While I’m at work on a story I hope to have for you soon on what’s happening in baseball now when it comes to performance enhancers, the government and, to some extent, MLB, is still stuck in the past. 2003, to be exact, when MLB first had sanctioned, anonymous survey testing.
Except it wasn’t, and that’s going to be a big deal.
The New York Times explains that a retest of Barry Bonds 2003 sample showed “signs of anabolic steroids” (which for all intents and purposes means it tested positive for either or both of THG or excess testosterone), but it does a poor job explaining why Bonds’ test didn’t get flagged as positive.
Simple. THG wasn’t known at the time. Drug testing works like a mug book on Law & Order. The witness flips through a book, and when they see the face, they point. If the picture isn’t there, they won’t find it. Drug tests look for drugs they know and have the chemical profile for. (It’s more technical than this, but that’s the basic metaphor.) Since THG was unknown and no test existed, it wasn’t found. Once it was known, the profile was added and it was easily detected.
What’s more interesting is that the master list of players who tested positive is in the possession of the IRS, seized as part of a raid on Comprehensive Drug Testing. I won’t get into the constitutional or legal issues here, but with some of the evidence about to be unsealed heading into Bonds’ trial, that list may well come public. Whether it’s 96 or 103—the number varies depending on your source—there are going to be names that weren’t included in the Mitchell Report, which was not given access to that seized ‘master list.’ If not unsealed, well, nothing else in this case has stayed secret long.
We’ve seen the government’s playbook on this in two previous trials, plus pleas to many in the BALCO case. It’s unlikely that Barry Bonds is facing more time in jail than Marion Jones, but in the meantime, the page that baseball hoped was turned by the Mitchell Report just got pissed on.
Sadly, they probably do. Or maybe fans don't care. I mean real fans shouldn't care at this point. But the media is going on this witch hunt as part of the celebrity build-up/take-down cycle that fuels their ratings. Do fans of the The Dark Knight or the Terminator series really care that Christian Bale cursed at some dude who screwed him up during a scene? No, but CNN is still running with that audio clip like it's news.
This stopped being about baseball along time ago. This is about making certain people feel good when famous people screw-up on TV.
Why shouldn't I care? This affected the game in many ways. I have conflicted opinions myself over what the correct policy should be, but it's hard to see how arguably the best player of all time being found to have broken the rules is not a big deal.
I'd like the story to go away, but you can't wish it away, or pretend it didn't happen. I don't think Congress should waste it's time getting involved, but I think if Bonds broke the rules of the game, and the law by perjuring himself, that's a story. And your condescension on how "real fans shouldn't care" is completely unwarranted. I know that's the party line around here, but some of us think for ourselves. I guess I'm not a real fan though.
FWIW, I appreciate Will Carroll's take on these issues, and think they are much more informative and nuanced than most of the mainstream media's. Apparently he doesn't think it's beneath him, as a real fan, to comment on them.
FWIW, Will Carroll has repeatedly written on how we don't know the effect PEDs had/have on the game of baseball. Most of them seem to assist in recovery time, but do they help hit home runs or throw a fastball? Nobody has shown conclusively either way.
I agree that we don't know the effects they have, and that's why I appreciate Will's writing that looks at this. But my point was that why shouldn't I care? If it turns out that steroids have no effect, that's a story. If it turns out they do have an effect, that's a story as well.
While I agree media coverage of things like Bonds' perjury trial is often overblown and overdramatized, to reduce all steroids-related discussion to simply a "witchhunt" and categorize it as not relevant I think is ridiculous. Just because someone or something (MLB or the media) is addressing an issue wrongly, doesn't mean an issue doesn't exist.
I still think the problem is this issue with "against the rules". There was no rule against using these substances in baseball until 2003/2004! There wasn't a rule against spitballs for many years, so we don't point to 19th century pitchers and complain about their "unfair competitive advantage". Just like all the rules before, baseball added a rule against steroids when it determined that it needed to level the playing field.
