Mark McGwire Admits to Roid use

[guido911]

Just saw on Fox. Anyone surprised?

[RecycleMichael]

He took them when they were legal, then retired when baseball banned them.

He set the rookie record for home runs with 49 without them. He was a great hitter and deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Remember, the pitchers were taking them too.

[Conan71]

His non-admission when testifying before Congress was all the confirmation anyone needed.  He sounds truly remorseful that he ever used them.  I can't say it really taints my image of him, there have been claims that earlier baseball super stars used different stimulants to enhance their performance.

I saw him play in KC in 1987 when he was with the A's and you knew he was going to be an all time great if he stayed healthy.  I simply hope he doesn't wind up an early life casualty of his steroid use.

[rwarn17588]

Longtime baseball analyst Bill James wrote a column months ago about the steroids and HGH issue that I'm still trying to wrap my head around ... stuff that I hadn't considered, such as the fact it's very likely that many, many Americans will be taking such anti-aging drugs in the coming decades, making the outrage over major-leaguers taking them rather moot.

James' column is below. You may not agree with some of it, but his logic is going to tough to refute. And it sure will spark a lot of discussion:

http://www.actapublications.com/images/small/PressReleases/Cooperstownandthe%27Roids_F2.pdf

[Conan71]

Wow, anti-aging?

There sure have been some lives cut short by these "anti-aging" drugs.

The Belleville Mafia is staying at my house this week (Guido and Rwarn will get the reference) for the Chili Bowl.  We were watching one of the MLB channels on cable last night and they were playing the interview that McGwire did with Bob Costas yesterday.

Jim and Mike are die hard Cardinals fans and they are P.O.'d that McGwire didn't come clean with the fans years ago and feel he's only sorry now because he was caught doing it.  I did feel his apology was somewhat mealy-mouthed as he made a comment along the lines of if MLB would have been policing steroid and other drug use better, he likely would have never done it, that kind of put me off when I heard that last night. 

The Maris family is now saying they feel that Roger Maris' record of 61 HR's in a season is now the official record again as they feel the steroid use taints it.

I can agree with McGwire on a few points:

He was an amazing home run hitter in high school, college, minor leagues, and his first season or two in the big show without the benefit of steroids.  It takes a lot of hand-eye coordination to hit as many homers as he did and a natural swing, two things steroids cannot improve.  Steroids could have given him more power to hit the ball further, but that didn't seem to be a problem before either.

[rwarn17588]

Wow, anti-aging?

There sure have been some lives cut short by these "anti-aging" drugs.

Read the story.

Ballplayers invariably hit a performance wall in their early 30s and decline. In short, they get old.

When you had ballplayers taking performance-enhancing drugs, this allowed them to halt the aging process and even reverse it. Look at Bonds, setting home run records in his late 30s. Ditto for McGwire doing it in his mid-30s. You've got Clemens posting sub-2.00 ERAs in his 40s. Things like that just don't happen naturally. Sure, you have an athlete who can have a big season in the twilight of his career, but it's not sustainable. But McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, Clemens enjoyed multiple seasons of unparalleled excellence.

Whether these drugs actually shorten lives is debatable (I've read the studies, and they're inconclusive at worst). What is certain, however, is that these drugs greatly enhanced these players' ability to play the game and lengthened their careers, earning them many more millions of dollars. I'm sure those ballplayers feel the possible health risk was worth the megabucks, for the same reason NFL players think their shortened lives because of body-ravaging collisions was a worthy trade-off.

And, as James points out, it's likely the bad effects of anti-aging drugs will be mitigated in the coming decades. People want to stay young, and there will be a demand for such medicine. Breakthroughs will invariably occur because the market for such drugs would be huge.

[Hoss]

Wow, anti-aging?

There sure have been some lives cut short by these "anti-aging" drugs.

The Belleville Mafia is staying at my house this week (Guido and Rwarn will get the reference) for the Chili Bowl.  We were watching one of the MLB channels on cable last night and they were playing the interview that McGwire did with Bob Costas yesterday.

Jim and Mike are die hard Cardinals fans and they are P.O.'d that McGwire didn't come clean with the fans years ago and feel he's only sorry now because he was caught doing it.  I did feel his apology was somewhat mealy-mouthed as he made a comment along the lines of if MLB would have been policing steroid and other drug use better, he likely would have never done it, that kind of put me off when I heard that last night. 

The Maris family is now saying they feel that Roger Maris' record of 61 HR's in a season is now the official record again as they feel the steroid use taints it.

I can agree with McGwire on a few points:

He was an amazing home run hitter in high school, college, minor leagues, and his first season or two in the big show without the benefit of steroids.  It takes a lot of hand-eye coordination to hit as many homers as he did and a natural swing, two things steroids cannot improve.  Steroids could have given him more power to hit the ball further, but that didn't seem to be a problem before either.

I don't know.  After I watched it last night on MLB, I thought he seemed very contrite.  And your friends' comments about getting caught?

Come on!  Everybody new he was doing something.  At the very least he was doing Andro.  People make a big deal of it, but at the time, it wasn't illegal.  His comment about his testimony to congress and his fear of legal action against him and the agreement that he would just talk about the present and not the 'past'.

I know people are going to make a big deal of McGwire vs Bonds.  The difference between those two is that Bonds hasn't really admitted it, and he acts like an a$$ to the media.  McGwire for the most part stayed quiet until he knew he was going to have to deal with it by taking the hitting coach job with the Cards.

