Thursday, May 7, 2009

Uh Oh...



Spaghetti-os!
Posted by at

12 comments:

  1. Shaman FondlerMay 7, 2009 at 5:19 PM

    I've really had enough of him. The league will be a lot better off when a-rod and manny are gone.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The NaturalMay 7, 2009 at 7:03 PM

    Will it? If the doughy, infantile (speaking only in terms of public perception) Manny Ramirez was using steroids, then you realize this means that Wright, Reyes, Johan, Beltran could all be using. How do you explain Tatis having essentially not played in the majors since 2003 (except for a real short stint in 2006), and then coming back last year good enough to put up numbers that a lot of starting OFs would have been jealous of. Or what about Daniel Murphy, the "aw shucks" feel good rookie? As a prospect there was nothing about his physical gifts that made baseball people expect much of him as a major leaguer, yet here he is, having bypassed others that were ahead of him in the system, putting up some impressive offensive numbers. How do we know he isn't using?

    I'm not trying to attack the Mets. All I'm saying is that this doesn't go away with Arod and Manny. And its not just the players that you don't like anyway that are doing this stuff.

    Here's what bugs me...How different are the mind sets of professional athletes in different sports? We know baseball players have doped, we know NFL players have doped, we know cyclists have doped, we know sprinters and swimmers have doped, etc. And everyone seems to agree in baseball that part of the problem is that no one asked questions while this was happening, choosing instead to ignore it until it was too late. So why isn't anyone asking any questions about NBA players. I want to believe in the purity of that sport as much as anyone, but with the way things are in sports now, how can I assume that the NBA is clean? Shouldn't we try to avoid the same thing happening again by trying to get out in front of this in the NBA?

    ReplyDelete
  3. schwizzaMay 8, 2009 at 2:30 AM

    manny was prescribed medication by a real doctor for some other problem (apparently erectile dysfuntion) and is now suspended for 50 games. here's a solution to the steroid issue. stop caring. a large portion of major leaguers used emphetamines for 50 years. is this what you want? wondering if every player who has a good career, good season, good game is using ped's. here's how i see it. the best offensive baseball player i have ever seen was barry bonds. the second, albert pujols. the third alex rodriguez. after that, probably manny ramirez. three of those four guys have apparently tested positive for illegal substances, the third is suspected purely based on performance. here's the thing. it doesn't matter. they are still the best players i have ever seen. if they didn't use, then they would probably still be the best. if they weren't the best, then someone else who didn't perform at their level would be. am i supposed to feel bad for guys like derek jeter because these guys are considered better players than him and he apparentlt never did anything wrong? i hate derek jeter. what do i care if his feelings are hurt. maybe if he had moved to second base when the yankees signed a-rod, he would have more championships. maybe he'd be the greatest second baseman ever. but he didn't. he didn't do what was best for himself and he didn't do what was best for his team.

    and another thing. i think what manny said is important. he's taken 15 random drug tests in the last few years and never tested positive for any of them. so let's be fair. even if he was really using performance enhancing drugs and even if they were actually enhancing his performance. then what, he's been better for the last 30 games? who cares?!

    let me reiterate. who cares?

    ReplyDelete
  4. ChaucerMay 8, 2009 at 4:31 AM

    Well, I care. It matters to me that so much of what I witnessed, so much of what I celebrated or suffered through, is tainted by cheating. I can't just stick my head up my ass and say, in retrospect, it doesn't matter to me that all those results and those emotions were based on an entirely false premise. To me, that's as much as saying, "I don't care that I found out my girlfriend was cheating on me for ten years. We had great times together."

    And Joe is right--the problem here is this doesn't end with one player. Can I trust any of the performances over the last ten years? In any sport? What about Shaq? What about Lebron? Did Brady really work his way up from a mid-round draft pick to an elite quarterback, or was there something else going on there? Having to wonder whether any of the athletes you admire and root for and identify with are cheating makes following sports a lot less worthwhile and a lot less fun.

    And Josh, fine, don't feel bad for Jeter. He's won World Series rings, he's hugely paid, he dates supermodels. I can accept that you don't sympathize with the fact that his reputation is maybe unfairly tainted along with everyone else's. But do you have any sympathy for the guy playing A ball, who did the right thing, didn't cheat, and didn't make it because other guys were willing to break the rules? What about the athletes who gave their entire lives to a sport in and failed because they respected the rules of the game they were playing? What about the guys who worked their asses off to hit an extra four or five homeruns in a year, and they get no credit because so many of their peers were cheating?