The only law being broken is using prescription medication for non-medical reasons. So maybe Barry belongs in the group with Ritalin, Valium, or Vicodin users. How many ads do you see for Viagra?
You don't get to call it "breaking the rules" unless there is actually a rule for it, and then you only get to provide the appropriate punishment. Marion Jones broke the IOC rules and got punished. Barry Bonds didn't break MLB rules and shouldn't be punished for it.
That's just not true. It was against the rules. Fay Vincent sent out a policy in 1991 stating that possession and use of all illegal controlled substances, including steroids, was prohibited. Selig reissued the policy in 1997. It just didn't have testing and enforcement included in it. It clearly was against the rules though. In 2002, they finally added the testing policy.
If I have my history wrong, please correct me, but to my knowledge, steroid use in the 1990s and early 2000s was qutie clearly "against the rules".
Also, your statement "Barry Bonds did not break MLB rules and should not be punshed for it" implies that MLB is punishing him for it. They aren't. The United States is trying him for perjury, which is a slightly different matter. If he lied under oath, that quite clearly is illegal. Whether it should be getting this much attention is another matter entirely.
A statement of policy is not the same thing as a Rule. Fay Vincent has stated in interviews that he knew that he had no power to issue a Rule banning steroid use by major league players and that the memo was not an attempt to create a Rule banning steroid use by major league players. Rather, it was aimed at the people who weren't covered by the CBA. Although it was expressly addressed to major league players, it was not binding upon them in any way.
If the substance of the 1991 Memo was of such dire importance, it would have been included or addressed in the CBA that ended that '95 work stoppage.
Well, it seems to me something being prohibited is a pretty strong indicator it's against the rules, but I suppose if it couldn't be legally enforced, I'll buy your argument. Again, I think it was clear that steroids were not allowed (definition of prohibited), but that's fine. Anyway, the real point was that MLB isn't punishing him anyway, so claiming MLB is on some sort of witchhunt against him when he did nothing wrong is just not true. In fact, I happen to think it's the opposite- he did do something wrong, but MLB isnt punishing him. But that would get in the way of the party line here.
My whole point is just that to sit here and claim that the whole thing shouldn't be a story seems ridiculous. The guy may be the best all-around player in history, and he may have been found to be cheating. That's a story, and it should matter to baseball fans. If the positive urine sample is, in fact, from 2003, then he definitely did break the rules, as the first real Rule, with testing and enforcement, was put into place in 2002. Again, I don't disagree that MLB has messed up its policy, and that the government and the media have overblown the issue, but just because that is true, doesn't mean Bonds is innocent and did no wrong. This is not a zero sum game.
Do I have any vested interest in seeing Bonds found guilty? No. But as a baseball fan, I'd just like to know what happened and what the effects on the game were, not just wish it away and pretend it doesn't exist, because "unenlightened" fans care about it too.
Other than the last 4 decades of steroid use to enhance performance in athletic competition, you're right. There's no evidence other than that.
I mean, who knows? Maybe the physical act of donning a batting glove reduces one's speed and strength back to a normal level, thereby making baseball the only vigorous athletic endeavor where steroids simply don't work as advertised.
Man, all those poor duped athletes who wagered their money, their reputations, and potentially their continued livlihood and freedom on these products are going to be extremely upset when they find out the basic physics equation mv=mv doesn't work anymore when one of the objects travelling at an increased velocity is a baseball bat.
Show me the research and I'm with you. Isn't that what BP is about, after all? Until I see definitive evidence either way, I'm not going to come to any conclusions. So much of the medical science seems to suggest they do enhance performance in baseball, just not the way we normally think about (ie, sluggers hitting more home runs).
Again, besides the obvious clinical knowledge and on the field / on the track demonstrations that steroids build speed and build muscle (and yes, that's what they do - nobody's buying them to get whiter teeth and fresher breath), think for a moment what the 5 baseball tools are:
Hitting - I don't see anyone claiming steroids increase hand/eye coordination. No argument.
