I keep on seeing people complain about cheaters in the Hall of Fame, especially well-respected local journalists, you can easily find out who by researching who voted against them in the Bay Area in the last vote. I posted the below in The Athletic, plus my usual extensive additions.
Showing posts with label Amphetamine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Amphetamine. Show all posts
Monday, February 11, 2019
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
The Hall of Shame: Marvin Miller and Barry Bonds
I just had to get this out there. As a big cosmic intersecting synchronicity, Marvin Miller, the famed, long-time union leader for the MLBPA passed away, just days away from Hall of Fame announcement of who got in this year, with Barry Bonds being one of the big steroid question marks on the ballot, along with Clemens and Sosa as well.
ogc thoughts
Marvin Miller Should Have Been in the Hall of Fame While Alive
It just makes a big joke of the Baseball Hall of Fame that Marvin Miller is not in there. Whether you like the results that he brought into the game or not, he was a huge figure in the middle of the breakthrough years for the players association where they broke out from the yoke of slavery to the MLB, then turned it all around with arbitration and free agency. That is everlasting fame that the Hall of Fame should not and cannot deny. Shame on the Hall of Fame for not putting him in while he was alive, he lived to 95 for gosh's sake and he battle liver cancer the past few years as well, so it wasn't like people didn't know it wasn't coming, if not just for the age, but the disease. That he died without getting in - in fact, he was bitter about this and said in recent years that he would turn down the honor if it were to finally be given to him - is a blot on anyone who had a hand in keeping him out.
Barry Bonds Should Be Voted In First Ballot
Bonds could be the next embarrassment for the Hall and the baseball writers. McGwire has already gone through the gauntlet and survived enough to stay on the ballot. But he really was more like Dave Kingman than he was an Hall of Famer, in my mind, so he was not a real test of the fervor of the writers about steroids, as even without that stain, given the boost in homers in that era, he should have been borderline anyway.
Two things make Bonds a different case. First and most of all, he already had a no-doubt Hall of Fame career when he was suspected to start taking steroids. Whether he willingly took the drug or was tricked into it by his friend/trainer, I don't think we'll ever know the full story, but either way it looks pretty sure that he took the stuff. However, most agree that he already had Hall of Fame career stats when he reportedly started taking. So a non-vote for him represents punishment by those writers for him taking the drug, in spite of his achievements prior to using.
Second of all, it is still not all that publicly clear what taking steroids does for a baseball player. Many claims are being made by writers and fans. Plus, baseball is a different sport, where finesse and form is more important than physical strength, though strength helps if you already have the skills.
But the evidence, as gathered by famed sabermetrician Eric Walker, of The Sinister Firstbaseman fame and the A's internal Bible fame, suggests that it was a juiced ball, not juiced humans, that powered the Homer era of 1993-2008, and on top of that, his research shows that steroids does not do anything to help improve performance in baseball. Assuming this is true - I have not had the time to exhaustively read all the citations, but I have read through the website - I will quote one of his ending statements:
The Hall of Shame
The Hall of Fame is not supposed to be used as a form of punishment. But that is what happened to Marvin Miller, making him bitter about it in his last days. It could and probably will happen to Barry Bonds, as well as Clemens, who is also clearly a Hall of Famer (Sosa, I can go either way, but he was also caught corking too, I would note, and he was another one-note freak like Dave Kingman; I would have to look at his career with more detail).
Which is all the shame because the writers do not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that steroids helped players. If they would just, you know, maybe be a journalist, research the topic, starting with Walker's great website, they might realize that there was a lot of hand waving and sermonizing (and demonizing) happening with regards to steroids.
What if Bonds usage was more akin to placebo using than performance enhancing? For if they think that they got egg on their face for not facing the steroid era head-on, from the moment that stuff was found in McGwire's locker for all to see (really, not one enterprising reporter thought to follow-up and investigate that one? Gary Hart would sure would have had a different career in that case), imagine how bad it will look if they held out Bonds on high moral grounds that proved to be quicksand? If all Walker presents is true, then Bonds is guilty of taking snake oil medicine or leeches, neither of which helps a player avoid a strikeout (which he did to great extremes) or hit a baseball well.