    On another note, I need sports writers to *stop saying* that we all knew. *I* didn't know. I wish someone would have told me. And I wish sports writers would stop salving their guilt by prancing around saying that it was common knowledge to the entire planet. What a pack of douchebags.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mattie-OMay 8, 2009 at 11:43 AM

    1. According to several sources, the drug he was on is of a type taken by steroid users when they cycle off so as to maintain hormone balances.

    2. Craig Calcaterra, quickly becoming my favorite baseball writer, and not just cause he looks like my half brother:

    http://bases.newsvine.com/_news/2009/05/07/2787723-mannys-suspension-good-for-baseball?category=sports

    http://bases.newsvine.com/_news/2009/05/08/2791380-manny-ramirez-ken-griffey-and-history?category=sports

    ReplyDelete
  6. schwizzaMay 8, 2009 at 12:44 PM

    let's talk about emphetamines. emphetamines were recently made illegal and carry the same penalties as any other ped. there are no claims that they are less performance enhancing than any of these other drugs while there is evidence that they are more dangerous (causing deaths on both the baseball field and a football training facility). emphatamines were admittedly used by a majority of major league baseball players for over 50 years before they became illegal.

    my point is only this. if you want to claim that the current crop of stars are tainted by ped's then so were those of the last fifty years. we're talking about the frank robinson's, the mike schmidt's, the tom seaver's, the mickey mantle's and right on down the line. before emphetamines, pitchers were using spitballs to cheat, and sharpened spikes. these things weren't allowed, but they nevertheless provided either real or perceived advantages to many of baseball's all-time greats. the game of baseball has always been a game of getting an edge.

    if you want something pure, then watch little league baseball and pee wee football, do not watch professional athletics. they are all corrupt, from ownership to concessions. and they have always been this way. of course basketball players are using ped's. the only reason reporters aren't interested in finding out, is that there are no perceived advantages in using. just like baseball players in the past never lifted weights because they didn't think it would help.

    and i do agree about the sportswriters. let's not pretend that these guys weren't part and parcel of this whole situation. they did know! of course they knew. just like they know of rampant sexism and homophobia in the locker room. just like they know these guys are having too many beers before they jump in their car and go home. just as they know these guys are cheating on their wives. of course these things only get reported when someone gets arrested or sued, because that's when anyone else wants to hear about it.

    if you want to believe in the purity of professional athletics, then be like the reporters and stick your head in the sand. if you want lament the sullying of it, then recognize that you haven't lived long enough to see the game untainted and realize that neither have your parents. all of sports' greatest players saw unfair advantages. michael jordan never got called for a travel. what he was doing was completely illegal. ty cobb killed a man AND sharpened his spikes AND was vehemently opposed to african-americans in professional sports. mike shmidt used emphetamines. phil neikro was throwing spitballs 60 years after it was banned.

    here's the biggest problem i have. we have no real evidence that these performance enhancing drugs are really performance enhancing drugs. even the most potent. yet in a frenzy of public relations maneuvers, baseball has begun to ban basically every prescription drug out their. this does two things.

    first, it creates distinct disadvantages to professional athletes. whereas my father was given steroids to heal his knee after surgery, andy pettite has to heal without them. whereas katie can take asthma medicine so that she can compete in 5k races in prospect park, olympic hopefuls have no recourse to combat their asthma. whereas i can walk into the doctor's office and receive a cure for what's ailing me, professional athletes can never be sure that what they are receiving through legitimate sources may have some small dose of something inconsequential that may have made it onto that ridiculously long banned substances list.