Hitting for power - Hmmmm, power? Big, speedy muscles? Correlation, perhaps? There are also some noteworthy (if ad-hoc, and illegal) field experiments you may have heard of attempting to prove steroids assist this particular tool.
Fielding - Again, no argument.
Arm strength - Please don't embarass yourself by arguing that steroids can't help build muscular strength, to include the muscles in the arms (and the associated kinetic chain).
Speed - Again, please don't argue that steroids can't help build speed.
So I'll grant the "steroids don't work in baseball" crowd is absolutely correct, as far as the documented clinical effects on the 2 of the 5 physical tools professional baseball scouts rate players on. Based on 40 years of medicine and athletic performance, it would be absurd to argue otherwise. By the same token, it would be just as absurd to fly in the face of those same 40 years of medicine and athletic performance and argue that steroid use could not help the other 3 of the 5 tools.
If your real question isn't Boolean, but rather "how much?" that's a different and much more complex question. If you came to the Quick Comments beneath Unfiltered to look for the answer, you're probably not going to find it here.
Don't worry. When ESPN starts yapping about it every day (including the obligatory, "I wish we'd all stop talking about this and focus on sports!" opinion), the fans will be right back on it.
I think this issue is analagous to looking up box scores in the 20's and improving the historical accuracy of statistics of those players. The everyday fan probably doesn't care if Tris Speaker was credited with four more hits than he actually deserved, but some fans do.
When talking about Bonds twenty years from now, it would be nice to be able to discuss his impact on the game without having to discuss whether or not he took steroids, which some continue to deny because no 'adequate' proof has been produced. I don't believe acquisition of this information is worth effort of federal authorities (who have other motives, presumably), but if a blood or urine test shows he had THG in his system in 2003, I do think that is useful information for baseball fans that enjoy discussing the history of the game.
Now the discussion can move from 'if he took steroids, do we care?' or 'assuming he took steroids, do we care?' to 'he took steroids, do we care?'
Of course they were steroids. The marker in his blood that indicates what he took was steroids wasnt known.
They also werent strictly prohibited by MLB at the time, but that's different from what youre saying.
What we have now is (further) strong evidence that Barry Bonds took steroids. He took an illegal (Yes illegal by US Law even if not proscribed by baseball) substance for performance enhancing purposes.
Uhh, I consider myself a "real" baseball fan and I want to know what the heck is going on. If nobody was covering this, would "the media" get skewered for not reporting important news? Man, you can't win if you are the media. Reporting information is a good thing. I believe in my capability to distinguish this from propaganda, don't prevent me from making that determination on my own, though.
When baseball was trying to "turn the page" on this, I think it was more towards putting the fact that they were willfully ignorant behind them. If baseball truly believed that a commissioned report and testing was going to make the issue of steroids go away entirely or make it a non-issue, that is pretty naive.
I would assume the MLBPA is fuming that the tests were not anonymous as promised. That is pretty shady on MLB's part.
To be clear: MLB *has* kept the results of the survey testing confidential - that's why we don't know what they are and why they weren't in the Mitchell report. However, any confidentiality agreement between MLB and the MLBPA does not and cannot bind the federal government and certainly does not and cannot prevent the federal government from seizing the results and using them as evidence in a criminal proceeding.
I understand that there is some question as to why there existed lists matching the samples to the players - the question being why such identifying information was not destroyed. The *real* question is whether the agreement required such information to be destroyed and/or whether, if such an agreement was in place and the union became aware that it had not been carried out, the MLBPA did anything about it.
Maybe someone can shed some light on this last point.
All I got to say is that if Performance Enhancing Drugs continue to develop then it seems that sports players will always be using the new drug or technique to stay ahead of what is considered illegal. At least it is Performance Enhancing and not a gambling against your own team throwing a championship or making the entertainment less enjoyable. It is ENHANCING PERFORMANCE. They want to win. I'd rather watch somebody want to win rather than get paid millions and fake an injury or decide he can't play with another person on the team or complain about the coach.
