[Note: I had worked on this a while back, just found it among my drafts, pretty much done, so I'm publishing it now, after a few edits]
As many of you know, I currently do not believe that the recently passed heightened offensive era is the steroids era. As Eric Walker showed brilliantly at his websites, Steroids and Baseball and Sillyball, that era was more the Juice Ball era, not the Juiced Men era.
One huge conversation starter for Steroids Sympathizers and those of us non-believers is the whole Jose-Ozzie Canseco connundrum: if steroids is so great, then why was Ozzie such a dud. One reasoning is that Ozzie didn't get the experience to enable that to happen, didn't get the repetition as a hitter since he started as a pitcher. What follows is my response, which of course, I have updated and modified from the original, as it is my wont to do, I'm always tweaking.
Showing posts with label PEDS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PEDS. Show all posts
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Sanctimonious Moralistic Hall of Fame Voter Hypocrites
I had recently written about the vote for Barry Bonds and other tainted with steroids and PEDs, but I recently ran across a column written by a local columnist who I admire, so I won't mention the writer's name, but since the writer's stance is similar to a lot of the national writers who are going to vote No for Bonds, I felt the need to answer some of the points made in that column.
Also, the Hall of Fame vote was reported today and it was a referendum against the steroid era, as nobody was voted in. Probably because there were a number of people who voted but left their ballot blank.
"Don't Reward Those Who Cheated the Game"
This would be a great idea: if it were done about 40-60 years ago. Journalists can beat the drum loud today but the real assault on the record books began when amphetamines entered the game. This enabled the better players to be better later into the season, helping them compile better seasonal and therefore career stats. However, even though many players came out about this - BACK THEN (Ball Four, testimonies in court attesting to Mays' usage of "red juice", others) - there was never anything done by the media about this type of cheating, certainly nothing to the extent steroids gotten, and that covers a much longer period of time.
Moreover, the benefits of speed is clear, it boosts the athlete's ability to stay at the same level of performance deeper into the season, whereas steroid's benefits seems to be driven more by non-experts' (public and journalists) fears of how steroids might help a player, rather than what science has been able to show are the real effects (which by one large compilation at High Boskage House is minimal, at best).
One justification for this type of behavior versus steroids is that "everyone" used speed while not everyone used steroids. But cheating is cheating, no matter how many do it, it is still cheating. And that is what the writers have been saying, that cheating is why they are not voting for certain players. That is, if that is really what the writers feel.
Cheating Since World War II
Cheating has been happening at least since the 1960's and, most probably, since World War II, when the military routinely dispensed amphetamine to the troops to keep them in fighting shape. It is only natural that once these ballplayers returned to civilian life, they knew of and seeked out such medical help when the effects of the long baseball season made them feel weak. Krukow in his morning show a few weeks ago noted that each team's training staff routinely and openly dispensed this to players (this was in the 70's).
At least one baseball journalist, long ago, must have seen this in the clubhouse, and even if they could not go after the players - because that would ruin their relationship with the team - they could have had one of their colleagues in another department investigate and expose this cheating long ago, at minimum, when Jim Bouton's Ball Four came out and he outed the players. No reporter ever did anything about it. Ironically, amphetamines were finally pushed out with the drug rules put in place because of steroids.
If cheating is going to be the litmus test today for not voting for Barry Bonds, then this national debate should have been happening when his godfather, Willie Mays was being voted into the Hall of Fame. Cheating was rampant then. Heck, cheating of all sorts have been rampant throughout the history of the game. Today, the horse has not only left the barn, it is on another continent, perhaps another planetary object.
If the writer cannot vote for a player clouded by this, why vote at all? Maybe the bigger message would be sent by not voting at all for anyone, because we can never really know who was using what. And some are doing that.
Yes, certain players were obvious with their steroids usage. But HGH usage was not, but is equally considered to be cheating and helpful by the public (High Boskage House research also shows minimal benefits), so for all we know, even players who appear to be clean are not clean at all either. There is no real way to distinguish who was a cheater in this era and who was not. And so many writers say that they are not going to vote, either by not returning their vote (which at least does not actually affect the voting) or by returning a blank vote (which makes it harder for any player to make the Hall of Fame, whether cheating or not).
Moralistic
Also, when were writers made the arbiters of "character"? I mean, I know that is in the language of the Hall of Fame determination, but as far as I know, the only requirement for a writer to earn the right to vote for the Hall of Fame is having 10 years following a team under their belt. They don't add in any language there about the writers being good judges of character.
In fact, one of the major reasons given that justifies giving the vote to writers with at least 10 years of experience following a team every day is that this enables them to be able to view baseball players with an expertise that allows them to see when a player is good or not, and thus whether they belong in the Hall of Fame. Many writers today say that Bonds had a Hall of Fame already made when he allegedly started using steroids. Instead of standing on moralistic grounds on which their expertise is unknown, they should use the skills that they are suppose to have developed over the years and see who should get in and who should not?
Unless they are saying that they cannot distinguish this. But in that case, why are they being allowed to vote then? If they have this expertise, use this expertise. If steroids help homers (according to research found by Eric Walker, steroids add about 5 feet to any ball hit by a hitter, so this appears to be a fallacy in the thinking of people who don't want to vote for steroids users), then make some determination of what exactly is so different.
Here is a good quote from his steroids website (about third way down):
Walker later had a section on Bonds specifically. He illustrated that what Bonds did was not all that different from other players who had extraordinary seasons. He states that there is no proof in his performance that he had extra help.
Witch Hunters
So Bonds should be in, not even close. I've seen nobody yet claim that steroids helps a hitter see the ball better and to hit it hard. All they talk about is body bulk, and there are 250 pound behemoths that hit lollipops while a lanky 180 pound stick with good wrist action can become the career leader in homeruns (Aaron; of course, he got legal cheating as the Braves brought in their fences, coincidentally enough, right when he was getting close and they brought them back out when he left the team and set the new record; why there was no outrage about that as the reason Ruth was beat, I don't know). Bonds was universally agreed to be a Hall of Famer before he reportedly started using. This non-vote is meant to be punitive.
That's funny, I thought the Hall of Fame was suppose to celebratory, not an instrument of punishment.
What makes it even more sad is that the writers have had over 20 years to get down to business and actually DO THEIR JOB as journalists. Eric Walker, of A's and Sinister Firstbaseman fame, keeps up a website to sell his baseball analytics service and, first, he discovered that the offensive era looks like it was caused by a juiced ball, and second, because people claimed he was wrong and started claiming steroids did certain things, he researched the heck out of it and concluded that steroids provided very little to benefit baseball players and gave further evidence that the ball was juiced during that period. He did the investigative journalism that was necessary to show that steroids didn't do much of anything, instead of copying the "journalists" who just spread the same misconceptions that another "journalists" claimed was true.
Read through his steroid's website, look at all the associated subsites that cite even more things in detail, discussing the physical changes to the baseball, the actual effects PED has, the medical effects, the healing effects, ethical issues, and effects on role models. Makes a very strong case that the general public, including reporters, got it all wrong: yes, they might have cheated (definition slippery), definitely took something illegal (at least the ones caught), but it apparently didn't help players out at all in performing better.
In other words, whatever PEDs players might have used were no different than a placebo. They cheated with today's version of snake oil. They are no different from the Asians today who eat rhino horns, thinking that would give their bodies some sort of boost. Both groups are sadly wrong.
Journalists could have done this type of investigative journalism work long ago, not some OCD baseball analyst, if they were really interested in the truth and not in a witch hunt. Here is how I view this: the writers felt greatly embarrassed by the steroids era because they did nothing while it was going on, and thus many of them feel the need to punish the players who used or allegedly used PEDs. When, really, they should be embarrassed twice over now, first for not only missing the steroids rise, but mostly overlooking and ignoring it - it is not like it is a shock, McGwire was suspected of using long ago, yet no reporter ever thought of investigating him closely, they waited until Bonds was suspected and even then they used illegally released grand jury testimony that basically proved nothing - and second for spreading false "truths" about steroids, and then taking their anger out on star players like Bonds and Clemens, and really, since nobody got in this year, all players, as there were players who appeared clean and who should get in, like Biggio. They should be ashamed.
Also, the Hall of Fame vote was reported today and it was a referendum against the steroid era, as nobody was voted in. Probably because there were a number of people who voted but left their ballot blank.
"Don't Reward Those Who Cheated the Game"
This would be a great idea: if it were done about 40-60 years ago. Journalists can beat the drum loud today but the real assault on the record books began when amphetamines entered the game. This enabled the better players to be better later into the season, helping them compile better seasonal and therefore career stats. However, even though many players came out about this - BACK THEN (Ball Four, testimonies in court attesting to Mays' usage of "red juice", others) - there was never anything done by the media about this type of cheating, certainly nothing to the extent steroids gotten, and that covers a much longer period of time.
Moreover, the benefits of speed is clear, it boosts the athlete's ability to stay at the same level of performance deeper into the season, whereas steroid's benefits seems to be driven more by non-experts' (public and journalists) fears of how steroids might help a player, rather than what science has been able to show are the real effects (which by one large compilation at High Boskage House is minimal, at best).
One justification for this type of behavior versus steroids is that "everyone" used speed while not everyone used steroids. But cheating is cheating, no matter how many do it, it is still cheating. And that is what the writers have been saying, that cheating is why they are not voting for certain players. That is, if that is really what the writers feel.
Cheating Since World War II
Cheating has been happening at least since the 1960's and, most probably, since World War II, when the military routinely dispensed amphetamine to the troops to keep them in fighting shape. It is only natural that once these ballplayers returned to civilian life, they knew of and seeked out such medical help when the effects of the long baseball season made them feel weak. Krukow in his morning show a few weeks ago noted that each team's training staff routinely and openly dispensed this to players (this was in the 70's).
At least one baseball journalist, long ago, must have seen this in the clubhouse, and even if they could not go after the players - because that would ruin their relationship with the team - they could have had one of their colleagues in another department investigate and expose this cheating long ago, at minimum, when Jim Bouton's Ball Four came out and he outed the players. No reporter ever did anything about it. Ironically, amphetamines were finally pushed out with the drug rules put in place because of steroids.
If cheating is going to be the litmus test today for not voting for Barry Bonds, then this national debate should have been happening when his godfather, Willie Mays was being voted into the Hall of Fame. Cheating was rampant then. Heck, cheating of all sorts have been rampant throughout the history of the game. Today, the horse has not only left the barn, it is on another continent, perhaps another planetary object.
If the writer cannot vote for a player clouded by this, why vote at all? Maybe the bigger message would be sent by not voting at all for anyone, because we can never really know who was using what. And some are doing that.
Yes, certain players were obvious with their steroids usage. But HGH usage was not, but is equally considered to be cheating and helpful by the public (High Boskage House research also shows minimal benefits), so for all we know, even players who appear to be clean are not clean at all either. There is no real way to distinguish who was a cheater in this era and who was not. And so many writers say that they are not going to vote, either by not returning their vote (which at least does not actually affect the voting) or by returning a blank vote (which makes it harder for any player to make the Hall of Fame, whether cheating or not).
Moralistic
Also, when were writers made the arbiters of "character"? I mean, I know that is in the language of the Hall of Fame determination, but as far as I know, the only requirement for a writer to earn the right to vote for the Hall of Fame is having 10 years following a team under their belt. They don't add in any language there about the writers being good judges of character.
In fact, one of the major reasons given that justifies giving the vote to writers with at least 10 years of experience following a team every day is that this enables them to be able to view baseball players with an expertise that allows them to see when a player is good or not, and thus whether they belong in the Hall of Fame. Many writers today say that Bonds had a Hall of Fame already made when he allegedly started using steroids. Instead of standing on moralistic grounds on which their expertise is unknown, they should use the skills that they are suppose to have developed over the years and see who should get in and who should not?
Unless they are saying that they cannot distinguish this. But in that case, why are they being allowed to vote then? If they have this expertise, use this expertise. If steroids help homers (according to research found by Eric Walker, steroids add about 5 feet to any ball hit by a hitter, so this appears to be a fallacy in the thinking of people who don't want to vote for steroids users), then make some determination of what exactly is so different.
Here is a good quote from his steroids website (about third way down):
As I remarked above, there are at least five other studies--all listed and linked on the longer page--all based on sophisticated analysis of real data, and each using a different approach, that each reach the same basic conclusion: there is no visible effect attributable to steroids. In the most mathematically dense and rigorous paper, its author, Professor Arthur DeVany, spares no words:
| There is no evidence that steroid use has altered home-run hitting and those who argue otherwise are profoundly ignorant of the statistics of home runs, the physics of baseball, and of the physiological effects of steroids. |
Walker later had a section on Bonds specifically. He illustrated that what Bonds did was not all that different from other players who had extraordinary seasons. He states that there is no proof in his performance that he had extra help.
Witch Hunters
So Bonds should be in, not even close. I've seen nobody yet claim that steroids helps a hitter see the ball better and to hit it hard. All they talk about is body bulk, and there are 250 pound behemoths that hit lollipops while a lanky 180 pound stick with good wrist action can become the career leader in homeruns (Aaron; of course, he got legal cheating as the Braves brought in their fences, coincidentally enough, right when he was getting close and they brought them back out when he left the team and set the new record; why there was no outrage about that as the reason Ruth was beat, I don't know). Bonds was universally agreed to be a Hall of Famer before he reportedly started using. This non-vote is meant to be punitive.
That's funny, I thought the Hall of Fame was suppose to celebratory, not an instrument of punishment.
What makes it even more sad is that the writers have had over 20 years to get down to business and actually DO THEIR JOB as journalists. Eric Walker, of A's and Sinister Firstbaseman fame, keeps up a website to sell his baseball analytics service and, first, he discovered that the offensive era looks like it was caused by a juiced ball, and second, because people claimed he was wrong and started claiming steroids did certain things, he researched the heck out of it and concluded that steroids provided very little to benefit baseball players and gave further evidence that the ball was juiced during that period. He did the investigative journalism that was necessary to show that steroids didn't do much of anything, instead of copying the "journalists" who just spread the same misconceptions that another "journalists" claimed was true.
Read through his steroid's website, look at all the associated subsites that cite even more things in detail, discussing the physical changes to the baseball, the actual effects PED has, the medical effects, the healing effects, ethical issues, and effects on role models. Makes a very strong case that the general public, including reporters, got it all wrong: yes, they might have cheated (definition slippery), definitely took something illegal (at least the ones caught), but it apparently didn't help players out at all in performing better.
In other words, whatever PEDs players might have used were no different than a placebo. They cheated with today's version of snake oil. They are no different from the Asians today who eat rhino horns, thinking that would give their bodies some sort of boost. Both groups are sadly wrong.
Journalists could have done this type of investigative journalism work long ago, not some OCD baseball analyst, if they were really interested in the truth and not in a witch hunt. Here is how I view this: the writers felt greatly embarrassed by the steroids era because they did nothing while it was going on, and thus many of them feel the need to punish the players who used or allegedly used PEDs. When, really, they should be embarrassed twice over now, first for not only missing the steroids rise, but mostly overlooking and ignoring it - it is not like it is a shock, McGwire was suspected of using long ago, yet no reporter ever thought of investigating him closely, they waited until Bonds was suspected and even then they used illegally released grand jury testimony that basically proved nothing - and second for spreading false "truths" about steroids, and then taking their anger out on star players like Bonds and Clemens, and really, since nobody got in this year, all players, as there were players who appeared clean and who should get in, like Biggio. They should be ashamed.
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.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Barry Bonds Perjury Trial
As most of us know, Barry Bonds is in court for allegedly lying to a Grand Jury. His lawyer brought up the possibility that he might testify, but anybody who has seen hundreds of hours of TV law scenes know that there is as much chance of Bonds taking the stand as him batting lead-off for the Giants anytime in the future. Mark Purdy, columnist of the SJ Mercury, has been following the trial and wrote a "what if" column on the questions that he would ask Bonds if he took the stand.
He asks some great questions that I, taking a more unbiased approach, might be able to answer for him.
Q1: Why is Bonds going to trial instead of copping a plea?