    the second problem is a little bit trickier. the fact is, if professional players didn't think there were any advantage to using these drugs then, they wouldn't use. and if amateur athletes didn't believe there were any advantages to using, then they wouldn't either. somewhere along the line, some stupid gym rat explained to some stupid athlete that they could give them an edge in their performance. that stupid athlete then told their stupid athlete friend. and soon a few guys were using these drugs. they could see that their muscles were bigger and they thought they were getting better. maybe they were even hitting more homeruns (although that also coincided with the shrinking of ballparks, the juicing of the baseball, the dilution of pitching talent, and increased use of middle relievers). now for the most part, there weren't that many people exposed to these drugs and there were probably a lot of men and women who had been exposed but didn't believe that the advantages were real. and then came the whistle blowers. someone got a hold of this info and started complaining that this stuff was offering an unfair advantage. remember now, that no one really knew that this stuff was giving these guys an edge, they just saw that these guys were trying to get an edge and they didn't like it. soon enough, the media decides it's a big enough story and starts reporting on it. now, all of a sudden, you have a frenzy of information being released by a frenzy of people who don't have any expertise or knowledge on the subject and they're all claiming that steroids are providing an advantage. this is the crux of the problem. it's only now that younger kids and most amateur athletes are being exposed to steroids and ped's and this is what they're being told: there are substances out there that will give them an advantage and if they use them they can get to the next level. furthermore, there are no actual reports of people actually getting sick from using. so the obvious conclusion is that using ped's will make me better and as long as i can figure out a way not to get caught, i'm safe. people keep telling me these things aren't good for me but they certainly were good for barry bonds and jose canseco and gary sheffield. those guys are 40+ years old and healthier and in better shape than i am.

    now we've got everyone running around crying about unfair advantages and half of the american population trying to figure out how to get some. let's sit down, figure out what these drugs are actually doing, which ones are actually providing an advantage and which one pose health risks. let's ban the bad stuff and keep the good. let's accurately educate our children about the dangers of drugs and the ineffectiveness of them. the fact is, people are using because they think there are advantages. and they think there are advantages because no one is questioning the popular perception that there are. again, there is no proof that most of these drugs provide any advantage. if we can focus our rhetoric on that truth, then fewer people will be inclined to take the risk of using.

    -josh

    ReplyDelete
  7. StomperMay 8, 2009 at 2:53 PM

    well i think this is just the first hint of REAL ugliness to come. (and since everyone else is screeding...) do you really think this is gonna stay confined to sports?! josh, i agree that this mentality has been around for a while, maybe even a long while, (although frankly the idea that 'greenies' and other 1970s AMphetamines are comparable to todays super-targeted PEDs is laughable) but that doesn't make the mentality any less sick. as far as i'm concerned a-rod, manny, and bonds are just canaries in the shaft. and while i try not to let the issue of their guilt/innocence constrict my veins too much, i certainly do CARE. if these guys are just doing what it takes to survive in a competitive environment where does that leave the rest of us?

    everytime you say you don't care joshS, i think of you in your kitchen, another profession defined by enormous pressures, crazed focus, and life-long determination. how much longer before the slightly younger version of you is taking adderal, dexadrine, or some more potent cocktail to stretch that 12 hour day into a 16hour day. and if no one cares, how long before that is the norm.

    and if you think that's crazy-fantasy on my part, check out the medschool blogs [which i've unfortunately been looking at lately] and take note of how many future doctors are popping neurotrophic enhancers by the handful. these are future DOCTORS. they aren't shy about it either. its the norm. and that's what is so scary.

    its not a question of education or figuring out if these things really help or not, its a question of dignity. drawing lines because without those lines we are not capable of controlling ourselves. i am perfectly happy acknowledging that extreme achievement requires some level of debasement (call it sacrifice) (from those non-menstruating gymnasts to the emotional unavailable i-bankers) but given that it all trickles down and that it all seems to grow more extreme each year - i definitely want to register my concern when it turns out that just about anyone who is anyone in professional sports turns out to have been regularly doping the hell out of themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  8. schwizzaMay 9, 2009 at 12:35 AM

    kitchens have been through the drugs and amphetamines and have come through the other side. for awhile, people were doing enormous amounts of drugs to push their energy for another couple hours and put out those extra 50 plates. and the concern with doctors doing seriously damaging drugs is disconcerting. of course, this isn't the fault of doctors but the fault of a system that requires doctors to push themselves beyond normal limits. why don't we concern ourselves less with labor and more with management that more and more requires unreasonable performance. whether it be 60 homeruns per season or 60 hours per week. besides, i don't do any performance enhancing drugs although i work in excess of 60 hours per week. if i thought they might help i might give them a shot, but i don't so i don't. of course, i don't read the newspaper everyday and learn that everyone in my profession around me is benefiting from cocaine use, even though it just isn't true. by the way, manny isn't benefiting either, no matter what he's using.