Of course it's good that players have a desire to win. However, at some level, laws exist to protect people from damaging themselves in the case of extreme incentives. BP has been pretty consistent in it's acknowledgment that there is no such thing as an objectively good/bad performer in baseball, but rather that performance relative to their competition is what matters. You see this manifest itself in all of the replacement level-adjusted statistics, as well as controlling for park, league, era, etc. effects. Right now there exists an extremely strong monetary incentive to take steroids, but the reward to taking steroids disappears when everyone is using. So, in my view, it's worth making rules that restrict what players are allowed to do in order to protect them from the incentives they face.
In regards to the fact that steroid developers are always a step ahead of the government...it's a ridiculous argument that applies to any crime with successful criminals. If bank robbers are just going to find new ways to rob banks, should we give up and make robbing banks legal? A closer analogy: if meth dealers are going to find new ways to process/hide/ship/retail meth, should we just legalize meth because people like it? It's an absurd claim.
So, if I cork my bat, but it gets confiscated, so I get my teammate to crawl through the vents to take it from a locked room, that's ok, no one got hurt and I'm just trying to win.
Or perhaps the groundscrew wets over-waters the baselines bacause the hometeam has speed and likes to bunt, that's ok, no one got hurt and we're really just trying to win.
Or I use an emory board on the mound, or my catcher scuffs the ball before sending it back to me, or I have some vaseline on the inside of my cap, that's ok, no one got hurt and I'm really just trying to win.
Or let's say I use a hidden camera in center field to steal my opponents signs, that's ok, no one got hurt and we're really just trying to win.
We have rules for a reason. You stop at red lights every day, but not because we want you to get to work late. You don't bring knives onto planes, but not because we don't want you to bag that sweet deal the machete guy on the beach was giving you.
For goodness sake, you where a condom, but not because she wants you to enjoy it less.
We are a society based on rules. If we allow players to use substances like steroids, then players will feel obligated to use them, because if they don't, they won't be "really trying to win". And then what happens when we realize that these drugs kill people? What then?
We have rules for a reason, not to make life more difficult for those who wish to take the easy route.
"People want athletes to be noble and fall on their swords instead of taking drugs and getting over injuries. Sports is the only job in the world where you're denied access to medication that can help you recover from job-related injuries. Yet somehow, cortisone shots are noble. Schilling gets a cortisone shot, plays through the pain, and is a hero."
saucyjack88 -- I see no problems with any of the "bad behavior" you describe in your first four paragraphs.
The problem is yours in equating the scenarios in the fifth and subsequent paragraphs with those in the first four.
What you are not getting is that if there are no rules against a particular PED then it is not illegal yet. Even then you have to make the rule that this particular PED is no longer acceptable. There are lists of acceptable performance enhancers and supplements. Beyond those PEDs that are ruled out and those that are named as acceptable there are always advancements that are in neither of those two categories. Crystal Meth was not illegal at first. It took time before it became illegal. All I'm saying is that if baseball is always behind the latest unknown PED then at what point do they just give up? Some PEDs are not even illegal to use according to federal and state laws. Others are. It is legal to take PEDs that are not mentioned. What you don't understand is that there are just going to be more rules and regulations and all that these athletes want is to perform better. That's why someone figured out that spit on a ball helped them. Before a rule goes in to place against a certain "advantage" like corked bats (which I doubt are much of an advantage) or spit balls, the edge activity is not illegal. Once the rule is in place then it is illegal. Then if guys still do it they need to be caught. If you cannot detect a PED or other method of illegal activity then how can you enforce it?
It is not cheating unless it is specifically indicated by regulation/law/rule. With something like PEDs some are acceptable and not acceptable but the outcome is enhanced performance. There are degrees in effectiveness and performance enhancing of different available PEDs. So who gets to say which is too much or too little for a particular PED to determine if it is illegal? There are also degrees in danger/side effects between PEDs. Which negative side effects must or must not be present in order to deem a PED illegal?