Purdy wonders why put them through all that. Well, as we all know, Bonds is a cheap guy. So why go through all this trouble and drag your family and friends and former teammates through all this, and spend a few millions doing that, weird because he is so tight with his money? Well, maybe they might consider that Bonds believes that he's innocent? (And this question presumes that the Feds offered him this easy out, when from what I can gather from all the reports I've read, the Feds set him up to perjure so that they can take him to trial and "expose" everything. From my reading, it appears that Novitsky is a legal equivalent of a stalker, looking to nail Bonds.)
Now, I have no idea whether Bonds is guilty of knowing or not, I only watch closely because I am a Giants fan and a Bonds fan (starting with Bobby), and my feelings won't change either way since we all know that he took it, because he said that his trainer gave him stuff that has clearly been established as designer steroids that BALCO was dealing. There's no debate on that one, particularly since the defense is admitting usage but not knowledge.
But what if he wasn't lying? Now, one well-known Bay Area-based announcer has went on the air and said that there is no way Bonds would have took the stuff from Anderson without knowing what it was. And, of course, the books that came from the illegal release of grand jury documents (which I think should have been pursued for more punishment there), which naturally gave the one-sided view and assumption that Bonds is guilty. But nobody considers the "what if" that Bonds was lied to by his friend?
For example, you go to your friends house and they make some food that is different for you but since it's your friend you try it out. Seems pretty good so you eat a lot of it and always made the point of coming to eat that food when invited over and it is served (family secret!). What if your friend thought that you were a little too straight laced and put some pot in there to loosen you up for his party? Would you ever know it (assuming you are straight laced and never tried it before)?
Or your buddy has this great homemade lotion, family secret, that he uses after a hard exercise session that he swears by? Unless it's ugly looking and/or stinks a lot, you most probably would use it, wouldn't you?
Now let's say it is one of your best buddies from childhood, and he's your trainer, and he says he got some homeopathic remedies for his aches, some flaxseed oil and some rubbing balm, and you have made it very clear to him that you don't want to use anything like steroids. Would you make him prove to you that there isn't anything wrong with the stuff? Would you spend money testing the stuff? (Remember, he's a skinflint) And this is a guy you viewed as a brother from growing up together.
About the sports shoe representative who said that Bonds talked about taking steroids, how many people have NEVER said something outrageous that you would never in a million years do, but you say it as a lark with your good buddy, knowing he or she would understand. Remember, Ken Griffey Jr. was there.
I don't know about you, but I've sometimes forgot that there are other people around and talk with about stuff I would normally only talk with one-on-one with that person, forgetting about the other people who are there or might be eavesdropping. You just forget for a moment. Others might say "I'm going to kill you!" or anything over the top that you would never do but in the heat of the moment, you say it. Then there are those moments you might say, "did I just say that out loud?"
Talking about it does not mean you are going to do it, this is kind of like that movie, "Minority Report", where a covert government outfit stops crimes before they happen by having psychics interpret people's intentions. Just because you say it or think it does not mean you are going to do it, Griffey as Bonds' long-time buddy would understand that, but the sports shoe rep wouldn't.
So the media can say what they want about Bonds based on their one-sided (that is, Bonds only presents one side of his persona to the media, a different one when he is relaxed and chillin' with his family and best buds) view of him, but who hasn't eaten or used something that you don't really have any idea what is in it, but your best buddy served it to you?
What if Bonds was betrayed by one of his best childhood buddies, Greg Anderson? Not like it wasn't motivated, by all accounts, Bonds might consider him a good friend, but he treated him like crap, a flunky to go around and do stuff for him, because it is all about being the Barry. And he didn't pay him very well either, from what I recall, if at all, now that I'm thinking about it. And there is probably some level of jealousy and envy on the part of Anderson, and maybe he wanted to use his connection with Bonds for his own benefit. Ultimately, this could be about someone fighting to the teeth to "prove" his innocence in the courts.
Q2: Where is Greg Anderson? Why isn't he testifying?
Which leads us to answering this question. Because the media assumes Bonds is guilty, and never considered the concept that perhaps he might be innocent, they never really considered the possibility that perhaps Anderson set Bonds up and betrayed him for money. One of the oldest reasons for humankind, really, and covered in the media every day, but never considered because, well, he must be guilty, because the government says so.
I never see it mentioned much in the media, because, well, it messes up with their cut and dry story line, but Victor Conte said publicly that Bonds did not use the steroids he delivered (which admittedly contradicts what he originally told the government agents). Now, from the evidence we have heard since, that is not true, but why would he say that unless it was true, at least from his knowledge? I mean, he threw a lot of big athletic stars under the bus, like Marion Jones, why would he publicly say that he never supplied Bonds with his designer steroids? One possible reason is that maybe he didn't knowingly supply it.
And why wouldn't Anderson testify? Well, the story line in the media now is that Bonds cheated with Anderson's help, Bonds is the cheater. Anderson is just the enabler, the supplier.
If the truth is that he lied to his childhood "best" bud, dosed him with drugs that Bonds had clearly stated he didn't want to use, then used Bonds' "usage" as an endorsement to sell the drugs to other players, Anderson becomes the villain in the media story line. Weird motivation to rather be in jail, I'll admit, but maybe he would rather let Barry take the fall for this than be known as one of the biggest jerks in history, even to the point of going to jail. Instead, right now, he looks like he's a great friend doing a huge favor for his friend, if anything, his public reputation is improved by going to jail.
Just because Barry Bonds' name is on scheduling calendars does not mean that he knew what Anderson was giving him. Obviously, Anderson had to keep dosing him in order to sell the stuff to other athletes. And probably warned them to never talk to Bonds about it, and that was easy to get them to comply, most people wouldn't bother Bonds period, let alone try to get him into a conversation regarding illegal PEDs.
And, again, I'm not saying this is what happened, I'm only stating that the media have never considered alternative possibilities because they have already tried and convicted him, because they have to stand up behind their other media buddies and support their conclusions. And why not, that's the better story anyway.
Q3: Why are you the only one to not know what you were taking?
Well, I think I explained it pretty well above, but I'll go over it here for a cleaner storyline.
Bonds is paying Anderson nothing, other than to enjoy the glory of being one of Bonds' entourage. Anderson needs to pay the bills, probably is aware, as a body-builder, of suppliers of PEDs, so he figures he can capitalize on his buddy's star-power to sell PEDs to other athletes. Most probably, athletes have already approached him, eager to learn Barry's secrets, heck, at that point, there were probably already whispers that he was using.
But he has to have Barry using it to convince other athletes that they are getting what Barry is getting, so he puts together a dosing calendar and explains to Bonds that it is just some home remedies that he uses and recommends Barry uses. Barry, being a buddy, does use the stuff even if he don't quite believe in it, because, as much as he can be an ass sometimes, he does sometimes do things to support his buddy too. And he supports his buddy by recommending his other buddies use it too, why not, it seems harmless enough, it is just flaxseed oil. And if there were pills involved, I can see Anderson calling them vitamin supplements.
With Barry "using", it is just a matter of going back to the athletes who asked him for help before and selling him the same stuff. Bonds was openly using the stuff in the locker room, so it was no secret, which made it that much easier for Anderson to sell the stuff. And why not, these guys have all this money burning a hole in their pockets, why not pick up some of that money for himself, since Bonds isn't paying Anderson anything for his time and help?
And once the stuff hit the fan and Anderson is accused by the authorities, you stick by your buddy, sure, maybe he did something bad, but you stick by your buddies and support them, you don't abandon people from your 'hood. Well, unless they are stealing from you, like Steve Hoskins apparently was. And it is mentioned that Bonds still employed Anderson even afterward, but from what I've understood, there was no employment involved, Bonds did not pay him for anything, they were just two buddies hanging out.
And when we get right down to it, we don't know how deep a bond these two have. Brothers have been known to do horrible things to each other but still in the end, they are brothers and they stick together, through thick and thin (then there are other brothers who never talk again for the rest of their lives).
And that's it, I don't know, the media don't know, yet the media feels free to interpret things the way they want. What happened to objectivity, particularly since our courts are predicated on innocence until proven guilty?
Q4: What was Bonds' Dr. Ting referring to in tape?
Well, that is just a fantasy question, who can answer what anyone means by a snippet of conversation?
And just because they had one conversation regarding the BALCO raid, which even the media has to admit was a big water cooler event, does not mean that they had the 50 conversations that Hoskins alleges, though it does, as Purdy notes, mean that they had more than one conversation regarding steroids as a general topic. Two is a far cry from 50.
And frankly, if I had two or even a handful of inconsequential conversations with someone who is a hanger-on of one of my many professional athletes, I don't think I would remember them either.
But what was not made clear for me in the column is how this conversation would even fall into the category of "talking about steroids". My understanding is that Hoskins claims that he had a lot of conversations with Dr. Ting regarding the usage and effects of steroids, and how it relates to Barry. Talking about the BALCO raid does not necessarily mean that they were talking about the use of steroids, which would be what would be pertinent to the trial. It means that they were talking about a steroids related event, which is a different matter in my eyes and logic.
I tried to find a complete transcript but the best I could locate was a blog by the San Jose Mercury to cover the trial. There was also an article by the NY Daily News that said that there was no smoking gun. I would presume the most damaging snippets would be reported, yet I'm not really seeing how the ones i've seen discussed are all that damaging to Bonds.
But of course Barry would be mentioned, that doesn't mean he knew he was using. Since Ting helped Barry get blood work for Conte, he's clearly aware of Bonds and Conte's relationship, and I can see Dr. Ting saying "But Barry's gonna" have a aneurysm when he hears this. And presuming innocence on the part of Dr. Ting, then I can see someone saying "They actually said that?" in an incredulous tone, because he doesn't think Barry uses.
Sidenote: I find it funny that the prosecutors actually said that "the jury is entitled to know the truth, that the recording does exist." I don't think that was in question, the question was whether there were the 50 conversations that they supposedly had, and one mostly indiscernible tape does not prove that, particularly when most of it appears to be a discussion of BALCO and not of Barry and steroids, as alleged. And I don't see how finding this tape earlier would have done anything to help the prosecution since there was nothing incriminating on the tape. Had there been, I would assume that the prosecution would have recalled Dr. Ting to the stand and ask him to explain himself further, that is the most logical thing to do, in my mind.
Q5: Would You Do Perjury Again?
Well, that's a leading question, much like, "do you still beat your wife still?" This question assumes Barry is guilty. And maybe he is, but I've seen no media outlet willing to broach the idea that maybe he's innocent, that maybe he doth protest too much because he's innocent.
So yeah, it is a strain on his family, but if he really is innocent, they will understand that he wants to clear his name.
Unfortunately, we'll probably never learn the exact truth unless Greg Anderson decides that he needs money bad and writes a book about it, and frankly, I would wonder how much of that is truth anyway. This is not like Perry Mason or Castle or Monk, there will be no big reveal, no big admission.
Still, I haven't convicted Bonds yet, as there is still reasonable doubt in my mind, as I've outlined above. I just don't see it, but maybe you know something more about the case than I do, or see some faulty logic on my part. I would happily be corrected by your comments below.
He asks some great questions that I, taking a more unbiased approach, might be able to answer for him.
Q1: Why is Bonds going to trial instead of copping a plea?
Purdy wonders why put them through all that. Well, as we all know, Bonds is a cheap guy. So why go through all this trouble and drag your family and friends and former teammates through all this, and spend a few millions doing that, weird because he is so tight with his money? Well, maybe they might consider that Bonds believes that he's innocent? (And this question presumes that the Feds offered him this easy out, when from what I can gather from all the reports I've read, the Feds set him up to perjure so that they can take him to trial and "expose" everything. From my reading, it appears that Novitsky is a legal equivalent of a stalker, looking to nail Bonds.)
Now, I have no idea whether Bonds is guilty of knowing or not, I only watch closely because I am a Giants fan and a Bonds fan (starting with Bobby), and my feelings won't change either way since we all know that he took it, because he said that his trainer gave him stuff that has clearly been established as designer steroids that BALCO was dealing. There's no debate on that one, particularly since the defense is admitting usage but not knowledge.
But what if he wasn't lying? Now, one well-known Bay Area-based announcer has went on the air and said that there is no way Bonds would have took the stuff from Anderson without knowing what it was. And, of course, the books that came from the illegal release of grand jury documents (which I think should have been pursued for more punishment there), which naturally gave the one-sided view and assumption that Bonds is guilty. But nobody considers the "what if" that Bonds was lied to by his friend?
For example, you go to your friends house and they make some food that is different for you but since it's your friend you try it out. Seems pretty good so you eat a lot of it and always made the point of coming to eat that food when invited over and it is served (family secret!). What if your friend thought that you were a little too straight laced and put some pot in there to loosen you up for his party? Would you ever know it (assuming you are straight laced and never tried it before)?
Or your buddy has this great homemade lotion, family secret, that he uses after a hard exercise session that he swears by? Unless it's ugly looking and/or stinks a lot, you most probably would use it, wouldn't you?
Now let's say it is one of your best buddies from childhood, and he's your trainer, and he says he got some homeopathic remedies for his aches, some flaxseed oil and some rubbing balm, and you have made it very clear to him that you don't want to use anything like steroids. Would you make him prove to you that there isn't anything wrong with the stuff? Would you spend money testing the stuff? (Remember, he's a skinflint) And this is a guy you viewed as a brother from growing up together.
About the sports shoe representative who said that Bonds talked about taking steroids, how many people have NEVER said something outrageous that you would never in a million years do, but you say it as a lark with your good buddy, knowing he or she would understand. Remember, Ken Griffey Jr. was there.
I don't know about you, but I've sometimes forgot that there are other people around and talk with about stuff I would normally only talk with one-on-one with that person, forgetting about the other people who are there or might be eavesdropping. You just forget for a moment. Others might say "I'm going to kill you!" or anything over the top that you would never do but in the heat of the moment, you say it. Then there are those moments you might say, "did I just say that out loud?"
Talking about it does not mean you are going to do it, this is kind of like that movie, "Minority Report", where a covert government outfit stops crimes before they happen by having psychics interpret people's intentions. Just because you say it or think it does not mean you are going to do it, Griffey as Bonds' long-time buddy would understand that, but the sports shoe rep wouldn't.
So the media can say what they want about Bonds based on their one-sided (that is, Bonds only presents one side of his persona to the media, a different one when he is relaxed and chillin' with his family and best buds) view of him, but who hasn't eaten or used something that you don't really have any idea what is in it, but your best buddy served it to you?
What if Bonds was betrayed by one of his best childhood buddies, Greg Anderson? Not like it wasn't motivated, by all accounts, Bonds might consider him a good friend, but he treated him like crap, a flunky to go around and do stuff for him, because it is all about being the Barry. And he didn't pay him very well either, from what I recall, if at all, now that I'm thinking about it. And there is probably some level of jealousy and envy on the part of Anderson, and maybe he wanted to use his connection with Bonds for his own benefit. Ultimately, this could be about someone fighting to the teeth to "prove" his innocence in the courts.
Q2: Where is Greg Anderson? Why isn't he testifying?
Which leads us to answering this question. Because the media assumes Bonds is guilty, and never considered the concept that perhaps he might be innocent, they never really considered the possibility that perhaps Anderson set Bonds up and betrayed him for money. One of the oldest reasons for humankind, really, and covered in the media every day, but never considered because, well, he must be guilty, because the government says so.
I never see it mentioned much in the media, because, well, it messes up with their cut and dry story line, but Victor Conte said publicly that Bonds did not use the steroids he delivered (which admittedly contradicts what he originally told the government agents). Now, from the evidence we have heard since, that is not true, but why would he say that unless it was true, at least from his knowledge? I mean, he threw a lot of big athletic stars under the bus, like Marion Jones, why would he publicly say that he never supplied Bonds with his designer steroids? One possible reason is that maybe he didn't knowingly supply it.
And why wouldn't Anderson testify? Well, the story line in the media now is that Bonds cheated with Anderson's help, Bonds is the cheater. Anderson is just the enabler, the supplier.