I have placed these Walker links in various places in the cyberspace, particularly websites that is known to draw a lot of readers, like The Hardball Times and Fangraphs. I would frankly be very surprised if at least one reporter has not see the links before, not that I'm that full of ego, but I cannot imagine that the journalism profession has degenerated down so much that they do not even read baseball websites like these. And I don't think that it is a coincidence that after years of me putting my performance box on the side, showing the team's record when a certain number of runs are scored or given up, I have started seeing this type of stat noted in the press as well. Reporters do read websites.
So why isn't the press showing the other side of this issue? Why not expose the demagoguery around this topic? Maybe Walker got it wrong, but why not at least tackle the issue since people are making so many decisions and judgments based on possibly false "facts"? And if he is correct, then it would be a huge scoop on their fellow sports writers, that person would gain a lot of fame for exposing the Emperor's New Clothes regarding steroids and bringing it to the public. Yet nothing so far.
Amphetamines Was the True Difference Maker
To me, if anything, amphetamines was a bigger blot on baseball records than steroids. It allowed players to play at their standard level of play, instead of being too tired to perform at that level. That greatly affected all career records set in the last 60 years or so, since World War II brought that drug into common usage. It is like caffeine (a legalized form of stimulant, I would add, so nobody is clean in my mind if you drink coffee or any cola drink), only better. Where is the outrage for that? Particularly since a number of players were exposed to have used the drug as far back as the 1960's, when Jim Bouton's book, Ball Four, came out and talked about the Yankee's drug use.
And sportswriters must have known about it. Again, Bouton's book exposed it and yet no enterprising journalist thought to investigate this illegal drug use (perhaps because many of them were using themselves). And reporters probably took them too when they were in the field reporting on World War II, someone somewhere must have known that usage would have gotten into baseball as well, tie the links.
Pete Rose Should Be In Too
And, in any case, the Hall of Fame does not exist to punish people, it is to honor the accomplishments that a person has made that made baseball what it is today. That is why I think Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose should belong in the Hall too, especially Mr. Hustle, he may have gambled but the proof is only when he was a manager, and I also can't imagine that he would ever bet against himself or his team if he had done it as a player (and there appears evidence that Shoeless Joe was just a witless participant, particularly given that he hit .375/.394/.563/.956 in that series that he supposedly "threw").
Nobody drives themselves relentlessly, particularly without much pure baseball talent - Rose was a mostly modestly skilled player - and then throw a game. He didn't achieve greatness throwing games, I think that would be impossible to do, a guy like him don't do that on a part-time basis, either you believe or you don't, and he believed in himself and pushed himself to greatness. You can't do that part-time.
And even if he could, he's still the LEADER IN HITS ALL-TIME. How do you keep that out of the Hall, even if he did do the unthinkable and bet against himself like a psycho, he still had more hits than anybody else in baseball history. It is not a real Hall of Fame if the hit leader is not in there. Instead, it is a Hall of Shame for all and any participants in the decision to keep Marvin Miller out, Pete Rose out, and, most probably, Barry Bonds out. If ethics were so important, then they should retroactively throw out all the racists and other person with vices that is not palatable now, that is how the Olympics does it when they re-award competitions. It would be hypocrisy not to.
ogc thoughts
Marvin Miller Should Have Been in the Hall of Fame While Alive
It just makes a big joke of the Baseball Hall of Fame that Marvin Miller is not in there. Whether you like the results that he brought into the game or not, he was a huge figure in the middle of the breakthrough years for the players association where they broke out from the yoke of slavery to the MLB, then turned it all around with arbitration and free agency. That is everlasting fame that the Hall of Fame should not and cannot deny. Shame on the Hall of Fame for not putting him in while he was alive, he lived to 95 for gosh's sake and he battle liver cancer the past few years as well, so it wasn't like people didn't know it wasn't coming, if not just for the age, but the disease. That he died without getting in - in fact, he was bitter about this and said in recent years that he would turn down the honor if it were to finally be given to him - is a blot on anyone who had a hand in keeping him out.