And another thing... Isn't it a double standard that MLB allows certain supplements (think performance enhancing chemicals) as acceptable that people can get from GNC and not allow other performance enhancers? Of course there are federal laws etc. that prohibit certain steroids and such that MLB should also follow. But not all PEDs are forbidden. So when is it cheating? I think you cheat when you cross a forbidden line that has been explicitly made. There aren't any blanket rules that prohibit all things PED... especially if there are lists of acceptable performance enhancing chemicals.
Are you really trying to argue that it's not one of the legal system's purposes to protect people from doing stupid things to themselves because they're myopic or they face perverse incentives? Why isn't it legal, then, for me to walk around and offer a million dollars to the family of someone willing to kill themselves for it? They don't hurt anyone but themselves, and maybe they would be "rationally" better off from doing it.
Given that steroids, if everyone uses them, provide no relative benefit to anyone, yet are likely unsafe, why would we want a system that forces people to use in order to remain competitive? Making snide asides is not a substitute for logic.
I echo Ruben398's comment about how furious the MLBPA must be. Will, do you have any idea if the Players Association is preparing to take action against MLB for not maintaining the anonymity of the tests?
Players are encouraged to be better and stronger, and that is all the motivation behind taking substances. It is not like choosing between robbing a store and working in the decision to make money, where one option is substantively different than the other. It is more like choosing between running mcdonalds and running a weed dealership, or running a family friendly brothel. The distinction between a taboo substance and a positive one like beer turns on the bankrupt notion of 'natural.' Hey, because I don't understand the thing, it is obviously twisted and perverse. The very fucking reason steroids work is because they can interact with the body through natural processes. The amount of ambiguity contained in the word natural is so goddamn immense that I find it impossible to use the word with any moral force provided that one understands its shifting and conventional nature.
When we say taking steroids is cheating, there is a technical and a moral thrust. The technical thrust depends entirely on whether access is legitimate as defined by whatever rulemaking body in charge. If someone accessed a substance while others are prevented from doing so by their rule abiding decision, then it is cheating. It is on this institutional decision alone. The argument that steroids as a substance is cheating is too tenuous to merit a look. The moral thrust, which is the front that generates the entire fiasco in the first place, is nuanced and not well described by the shrill voice screaming "HE CHEATED!!!11!" The correct phrase in place of "he cheated!!!11" is, "he is mispositioned during a regulatory transition!!!!111" Oh damn, Bonds is such a dastardly perpetrator of failure to anticipate regulatory change! our world has gone tits up!
I'm glad baseball is cleaning up its act. That said, why doesn't anyone raise a stink when a football gets busted using steroids then wins an official Defensive Player of the Year trophy? It was the same season he was suspended for 25% of it! How can you help your team if you're not on the field?
It matters if you're a Dodgers, Padres or Rockies fan. It matters if you respect collective bargaining in good faith and believe the Player's Association has a right to be livid. It matters if it was illegal at the time. It matters if he perjured himself in a court of law, a very serious crime indeed. It matters if you believe that rules on performance enhancing drugs and protective equipment are to protect the players from pressures from management and themselves to succeed at all costs, no matter what the cost is to the worker's body. It matters if you care about the Hall of Fame, just as what Chance and Cobb did matters. It matters if Bonds and Sosa and McGwire undermined the achievement of Maris. It matters if Sosa and McGwire's now-dubious exploits pushed Bonds to take whatever he did, because his exploits could have pushed others even further. It matters if the achievements of those three were once cherished memories.
Did I miss a big news story where Sammy Sosa failed a drug test? Or some big tell all book came out? Or some kind of proof he did anything other than hit a hell of a lot of home runs at the same time Mark McGuire did? Until you have any of those, leave Sammy alone.
What krissbeth is overlooking by implying that Bonds, Sosa and McGwire have undermined Maris' accomplishments is that there were numerous developments and advancements that contributed to the home run explosion of the late 90s and early 2000s. People like krissbeth need to explain why steroids are different than lasix, tinted contact lenses that enable hitters to see the rotation of the baseball better, or video of a hitter's every at bat version a certain pitcher available instantaneously. All three are advances that have served to "undermine" Maris' achievement, but there is no consternation abou these developments.