If the truth is that he lied to his childhood "best" bud, dosed him with drugs that Bonds had clearly stated he didn't want to use, then used Bonds' "usage" as an endorsement to sell the drugs to other players, Anderson becomes the villain in the media story line. Weird motivation to rather be in jail, I'll admit, but maybe he would rather let Barry take the fall for this than be known as one of the biggest jerks in history, even to the point of going to jail. Instead, right now, he looks like he's a great friend doing a huge favor for his friend, if anything, his public reputation is improved by going to jail.
Just because Barry Bonds' name is on scheduling calendars does not mean that he knew what Anderson was giving him. Obviously, Anderson had to keep dosing him in order to sell the stuff to other athletes. And probably warned them to never talk to Bonds about it, and that was easy to get them to comply, most people wouldn't bother Bonds period, let alone try to get him into a conversation regarding illegal PEDs.
And, again, I'm not saying this is what happened, I'm only stating that the media have never considered alternative possibilities because they have already tried and convicted him, because they have to stand up behind their other media buddies and support their conclusions. And why not, that's the better story anyway.
Q3: Why are you the only one to not know what you were taking?
Well, I think I explained it pretty well above, but I'll go over it here for a cleaner storyline.
Bonds is paying Anderson nothing, other than to enjoy the glory of being one of Bonds' entourage. Anderson needs to pay the bills, probably is aware, as a body-builder, of suppliers of PEDs, so he figures he can capitalize on his buddy's star-power to sell PEDs to other athletes. Most probably, athletes have already approached him, eager to learn Barry's secrets, heck, at that point, there were probably already whispers that he was using.
But he has to have Barry using it to convince other athletes that they are getting what Barry is getting, so he puts together a dosing calendar and explains to Bonds that it is just some home remedies that he uses and recommends Barry uses. Barry, being a buddy, does use the stuff even if he don't quite believe in it, because, as much as he can be an ass sometimes, he does sometimes do things to support his buddy too. And he supports his buddy by recommending his other buddies use it too, why not, it seems harmless enough, it is just flaxseed oil. And if there were pills involved, I can see Anderson calling them vitamin supplements.
With Barry "using", it is just a matter of going back to the athletes who asked him for help before and selling him the same stuff. Bonds was openly using the stuff in the locker room, so it was no secret, which made it that much easier for Anderson to sell the stuff. And why not, these guys have all this money burning a hole in their pockets, why not pick up some of that money for himself, since Bonds isn't paying Anderson anything for his time and help?
And once the stuff hit the fan and Anderson is accused by the authorities, you stick by your buddy, sure, maybe he did something bad, but you stick by your buddies and support them, you don't abandon people from your 'hood. Well, unless they are stealing from you, like Steve Hoskins apparently was. And it is mentioned that Bonds still employed Anderson even afterward, but from what I've understood, there was no employment involved, Bonds did not pay him for anything, they were just two buddies hanging out.
And when we get right down to it, we don't know how deep a bond these two have. Brothers have been known to do horrible things to each other but still in the end, they are brothers and they stick together, through thick and thin (then there are other brothers who never talk again for the rest of their lives).
And that's it, I don't know, the media don't know, yet the media feels free to interpret things the way they want. What happened to objectivity, particularly since our courts are predicated on innocence until proven guilty?
Q4: What was Bonds' Dr. Ting referring to in tape?
Well, that is just a fantasy question, who can answer what anyone means by a snippet of conversation?
And just because they had one conversation regarding the BALCO raid, which even the media has to admit was a big water cooler event, does not mean that they had the 50 conversations that Hoskins alleges, though it does, as Purdy notes, mean that they had more than one conversation regarding steroids as a general topic. Two is a far cry from 50.
And frankly, if I had two or even a handful of inconsequential conversations with someone who is a hanger-on of one of my many professional athletes, I don't think I would remember them either.
But what was not made clear for me in the column is how this conversation would even fall into the category of "talking about steroids". My understanding is that Hoskins claims that he had a lot of conversations with Dr. Ting regarding the usage and effects of steroids, and how it relates to Barry. Talking about the BALCO raid does not necessarily mean that they were talking about the use of steroids, which would be what would be pertinent to the trial. It means that they were talking about a steroids related event, which is a different matter in my eyes and logic.
I tried to find a complete transcript but the best I could locate was a blog by the San Jose Mercury to cover the trial. There was also an article by the NY Daily News that said that there was no smoking gun. I would presume the most damaging snippets would be reported, yet I'm not really seeing how the ones i've seen discussed are all that damaging to Bonds.
But of course Barry would be mentioned, that doesn't mean he knew he was using. Since Ting helped Barry get blood work for Conte, he's clearly aware of Bonds and Conte's relationship, and I can see Dr. Ting saying "But Barry's gonna" have a aneurysm when he hears this. And presuming innocence on the part of Dr. Ting, then I can see someone saying "They actually said that?" in an incredulous tone, because he doesn't think Barry uses.
Sidenote: I find it funny that the prosecutors actually said that "the jury is entitled to know the truth, that the recording does exist." I don't think that was in question, the question was whether there were the 50 conversations that they supposedly had, and one mostly indiscernible tape does not prove that, particularly when most of it appears to be a discussion of BALCO and not of Barry and steroids, as alleged. And I don't see how finding this tape earlier would have done anything to help the prosecution since there was nothing incriminating on the tape. Had there been, I would assume that the prosecution would have recalled Dr. Ting to the stand and ask him to explain himself further, that is the most logical thing to do, in my mind.
Q5: Would You Do Perjury Again?
Well, that's a leading question, much like, "do you still beat your wife still?" This question assumes Barry is guilty. And maybe he is, but I've seen no media outlet willing to broach the idea that maybe he's innocent, that maybe he doth protest too much because he's innocent.
So yeah, it is a strain on his family, but if he really is innocent, they will understand that he wants to clear his name.
Unfortunately, we'll probably never learn the exact truth unless Greg Anderson decides that he needs money bad and writes a book about it, and frankly, I would wonder how much of that is truth anyway. This is not like Perry Mason or Castle or Monk, there will be no big reveal, no big admission.
Still, I haven't convicted Bonds yet, as there is still reasonable doubt in my mind, as I've outlined above. I just don't see it, but maybe you know something more about the case than I do, or see some faulty logic on my part. I would happily be corrected by your comments below.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Let Me Take You Down: MLB News Around the Bases
I am going to go through some recent news, mostly ex-Giants related.
Renteria Gets Respect From Reds: $3M
World Series MVP hero Edgar Renteria has reported signed with the Reds for the 2011 season for $3M. He famously opined that the Giants $1M contract offer was a "total disrespect". I wish him well, except when facing the Giants, of course, and thank him once again for his amazing performance in the World Series.
Still, to get respect, one must earn it too. I'm willing to overlook his $18M for two seasons of essentially one season's worth of poor, for the most part, ABs where he didn't even hit as well as Neifi Perez, because of his great World Series performance. But $1M is about all I would be willing to bet on a replay. In 2009, it was the "asteroid" in his elbow. In 2010, there were the array of physical maladies that brought him down. The odds don't look better in 2011.
And $3M is basically what Huff got last season. He at least had a great 2008 and a poor 2009, so there was some good hope that he might end up somewhere in the middle or higher, because while his 2009 was poor, his batting peripherals were still good and his main problem was a bad BABIP. Meanwhile, Renteria now has three bad consecutive seasons on his resume. Playing in Cincy will help with the batting line, but I doubt that will matter if he's on the trainer's table most of the season.
Take care, thanks for the glory, but I'm OK with Edgar moving on at that price. Now the Giants can look elsewhere with more intent for a backup middle infielder. And I assume they will continue looking for somebody to sign for under $1M to be their backup depth at starting pitching in AAA.
Kevin Frandsen Signs with San Diego
Frandsen seeks to pursue his dream in SD. I once had dreams of him starting at 2B for us, but he wasn't very smart mouthing off to management and pouting when he was sent down. He had nice stats in the minors but not that good. The writing was on the wall, so I was happy he ended up with Boston, as I think he is buddies with Dustin Pedroia.
He didn't do much last season playing for two pennant contenders (Red Sox and Angels) nor got much of a chance. Surprised Marlins didn't latch onto him, but perhaps their opinion of him isn't strong either. But playing for SD, I can't root for him, sorry. His support of Fred Lewis' homophobic rants didn't help either.
If he didn't screw up his chances in 2009, he could have been part of the group in 2010 that would have brought a World Championship to SF. Instead, Pat Burrell came in and represented local Bay Area interests. Life is funny how it works sometimes.
Alfredo Simon Arrested for Double Murder, Get Support from new Giant
That was a shocker to see, particularly since he played nicely for the Orioles in 2010 and looked ready to finally capitalize on the talents that led the Giants to get him in the first place. And a double murder, no less. Then I was shocked to see that new Giant Miguel Tejada is helping Simon out with getting legal representation and so forth.
Blyleven in Hall of Fame - FINALLY - Alomar Makes it Too
Bert Blyleven is finally in the Hall of Fame: FINALLY!!! I thought he was deserving from the beginning and been commenting on this across the internet for a while. When I was growing up, he had the best curveball around and not only did he strike out a lot of batters, he compiled great stats, great except for his Win-Loss, which apparently a lot of baseball writers though was the final arbiter of how good a pitcher was. Where were these people when Blyleven was pitching, were they sticking their heads in the sand? This - along with why in the hell did Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Rickey Henderson, etc. not get voted in unanimously in their first year - are reasons why I have not been happy with the Hall of Fame voting over the years.
The best solution I could think of was to count it against the writers when they don't vote someone in who was clearly deserving. For example, they could lose their vote if they don't vote and the player gets, say, 95% of the votes. But then that would cause a lot of CYA votes, so maybe it could be a three strikes type of system. Another nuance is that some don't vote in the first year, so maybe they won't get a strike if a player is voted in but under, say, 85% of the votes. Anyway, I can't think of a good system, these are just some of my thoughts that I can spit out now.
Roberto Alomar got in, and frankly, I don't know if he deserves it or not. The only thing I can recall about him is the spitting incidence and the general feeling from the media that he's a really good overall player, i.e. his defense is great. I won't begrudge his entry, there have been plenty of players voted in that were marginal for me to greatly care as long as there were those who thought he was pretty good.
Paapfly and I got into a discussion of Jeff Bagwell's Hall of Fame credentials, and what I realized was that he was a really good hitter who I didn't really know much about other than I knew he was good, just not THAT good. He probably should get in at some point but with so few votes, he probably is going to waiting around like Jim Rice and Bert Blyleven.
Looking at his career stats, I realized that part of the reason why I am disconnected from Alomar and Bagwell is that a number of their best seasons came in the mid-to-late 90's when I was not really following the game. After the strike of 1994, particularly after McGwire's comments and the cancelling of the World Series, I pulled my own strike of the game and I probably didn't get really fully re-engaged with the team until 2001 when Bonds set the record.
Part of that was because I was having a life, wooing my wife, marrying, having kids, but a lot of that was due to that strike of 1994. And I guess I was not the only one, the majors have not had a strike since and they had been apparently using juiced balls to boost offense (and interest) in the majors since that strike ended, according to one famous baseball analyst, Eric Walker, as outlined in his on-line essay analysis, Silly Ball (and where he outlines some of his logic for why steroids and other PEDs could not have been responsible for this significant boost in offense). In any case, the offense has restored the industry to new heights of robustness.
Now, baseball can work on getting Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame. Fine, ban him from baseball, ban him from baseball management, ban him from making Hall of Fame as a manager, but the Hall of Fame is a sham until baseball's career hit leader is in there. He epitomized all that was good about baseball when he was a player: love for the game, maximizing your talents, playing to win. It has been long enough now, put him in.
Ex-Giants Galore
The Pirates dropped Joe Martinez, who the Giants traded to get Lopez for the bullpen, in order to sign ex-Giants Kevin Correia to a two year contract. I was always hoping that Correia would get a chance with the Giants, he would have been a good back of rotation starter for us, as he often pitched pretty well too.
I wonder why he left the Padres, his childhood team. Were they not interested? I can't see that to be true, they will need more pitching than ever after losing Garland and Correia, and they didn't get anyone ready to contribute in the A-Gon trade with Boston, and I wasn't aware of any young stud coming up, Latos was that guy.
It could be that Correia needed to get away, his beloved younger brother leapt to his death last spring, and maybe being around home just reminds him too much about his younger brother, who he was probably more like a father to because of their tough family circumstance in their childhood (there was a sister in-between). Good luck to him, I wish him well.
Other News
Renteria Gets Respect From Reds: $3M
World Series MVP hero Edgar Renteria has reported signed with the Reds for the 2011 season for $3M. He famously opined that the Giants $1M contract offer was a "total disrespect". I wish him well, except when facing the Giants, of course, and thank him once again for his amazing performance in the World Series.
Still, to get respect, one must earn it too. I'm willing to overlook his $18M for two seasons of essentially one season's worth of poor, for the most part, ABs where he didn't even hit as well as Neifi Perez, because of his great World Series performance. But $1M is about all I would be willing to bet on a replay. In 2009, it was the "asteroid" in his elbow. In 2010, there were the array of physical maladies that brought him down. The odds don't look better in 2011.
And $3M is basically what Huff got last season. He at least had a great 2008 and a poor 2009, so there was some good hope that he might end up somewhere in the middle or higher, because while his 2009 was poor, his batting peripherals were still good and his main problem was a bad BABIP. Meanwhile, Renteria now has three bad consecutive seasons on his resume. Playing in Cincy will help with the batting line, but I doubt that will matter if he's on the trainer's table most of the season.
Take care, thanks for the glory, but I'm OK with Edgar moving on at that price. Now the Giants can look elsewhere with more intent for a backup middle infielder. And I assume they will continue looking for somebody to sign for under $1M to be their backup depth at starting pitching in AAA.
Kevin Frandsen Signs with San Diego
Frandsen seeks to pursue his dream in SD. I once had dreams of him starting at 2B for us, but he wasn't very smart mouthing off to management and pouting when he was sent down. He had nice stats in the minors but not that good. The writing was on the wall, so I was happy he ended up with Boston, as I think he is buddies with Dustin Pedroia.
He didn't do much last season playing for two pennant contenders (Red Sox and Angels) nor got much of a chance. Surprised Marlins didn't latch onto him, but perhaps their opinion of him isn't strong either. But playing for SD, I can't root for him, sorry. His support of Fred Lewis' homophobic rants didn't help either.
If he didn't screw up his chances in 2009, he could have been part of the group in 2010 that would have brought a World Championship to SF. Instead, Pat Burrell came in and represented local Bay Area interests. Life is funny how it works sometimes.
Alfredo Simon Arrested for Double Murder, Get Support from new Giant
That was a shocker to see, particularly since he played nicely for the Orioles in 2010 and looked ready to finally capitalize on the talents that led the Giants to get him in the first place. And a double murder, no less. Then I was shocked to see that new Giant Miguel Tejada is helping Simon out with getting legal representation and so forth.
Blyleven in Hall of Fame - FINALLY - Alomar Makes it Too
Bert Blyleven is finally in the Hall of Fame: FINALLY!!! I thought he was deserving from the beginning and been commenting on this across the internet for a while. When I was growing up, he had the best curveball around and not only did he strike out a lot of batters, he compiled great stats, great except for his Win-Loss, which apparently a lot of baseball writers though was the final arbiter of how good a pitcher was. Where were these people when Blyleven was pitching, were they sticking their heads in the sand? This - along with why in the hell did Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Rickey Henderson, etc. not get voted in unanimously in their first year - are reasons why I have not been happy with the Hall of Fame voting over the years.
The best solution I could think of was to count it against the writers when they don't vote someone in who was clearly deserving. For example, they could lose their vote if they don't vote and the player gets, say, 95% of the votes. But then that would cause a lot of CYA votes, so maybe it could be a three strikes type of system. Another nuance is that some don't vote in the first year, so maybe they won't get a strike if a player is voted in but under, say, 85% of the votes. Anyway, I can't think of a good system, these are just some of my thoughts that I can spit out now.
