a cortisone shot, unfortunately, a bunch of grandstanding politicians made some laws that have no scientific basing. I think you should read the articles – even if your opinion stays the same they will certainly give you some worthwhile material to think about. It seems if nothing else, athletes should be able to get a prescription for (anabolic) steroids for specific injuries. I think everyone can agree we’d like to see players on the DL less.

I believe it is wrong to use steroids or any other illegal performance enhancing drug (cortisone shots administered by doctors are not illegal). I believe that MLB (and all sports, hello NFL) should use the best available testing and have appropriate penalties for those individuals who test positive. (A 50-game ban for a first offense seems about right, but I woudn’t object to making the suspension up to one year.)

However, I don’t think that you should demonize the players who are caught as if they are murderers or child-molestors. I don’t think you should throw out all of their accomplishments as if they had not existed. Most of all, I don’t think “the game” has been damaged beyond repair by what they’ve done.

Players (hitters and pitchers) used steroids because everyone else did and no one was really stopping them. They put themselves at risk in an effort to excel. There are far worse crimes. I think alcohol presents a much greater threat to society than steroids. I worry more that my son will be killed by a drunk driver than steroids.

So let’s do all we can stop steroid use in the present and future, but let’s not waste any more time (or taxpayer dollars) digging into what has been done.

- cortisone shots
- Schilling’s procedure during the World Series a few years back
- pain-numbing injections
- taking an IV
- creatine
- a model/actor/actress getting plastic surgery

Each of the above are examples of performance-enhancing measures that an individual can/did take in order to augment his or her performance. The only distinction that separate this list from an athlete taking steroids is that steroids are not allowed by law, a fact that a good number of people who argue over this subject choose to ignore. Ignoring the fact that they are illegal and looking at it from a moralist standpoint, I can’t see how taking a steroid is any different from any of the things I listed. They are all unnatural performance-enhancing measures, so demonizing steroids and those who injest them while ignoring (and in some cases, finding heroism in) the other options to improve upon one’s performance doesn’t make any logical sense to me.

I have to disagree with you that there is much wrong with baseball these days. When I go to the ballpark, I see the a pitcher hurl a ball towards a catcher, a batter swing a piece of wood at it – the game is as pure as it’s always been. I enjoy watching Timmy pitch as much as I enjoyed watching Barry hit. I’m sorry you don’t find as much joy in it as you maybe once did.

As for the mixture of science into sports, I think it’s unrealistic to call anything that’s happened in the last 50+ years truly “natural”. Players have been taking greenies, steroids, pain killers, muscle relaxers, other stimulants, vitamins, supplements, and whatever else for so long it’s impossible not to see the effect science has had on the game. I understand if you want to draw the line at “illegal science”, but I would argue that the reason steroids are illegal is more about Washington politics and less about scientific/health reasons. I posted some links farther up if you’re interested in reading why I think that. If you have any good articles that make counterpoints I am very open to reading them. The point is using steroids should be no different than Curt Schilling getting a cortizone shot in his ankle to pitch – and in the end it doesn’t take away from the drama and the greatness of baseball. Sure, the drugs helped him get out on the field, but what we’ll remember is his performance, the same way we’ll (at least Giants fans will) remember Bond’s performances. It’s still about great players doing great things, and even science can’t change that.