Speaking strictly for myself, I don't really need anyone to explain to me why steroids are different than lasix and tinted contact lenses. I just...don't.
The simple fact that one is illegal and the other isn't doesn't bear on whether, in the world of baseball, one should be considered cheating. It certainly does bear on whether baseball has an interest in undertaking the responsibility to enforce some sort of private prohibition against use, but that's not what siegeljs was getting to.
His/her question was: why is one form of enhancement different than another with respect to competitive fairness and a level playing field?
My own answer is that one (steroids) appears, though this may require additional empirical research, to have a substantially larger impact on the way the sport is played than the other, such that it distorts the nature and basic structures of the game. I realize this is up for debate and requires additional substantiation.
My main point, though, is that the legality or illegality of steroids isn't related to, say, whether Barry Bonds's performance is "authentic."
Are they? Undoubtedly the political/moral reasons are a major element, but if youre implying there is no medical risk associated with anabolic steroids you are way off base. There are compelling medical reasons to ban steroids. Not just talking the abuse of steroids either. This isnt a blue laws issue.
alskor: "Are they? Undoubtedly the political/moral reasons are a major element, but if youre implying there is no medical risk associated with anabolic steroids you are way off base. There are compelling medical reasons to ban steroids."
Are there?
"The history of the U.S. legislation on anabolic steroids goes back to the late 1980s, when the U.S. Congress considered placing anabolic steroids under the Controlled Substances Act following the controversy over Ben Johnson's victory at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. During deliberations, the American Medical Association (AMA), Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) all opposed listing anabolic steroids as controlled substances, citing the fact that use of these hormones does not lead to the physical or psychological dependence required for such scheduling under the Controlled Substance Act. Nevertheless, anabolic steroids were added to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act in the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990. The same act also introduced more stringent controls with higher criminal penalties for offenses involving the illegal distribution of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone. . . . In the Controlled Substances Act, anabolic steroids are defined to be any drug or hormonal substance chemically and pharmacologically related to testosterone (other than estrogens, progestins, and corticosteroids) that promote muscle growth."
The phrase "it matters" is too vague. Fine, it should matter to baseball fans whether a baseball player cheated, although I've yet to understand why PED's are somehow worse than other forms of cheating (like spitballs, for instance). But I don't think it matters enough to have millions of dollars of taxpayer money spent on (supposedly) addressing this problem, nor do I think it matters enough to divert the attention of our government from more pressing concerns.
1) I care deeply about the steroids story, but I also agree that they're no different than, and should be treated the same as, other forms of cheating. I would apply the penalties currently existing under the drug testing rules to other forms of cheating.
2) I would hope everyone would agree that investigations into perjury are important regardless of the subject matter of the underlying misstatement. I would agree that Congress's involvement seems less compelling.
I thought THG wasn't an anabolic steroid, but some different form of illegal enhancer. In any event, is this going to set a precedence of investigators retesting samples years after the fact? Maybe that would clear up the Clemens controversy.
It's all legal BS at this point. From a baseball standpoint, you already know all you need to know. Is anyone still shaping their opinion on this? I doubt it.
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True...but does the everyday fan even care at this point?
Sadly, they probably do. Or maybe fans don't care. I mean real fans shouldn't care at this point. But the media is going on this witch hunt as part of the celebrity build-up/take-down cycle that fuels their ratings. Do fans of the The Dark Knight or the Terminator series really care that Christian Bale cursed at some dude who screwed him up during a scene? No, but CNN is still running with that audio clip like it's news.
This stopped being about baseball along time ago. This is about making certain people feel good when famous people screw-up on TV.
Why shouldn't I care? This affected the game in many ways. I have conflicted opinions myself over what the correct policy should be, but it's hard to see how arguably the best player of all time being found to have broken the rules is not a big deal.