Roberto Alomar got in, and frankly, I don't know if he deserves it or not. The only thing I can recall about him is the spitting incidence and the general feeling from the media that he's a really good overall player, i.e. his defense is great. I won't begrudge his entry, there have been plenty of players voted in that were marginal for me to greatly care as long as there were those who thought he was pretty good.
Paapfly and I got into a discussion of Jeff Bagwell's Hall of Fame credentials, and what I realized was that he was a really good hitter who I didn't really know much about other than I knew he was good, just not THAT good. He probably should get in at some point but with so few votes, he probably is going to waiting around like Jim Rice and Bert Blyleven.
Looking at his career stats, I realized that part of the reason why I am disconnected from Alomar and Bagwell is that a number of their best seasons came in the mid-to-late 90's when I was not really following the game. After the strike of 1994, particularly after McGwire's comments and the cancelling of the World Series, I pulled my own strike of the game and I probably didn't get really fully re-engaged with the team until 2001 when Bonds set the record.
Part of that was because I was having a life, wooing my wife, marrying, having kids, but a lot of that was due to that strike of 1994. And I guess I was not the only one, the majors have not had a strike since and they had been apparently using juiced balls to boost offense (and interest) in the majors since that strike ended, according to one famous baseball analyst, Eric Walker, as outlined in his on-line essay analysis, Silly Ball (and where he outlines some of his logic for why steroids and other PEDs could not have been responsible for this significant boost in offense). In any case, the offense has restored the industry to new heights of robustness.
Now, baseball can work on getting Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame. Fine, ban him from baseball, ban him from baseball management, ban him from making Hall of Fame as a manager, but the Hall of Fame is a sham until baseball's career hit leader is in there. He epitomized all that was good about baseball when he was a player: love for the game, maximizing your talents, playing to win. It has been long enough now, put him in.
Ex-Giants Galore
The Pirates dropped Joe Martinez, who the Giants traded to get Lopez for the bullpen, in order to sign ex-Giants Kevin Correia to a two year contract. I was always hoping that Correia would get a chance with the Giants, he would have been a good back of rotation starter for us, as he often pitched pretty well too.
I wonder why he left the Padres, his childhood team. Were they not interested? I can't see that to be true, they will need more pitching than ever after losing Garland and Correia, and they didn't get anyone ready to contribute in the A-Gon trade with Boston, and I wasn't aware of any young stud coming up, Latos was that guy.
It could be that Correia needed to get away, his beloved younger brother leapt to his death last spring, and maybe being around home just reminds him too much about his younger brother, who he was probably more like a father to because of their tough family circumstance in their childhood (there was a sister in-between). Good luck to him, I wish him well.
Other News
- The Giants re-signed Guillermo Moto to another minor league contract, as they had did last year.
- Waldis Joaquin was released on waivers by the Giants, and the White Sox claimed him, but he then somehow became a free agent and re-signed back with the Giants.
- Bengie Molina apparently was offered a backup position with the Cards, behind his brother. That has got to be a comedown for him and a big blow to his pride. He's probably still hoping a team would sign him to be a starter, but might sign with Cards when spring training beckons.
- Boof Bonser signed with the New York Mets. Part of me was hoping the Giants would sign him to be one of our potential call-ups in case of injury or what not happens to one of our starters. We do not have any depth at all for the major league rotation (though honestly, most teams don't, else the guy would have signed elsewhere and be in the majors, unless, of course, the team still controls him).
- In another Pirates-ex-Giants news, Brian Burres re-signs with Pittsburgh in a minor league deal which apparently gives him an out should an Asian team be interested in signing him.
- Eric Hacker, Tony Pena Jr, Dontrelle Willis, Stephen Holm, and, maybe Clay Timpner (doing this from memory) have found new teams after the Giants released them.
- Lastly, there was a nice interview of Brandon Belt by Mychal Urban for CSN's recent Hot Stove show. The video should be in the link. The delay between the two is a bit jarring, FYI, for some reason Belt got Urban's talking with a 1-2 second delay. Still, it was nice to hear and see our #1 prospect.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A New Low in the Steroid Era: A-Rod Admits He Juiced
You would have to be a pretty casual baseball fan to not know that A-Rod has come out and admitted to juicing when he was young and impressionable, though technically he was already a 6 year grizzled veteran and 25 years old, plus was being advised by Scott Boras, who is aware of many things and, one would think, given his athletic performance center, was doing all sorts of blood tests on what is in his athletes' body. I would find it hard to believe that he didn't know when his guys are using.
Immaculate Juicing
It was an immaculate juicing: he suddenly felt pressure to do well when he signed his big free agent contract and started using (with no mention how he knew how to easily get such illegal substances) and just as suddenly, he stopped using, reportedly because he was injured and decided he didn't need to use it anymore.
Which is pretty odd, injury is often a key point in the life of a PEDS using athlete. He's injured, finds it hard to recover or want to boost his recovery rate, and thus he starts using so that he comes back faster. Of course, not to be a cynic, but 2003 was when the BALCO mess hit the fan. In fact, he played in 485 out of 486 games while juicing for 3 seasons, but has missed 43 games in the 5 seasons since.
If It's Not One Thing Juiced, It's Another Thing Juiced
The funny thing is that this might be simply be a tempest in a teapot. We got hitters juicing but we also got pitchers juicing as well. People from the best, like A-Rod and Roger Clemens to the barely there, like Bobby Estalella and Jason Grimsley, to those who greatly benefited, like Marvin Benard and Jose Canseco.
And yet, baseball's major offensive explosion might only be tangentially affected by steroids, HGH (which college professors say does not give any physical superiority to baseball players and thus is another tempest in a teapot), and any other PEDS. According to Eric Walker, he of "The Sinister Firstbaseman And Other Observations" and A's Statistical Consultant fame, at his website, High Boskage House, the offensive explosion was due to a much more pervasive reason: the ball is juiced, producing the era he named "The Silly Ball Era".
Immaculate Juicing
It was an immaculate juicing: he suddenly felt pressure to do well when he signed his big free agent contract and started using (with no mention how he knew how to easily get such illegal substances) and just as suddenly, he stopped using, reportedly because he was injured and decided he didn't need to use it anymore.
Which is pretty odd, injury is often a key point in the life of a PEDS using athlete. He's injured, finds it hard to recover or want to boost his recovery rate, and thus he starts using so that he comes back faster. Of course, not to be a cynic, but 2003 was when the BALCO mess hit the fan. In fact, he played in 485 out of 486 games while juicing for 3 seasons, but has missed 43 games in the 5 seasons since.
If It's Not One Thing Juiced, It's Another Thing Juiced
The funny thing is that this might be simply be a tempest in a teapot. We got hitters juicing but we also got pitchers juicing as well. People from the best, like A-Rod and Roger Clemens to the barely there, like Bobby Estalella and Jason Grimsley, to those who greatly benefited, like Marvin Benard and Jose Canseco.
And yet, baseball's major offensive explosion might only be tangentially affected by steroids, HGH (which college professors say does not give any physical superiority to baseball players and thus is another tempest in a teapot), and any other PEDS. According to Eric Walker, he of "The Sinister Firstbaseman And Other Observations" and A's Statistical Consultant fame, at his website, High Boskage House, the offensive explosion was due to a much more pervasive reason: the ball is juiced, producing the era he named "The Silly Ball Era".
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Bonds Indicted!
I guess Barry might retire a Giants after all...
The government has indicted Barry Bonds of numerous charges, which includes four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice and accuses him of lying when he said he didn't knowingly take steroids given to him by his personal trainer, Greg Anderson. According to accounts, the government has tests that prove that Barry took steroids and other PEDS, though the writer muddied by the water by adding, "and other professional athletes."
Good Buddy Freed
It also noted that Greg Anderson was released from jail at the same time. I guess they were hoping to squeeze him into ratting out his friend - assuming there is something to rat out - but once they got the indictment into the courts, they felt that they didn't need him anymore. There was no report that he was freed based on finally capitulating to the Feds and testifying about Bonds.
Based on the information that Anderson, Conte, and Bonds has said in previous accounts, the only scenario that makes sense, assuming all are telling the truth, is that Anderson and Conte tricked Bonds by giving him steroids and other substances under the guise of other homeopathic remedies. It will be interesting what comes out of the trial as to what really (or supposedly, since the truth might never get out) happened. If that's the story they hold to, I wonder how the Feds are going to prove that Bonds purposefully took the PEDs and not was tricked by his "good" friend, which apparently is now the story since Bonds reportedly tested positive (according to the indictment).
Wish Comes True: Bonds Retires a Giant
Of course, with this hanging over him, no team is going to even bother kicking the tires and seeing if he would sign with them. He would want much more than they would be willing to give him, and I don't think any team is so desperate to invite such a circus into their clubhouse. That would mean that Bonds would retire a Giants after all.
Odd Timing
Interesting that the Feds waited until now to file the indictment. If Anderson didn't testify against his buddy, then there appears to be no new evidence other than the charge that Bonds tested positive. But as I noted, a positive test still requires that the Feds prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Bonds deliberately and knowingly take PEDS and lied to the Grand Jury, and not, as he stated, just take two substances that the Feds BELIEVE is PEDS. It will be key to their trial, proving this (I will note that I'm not a lawyer, but that's what seems to be the crux to me).
One thought I had is that they waited because they know that their case is not airtight and if they tried to do anything while Bonds is chasing Hank Aaron, if they lose the case, Bonds could theoretically sue the Feds for lost of future income, perhaps slander, for interrupting his chase of Hank Aaron's record and preventing him from becoming the home run champ.
I'm no lawyer, so there could be something simply obvious to a lawyer why that won't happen, but given future memorabilia sales, which he obviously intends and markets assiduously, plus the contract value lost, that could put the numbers in the $100 million range, perhaps above, assuming a long life, the steep inflation of collectible prices, the novelty of an item being associated with the ALL-TIME home run champ, at least until A-Rod passes him up, though you never know, Durham suddenly became gimpy, so did Griffey, in his 30's, or maybe a stripper's tassel flies off and blinds A-Rod in his eye (given that he was caught by paparazzi doing the town with a stripper or something like that), or his private jet plane loses air and all the passengers die on flight, you just never know.
I downloaded the indictment from CNN's account here. If I get some time, I'll read it and see what's it all about.
No Tax Evasion
I will also note that there was not one word about tax evasion in the news accounts I have read. If that holds, this means that whatever Bonds's ex-mistresss, Kimberly Bell, told the Feds about his alleged tax evasion did not prove to be true, because either he did or he didn't. That's what seems clear to me, that there can be no gray area regarding that accusation, because she must have told the Feds enough detail to research and determine whether he did or didn't and her information was not good enough.
If that turns out to be true that there was no tax evasion, and she made that a major part of her "story" of her life with Barry, then what else was untrue in her testimony thus far? And how can authors' use her "testimony" as a significant source of information for their books without corroboration?
I'm not a professional journalist, but that seems to be what they should have done, not include her accusations in her book, since there could not have possibly been corroboration of any sort, since this came from "private" conversations between she and Barry. But, of course, it fit their storyline so well that they had to include her information.
But I thought that there should be some sort of journalistic integrity that would prevent the inclusion of her decidedly one-sided story given to them. It is a "He said, She said" situation, so it is unprovable either way. Of course, I've never read either book, so maybe there is some snakey way of reporting it but saying that it is uncorroborated, but most of the accounts of the books I have read never had such a warning attached, it reported every one of her words as the truth.
Plus, as I noted in previous posts, that's why I've focused on how the tax evasion portion of her story held up. That's something that I think is provable, and if tax evasion is not part of the indictment, then it appears that her story is not holding up in that regard, and it brings doubt upon everything else she has said and claimed. That would also explain why her book deal that she was working on never came through, the publishers knew that her story wouldn't hold up. I hope this detail comes up in other news accounts, I would be interested to see what happened to that line of investigation.
The government has indicted Barry Bonds of numerous charges, which includes four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice and accuses him of lying when he said he didn't knowingly take steroids given to him by his personal trainer, Greg Anderson. According to accounts, the government has tests that prove that Barry took steroids and other PEDS, though the writer muddied by the water by adding, "and other professional athletes."
Good Buddy Freed
It also noted that Greg Anderson was released from jail at the same time. I guess they were hoping to squeeze him into ratting out his friend - assuming there is something to rat out - but once they got the indictment into the courts, they felt that they didn't need him anymore. There was no report that he was freed based on finally capitulating to the Feds and testifying about Bonds.
Based on the information that Anderson, Conte, and Bonds has said in previous accounts, the only scenario that makes sense, assuming all are telling the truth, is that Anderson and Conte tricked Bonds by giving him steroids and other substances under the guise of other homeopathic remedies. It will be interesting what comes out of the trial as to what really (or supposedly, since the truth might never get out) happened. If that's the story they hold to, I wonder how the Feds are going to prove that Bonds purposefully took the PEDs and not was tricked by his "good" friend, which apparently is now the story since Bonds reportedly tested positive (according to the indictment).
Wish Comes True: Bonds Retires a Giant
Of course, with this hanging over him, no team is going to even bother kicking the tires and seeing if he would sign with them. He would want much more than they would be willing to give him, and I don't think any team is so desperate to invite such a circus into their clubhouse. That would mean that Bonds would retire a Giants after all.
Odd Timing
Interesting that the Feds waited until now to file the indictment. If Anderson didn't testify against his buddy, then there appears to be no new evidence other than the charge that Bonds tested positive. But as I noted, a positive test still requires that the Feds prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Bonds deliberately and knowingly take PEDS and lied to the Grand Jury, and not, as he stated, just take two substances that the Feds BELIEVE is PEDS. It will be key to their trial, proving this (I will note that I'm not a lawyer, but that's what seems to be the crux to me).
One thought I had is that they waited because they know that their case is not airtight and if they tried to do anything while Bonds is chasing Hank Aaron, if they lose the case, Bonds could theoretically sue the Feds for lost of future income, perhaps slander, for interrupting his chase of Hank Aaron's record and preventing him from becoming the home run champ.
I'm no lawyer, so there could be something simply obvious to a lawyer why that won't happen, but given future memorabilia sales, which he obviously intends and markets assiduously, plus the contract value lost, that could put the numbers in the $100 million range, perhaps above, assuming a long life, the steep inflation of collectible prices, the novelty of an item being associated with the ALL-TIME home run champ, at least until A-Rod passes him up, though you never know, Durham suddenly became gimpy, so did Griffey, in his 30's, or maybe a stripper's tassel flies off and blinds A-Rod in his eye (given that he was caught by paparazzi doing the town with a stripper or something like that), or his private jet plane loses air and all the passengers die on flight, you just never know.
I downloaded the indictment from CNN's account here. If I get some time, I'll read it and see what's it all about.
No Tax Evasion
I will also note that there was not one word about tax evasion in the news accounts I have read. If that holds, this means that whatever Bonds's ex-mistresss, Kimberly Bell, told the Feds about his alleged tax evasion did not prove to be true, because either he did or he didn't. That's what seems clear to me, that there can be no gray area regarding that accusation, because she must have told the Feds enough detail to research and determine whether he did or didn't and her information was not good enough.
If that turns out to be true that there was no tax evasion, and she made that a major part of her "story" of her life with Barry, then what else was untrue in her testimony thus far? And how can authors' use her "testimony" as a significant source of information for their books without corroboration?
I'm not a professional journalist, but that seems to be what they should have done, not include her accusations in her book, since there could not have possibly been corroboration of any sort, since this came from "private" conversations between she and Barry. But, of course, it fit their storyline so well that they had to include her information.
But I thought that there should be some sort of journalistic integrity that would prevent the inclusion of her decidedly one-sided story given to them. It is a "He said, She said" situation, so it is unprovable either way. Of course, I've never read either book, so maybe there is some snakey way of reporting it but saying that it is uncorroborated, but most of the accounts of the books I have read never had such a warning attached, it reported every one of her words as the truth.
Plus, as I noted in previous posts, that's why I've focused on how the tax evasion portion of her story held up. That's something that I think is provable, and if tax evasion is not part of the indictment, then it appears that her story is not holding up in that regard, and it brings doubt upon everything else she has said and claimed. That would also explain why her book deal that she was working on never came through, the publishers knew that her story wouldn't hold up. I hope this detail comes up in other news accounts, I would be interested to see what happened to that line of investigation.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
And the crap begins: Ann Killion of the San Jose Mercury
And the crap begins, here's Ann Killion's take. She calls the Giants and the record tainted. What's tainted is her writing.