Barry Bonds Should Be Voted In First Ballot
Bonds could be the next embarrassment for the Hall and the baseball writers. McGwire has already gone through the gauntlet and survived enough to stay on the ballot. But he really was more like Dave Kingman than he was an Hall of Famer, in my mind, so he was not a real test of the fervor of the writers about steroids, as even without that stain, given the boost in homers in that era, he should have been borderline anyway.
Two things make Bonds a different case. First and most of all, he already had a no-doubt Hall of Fame career when he was suspected to start taking steroids. Whether he willingly took the drug or was tricked into it by his friend/trainer, I don't think we'll ever know the full story, but either way it looks pretty sure that he took the stuff. However, most agree that he already had Hall of Fame career stats when he reportedly started taking. So a non-vote for him represents punishment by those writers for him taking the drug, in spite of his achievements prior to using.
Second of all, it is still not all that publicly clear what taking steroids does for a baseball player. Many claims are being made by writers and fans. Plus, baseball is a different sport, where finesse and form is more important than physical strength, though strength helps if you already have the skills.
But the evidence, as gathered by famed sabermetrician Eric Walker, of The Sinister Firstbaseman fame and the A's internal Bible fame, suggests that it was a juiced ball, not juiced humans, that powered the Homer era of 1993-2008, and on top of that, his research shows that steroids does not do anything to help improve performance in baseball. Assuming this is true - I have not had the time to exhaustively read all the citations, but I have read through the website - I will quote one of his ending statements:
There seems little point in "punishment" for an effect-less "crime".To me, it seems like the writers want to do this to absolve themselves of the fact that they did NOTHING all those years to investigate when it was so obviously happening. And I'm throwing into this their shame for letting amphetamines stay in the game for over 50 years when it was happening all over the clubhouse, in fact, Krukow said in his morning KNBR show today that the team's trainer was OPENLY HANDING THEM OUT when he came up to the majors in the mid-70's. In any case, in my mind, steroids does not help a player hit better, muscle power is not how homers are hit, for if it were, skinny Hank Aaron (when he started) would have never gotten the career record.
The Hall of Shame
The Hall of Fame is not supposed to be used as a form of punishment. But that is what happened to Marvin Miller, making him bitter about it in his last days. It could and probably will happen to Barry Bonds, as well as Clemens, who is also clearly a Hall of Famer (Sosa, I can go either way, but he was also caught corking too, I would note, and he was another one-note freak like Dave Kingman; I would have to look at his career with more detail).
Which is all the shame because the writers do not know beyond a shadow of a doubt that steroids helped players. If they would just, you know, maybe be a journalist, research the topic, starting with Walker's great website, they might realize that there was a lot of hand waving and sermonizing (and demonizing) happening with regards to steroids.
What if Bonds usage was more akin to placebo using than performance enhancing? For if they think that they got egg on their face for not facing the steroid era head-on, from the moment that stuff was found in McGwire's locker for all to see (really, not one enterprising reporter thought to follow-up and investigate that one? Gary Hart would sure would have had a different career in that case), imagine how bad it will look if they held out Bonds on high moral grounds that proved to be quicksand? If all Walker presents is true, then Bonds is guilty of taking snake oil medicine or leeches, neither of which helps a player avoid a strikeout (which he did to great extremes) or hit a baseball well.
I have placed these Walker links in various places in the cyberspace, particularly websites that is known to draw a lot of readers, like The Hardball Times and Fangraphs. I would frankly be very surprised if at least one reporter has not see the links before, not that I'm that full of ego, but I cannot imagine that the journalism profession has degenerated down so much that they do not even read baseball websites like these. And I don't think that it is a coincidence that after years of me putting my performance box on the side, showing the team's record when a certain number of runs are scored or given up, I have started seeing this type of stat noted in the press as well. Reporters do read websites.
So why isn't the press showing the other side of this issue? Why not expose the demagoguery around this topic? Maybe Walker got it wrong, but why not at least tackle the issue since people are making so many decisions and judgments based on possibly false "facts"? And if he is correct, then it would be a huge scoop on their fellow sports writers, that person would gain a lot of fame for exposing the Emperor's New Clothes regarding steroids and bringing it to the public. Yet nothing so far.