I'd like the story to go away, but you can't wish it away, or pretend it didn't happen. I don't think Congress should waste it's time getting involved, but I think if Bonds broke the rules of the game, and the law by perjuring himself, that's a story. And your condescension on how "real fans shouldn't care" is completely unwarranted. I know that's the party line around here, but some of us think for ourselves. I guess I'm not a real fan though.
FWIW, I appreciate Will Carroll's take on these issues, and think they are much more informative and nuanced than most of the mainstream media's. Apparently he doesn't think it's beneath him, as a real fan, to comment on them.
FWIW, Will Carroll has repeatedly written on how we don't know the effect PEDs had/have on the game of baseball. Most of them seem to assist in recovery time, but do they help hit home runs or throw a fastball? Nobody has shown conclusively either way.
I agree that we don't know the effects they have, and that's why I appreciate Will's writing that looks at this. But my point was that why shouldn't I care? If it turns out that steroids have no effect, that's a story. If it turns out they do have an effect, that's a story as well.
While I agree media coverage of things like Bonds' perjury trial is often overblown and overdramatized, to reduce all steroids-related discussion to simply a "witchhunt" and categorize it as not relevant I think is ridiculous. Just because someone or something (MLB or the media) is addressing an issue wrongly, doesn't mean an issue doesn't exist.
I still think the problem is this issue with "against the rules". There was no rule against using these substances in baseball until 2003/2004! There wasn't a rule against spitballs for many years, so we don't point to 19th century pitchers and complain about their "unfair competitive advantage". Just like all the rules before, baseball added a rule against steroids when it determined that it needed to level the playing field.
The only law being broken is using prescription medication for non-medical reasons. So maybe Barry belongs in the group with Ritalin, Valium, or Vicodin users. How many ads do you see for Viagra?
You don't get to call it "breaking the rules" unless there is actually a rule for it, and then you only get to provide the appropriate punishment. Marion Jones broke the IOC rules and got punished. Barry Bonds didn't break MLB rules and shouldn't be punished for it.
That's just not true. It was against the rules. Fay Vincent sent out a policy in 1991 stating that possession and use of all illegal controlled substances, including steroids, was prohibited. Selig reissued the policy in 1997. It just didn't have testing and enforcement included in it. It clearly was against the rules though. In 2002, they finally added the testing policy.
If I have my history wrong, please correct me, but to my knowledge, steroid use in the 1990s and early 2000s was qutie clearly "against the rules".
Also, your statement "Barry Bonds did not break MLB rules and should not be punshed for it" implies that MLB is punishing him for it. They aren't. The United States is trying him for perjury, which is a slightly different matter. If he lied under oath, that quite clearly is illegal. Whether it should be getting this much attention is another matter entirely.
A statement of policy is not the same thing as a Rule. Fay Vincent has stated in interviews that he knew that he had no power to issue a Rule banning steroid use by major league players and that the memo was not an attempt to create a Rule banning steroid use by major league players. Rather, it was aimed at the people who weren't covered by the CBA. Although it was expressly addressed to major league players, it was not binding upon them in any way.
If the substance of the 1991 Memo was of such dire importance, it would have been included or addressed in the CBA that ended that '95 work stoppage.
Well, it seems to me something being prohibited is a pretty strong indicator it's against the rules, but I suppose if it couldn't be legally enforced, I'll buy your argument. Again, I think it was clear that steroids were not allowed (definition of prohibited), but that's fine. Anyway, the real point was that MLB isn't punishing him anyway, so claiming MLB is on some sort of witchhunt against him when he did nothing wrong is just not true. In fact, I happen to think it's the opposite- he did do something wrong, but MLB isnt punishing him. But that would get in the way of the party line here.