Rose-Colored Glasses
As she shows in this piece, she still clings to her image of her beloved Willie Mays as a beacon of pureness compared to the evil stain that is Barry Bonds. So either she is in denial or she is not that big a baseball fan because it has been pretty much exposed that Willie Mays not only was a user of a liquid red amphetamine, but he was giving it to other players for a "pick-me-up", essentially a non-profit pusher, a sharer of illegal drugs. How many of his homeruns are "tainted" by the use of amphetamines?
Not that I have anything against Willie, he's one of my favorite Giants players and will always have a place in my heart, but it just shows how unrepentant these Barry haters are, juxtaposing the two baseball greats and treating the situation as black and white when it is all grey.
He's Not a Travelling Man, Is that OK With You?
As I suspected, she again ignores the fact that Hank Aaron is a 70+ year old man who doesn't want to go travelling around the country on the Barry Bonds HR tour - as I noted, he would have begun this trip at least 3 weeks ago and disrupted his whole life and routine - and who can fault that? Well, reporters do, even after Hank taped one of the most sincere, heartfelt, touching, history-spanning speeches ever, she and others disrupt that by mentioning that he wasn't there.
Hello?!? Would you make someone who you are good acquaintances with but not good friends with travel around the country while you try to catch up and beat that acquaintance? Just to feed your ego? People have lives, as momentous as the moment was, not everyone feels the need to be there.
Aaron, as was noted, is a private man, I would even say a humble man, so why can't reporters just respect his wish to be in the background, to not acknowledge his greatness? Perhaps he feels that this is Bonds's moment and does not want to intrude on it. And yet reporters insist on reading into his actions or non-actions and inserting their bias and feelings into their reporting.
Aaron's Choice
The fact is despite all the crap reporters has written about how Aaron is unhappy about it, Aaron had the opportunity to respectfully decline to a videotape. Then he had the opportunity to add whatever qualifiers he wished to his videotaped message, I doubt that the Giants thought that they could control everything he says, and you can also be congratulatory but clearly withhold support, much like Selig has. Or he could have waited until now, once Bonds reached his milestone, and give Barry both barrels publicly for all to see. Instead he chose to show his support of Barry in a very public way.
No, the fact is Aaron gave his support fully and without reservation in his video speech, he was very genuine in his congratulatory statement. Please listen to it, I wholeheartedly recommend it. If you are from that era, you will feel goosebumps, it was quite moving. If Aaron, who would have the most reasons to resent the moment, could be so positive about the situation, why can't writers be the same.
Different Strokes for Different Folks
Yet Killion persists, noting "Yes, important witnesses were missing." Well, I watched Hank Aaron hit #715 on TV and I don't recall seeing Babe Ruth's daughther there nor the representative of the Babe Ruth museum, whose most recent successor took to the airwaves with a denunciation of Bonds when Bonds was misquoted/misinterpreted as dissing Babe Ruth. They, by Killion's logic, were important witnesses and they were missing and therefore they were unhappy and resentful of Aaron passing up the Babe.
But everybody is different. If my friends are getting married, or getting some big award, I would be there in a heartbeat, but if some acquaintance who I know who works in my field and who might be beating me out for something, I don't know that I would care to be there. That's his or her moment, I am part of the past. Others might feel the need to be there and support your colleague in their moment of triumph.
But if I were someone's godfather or father figure, I would do my best to be there, though if I'm in my 70's there is going to be some physical limitations, particularly in regards to travel today, with all the security measures making trips longer and harder to handle. So why make such a big deal over Willie Mays showing up and Hank Aaron not? Barry hasn't talked with Aaron in a couple of years now; they are just acquaintences.
If Ann Killion won some writing award, would she expect all the past winners to come by and show her some love? If she got recognized by the White House for exemplary work as a sports news columnist, would she expect the past winners to show up too, just to show how important you are? No, but you would hope that your friends and family can be there to share in the moment with you.
Insulting
What I find insulting is that these reporters seem to know exactly what Aaron is feeling and doing and they've probably never even met the man in his life or had more than a passing conversation or interview. Yet they deem themselves capable of interpreting his actions to mean one thing or another. Aaron's actions spoke loud and clear but the reporters are not hearing it, they are stuck with their blinders on, because they are right and you are wrong.
Except, whoops, they are just as culpable about the situation, they had a chance to hoist Canseco and McGwire up by their necks in the 90's, particularly McGwire when he was caught with the Andro and then with his tepid response to that until he realized that he was in deep doo-doo. Where where the Gary Hart exposers when that happened?
It couldn't have been that hard to catch them then, they were really into using it back then, a little diligence would probably have given you the story of a generation, of a lifetime. Perhaps they should be like the priest Dinsmore in "The Scarlet Letter" except that they should scourge themselves in public for allowing that to happen. They left the barn door was left wide open and now they are mad at the horses and cows that left the barn, when they should be mad at themselves.
Reporters Only Deluding Themselves
She feels sorry for people who are longtime Giants fans. The facts of the case is that we don't know how involved or complicit Barry Bonds was and probably never will. In this world of Unabombers, Osama Bin Laden, 9/11, BTK killer, is it really that outrageous to suppose that Greg Anderson did all this on his own without Bonds knowledge?
Perhaps he refuses to testify and "rot" in jail as she puts it because he feels guilty for dragging his childhood friend into this mess and testifying would do nothing for Bonds's reputation? Maybe he feels he is doing it as penance for doing this to Bonds. In any case, if he says Bonds is clean, no one will believe him so why speak up, and if he says that Bonds was unknowingly using, then he would have buried his friend when Bonds didn't do anything to bring this on himself other than to help out an old friend.
We still don't know if he was just boasting to boost his business or because it was true. Both he and Conte has publicly stated that Bonds is clean but then threw all these other athletes under the bus. Why would Conte lie for Bonds? He would get more fame and notoriety for bringing down the career homerun king than he would for gold medal winners where cheating is pretty much dime a dozen and not some outrageous thing to consider. Baseball is still swirling in scandal and that would be good for getting him more publicity, more notice. That's why he gave that exclusive interview to 20/20 (I remember that as the TV show), because he loves the limelite and likes being viewed as the big-shot ring-leader.
And Greg Anderson is a nobody without his connection to Bonds. Of course he has to take some credit for Bonds's improvement, how else is he going to get his drug buyers to buy from him. "Oh, he's a natural freak; but buy my stuff, I'm connected to him!" We don't know if that was bravado and a lie or the truth. It would not be the first time a salesperson lied about his product if he did all this on his own. And of course there's folder with "BLB" on it, he has to show his marks, er, buyers, that he's authentic, that Bonds is really using.
Real or Not Real
And it could be that it is true that Bonds was really taking. But that's my whole point, there are a lot of ways to look at the situation and we don't really know what's real and what's not. Jayson Blair claimed to be writing the truth. Another had Howard Hughes diary, another had Hitler's. Lots of other writers have twisted the truth, the facts, to fit what they wanted to say.
For while most of us are pretty sure Bonds was using, with intent being the dividing line, the main thing is that we don't know for certain yet. Given that the prosecutors want to nail Bonds, and that Pearlman gave very specific information about the alleged meeting that Bonds reportedly claimed to start using the hard-stuff, one would think that after 18 months since this revelation came out with Pearlman's excerpts, the government would have tracked down these people and gotten them to testify against Bonds for perjury.
How Hard to Figure Out?
It should not be too hard, you just subpoena Ken Griffey Jr and get the names of these people; though if it's true, he could claim memory problems, in which case you go through his taxes and see which athletic clothing companies paid him money over the years, and start asking there. How many major athletic clothing companies are there in the world, and how many of them had contact with Ken Griffey Jr. It should not take 18 months to dig that up if they are reduced to coerce a nobody like Jason Grimsley to casually walk up to Bonds, who he was only acquainted with, and start talking about steroids.
Same with the tax evasion that Bonds's ex-mistress has accused of. It has been over a couple of years now that she leveled that at him. Seems pretty cut and dried, she should know the approximate date and location this happened, you check in local newspapers for the announcement in the local library, you locate the business that did the card show, you check their tax records for paying Bonds for baseball card signing income against Bonds's reported income for that year. If the IRS got Pete Rose and Willie McCovey pretty quickly on this in he 1990's, then they should be able to get Bonds pretty easily too, IF HE DID IT.
After all this time, one would think the government would have had more than enough time to bring Bonds up on either or both charge. And yet no word yet on either one. How hard could it be?
Sigh: Resignation
I am resigned to the fact that there might never be any resolution of this. I'm open to either way, whether he cheated or didn't. Obviously, if he didn't use then that is great and I hope the reporters would eat their words and apologize publicly instead of burying their "oops, I did it again" inside the front page where no one will see their errors that they made. But how do you prove a negative? That's like trying to answer the question, "do you still beat your wife," there's no way to really answer that in a satisfactory way.
If all this was true, then I will not demonize Bonds if he really did decide that he couldn't stand being passed up by other players who are using. The press and the league put him in that position, if either were doing their jobs, then he might not have thought he need such an edge, and while he made the wrong choice, I would be able to sympathize with his helplessness over the situation.
Cheating is in Human's and Therefore MLB's DNA
And the story of lesser players using any means to get an edge has been going on longer than when the story of Faust being tempted by the devil was written. Humans will always be tempted to cheat in some way, whether speeding while driving, keeping extra change given you by the cashier, or selling their brother with the multi-color robe into slavery.
And cheating has been happening since the beginning of baseball, from John McGraw's brand of dirty play (he was known to block or trip baserunners while the umpire, only one then, followed the flight of the ball), to Ty Cobb's sharpened spikes (he would willingly maim and stab anyone who dared to tag him out), to the spitball, to throwing games, to the lively ball (there were people who loved the dead-ball era and viewed the live-ball era to be a cheat), to the hidden-ball trick and stealing signs, to amphetamines, to scuffing/altering the ball (Gaylord Perry and Don Sutton were known for that), to modern science allowing players to play more years than previously, to corked bats, and finally to steroids and other PEDs.
Where is the line? What's more unnatural than taking someone's ligament out of their leg and transplanting it into their arms and allowing them to pitch like they used to? It allows a player to do more than what their natural body could do without medical help. Of course, everyone can do that, but some recover and some are even better, but there are a good number of whom who are not the same again.
Of course, it's not illegal in society so there's that, but I find maiming people generally to be illegal and spitballs are definitely illegal in baseball. So why hasn't Gaylord Perrry (who I also loved as a ballplayer, I've regretted that trade for a long time) been drummed out of baseball by writers: he has admitted to cheating, not everybody utilized this cheat, he got a lot of fame out of his cheating, doing things pitchers don't normally do, plus it got him into the Hall of Fame. If the press is worried about legitimizing cheats, why hasn't there been a backlash against him, particularly after he wrote a book about all his cheating.
What I'm Doing
I am enjoying this moment because cheating or no cheating, he was going to be among the greats in terms of the number of homeruns he was going to have. Not to besmirch Aaron, but we don't know if he ever used amphetamines either. Ours is the steroid era but his is the amphetamine era. That's the times we live in today, we can't trust athletes, we can't trust celebrities, we can't trust journalists, we can't trust business leaders, we can't trust politicians, we can't trust our president. Father doesn't know best anymore, and the Beav is no longer doing harmless hi-jinks, he's out racing his new sports car his daddy gave him, running over and killing an elderly couple out for a stroll, before killing himself and his best buddy by wrapping the car around a tree.
But as a baseball fan, legal or illegal, tainted or not tainted, earned or unearned, it is still a moment that only comes around about once every lifetime in baseball, and I've been lucky enough to live to see it twice, and, god willing, I'll be around to see the next one, whether it's A-Rod or Albert or some 9 year old tugging at his daddy's arm and asking him to play baseball with him.
As some historians say, most times we are usually too much in the middle of our times to provide proper perspective on our era, our times, and besides which, there are still a lot of unknowns today that might be revealed in the future and change our view of our past. In addition, feelings that run strong now for some people might fade over time as they finally see things for what they really were.
Did William Shakespeare write all his great works or did he get credit for someone else's work? Either way, it is still a great body of work. However Bonds got to be as good as he is, his swing is still a thing of beauty, as are his homeruns, as steroids certainly didn't help Neifi Perez hit at all and he's been caught three times already whereas Bonds is only accused of using.
For me, I would feel worse accusing someone of something they didn't do, than I would believing that someone was innocent and proven wrong. I already feel some of that guilt because I had defended Bonds for years but it was impossible after Balco, so I retreated to the position of him using Human Growth Hormone (HGH) to be good still afterward. Now that it has been shown that HGH does nothing to help an athlete become better, then what's the answer for why Bonds continue to do well? Particularly since I assume he's followed closely by government agents and his associates would be investigated as well once suspicious activity occurs.
So I will enjoy Bonds's performances as history sorts itself out. Maybe he will be cleared, maybe he'll be proven to be a cheat; most probably we will never get any resolution, only suspicions and accusations. But it will always be a heck of a homer: "It's Outta Here! #756!"
Rose-Colored Glasses
As she shows in this piece, she still clings to her image of her beloved Willie Mays as a beacon of pureness compared to the evil stain that is Barry Bonds. So either she is in denial or she is not that big a baseball fan because it has been pretty much exposed that Willie Mays not only was a user of a liquid red amphetamine, but he was giving it to other players for a "pick-me-up", essentially a non-profit pusher, a sharer of illegal drugs. How many of his homeruns are "tainted" by the use of amphetamines?
Not that I have anything against Willie, he's one of my favorite Giants players and will always have a place in my heart, but it just shows how unrepentant these Barry haters are, juxtaposing the two baseball greats and treating the situation as black and white when it is all grey.
He's Not a Travelling Man, Is that OK With You?
As I suspected, she again ignores the fact that Hank Aaron is a 70+ year old man who doesn't want to go travelling around the country on the Barry Bonds HR tour - as I noted, he would have begun this trip at least 3 weeks ago and disrupted his whole life and routine - and who can fault that? Well, reporters do, even after Hank taped one of the most sincere, heartfelt, touching, history-spanning speeches ever, she and others disrupt that by mentioning that he wasn't there.
Hello?!? Would you make someone who you are good acquaintances with but not good friends with travel around the country while you try to catch up and beat that acquaintance? Just to feed your ego? People have lives, as momentous as the moment was, not everyone feels the need to be there.
Aaron, as was noted, is a private man, I would even say a humble man, so why can't reporters just respect his wish to be in the background, to not acknowledge his greatness? Perhaps he feels that this is Bonds's moment and does not want to intrude on it. And yet reporters insist on reading into his actions or non-actions and inserting their bias and feelings into their reporting.
Aaron's Choice
The fact is despite all the crap reporters has written about how Aaron is unhappy about it, Aaron had the opportunity to respectfully decline to a videotape. Then he had the opportunity to add whatever qualifiers he wished to his videotaped message, I doubt that the Giants thought that they could control everything he says, and you can also be congratulatory but clearly withhold support, much like Selig has. Or he could have waited until now, once Bonds reached his milestone, and give Barry both barrels publicly for all to see. Instead he chose to show his support of Barry in a very public way.
No, the fact is Aaron gave his support fully and without reservation in his video speech, he was very genuine in his congratulatory statement. Please listen to it, I wholeheartedly recommend it. If you are from that era, you will feel goosebumps, it was quite moving. If Aaron, who would have the most reasons to resent the moment, could be so positive about the situation, why can't writers be the same.
Different Strokes for Different Folks
Yet Killion persists, noting "Yes, important witnesses were missing." Well, I watched Hank Aaron hit #715 on TV and I don't recall seeing Babe Ruth's daughther there nor the representative of the Babe Ruth museum, whose most recent successor took to the airwaves with a denunciation of Bonds when Bonds was misquoted/misinterpreted as dissing Babe Ruth. They, by Killion's logic, were important witnesses and they were missing and therefore they were unhappy and resentful of Aaron passing up the Babe.