Does that make what he did right?  Nope.  But look at the long list of those players in the last 20 years that have juiced.  Big Papi; A-Rod, the Rocket and others.  And Commissioner Selig didn't foster an air of discipline during that time, now did he?

I'll have to really sit down and watch more of the interview a little more closely.  But my feeling is that this guy should get his chance to move on.  Character matters, and his interview last night showed he has that.  His talking about calling Tony Larusso and the Maris family really stuck with me.

Him and Sammy Sosa saved baseball from itself in the late 90s; that much is indisputable.

[Conan71]

I said it earlier in this post: players before the days of 'roid ball were rumored to use stimulants to improve performance.  Something else to consider is that anabolic steroids have been around since the 1930's.  There's no proof that players didn't use them in earlier days either and you can be certain that players today are taking advantage of any sort of performance boost they can, legally.  Obviously, there was a fan stigma to 'roids when they were "legal" in baseball, otherwise players would have been open about it before Congress got involved and assclowns like Canseco sold out their bretheren.  I personally don't think any of the juice ball era players should be excused from The Hall, nor do I think an * belongs next to records they set.  That was pretty much the culture they played in at the time.

Rwarn, when Bill James earns his medical degree, I'll learn to trust his judgement on drugs and health care.  For now, I'm perfectly comfortable with him as a baseball statistician.  The way most of these guys were getting the steroids and using them was with minimal to no doctor supervision, that's dangerous as all hell.  Steroids help build muscle and help repair damage from injuries, but to assert they are life-extending drugs is pure folly.  Read some scholarly medical material on them, not Googled searches.  They have their place, but only under close medical supervision and not for extended periods.

I can also think of a few players who made it well into their late 30's and 40's who were still having great seasons prior to the Sosa/Bonds/McGwire/et al era: Nolan Ryan, The Niekro brothers, Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, etc.  No idea what those guys later seasons might have looked like with the aid of 'roids, no doubt it probably would have enhanced their performance.

[rwarn17588]

<snip>

I can also think of a few players who made it well into their late 30's and 40's who were still having great seasons prior to the Sosa/Bonds/McGwire/et al era: Nolan Ryan, The Niekro brothers, Johnny Bench, Hank Aaron, etc.  No idea what those guys later seasons might have looked like with the aid of 'roids, no doubt it probably would have enhanced their performance.

I seriously doubt the Niekros would have benefitted one iota from steroid use. They threw knuckleballs, and there's no advantage at all to throwing that pitch harder. Throwing a knuckler puts so little strain on the arm that injury-avoidance isn't a factor. Both pitched well into their 40s, which is not uncommon for knuckleball pitchers (see Hoyt Wilhelm and Tim Wakefield).

Hank Aaron had great seasons in his 30s because his team moved from a neutral ballpark in Milwaukee to a hitter's paradise in Atlanta. His skills declined as expected (fewer stolen bases, decreased defensive range to the point where he played a lot of first base). But his home run numbers actually rose a bit because of where he played. There's not a shred of doubt in my mind that he wouldn't have broken Ruth's record if he hadn't moved to Fulton County Stadium, which was nicknamed the Launching Pad because it was such a friendly place for home run hitters.

Bench was out of baseball by age 35.

As for Nolan Ryan, he was one of the first pitchers to start weightlifting (managers before then discouraged players from doing so). His regimen no doubt extended his career, and it makes one wonder whether he was on the juice, too ... who knows?

[cannon_fodder]

Mac had talent without steroids, but with steroids the bat was a tiny twig he could use to swat home run records.  He wasn't household name famouse (or hulk Lile) untilled he shot up.  If a good poker player starts cheating to win more... he's still a cheat.

[guido911]

The Belleville Mafia is staying at my house this week (Guido and Rwarn will get the reference)

yep.

[Hoss]

Mac had talent without steroids, but with steroids the bat was a tiny twig he could use to swat home run records.  He wasn't household name famouse (or hulk Lile) untilled he shot up.  If a good poker player starts cheating to win more... he's still a cheat.

But if the pit-bosses know that a poker player is cheating but doesn't say anything, what does that say about the casino?

[cannon_fodder]

But if the pit-bosses know that a poker player is cheating but doesn't say anything, what does that say about the casino?

I'm not defending the integrity of MLB, rather pointing out the lack thereof in night Mac

[rwarn17588]

If a good poker player starts cheating to win more... he's still a cheat.

From Mr. James, who refutes the cheating allegation:

"It seems to me that the argument that it is cheating must ultimately collapse under the weight of carrying this great contradiction — that 80% of the players are cheating against the other 20% by violating some 'rule' to which they never consented, which was never included in the rule books, and which for which there
was no enforcement procedure. History is simply not going to see it that way."

[Conan71]

From Mr. James, who refutes the cheating allegation:

"It seems to me that the argument that it is cheating must ultimately collapse under the weight of carrying this great contradiction — that 80% of the players are cheating against the other 20% by violating some 'rule' to which they never consented, which was never included in the rule books, and which for which there
was no enforcement procedure. History is simply not going to see it that way."

Bill James is a very bright man and you cannot question his passion for the game and technically, he is correct.  But, one person's opinion on it doesn't make it so one way or the other, no matter how respected a baseball insider he or she is.  Ultimately it's up to the fans.  If the majority of them think it's cheating, then it's cheating.  Only time will tell how kind history is to McGwire and the rest of the guys who played in the day of 'roid ball.  What I'm hearing is even if it wasn't "illegal" at the time, it still was not within the spirit of the rules because supposedly guys like Roger Maris and Babe Ruth didn't have the advantage of steroids.