My whole point is just that to sit here and claim that the whole thing shouldn't be a story seems ridiculous. The guy may be the best all-around player in history, and he may have been found to be cheating. That's a story, and it should matter to baseball fans. If the positive urine sample is, in fact, from 2003, then he definitely did break the rules, as the first real Rule, with testing and enforcement, was put into place in 2002. Again, I don't disagree that MLB has messed up its policy, and that the government and the media have overblown the issue, but just because that is true, doesn't mean Bonds is innocent and did no wrong. This is not a zero sum game.
Do I have any vested interest in seeing Bonds found guilty? No. But as a baseball fan, I'd just like to know what happened and what the effects on the game were, not just wish it away and pretend it doesn't exist, because "unenlightened" fans care about it too.
Other than the last 4 decades of steroid use to enhance performance in athletic competition, you're right. There's no evidence other than that.
I mean, who knows? Maybe the physical act of donning a batting glove reduces one's speed and strength back to a normal level, thereby making baseball the only vigorous athletic endeavor where steroids simply don't work as advertised.
Man, all those poor duped athletes who wagered their money, their reputations, and potentially their continued livlihood and freedom on these products are going to be extremely upset when they find out the basic physics equation mv=mv doesn't work anymore when one of the objects travelling at an increased velocity is a baseball bat.
Show me the research and I'm with you. Isn't that what BP is about, after all? Until I see definitive evidence either way, I'm not going to come to any conclusions. So much of the medical science seems to suggest they do enhance performance in baseball, just not the way we normally think about (ie, sluggers hitting more home runs).
Again, besides the obvious clinical knowledge and on the field / on the track demonstrations that steroids build speed and build muscle (and yes, that's what they do - nobody's buying them to get whiter teeth and fresher breath), think for a moment what the 5 baseball tools are:
Hitting - I don't see anyone claiming steroids increase hand/eye coordination. No argument.
Hitting for power - Hmmmm, power? Big, speedy muscles? Correlation, perhaps? There are also some noteworthy (if ad-hoc, and illegal) field experiments you may have heard of attempting to prove steroids assist this particular tool.
Fielding - Again, no argument.
Arm strength - Please don't embarass yourself by arguing that steroids can't help build muscular strength, to include the muscles in the arms (and the associated kinetic chain).
Speed - Again, please don't argue that steroids can't help build speed.
So I'll grant the "steroids don't work in baseball" crowd is absolutely correct, as far as the documented clinical effects on the 2 of the 5 physical tools professional baseball scouts rate players on. Based on 40 years of medicine and athletic performance, it would be absurd to argue otherwise. By the same token, it would be just as absurd to fly in the face of those same 40 years of medicine and athletic performance and argue that steroid use could not help the other 3 of the 5 tools.
If your real question isn't Boolean, but rather "how much?" that's a different and much more complex question. If you came to the Quick Comments beneath Unfiltered to look for the answer, you're probably not going to find it here.
Don't worry. When ESPN starts yapping about it every day (including the obligatory, "I wish we'd all stop talking about this and focus on sports!" opinion), the fans will be right back on it.
I think this issue is analagous to looking up box scores in the 20's and improving the historical accuracy of statistics of those players. The everyday fan probably doesn't care if Tris Speaker was credited with four more hits than he actually deserved, but some fans do.
When talking about Bonds twenty years from now, it would be nice to be able to discuss his impact on the game without having to discuss whether or not he took steroids, which some continue to deny because no 'adequate' proof has been produced. I don't believe acquisition of this information is worth effort of federal authorities (who have other motives, presumably), but if a blood or urine test shows he had THG in his system in 2003, I do think that is useful information for baseball fans that enjoy discussing the history of the game.
Now the discussion can move from 'if he took steroids, do we care?' or 'assuming he took steroids, do we care?' to 'he took steroids, do we care?'
Except, as they were defined at the time, they weren't steroids.
Of course they were steroids. The marker in his blood that indicates what he took was steroids wasnt known.
They also werent strictly prohibited by MLB at the time, but that's different from what youre saying.
What we have now is (further) strong evidence that Barry Bonds took steroids. He took an illegal (Yes illegal by US Law even if not proscribed by baseball) substance for performance enhancing purposes.