But everybody is different. If my friends are getting married, or getting some big award, I would be there in a heartbeat, but if some acquaintance who I know who works in my field and who might be beating me out for something, I don't know that I would care to be there. That's his or her moment, I am part of the past. Others might feel the need to be there and support your colleague in their moment of triumph.
But if I were someone's godfather or father figure, I would do my best to be there, though if I'm in my 70's there is going to be some physical limitations, particularly in regards to travel today, with all the security measures making trips longer and harder to handle. So why make such a big deal over Willie Mays showing up and Hank Aaron not? Barry hasn't talked with Aaron in a couple of years now; they are just acquaintences.
If Ann Killion won some writing award, would she expect all the past winners to come by and show her some love? If she got recognized by the White House for exemplary work as a sports news columnist, would she expect the past winners to show up too, just to show how important you are? No, but you would hope that your friends and family can be there to share in the moment with you.
Insulting
What I find insulting is that these reporters seem to know exactly what Aaron is feeling and doing and they've probably never even met the man in his life or had more than a passing conversation or interview. Yet they deem themselves capable of interpreting his actions to mean one thing or another. Aaron's actions spoke loud and clear but the reporters are not hearing it, they are stuck with their blinders on, because they are right and you are wrong.
Except, whoops, they are just as culpable about the situation, they had a chance to hoist Canseco and McGwire up by their necks in the 90's, particularly McGwire when he was caught with the Andro and then with his tepid response to that until he realized that he was in deep doo-doo. Where where the Gary Hart exposers when that happened?
It couldn't have been that hard to catch them then, they were really into using it back then, a little diligence would probably have given you the story of a generation, of a lifetime. Perhaps they should be like the priest Dinsmore in "The Scarlet Letter" except that they should scourge themselves in public for allowing that to happen. They left the barn door was left wide open and now they are mad at the horses and cows that left the barn, when they should be mad at themselves.
Reporters Only Deluding Themselves
She feels sorry for people who are longtime Giants fans. The facts of the case is that we don't know how involved or complicit Barry Bonds was and probably never will. In this world of Unabombers, Osama Bin Laden, 9/11, BTK killer, is it really that outrageous to suppose that Greg Anderson did all this on his own without Bonds knowledge?
Perhaps he refuses to testify and "rot" in jail as she puts it because he feels guilty for dragging his childhood friend into this mess and testifying would do nothing for Bonds's reputation? Maybe he feels he is doing it as penance for doing this to Bonds. In any case, if he says Bonds is clean, no one will believe him so why speak up, and if he says that Bonds was unknowingly using, then he would have buried his friend when Bonds didn't do anything to bring this on himself other than to help out an old friend.
We still don't know if he was just boasting to boost his business or because it was true. Both he and Conte has publicly stated that Bonds is clean but then threw all these other athletes under the bus. Why would Conte lie for Bonds? He would get more fame and notoriety for bringing down the career homerun king than he would for gold medal winners where cheating is pretty much dime a dozen and not some outrageous thing to consider. Baseball is still swirling in scandal and that would be good for getting him more publicity, more notice. That's why he gave that exclusive interview to 20/20 (I remember that as the TV show), because he loves the limelite and likes being viewed as the big-shot ring-leader.
And Greg Anderson is a nobody without his connection to Bonds. Of course he has to take some credit for Bonds's improvement, how else is he going to get his drug buyers to buy from him. "Oh, he's a natural freak; but buy my stuff, I'm connected to him!" We don't know if that was bravado and a lie or the truth. It would not be the first time a salesperson lied about his product if he did all this on his own. And of course there's folder with "BLB" on it, he has to show his marks, er, buyers, that he's authentic, that Bonds is really using.
Real or Not Real
And it could be that it is true that Bonds was really taking. But that's my whole point, there are a lot of ways to look at the situation and we don't really know what's real and what's not. Jayson Blair claimed to be writing the truth. Another had Howard Hughes diary, another had Hitler's. Lots of other writers have twisted the truth, the facts, to fit what they wanted to say.
For while most of us are pretty sure Bonds was using, with intent being the dividing line, the main thing is that we don't know for certain yet. Given that the prosecutors want to nail Bonds, and that Pearlman gave very specific information about the alleged meeting that Bonds reportedly claimed to start using the hard-stuff, one would think that after 18 months since this revelation came out with Pearlman's excerpts, the government would have tracked down these people and gotten them to testify against Bonds for perjury.
How Hard to Figure Out?
It should not be too hard, you just subpoena Ken Griffey Jr and get the names of these people; though if it's true, he could claim memory problems, in which case you go through his taxes and see which athletic clothing companies paid him money over the years, and start asking there. How many major athletic clothing companies are there in the world, and how many of them had contact with Ken Griffey Jr. It should not take 18 months to dig that up if they are reduced to coerce a nobody like Jason Grimsley to casually walk up to Bonds, who he was only acquainted with, and start talking about steroids.
Same with the tax evasion that Bonds's ex-mistress has accused of. It has been over a couple of years now that she leveled that at him. Seems pretty cut and dried, she should know the approximate date and location this happened, you check in local newspapers for the announcement in the local library, you locate the business that did the card show, you check their tax records for paying Bonds for baseball card signing income against Bonds's reported income for that year. If the IRS got Pete Rose and Willie McCovey pretty quickly on this in he 1990's, then they should be able to get Bonds pretty easily too, IF HE DID IT.
After all this time, one would think the government would have had more than enough time to bring Bonds up on either or both charge. And yet no word yet on either one. How hard could it be?
Sigh: Resignation
I am resigned to the fact that there might never be any resolution of this. I'm open to either way, whether he cheated or didn't. Obviously, if he didn't use then that is great and I hope the reporters would eat their words and apologize publicly instead of burying their "oops, I did it again" inside the front page where no one will see their errors that they made. But how do you prove a negative? That's like trying to answer the question, "do you still beat your wife," there's no way to really answer that in a satisfactory way.
If all this was true, then I will not demonize Bonds if he really did decide that he couldn't stand being passed up by other players who are using. The press and the league put him in that position, if either were doing their jobs, then he might not have thought he need such an edge, and while he made the wrong choice, I would be able to sympathize with his helplessness over the situation.
Cheating is in Human's and Therefore MLB's DNA
And the story of lesser players using any means to get an edge has been going on longer than when the story of Faust being tempted by the devil was written. Humans will always be tempted to cheat in some way, whether speeding while driving, keeping extra change given you by the cashier, or selling their brother with the multi-color robe into slavery.
And cheating has been happening since the beginning of baseball, from John McGraw's brand of dirty play (he was known to block or trip baserunners while the umpire, only one then, followed the flight of the ball), to Ty Cobb's sharpened spikes (he would willingly maim and stab anyone who dared to tag him out), to the spitball, to throwing games, to the lively ball (there were people who loved the dead-ball era and viewed the live-ball era to be a cheat), to the hidden-ball trick and stealing signs, to amphetamines, to scuffing/altering the ball (Gaylord Perry and Don Sutton were known for that), to modern science allowing players to play more years than previously, to corked bats, and finally to steroids and other PEDs.
Where is the line? What's more unnatural than taking someone's ligament out of their leg and transplanting it into their arms and allowing them to pitch like they used to? It allows a player to do more than what their natural body could do without medical help. Of course, everyone can do that, but some recover and some are even better, but there are a good number of whom who are not the same again.
Of course, it's not illegal in society so there's that, but I find maiming people generally to be illegal and spitballs are definitely illegal in baseball. So why hasn't Gaylord Perrry (who I also loved as a ballplayer, I've regretted that trade for a long time) been drummed out of baseball by writers: he has admitted to cheating, not everybody utilized this cheat, he got a lot of fame out of his cheating, doing things pitchers don't normally do, plus it got him into the Hall of Fame. If the press is worried about legitimizing cheats, why hasn't there been a backlash against him, particularly after he wrote a book about all his cheating.
What I'm Doing
I am enjoying this moment because cheating or no cheating, he was going to be among the greats in terms of the number of homeruns he was going to have. Not to besmirch Aaron, but we don't know if he ever used amphetamines either. Ours is the steroid era but his is the amphetamine era. That's the times we live in today, we can't trust athletes, we can't trust celebrities, we can't trust journalists, we can't trust business leaders, we can't trust politicians, we can't trust our president. Father doesn't know best anymore, and the Beav is no longer doing harmless hi-jinks, he's out racing his new sports car his daddy gave him, running over and killing an elderly couple out for a stroll, before killing himself and his best buddy by wrapping the car around a tree.
But as a baseball fan, legal or illegal, tainted or not tainted, earned or unearned, it is still a moment that only comes around about once every lifetime in baseball, and I've been lucky enough to live to see it twice, and, god willing, I'll be around to see the next one, whether it's A-Rod or Albert or some 9 year old tugging at his daddy's arm and asking him to play baseball with him.
As some historians say, most times we are usually too much in the middle of our times to provide proper perspective on our era, our times, and besides which, there are still a lot of unknowns today that might be revealed in the future and change our view of our past. In addition, feelings that run strong now for some people might fade over time as they finally see things for what they really were.
Did William Shakespeare write all his great works or did he get credit for someone else's work? Either way, it is still a great body of work. However Bonds got to be as good as he is, his swing is still a thing of beauty, as are his homeruns, as steroids certainly didn't help Neifi Perez hit at all and he's been caught three times already whereas Bonds is only accused of using.
For me, I would feel worse accusing someone of something they didn't do, than I would believing that someone was innocent and proven wrong. I already feel some of that guilt because I had defended Bonds for years but it was impossible after Balco, so I retreated to the position of him using Human Growth Hormone (HGH) to be good still afterward. Now that it has been shown that HGH does nothing to help an athlete become better, then what's the answer for why Bonds continue to do well? Particularly since I assume he's followed closely by government agents and his associates would be investigated as well once suspicious activity occurs.
So I will enjoy Bonds's performances as history sorts itself out. Maybe he will be cleared, maybe he'll be proven to be a cheat; most probably we will never get any resolution, only suspicions and accusations. But it will always be a heck of a homer: "It's Outta Here! #756!"
Friday, April 06, 2007
HGH is NOT a performance enhancing drug
Well, bless my soul, and hush my mouth. Turns out that the media was caught napping again. According to the Sabernomics blog, Human Growth Hormone doesn't do anything for baseball players. So let me first say sorry to Barry for thinking he probably took it and writing it in a variety of posts.
According to that blog's author, who is a professor, he just happened to talk with a fellow professor friend with expertise in exercise physiology after reading from another expert that HGH does nothing. And his professor friend essentially said, "Duh!" Apparently reporters never bothered to ask any expert in HGH, else this would have been a non-story for a long time. Here is some excerpts:
Don't that sound lovely, "your organs grow and has no place to go."
There goes another thing that Bonds has been accused of taking and helping him out. All he needs to do is have another outstanding season and that should prove to his detractors that, if he had used steroids, even inadverdently because of his friend giving it to him unknown to him, it was of little help to Bonds, because, with all the scrutiny he is under, plus government agents bringing their vendetta against him full-steam, there is no way he could be receiving any PEDS of any sort unless it is one of those sold in your local vitamin or health store.
According to that blog's author, who is a professor, he just happened to talk with a fellow professor friend with expertise in exercise physiology after reading from another expert that HGH does nothing. And his professor friend essentially said, "Duh!" Apparently reporters never bothered to ask any expert in HGH, else this would have been a non-story for a long time. Here is some excerpts:
Me: What do you think of this argument?
John: Oh yeah, I agree with him. This isn’t even controversial in exercise physiology.
Me: Why haven’t I heard about this in the media?
John: I guess no one has asked anyone in the profession to comment. People think andro works, and that is laughable.
Me: How does HGH work?
John: Unlike anabolic steroids, growth hormone doesn’t target muscle, everything grows. You will get bigger muscles, but you’ll also do things like enlarge your organs. In an adult who has finished growing, it’s going to result in acromegaly. Remember Andre the Giant’s gut? That wasn’t fat. That’s where his organs had to go because there wasn’t room in his chest cavity.
Me: But, doesn’t the subject benefit from bigger muscles.
John: There is no evidence of this. It seems that the muscle that is developed is abnormal and not mature. I’ll point you to some studies (see below).
Me: Wow. So you think there are no performance-enhancing benefits to using HGH?
John: Little to none, especially in baseball. An offensive lineman in football might benefit just from gaining mass, but there are probably easier and cheaper ways to gain mass—HGH is very expensive. If I were to use PEDs, I’d take steroids and there is no way I’d even touch HGH. If benefits to taking HGH exist they are tiny, and the health consequences are not pretty.
Don't that sound lovely, "your organs grow and has no place to go."
There goes another thing that Bonds has been accused of taking and helping him out. All he needs to do is have another outstanding season and that should prove to his detractors that, if he had used steroids, even inadverdently because of his friend giving it to him unknown to him, it was of little help to Bonds, because, with all the scrutiny he is under, plus government agents bringing their vendetta against him full-steam, there is no way he could be receiving any PEDS of any sort unless it is one of those sold in your local vitamin or health store.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Hank Aaron Had Unfair Advantage As Well
{I was going through my drafts and found a bunch of articles mostly written but unpublished; I'll be posting them along the road to the 2008 season}
With all the Bonds haters railing about Bonds unfair run at Hammering Hank's all-time record, I've been reading over and over again about this when I realized something: it would be hypocritical of Aaron to complain of getting unfair help when it is known that the Braves pulled in their fences to help him reach and beat Babe Ruth (I realized this while over at El Lefty Malo and posted much of the below stats there, but, as I am wont to do, I then added more stuff to provide more post-like structure).
Aaron Had Home Advantage
Everyone from that time period knew about the Launching Pad, due supposedly to its high altitude, but not many know that the fences were brought in. I never knew that until recent years when I saw it posted, so I investigated and found that it was true. How many homers did that help Hank Aaron out with?
Well, his HR/AB rate increased 50-100%, depending on which years you compare, between his late 20's to his late 30's, leading to him continuing to be a consistent 40's HR guy through his career and in fact setting a career high when he was 37 years old and hitting 40 HR when he was 39 years old. Maybe he doesn't reach Ruth if he didn't get such help from his park. Maybe he doesn't even reach Mays.
HR Rate Comparison
One way to examine how much help Aaron got is via his HR-rate. His HR/AB started peaking at age 35, which was higher than his previous peak at age 28 by 6%, then topped that at age 37 and again at age 40, which was 34% higher and the peak for his career. Sounds familiar, eh, as that is what happened with Bonds. Overall, his homerun rate increased 47% when comparing his HR-rate from 35 to the end of his career versus 34 and younger. As some people like to note about Barry, that reverses 100 years of baseball history with Aaron increasing his homerun rate nearly 50% after age 35.
He hit 203 homers from the age of 35. Reducing his HR rate by 47% to his youthful rate would result in only 138 HR, or 65 HR less than before, meaning he would have ended his career at 690 HR. Add in the fact that most hitters don't hit as well for HR after 35 as they did before 35 - see Mays for example - and one can speculate that Aaron might not have passed up Mays if not for the help he got. But who knows, maybe Aaron was unique, like Ted Williams was in increasing his HR-rate late in his career. As I will show next, perhaps he was.
Home Vs. Road
We can slice things even finer (thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's great Play Index stats) to examine HR-rate by home and away in Atlanta. From 1966-68, his HR-rate at home was 7.0% vs. on the road 5.4%. So he was benefiting from home already. Then after that to 1973 when he had his last power year, he had a 10.7% HR-rate at home, 6.3% HR-rate away. That meant that he did improve a bit when older - probably the middle-aged girth that comes with your reduced metabolism helped by increasing his mass - 16.7% improvement, which is what Ted Williams improved by using a similar ratio as above, comparing 35+ against 34- (about 15.2%).
Applying that rate to his home numbers would result in 48 less homers, or 707 HRs. If he was that close, he probably would have played one more year, but he only had 10 his last year, so passing the Babe would not have been a slam dunk there. It would have been severely in question whether he would pass it the next season and thus he would have probably had to play another two seasons to catch Ruth and pass him. In addition, he played his last two seasons in Milwaukee, benefiting from being a DH those two years. So he would have passed Ruth as a Brewer instead, much like Ruth retiring as a Boston Brave, unless Atlanta decides to hold onto him until he reached Ruth.
