Steroids? Knock me down!

[Wilfrid]

Did I say Bonds and Clemens were merely suspected of taking steroids?

So, are you shifting to a burden of proof argument (beyond a reasonable doubt)?

 

No.

[Wilfrid]

The answer I am getting to the last question is that amphetamines weren't as effective as steroids. I am not sure how we know that.

The home run data. The number collectively after steroids (and HGH) seemed to be in use; the numbers individually; the ages of the players hitting those high numbers when compared with prior generations. That's how we know. And what do we know about the effect of amphetamines? Nothing that I can see. We know some good players used them. But as they aged their stats trailed off.

 

Good luck with that. I said the same thing back at the end of November and it didn't seem to register.

 

Amphetamines? Lets be real about this. They were used in baseball since the 1950s and overall player performance stayed roughly the same. You didn’t have people breaking Maris’ 61 HR record every year like we had when the drug pipeline was open. The advantages they provided were minor - the edge steroids provided was orders of magnitude greater.

 

 

Cheating is okay, as long as it doesn't mean people breaking famous records. Day to day use of drugs which help you play better are fine, so long as you don't embarrass us by going on hot streaks.

 

This is what you're saying?

 

In Lance Armstrong terms, I suppose that translates as: by all means use drugs, but don't go winning seven Tours.

 

And do you accept the consequence that steroid/HGH users who didn't post outrageous figures as a result of using drugs, should be eligible for the HoF.

 

Let's be specific: assuming for the sake of argument that Pettitte's figures are good enough for the HoF, do you exclude him? And if so why? - because he strikes me as much more a Hank Aaron case than a Mark McGwire case.

[hollywood]

Lance Armstrong agrees with Wilfrid.

 

 

Obviously, nobody is proud of systematically manipulating the American people into thinking their spectacular athletic triumphs were legitimate when, in reality, they owe every last one of those victories to the use of illegal chemicals. But no one ought to be ashamed of it, either, for all of us have done it, whether by condemning honest journalists as liars, hypocritically firing our personal trainer Michele Ferrari for becoming too closely associated with steroids, or simply denouncing all investigations against us as “a pitiful charade.”

Haha.

[Adrian]

When the use of steroids in baseball by guys like McGwire and Bonds (though, probably interestingly, not Clemens) and Bonds and in the Tour de France by everyone, were so massively distortionary that they lead to athletic "accomplishment" not just standard deviations away from what is currently possible but, as with Soviet Block athlete in the 1980s, athletic accomplishment that is so far beyond what is plausible with even the most elite human physiology that we've ever seen, it makes no sense to call this cheating like any other. While the reason MLB is punishing these guys is because they think steroids hurt the game's historical brand (while the NFL thinks steroids help its brand and plays an weird double game), it doesn't mean that we shouldn't look more poorly on Bonds for turning himself into a hideous freakshow human and, maybe more troublingly, robbing us of seeinig the athletic greatness Bonds was capable of as a clean player (a 400, 400 guy! the only one!). Which is one case, of many, why this kind of cheating was a bit different from the cheating that we've seen before.

[hollywood]

Cheating is okay, as long as it doesn't mean people breaking famous records. Day to day use of drugs which help you play better are fine, so long as you don't embarrass us by going on hot streaks.

 

This is what you're saying?

 

In Lance Armstrong terms, I suppose that translates as: by all means use drugs, but don't go winning seven Tours.

Well, I can appreciate a good reductio ad absurdum. Still, I think you are choosing to miss the obvious.

[Adrian]

We shouldn't point out that the reductio ad absurdum of Wilfrid's position is the guy who takes the wrong kind of Sudafed and the guy who undergoes the most sophisticated program of synthetic chemical enhancement known to man are both equal cheaters.

 

wait, who said what? not that?

[SethG]

Worse than that: if you don't treat them equally you are simply victimizing people you don't like.

 

The application of judgment and discretion necessarily involves improper discrimination.

[foodie52]

How do they sleep at night?

[Adrian]

Worse than that: if you don't treat them equally you are simply victimizing people you don't like. The application of judgment and discretion necessarily involves improper discrimination.

 

If you wanted to be totally awesome, you could suggest that he's just defending Bonds because it's a necessary condition for defending Clemens...

[mongo_jones]

How do they sleep at night?

 

on large piles of money with many beautiful ladies

[Lex]

Worse than that: if you don't treat them equally you are simply victimizing people you don't like. The application of judgment and discretion necessarily involves improper discrimination.

 

If you wanted to be totally awesome, you could suggest that he's just defending Bonds because it's a necessary condition for defending Clemens...

 

I'm glad you saw that. Wilfrid is mighty sweet on the Rocket. Once a player puts on pinstripes he gets one of these, good for a lifetime.

 

[Wilfrid]

Silly boys.

 

You can spend a lot of time on this thread looking for me defending Bonds or Clemens.

 

This thread, from page one, was about it being absolutely obvious to MLB management and coaches--and to any spectators with their wits about them--what was going on. It's been given the full-dress melodrama treatment because of the players and records involved. Otherwise, Lex would have been right. Nobody would have cared much. After all, the sport and fans loved the McGwire/Sosa derby (did any adult really think they were clean at the time?).

 

And you can also waste time looking for where I say the effects of amphetamines and steroids are the same. My question has always been, why is the latter culpable and the former not?

 

The question has been answered the same way by everyone I think: cheating is culpable only if it's highly effective. I think that's hilarious, but if you guys are okay with it...

[Wilfrid]

I do not think Bonds or Clemens used steroids, and even if they did, I think they should have been first ballot HoFers.

 

 

There you are. You can quote that in future. Just remember to add "He never said that."

[Wilfrid]

the implication is that if someone is taking some form of performance enhancer that isn't specifically banned or which isn't yet known to be performance enhancing it is fine.

 

i don't disagree that bonds etc. need to be censured, suspended, their records asterisked and so forth. however, i don't think cheating of this nature even is anything new. it is merely a matter of what you can get caught for and what the public narratives about those things happen to be when you get caught.

 

[Adrian]

My question has always been, why is the latter culpable and the former not?

 

The question has been answered the same way by everyone I think: cheating is culpable only if it's highly effective. I think that's hilarious, but if you guys are okay with it...

It's not about getting caught, but we don't have the time for that (there's a lot of willful dellusion among sports fans). No one is saying greenies aren't cheating of a sort (it depends on what we mean by "cheating", which we haven't defined, and what exactly you are "cheating), but it's that they don't rise to the level of steroids. It's shoplifting vs. grand thef auto.