Amphetamines Was the True Difference Maker
To me, if anything, amphetamines was a bigger blot on baseball records than steroids. It allowed players to play at their standard level of play, instead of being too tired to perform at that level. That greatly affected all career records set in the last 60 years or so, since World War II brought that drug into common usage. It is like caffeine (a legalized form of stimulant, I would add, so nobody is clean in my mind if you drink coffee or any cola drink), only better. Where is the outrage for that? Particularly since a number of players were exposed to have used the drug as far back as the 1960's, when Jim Bouton's book, Ball Four, came out and talked about the Yankee's drug use.
And sportswriters must have known about it. Again, Bouton's book exposed it and yet no enterprising journalist thought to investigate this illegal drug use (perhaps because many of them were using themselves). And reporters probably took them too when they were in the field reporting on World War II, someone somewhere must have known that usage would have gotten into baseball as well, tie the links.
Pete Rose Should Be In Too
And, in any case, the Hall of Fame does not exist to punish people, it is to honor the accomplishments that a person has made that made baseball what it is today. That is why I think Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose should belong in the Hall too, especially Mr. Hustle, he may have gambled but the proof is only when he was a manager, and I also can't imagine that he would ever bet against himself or his team if he had done it as a player (and there appears evidence that Shoeless Joe was just a witless participant, particularly given that he hit .375/.394/.563/.956 in that series that he supposedly "threw").
Nobody drives themselves relentlessly, particularly without much pure baseball talent - Rose was a mostly modestly skilled player - and then throw a game. He didn't achieve greatness throwing games, I think that would be impossible to do, a guy like him don't do that on a part-time basis, either you believe or you don't, and he believed in himself and pushed himself to greatness. You can't do that part-time.
And even if he could, he's still the LEADER IN HITS ALL-TIME. How do you keep that out of the Hall, even if he did do the unthinkable and bet against himself like a psycho, he still had more hits than anybody else in baseball history. It is not a real Hall of Fame if the hit leader is not in there. Instead, it is a Hall of Shame for all and any participants in the decision to keep Marvin Miller out, Pete Rose out, and, most probably, Barry Bonds out. If ethics were so important, then they should retroactively throw out all the racists and other person with vices that is not palatable now, that is how the Olympics does it when they re-award competitions. It would be hypocrisy not to.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Bonds Reportedly Tests Positive for "Serious" Amphetamine Usage Plus Thoughts I'm Throwing Out
Boy, it sure does get worse for our boy Barry. It has been reported all over the place that Barry Bonds tested positively for usage of a "serious" stimulant last season. According to the reports, Barry blamed a substance that he got from Mark Sweeney's locker when he was notified of this transgression.
His excuse is also about as lame as Sosa's corked "batting practice" bat, though obviously Palmeiro/Tejada is the gold standard since he blamed Sweeney: Thanks for Giants Idol and the positive publicity I got from it Mark, I'll toss you under the bus now...
Some Thoughts I Would Throw Out
On Murph and Mac today on KNBR, Brian Murphy speculated that Aaron was a user of amphetamines too. While I have not seen any rumor about him and the use of greenies, I offer you these interesting facts.
Obviously, amphetamine usage did not appear to help Willie Mays at all, he declined about as soon as he entered his late 30's, but everyone's body is obviously different, some get help from drugs and some don't. Plus some continue to function well late in their life and some deteriorate sooner.
My Speculation About Hangup Over Bonds's Contract
According to the Merc, the major hangup is about Bonds's entourage's access to the clubhouse. He apparently feels that since he was able to do it before, why change it now. Obviously, the team does not agree, at least thus far.
Now many fans have been complaining that signing Bonds sends the wrong signal, that it does not show that things are changing. What if this hangup is the signal? What if the Giants make this their line in the sand? Could the Giants just not sign Bonds? That would be a pretty clear message, should it happen (and it would bring out budget back in line with $85M target, I would note). We do have Klesko ready to play LF plus Linden could platoon with him there (though Linden hits RHP better than LHP, go figure since he's a righty). The Giants might pick up another OF vet for backup should the Bonds contract not go through.