But he hit .229/.315/.369/.684 in his last season (and not much better the year before) so he could only have gotten worse if he played another season, let alone another two. Those would have been sadder than Mays's own last season, when he hit .211/.303/.344/.647. It would be questionable that any team would have allowed Aaron to set the record hitting as poorly as he was at that time, though still a possibility since it was the Brewers and Selig was such a fan/friend of Aaron.
Interestingly, both Aaron and Mays were both 42 years old in their final seasons as MLB players, which is striking since this is Bonds 42 years old season and he batted .269/.491/.549/1.040, while being tested for PED usage, while being investigated and most probably followed 24/7 by IRS and other Federal agents, while presumably having no access to such PEDs while he and anyone near him are being followed and investigated by the government, particularly since they finally filed their suit against him.
What's Unfair Cheating and Ethically Corrupt Behavior?
Like Bonds and his possible use of PEDs, we'll never know how exactly much help Aaron got from his ballpark. In Bonds case, if he is doing so well at age 42, while seemingly clean of PED usage, that puts into question how much help he actually got from his alleged PED usage. In any case, any try at theorizing exactly how many more homeruns he hit because of PED (or any other, someone recently proposed that his elbow brace helps him, discussion here plus link to original article at El Lefty Malo) help will be pretty much wild guesses that people pull out of their you-know-whats.
Aaron, however, we all knew about the Launching Pad and never thought much about that. What I didn't know until recently was that supposedly Atlanta pulled their fences in sometime in the late 60's to help Hank Aaron hit more homers. If that is not artificial help and cheating, then I don't know what is.
However, it was not against the rules of baseball at the time. On the other hand, clearly only players who played games in Atlanta benefited from it, and Atlanta's players benefited the most from it, not because of any natural advantage or abilities, but solely because they played for Atlanta.
Since not every player had that advantage, isn't that a morally corrupt way as well to achieving the record? It is one thing if the park was just built like that and the players benefited from that, like Coors Field and Texas's Ameriquest Field at Arlington. But Atlanta changed their field right around when Aaron started closing in on the greats, when he had 510 career homers. Then moved them back out once he had the record.
At least Aaron didn't request that the Braves do this for him, or hopefully so given how secrets have been getting revealed over time and sports heroes are more human than we wish, so it probably wasn't something he purposefully chose. But at minimum, they must have made it known to him that they were changing the fences or he should have realized it on opening day and saw where the fences were now, but he chose to abide by the change instead of making a stink about it publicly. He must have known that it would help him hit more homers, that it would help him catch Willie Mays, and that it would perhaps help him pass up Babe Ruth. He was that close.
And the damning fact, if I remember right, is that the park dimensions were returned to their original lengths right around when Hank Aaron left, or perhaps once Aaron was within reach of the Babe. That implies that it was deliberately done to benefit Aaron: the fences were changed the season after he passed 500 homers and were moved back to their original configuration around the time when he was passing Ruth. What other reasons would explain such a coincidence of timing?
Life is Unfair
I bring this up not to disparage Aaron's record but to point out that there is always more behind any number, particularly in sports. Every era have different factors affecting the players. In the early parts of baseball history, the so-called Dead-ball era, the reason the ball was so dead was because the teams would play with the same ball until it was pretty much beaten dead. You could make the best swing of your live but the ball wouldn't go anywhere. Then George Henry "Babe" Ruth came along and livened up the game.
But even he wasn't enough, at least in the eyes of MLB baseball, so they instituted two rules, one official, the other unofficial: the official rule was that baseballs had to be taken out of play and replaced, which provided a fresh supply of balls for hitters to hit out; the unofficial rule, unproven other than by examining the statistical record, is that the "lively" ball came into use around that time and suddenly everyone is hitting out homers. Of course, a large income for those capable of hitting homeruns didn't hurt either. Both those innovations in the game helped boost the number of homers Babe Ruth hit.
Another help was that Ruth was not playing against the best players in America, but the best white players in America. Clearly, from the records of the Negro Leagues and observers, particularly MLB players who played against Negro League teams while barnstorming during the winter (to get more income), there were a lot of talented players who played there, plus who knows how many more would have chose a professional career had that option been available beyond the Negro Leagues.
Now most of these were not personal choices by players, they reflected societal and MLB-wide decisions that were generally out of their hands, but World War II changed that, they started making decisions to help themselves. To help out soldiers in the field deal with fatigue and such, amphetamines were routinely given out to soldiers during WW II. Some of these soldiers carried this habit back to the Majors when they returned from war. And its use had continued unabated - documented by various mentions to it by ballplayers in books and interviews - until the MLB recently banned its use.
Another, more positive, habit they brought back was most probably physical fitness. Soldiers had to be in shape, and the Marines in particular taught their men to be in tip-top shape. I've never seen this mentioned anywhere, but it dawned on me while looking at Ted Williams career record that it was probably no coincidence that he was one of the few players to continue to hit well and for power late in his career, and was a well decorated fighter pilot for the Marines, who twice served our country proudly and well.
And speaking of the military, a couple of players most probably would have either been close to passing Babe Ruth or would have passed, if not for the military. Ted Williams missed a good portion of his most productive years as a hitter in serving our country twice, WW II and the Korean War. Some say he would have come short, I think he would be have been close enough that he might have decided to continue playing and pass Ruth up. After all, he had 29 HRs in 310 AB the last season he played. Plus he had a severe injury that cost him another large chunk of a season. Add all that up, and he probably would have passed Ruth up first long before Aaron did.
Willie Mays would have been very close as well, he missed around 270 games, 1,000 AB, by going into the military. If you averaged his HR-rates for the seasons before and after, then used that for those 1,000 AB, he would have hit another 58 homers, putting him at 718 careers homers. If that had happened, Aaron would have passed him the next season.
Then again, as was noted first, players have been using amphetamine or speed since WW II. Ted Williams was a military man, so it is possible that he used at some point. Willie Mays was outed by a former Mets player as someone who supplied some sort of red speed concoction that helped give him a boost, and was also in the military. How many of their homers were derived from using?
As far as we know, Hank Aaron has been clean, but he still certainly benefited from his team moving in the fences at his homepark just as he entered the career homerun race and soon after he caught, or was close enough to catching, Babe Ruth. If they had left the fences untouched either times they changed the fences, then it might be another matter, but they clearly changed the field configuration to benefit their player. Hank might not have been involved in that decision, but I would think that any intelligent man knows that moving in the fences could only help him and that Hank Aaron had enough clout with the Braves management that if he told them to leave the fences alone, they would have.
Which brings us to Barry Bonds now. It seems pretty clear that he used steriods when his trainer was feeding it to him, but he claims that he was told that it was flaxseed oil and an arthritic balm. People, particularly journalists, believe that he knew, but to me, it is possible that Anderson acted on his own, poisoning his "friend" with his drugs in order to further his drug dealership business, so while I believe he used, I don't know if he did it knowingly, though probably he did. And without his connection with Bonds, he has no business.
And haven't you used or eaten something your friends gave you? How many times have you eaten food at your friends home and not know what was in it? Being Chinese, there was this concotion in a jar with all sort of wild stuff in it and some sort of alcohol that I was suppose to rub into bruises and other various ailments but it sure smelled; I still have no idea what was in that. If your friend says that he's giving you flaxseed oil and arthritic balm, do you make him show you the packaging or do you trust his word, particularly if he is your trainer? Particularly for something as innocuous sounding as those two?
Probably Bonds used but there's a high probability that we will never find out the exact truth, as everything appears to be a "he said/she said" type of situation. Evidence may suggest things, but we don't know what exactly is the truth. Greg Anderson might say eventually, one way or the other, but most probably we will be left wondering what those suspicious files meant, for who is to say that Anderson wasn't a bit bent, in his own little fantasy world that he designed to prop up a failed high school star athlete's adult years. We know from examples like John Lennon's killer and President Reagan's shooter that there are people who live in their own world and act according to what they see in that world. What is real and what is somebody's version of reality?
Axe To Grind with Bonds
And all others who have accused Bonds of using are people with an axe to grind against Bonds. His former mistress was cast aside with no nestegg so it behooves her to make her story with Bonds interesting enough to make her a celebrity, because a former mistress to an athlete carries no cachet today, it's no big deal today. Her story is starting to smell given that there's been no action on her assertion that the cheated on his baseball card income; something like that should have been very easy to check, you verify with the card company that he received payment, you check to see if he filed that in his income taxes. Also telling is that her plans to write a book has been greeted with the sound of silence by the book publishers, none of them were interested enough to pay her for her story, so she ended up posing for Playboy and telling her story there.
His former trainer needed to boast about Bonds using - how else is he going to convince others to use his stuff? We don't know what's the truth there either, whether he was truthful or just had a lucrative practice trading on his relationship with his childhood friend by creating a lie with other athletes that his buddy got that way by using Anderson's stuff. How better to sell your products, it is not enough to say that you are Bonds trainer, you have to take credit for him doing so well and with your products. As proof to your real customers, you point at Bonds's accomplishments and show them the schedule that you set up for Barry to take.
Who Watches the Watchmen?
Reporters have the most to gain. The Chronicle writers were nobodies until the grand jury testimony fell into their laps. It makes no news if Bonds used but wasn't aware. The story sell more - including a book - if Bonds is the sinister ballplayer. They are now millionaires (or at least set for life) and many people know their names now, giving them a lot of fame. One of them recently was hired away, by SI if I remember right.
Pearlman is a former SI writer, and it appears that they have take a collective blood oath to bring down Bonds. He's making a lot of money off his tell-all book about Bonds. He has made a lot of accusations and he claims to have taped conversations of all these people saying that Bonds took, particularly the athletic apparrel representative. Let's suppose they are all true.
If this is true, then Bonds and Griffey would know who these people who sat in this dinner was. If I were Bonds as described by many journalists, as someone who has some clout in the industry, I would hire investigators to seek out these people and see who they work for today, then put some pressure on the companies to either fire or destroy the career of these people; I could work out an exclusive deal with the company for some product but just before signing mention that we cannot deal with you anymore, you have so-and-so on your payroll and he's a rat.
And if I were the athletic apparrel rep or the two associates, would I tell a reporter such a story if I knew that Bonds could link it back to me and given the reputation of Barry being such a horrible person, wouldn't you be afraid of reprisals of some sort? With the details that Pearlman weaved in his excerpt, if it were true, Bonds should have no problem identifying who those people at that meeting were. At minimum, he could get with Griffey and figure that one out.
And it would go beyond just Bonds, in my mind. An athletic apparel rep with a reputation in the industry for tattling on an athlete's private conversation would have a very short career. If ballplayers are as chummy as Pearlman paints them to be, news should spread pretty fast among the better players that they should avoid so-and-so who works at such-and-such company because of how he/she treated Bonds. They would close ranks pretty fast according to the way Pearlman portrayed them when, well, they closed ranks and the ballplayers he claimed did or said something for his book, now claim otherwise.
Jay Canizaro, an otherwise nothing former Giants player, is one of the players quoted in the book but then claimed he didn't say it. He is reported to have see Barry's back all covered with zits and it was obvious to him that Barry used because he used. But I don't use and I frequently have zits all over my back because for some reason I get them when I eat fish. Sushi, cooked, broiled, fried, it don't matter, I break out in zits all over my back and I'm getting old enough for a "mature" discount (and now have a gut when I was once super skinny).
So if you are going to rat out Barry Bonds in such a way, then you should be willing to go public with your accusations, because you just committed career suicide but felt you did the right thing. Or if you aren't in the industry anymore, so that Barry can't touch you, again, you should be willing to go public with your accusations. It is over a year and a half since that book came out with the accusations and still no release of the tape or the name of the source, that would easily settle the score on whether this was a fabricated story (see Jayson Blair) or if it was a real quote.
What's the fear? If it is the truth, Bonds could or would have done something against these people already. They should have nothing to lose right now. If anything, they would get great fame as the one who outted Bonds, to help save our great game, as the journalists have been selling their witch hunt of Bonds, and Pearlman would be vindicated. Plus, they would get some fame today, as George Mitchell's report has gotten Congress to start hearings again and I'm sure they would love to hear about Bonds's alleged declaration that he was going to use steriods.
Now, perhaps they don't want fame, they just wanted to rat out a cheater like Bonds. But there are ways of testifying before Congress without revealing your identity (though supposedly grand jury testimony is secret as well and it took forever for the government to figure out who did that; and I will admit here that I thought Novitsky did it and I was wrong). And Congress, if they really want to get to the bottom of things, should be able to locate these people, how many athletic equipment people get to have dinner with Griffey and Bonds at the height of their fame? Just sic a few g-men at these companies and narrow the list down.
Irony: Their Miscue Makes Some of Them Rich
Still, I find it a bit ironic that the people who were supposed to be watching out for us - and now climb on their bully pulpit to lecture us on the dangers of PEDS and make money with their outrage - are the same people who were asleep at the wheel during the first 15 or so years of the golden age of steriod usage, which I call time zero being around when McGwire and Canseco became major leaguers. Where were they when all these injections where happening? The rumors were rampant throughout the industry, I know I read the whispers along the way about them and their muscles, and I was busy starting a new career, family, and home.
In particular, why didn't one of these now outraged media members find the will to decide to investigate Mark McGwire when he was caught with the Andro in his locker, initially laughed it off, then realized that he better speak out against it or be burned at the stake. Gary Hart, former wunderkind congressman and the hot candidate for president at that time, dared reporters to investigate him and was caught with his mistress on a boat. What more did these reporters need to start an investigation, isn't it their job to dig deep when there's smoke? And that Andro was smoking more than the forest fire that created Smokey the Bear.
Numbers Are Tainted and Probably Will Continue
One of my main point is that any career number is tainted in some way or another by factors within the players control and outside of their control. Even Hank Aaron's number, so revered, was tainted by his team's clearly cheating to help him reach Babe Ruth's number. Who knows what else we will discover with time.
Plus, we are barely into the era of the exposing of PEDS usage. The Mitchell report should just be the tip of the iceberg given all the high numbers of users given by some people close to that scene. We don't know what we will find out in the up coming years.
And, frankly, the PEDS era will probably never end, there will always be people looking for that edge and people trying to figure out how to give that edge. That has been true in baseball from Ty Cobb's sharpened spikes to segregation to real spitballs to amphetamines to watering down the base paths to Gaylord Perry's spitballs to steriods to HGH. You know that there will be another scandal in the future.
With all the Bonds haters railing about Bonds unfair run at Hammering Hank's all-time record, I've been reading over and over again about this when I realized something: it would be hypocritical of Aaron to complain of getting unfair help when it is known that the Braves pulled in their fences to help him reach and beat Babe Ruth (I realized this while over at El Lefty Malo and posted much of the below stats there, but, as I am wont to do, I then added more stuff to provide more post-like structure).
Aaron Had Home Advantage
Everyone from that time period knew about the Launching Pad, due supposedly to its high altitude, but not many know that the fences were brought in. I never knew that until recent years when I saw it posted, so I investigated and found that it was true. How many homers did that help Hank Aaron out with?
Well, his HR/AB rate increased 50-100%, depending on which years you compare, between his late 20's to his late 30's, leading to him continuing to be a consistent 40's HR guy through his career and in fact setting a career high when he was 37 years old and hitting 40 HR when he was 39 years old. Maybe he doesn't reach Ruth if he didn't get such help from his park. Maybe he doesn't even reach Mays.
HR Rate Comparison
One way to examine how much help Aaron got is via his HR-rate. His HR/AB started peaking at age 35, which was higher than his previous peak at age 28 by 6%, then topped that at age 37 and again at age 40, which was 34% higher and the peak for his career. Sounds familiar, eh, as that is what happened with Bonds. Overall, his homerun rate increased 47% when comparing his HR-rate from 35 to the end of his career versus 34 and younger. As some people like to note about Barry, that reverses 100 years of baseball history with Aaron increasing his homerun rate nearly 50% after age 35.