    and please, don't speak to me about dignity. that's just ridiculous. we may need lines, but not arbitrary ones. dignity lies in drawing our own lines, having the the self control to make our own decisions. and guess what, the decisions that professional athletes are making are not so absurd. not to be melodramatic, but rosa parks was not allowed to sit in the front of the bus, but she did because she saw there was an advantage to sitting up there and the rule in place was arbitrary. these drug laws in sports are arbitrary. people keep asking me why doctors aren't standing up for ped's. how about this question. how come they aren't coming out against them? because the rules aren't built on medical evidence, or even statistical analysis. they are built on uneducated popular perception. read one article written by jayson stark and you'll understand the rubbish that most people buy in to. if you want absurdity, that's where you'll find it.

    -josh

    ReplyDelete
  9. schwizzaMay 9, 2009 at 12:06 PM

    the rosa parks bit is a bit strong, and no one here is using ped's in an act of civil-disobedience, but there is similarity in that these ball-players feel that the reward for breaking the rule outweighs the risk. of course it doesn't because there is arguably very little to no reward while the punishment for being caught is a 50 game suspension and then more second and third time offenders. this all comes back to my original point which is that steroids and ped's have limited results and most of these drugs give no advantage which is why major league ballplayers shouldn't be messing with them. there's no point. but since everyone is telling them this is a way to get an edge, they'll give it a shot and that is why ped use is rampant in all professional athletics.

    -josh

    ReplyDelete
  10. ChaucerMay 9, 2009 at 9:37 PM

    Josh, you can argue that no one really knows the benefits that steroids provide, or you can argue that they give no benefit, but you can't argue both that no one knows their benefits AND that they give no benefit--and on top of that, baseball players should be able to get them because your dad can (apparently, his doctor thinks they work just fine).

    And yes, emps were rampant in baseball for years. So was coffee. I don't care that these guys are dirt bags--I know they cheat on their wives, that they're arrogant, overpaid, delusionally self-important, etc., etc. All I ask is that they *play by the rules of the game.* When they take steroids, they're cheating and violating the premise on which the entire game is based. Are the rules arbitrary? As I've said before, the distance between the mound and home is arbitrary, too. But they don't let Santana jog a few steps in when he needs a big out. However arbitrary the rule, you break it, you're cheating. That's what steroids use was, cheating.


    So to me, the comparison isn't a rival chef using addherol to serve a few more plates. It's a rival chef passing off a world renowned chef's food as his own, and in so doing getting the job you wanted. It's not just a matter of risking your health to achieve your goals--it's a matter of disregarding the basic rules of honesty and fair play in order to get ahead. I can't condone that, and I can't root for guys who do that.

    I think there's a larger point here, too. We live in a culture of chemical entitlement. We rely on pills to take the edge off life's challenges--from concentration to impotence. Plenty of people used drugs they "needed" to get through college because it was "hard." But college has gotten steadily easier for the last fifty years--ask an a pre-1960 Columbia grad about the core--and the use of drugs has only increased.

    I'm not going to play the "message athletes are sending to kids" card, but I will play the "kind of culture create when we condone steroids" card. It's a culture where hard work and sacrifice are replaced by chemical consumption. Maybe that's a lot to put on Manny, but look--as far as I'm concerned, a 50 game ban is a big step in the right direction.

    ReplyDelete
  11. schwizzaMay 10, 2009 at 12:01 AM

    the advantage players have found in using steroids is that it allows them to workout more often. they aren't trading hard work for pills, they're using the pills so that they can work harder. major league baseball players use to take the offseason off. they don't anymore. major league baseball players used to play 154 games. major league baseball players used to play, at most, 7 games in the post-season. major league baseball players used to be fat and out of shape. major league baseball players work harder than they ever have and they're breaking no fewer rules. it's like i've said before, if you want to believe that baseball was once a pure game without compromise, then believe that you have never seen the game played in that manner and neither have your parents and probably not their parents either.

    and the truth is there is no evidence that these drugs are improving the quality of these players. that is to say, they are not unless you can prove otherwise. please, tell me these guys look bigger or that their homeruns are traveling farther or that there are more of them.

    ReplyDelete
  12. AshleyMay 11, 2009 at 10:17 AM

    my finger hurts from scrolling through (not reading) all those comments.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)