Of course, this is just my speculation, I don't know either way. But I thought I would throw it out as food for thought. My guess is that the contract will eventually go through, because Bonds is not going to get a $20M contract from another team, particularly this late in the game. He's going to have to suck it up and bend over. So he won't be humilitated by a low figure contract, but he'll have to bend to get the contract.
Can his ego take that? Don't know, but I assume the call of the green benjamins will get him to sign. He can only sell so many signed bats.
I can only guess how he might take this contract "defeat" on the field during 2007. He needs to play well if he's going to get to Aaron and any other career goals (3000 hits) he might have. However, I can see him being too "tired" to play near the end of the season if he is close to Aaron and ends up short by one or two homers of tying him, seemingly forcing another season to get that record.
I don't know what the Giants would or could do in that case. I don't know that they would want to do another year with him and, after this revelation, Bonds reputation is pretty much in tatters now, so I don't see how any other team would dare sign him up for the 2008 season. His story just gets sadder and sadder.
His excuse is also about as lame as Sosa's corked "batting practice" bat, though obviously Palmeiro/Tejada is the gold standard since he blamed Sweeney: Thanks for Giants Idol and the positive publicity I got from it Mark, I'll toss you under the bus now...
Some Thoughts I Would Throw Out
On Murph and Mac today on KNBR, Brian Murphy speculated that Aaron was a user of amphetamines too. While I have not seen any rumor about him and the use of greenies, I offer you these interesting facts.
- Aaron is one of a handful of players who were able to keep hitting homers at a high rate into his late 30's.
- Ted Williams, Darrell Evans,and Barry Bonds round out that group, as far as I could find (someone had done research on players with high OPS+ late in their career and I used that group of high achievers to put together this list).
- Not only did they keep on hitting homers, but they also somehow boosted their HR rate as well, on a HR/AB basis.
- I think it is pretty clear that it was the use of amphetamines in WW II by soldiers that led to its use in baseball afterward and we all know that Ted Williams served our country in WW II as well as the Korean War.
- And if Willie Mays was a big user of amphetamines (he served in the army in the early 50's, though I don't think he saw combat), obviously he then endorsed its usage, so it makes me wonder what type of advice he gave his godson, Barry Bonds.
- I would also note that Darrell Evans and Hank Aaron were teammates for a good number of years with the Braves.
Obviously, amphetamine usage did not appear to help Willie Mays at all, he declined about as soon as he entered his late 30's, but everyone's body is obviously different, some get help from drugs and some don't. Plus some continue to function well late in their life and some deteriorate sooner.
My Speculation About Hangup Over Bonds's Contract
According to the Merc, the major hangup is about Bonds's entourage's access to the clubhouse. He apparently feels that since he was able to do it before, why change it now. Obviously, the team does not agree, at least thus far.
Now many fans have been complaining that signing Bonds sends the wrong signal, that it does not show that things are changing. What if this hangup is the signal? What if the Giants make this their line in the sand? Could the Giants just not sign Bonds? That would be a pretty clear message, should it happen (and it would bring out budget back in line with $85M target, I would note). We do have Klesko ready to play LF plus Linden could platoon with him there (though Linden hits RHP better than LHP, go figure since he's a righty). The Giants might pick up another OF vet for backup should the Bonds contract not go through.
Of course, this is just my speculation, I don't know either way. But I thought I would throw it out as food for thought. My guess is that the contract will eventually go through, because Bonds is not going to get a $20M contract from another team, particularly this late in the game. He's going to have to suck it up and bend over. So he won't be humilitated by a low figure contract, but he'll have to bend to get the contract.
Can his ego take that? Don't know, but I assume the call of the green benjamins will get him to sign. He can only sell so many signed bats.
I can only guess how he might take this contract "defeat" on the field during 2007. He needs to play well if he's going to get to Aaron and any other career goals (3000 hits) he might have. However, I can see him being too "tired" to play near the end of the season if he is close to Aaron and ends up short by one or two homers of tying him, seemingly forcing another season to get that record.
I don't know what the Giants would or could do in that case. I don't know that they would want to do another year with him and, after this revelation, Bonds reputation is pretty much in tatters now, so I don't see how any other team would dare sign him up for the 2008 season. His story just gets sadder and sadder.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)