He hit 203 homers from the age of 35. Reducing his HR rate by 47% to his youthful rate would result in only 138 HR, or 65 HR less than before, meaning he would have ended his career at 690 HR. Add in the fact that most hitters don't hit as well for HR after 35 as they did before 35 - see Mays for example - and one can speculate that Aaron might not have passed up Mays if not for the help he got. But who knows, maybe Aaron was unique, like Ted Williams was in increasing his HR-rate late in his career. As I will show next, perhaps he was.
Home Vs. Road
We can slice things even finer (thanks to Baseball-Reference.com's great Play Index stats) to examine HR-rate by home and away in Atlanta. From 1966-68, his HR-rate at home was 7.0% vs. on the road 5.4%. So he was benefiting from home already. Then after that to 1973 when he had his last power year, he had a 10.7% HR-rate at home, 6.3% HR-rate away. That meant that he did improve a bit when older - probably the middle-aged girth that comes with your reduced metabolism helped by increasing his mass - 16.7% improvement, which is what Ted Williams improved by using a similar ratio as above, comparing 35+ against 34- (about 15.2%).
Applying that rate to his home numbers would result in 48 less homers, or 707 HRs. If he was that close, he probably would have played one more year, but he only had 10 his last year, so passing the Babe would not have been a slam dunk there. It would have been severely in question whether he would pass it the next season and thus he would have probably had to play another two seasons to catch Ruth and pass him. In addition, he played his last two seasons in Milwaukee, benefiting from being a DH those two years. So he would have passed Ruth as a Brewer instead, much like Ruth retiring as a Boston Brave, unless Atlanta decides to hold onto him until he reached Ruth.
But he hit .229/.315/.369/.684 in his last season (and not much better the year before) so he could only have gotten worse if he played another season, let alone another two. Those would have been sadder than Mays's own last season, when he hit .211/.303/.344/.647. It would be questionable that any team would have allowed Aaron to set the record hitting as poorly as he was at that time, though still a possibility since it was the Brewers and Selig was such a fan/friend of Aaron.
Interestingly, both Aaron and Mays were both 42 years old in their final seasons as MLB players, which is striking since this is Bonds 42 years old season and he batted .269/.491/.549/1.040, while being tested for PED usage, while being investigated and most probably followed 24/7 by IRS and other Federal agents, while presumably having no access to such PEDs while he and anyone near him are being followed and investigated by the government, particularly since they finally filed their suit against him.
What's Unfair Cheating and Ethically Corrupt Behavior?
Like Bonds and his possible use of PEDs, we'll never know how exactly much help Aaron got from his ballpark. In Bonds case, if he is doing so well at age 42, while seemingly clean of PED usage, that puts into question how much help he actually got from his alleged PED usage. In any case, any try at theorizing exactly how many more homeruns he hit because of PED (or any other, someone recently proposed that his elbow brace helps him, discussion here plus link to original article at El Lefty Malo) help will be pretty much wild guesses that people pull out of their you-know-whats.
Aaron, however, we all knew about the Launching Pad and never thought much about that. What I didn't know until recently was that supposedly Atlanta pulled their fences in sometime in the late 60's to help Hank Aaron hit more homers. If that is not artificial help and cheating, then I don't know what is.
However, it was not against the rules of baseball at the time. On the other hand, clearly only players who played games in Atlanta benefited from it, and Atlanta's players benefited the most from it, not because of any natural advantage or abilities, but solely because they played for Atlanta.
Since not every player had that advantage, isn't that a morally corrupt way as well to achieving the record? It is one thing if the park was just built like that and the players benefited from that, like Coors Field and Texas's Ameriquest Field at Arlington. But Atlanta changed their field right around when Aaron started closing in on the greats, when he had 510 career homers. Then moved them back out once he had the record.
At least Aaron didn't request that the Braves do this for him, or hopefully so given how secrets have been getting revealed over time and sports heroes are more human than we wish, so it probably wasn't something he purposefully chose. But at minimum, they must have made it known to him that they were changing the fences or he should have realized it on opening day and saw where the fences were now, but he chose to abide by the change instead of making a stink about it publicly. He must have known that it would help him hit more homers, that it would help him catch Willie Mays, and that it would perhaps help him pass up Babe Ruth. He was that close.
And the damning fact, if I remember right, is that the park dimensions were returned to their original lengths right around when Hank Aaron left, or perhaps once Aaron was within reach of the Babe. That implies that it was deliberately done to benefit Aaron: the fences were changed the season after he passed 500 homers and were moved back to their original configuration around the time when he was passing Ruth. What other reasons would explain such a coincidence of timing?
Life is Unfair
I bring this up not to disparage Aaron's record but to point out that there is always more behind any number, particularly in sports. Every era have different factors affecting the players. In the early parts of baseball history, the so-called Dead-ball era, the reason the ball was so dead was because the teams would play with the same ball until it was pretty much beaten dead. You could make the best swing of your live but the ball wouldn't go anywhere. Then George Henry "Babe" Ruth came along and livened up the game.
But even he wasn't enough, at least in the eyes of MLB baseball, so they instituted two rules, one official, the other unofficial: the official rule was that baseballs had to be taken out of play and replaced, which provided a fresh supply of balls for hitters to hit out; the unofficial rule, unproven other than by examining the statistical record, is that the "lively" ball came into use around that time and suddenly everyone is hitting out homers. Of course, a large income for those capable of hitting homeruns didn't hurt either. Both those innovations in the game helped boost the number of homers Babe Ruth hit.
Another help was that Ruth was not playing against the best players in America, but the best white players in America. Clearly, from the records of the Negro Leagues and observers, particularly MLB players who played against Negro League teams while barnstorming during the winter (to get more income), there were a lot of talented players who played there, plus who knows how many more would have chose a professional career had that option been available beyond the Negro Leagues.
Now most of these were not personal choices by players, they reflected societal and MLB-wide decisions that were generally out of their hands, but World War II changed that, they started making decisions to help themselves. To help out soldiers in the field deal with fatigue and such, amphetamines were routinely given out to soldiers during WW II. Some of these soldiers carried this habit back to the Majors when they returned from war. And its use had continued unabated - documented by various mentions to it by ballplayers in books and interviews - until the MLB recently banned its use.
Another, more positive, habit they brought back was most probably physical fitness. Soldiers had to be in shape, and the Marines in particular taught their men to be in tip-top shape. I've never seen this mentioned anywhere, but it dawned on me while looking at Ted Williams career record that it was probably no coincidence that he was one of the few players to continue to hit well and for power late in his career, and was a well decorated fighter pilot for the Marines, who twice served our country proudly and well.
And speaking of the military, a couple of players most probably would have either been close to passing Babe Ruth or would have passed, if not for the military. Ted Williams missed a good portion of his most productive years as a hitter in serving our country twice, WW II and the Korean War. Some say he would have come short, I think he would be have been close enough that he might have decided to continue playing and pass Ruth up. After all, he had 29 HRs in 310 AB the last season he played. Plus he had a severe injury that cost him another large chunk of a season. Add all that up, and he probably would have passed Ruth up first long before Aaron did.
Willie Mays would have been very close as well, he missed around 270 games, 1,000 AB, by going into the military. If you averaged his HR-rates for the seasons before and after, then used that for those 1,000 AB, he would have hit another 58 homers, putting him at 718 careers homers. If that had happened, Aaron would have passed him the next season.
Then again, as was noted first, players have been using amphetamine or speed since WW II. Ted Williams was a military man, so it is possible that he used at some point. Willie Mays was outed by a former Mets player as someone who supplied some sort of red speed concoction that helped give him a boost, and was also in the military. How many of their homers were derived from using?
As far as we know, Hank Aaron has been clean, but he still certainly benefited from his team moving in the fences at his homepark just as he entered the career homerun race and soon after he caught, or was close enough to catching, Babe Ruth. If they had left the fences untouched either times they changed the fences, then it might be another matter, but they clearly changed the field configuration to benefit their player. Hank might not have been involved in that decision, but I would think that any intelligent man knows that moving in the fences could only help him and that Hank Aaron had enough clout with the Braves management that if he told them to leave the fences alone, they would have.
Barry Bonds and PEDS
Which brings us to Barry Bonds now. It seems pretty clear that he used steriods when his trainer was feeding it to him, but he claims that he was told that it was flaxseed oil and an arthritic balm. People, particularly journalists, believe that he knew, but to me, it is possible that Anderson acted on his own, poisoning his "friend" with his drugs in order to further his drug dealership business, so while I believe he used, I don't know if he did it knowingly, though probably he did. And without his connection with Bonds, he has no business.
And haven't you used or eaten something your friends gave you? How many times have you eaten food at your friends home and not know what was in it? Being Chinese, there was this concotion in a jar with all sort of wild stuff in it and some sort of alcohol that I was suppose to rub into bruises and other various ailments but it sure smelled; I still have no idea what was in that. If your friend says that he's giving you flaxseed oil and arthritic balm, do you make him show you the packaging or do you trust his word, particularly if he is your trainer? Particularly for something as innocuous sounding as those two?
Probably Bonds used but there's a high probability that we will never find out the exact truth, as everything appears to be a "he said/she said" type of situation. Evidence may suggest things, but we don't know what exactly is the truth. Greg Anderson might say eventually, one way or the other, but most probably we will be left wondering what those suspicious files meant, for who is to say that Anderson wasn't a bit bent, in his own little fantasy world that he designed to prop up a failed high school star athlete's adult years. We know from examples like John Lennon's killer and President Reagan's shooter that there are people who live in their own world and act according to what they see in that world. What is real and what is somebody's version of reality?
Axe To Grind with Bonds
And all others who have accused Bonds of using are people with an axe to grind against Bonds. His former mistress was cast aside with no nestegg so it behooves her to make her story with Bonds interesting enough to make her a celebrity, because a former mistress to an athlete carries no cachet today, it's no big deal today. Her story is starting to smell given that there's been no action on her assertion that the cheated on his baseball card income; something like that should have been very easy to check, you verify with the card company that he received payment, you check to see if he filed that in his income taxes. Also telling is that her plans to write a book has been greeted with the sound of silence by the book publishers, none of them were interested enough to pay her for her story, so she ended up posing for Playboy and telling her story there.
His former trainer needed to boast about Bonds using - how else is he going to convince others to use his stuff? We don't know what's the truth there either, whether he was truthful or just had a lucrative practice trading on his relationship with his childhood friend by creating a lie with other athletes that his buddy got that way by using Anderson's stuff. How better to sell your products, it is not enough to say that you are Bonds trainer, you have to take credit for him doing so well and with your products. As proof to your real customers, you point at Bonds's accomplishments and show them the schedule that you set up for Barry to take.
Who Watches the Watchmen?
Reporters have the most to gain. The Chronicle writers were nobodies until the grand jury testimony fell into their laps. It makes no news if Bonds used but wasn't aware. The story sell more - including a book - if Bonds is the sinister ballplayer. They are now millionaires (or at least set for life) and many people know their names now, giving them a lot of fame. One of them recently was hired away, by SI if I remember right.
Pearlman is a former SI writer, and it appears that they have take a collective blood oath to bring down Bonds. He's making a lot of money off his tell-all book about Bonds. He has made a lot of accusations and he claims to have taped conversations of all these people saying that Bonds took, particularly the athletic apparrel representative. Let's suppose they are all true.
If this is true, then Bonds and Griffey would know who these people who sat in this dinner was. If I were Bonds as described by many journalists, as someone who has some clout in the industry, I would hire investigators to seek out these people and see who they work for today, then put some pressure on the companies to either fire or destroy the career of these people; I could work out an exclusive deal with the company for some product but just before signing mention that we cannot deal with you anymore, you have so-and-so on your payroll and he's a rat.
And if I were the athletic apparrel rep or the two associates, would I tell a reporter such a story if I knew that Bonds could link it back to me and given the reputation of Barry being such a horrible person, wouldn't you be afraid of reprisals of some sort? With the details that Pearlman weaved in his excerpt, if it were true, Bonds should have no problem identifying who those people at that meeting were. At minimum, he could get with Griffey and figure that one out.
And it would go beyond just Bonds, in my mind. An athletic apparel rep with a reputation in the industry for tattling on an athlete's private conversation would have a very short career. If ballplayers are as chummy as Pearlman paints them to be, news should spread pretty fast among the better players that they should avoid so-and-so who works at such-and-such company because of how he/she treated Bonds. They would close ranks pretty fast according to the way Pearlman portrayed them when, well, they closed ranks and the ballplayers he claimed did or said something for his book, now claim otherwise.
Jay Canizaro, an otherwise nothing former Giants player, is one of the players quoted in the book but then claimed he didn't say it. He is reported to have see Barry's back all covered with zits and it was obvious to him that Barry used because he used. But I don't use and I frequently have zits all over my back because for some reason I get them when I eat fish. Sushi, cooked, broiled, fried, it don't matter, I break out in zits all over my back and I'm getting old enough for a "mature" discount (and now have a gut when I was once super skinny).
So if you are going to rat out Barry Bonds in such a way, then you should be willing to go public with your accusations, because you just committed career suicide but felt you did the right thing. Or if you aren't in the industry anymore, so that Barry can't touch you, again, you should be willing to go public with your accusations. It is over a year and a half since that book came out with the accusations and still no release of the tape or the name of the source, that would easily settle the score on whether this was a fabricated story (see Jayson Blair) or if it was a real quote.
What's the fear? If it is the truth, Bonds could or would have done something against these people already. They should have nothing to lose right now. If anything, they would get great fame as the one who outted Bonds, to help save our great game, as the journalists have been selling their witch hunt of Bonds, and Pearlman would be vindicated. Plus, they would get some fame today, as George Mitchell's report has gotten Congress to start hearings again and I'm sure they would love to hear about Bonds's alleged declaration that he was going to use steriods.
Now, perhaps they don't want fame, they just wanted to rat out a cheater like Bonds. But there are ways of testifying before Congress without revealing your identity (though supposedly grand jury testimony is secret as well and it took forever for the government to figure out who did that; and I will admit here that I thought Novitsky did it and I was wrong). And Congress, if they really want to get to the bottom of things, should be able to locate these people, how many athletic equipment people get to have dinner with Griffey and Bonds at the height of their fame? Just sic a few g-men at these companies and narrow the list down.
Irony: Their Miscue Makes Some of Them Rich
Still, I find it a bit ironic that the people who were supposed to be watching out for us - and now climb on their bully pulpit to lecture us on the dangers of PEDS and make money with their outrage - are the same people who were asleep at the wheel during the first 15 or so years of the golden age of steriod usage, which I call time zero being around when McGwire and Canseco became major leaguers. Where were they when all these injections where happening? The rumors were rampant throughout the industry, I know I read the whispers along the way about them and their muscles, and I was busy starting a new career, family, and home.
In particular, why didn't one of these now outraged media members find the will to decide to investigate Mark McGwire when he was caught with the Andro in his locker, initially laughed it off, then realized that he better speak out against it or be burned at the stake. Gary Hart, former wunderkind congressman and the hot candidate for president at that time, dared reporters to investigate him and was caught with his mistress on a boat. What more did these reporters need to start an investigation, isn't it their job to dig deep when there's smoke? And that Andro was smoking more than the forest fire that created Smokey the Bear.
Numbers Are Tainted and Probably Will Continue
One of my main point is that any career number is tainted in some way or another by factors within the players control and outside of their control. Even Hank Aaron's number, so revered, was tainted by his team's clearly cheating to help him reach Babe Ruth's number. Who knows what else we will discover with time.
Plus, we are barely into the era of the exposing of PEDS usage. The Mitchell report should just be the tip of the iceberg given all the high numbers of users given by some people close to that scene. We don't know what we will find out in the up coming years.
And, frankly, the PEDS era will probably never end, there will always be people looking for that edge and people trying to figure out how to give that edge. That has been true in baseball from Ty Cobb's sharpened spikes to segregation to real spitballs to amphetamines to watering down the base paths to Gaylord Perry's spitballs to steriods to HGH. You know that there will be another scandal in the future.
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