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The Link
Apparently more cow than man. And, reporters now have to sign something for the privilege of mooing at him, The Link If he's circulating a petition I bet he'd get more signatures for the opposing position.
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Did I miss something? Was this already covered in here? No one cares that the biggest (ha!) superstar of the last decade has been proven by multiple sources to have lied, under oath, and to us the general public about his rampant cheating?
I mean, we all KNEW, but now we KNOW.
Doesn't everyone else hate him as much as me?
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Even now?
Even now that you know he's not even, technically, a human being anymore?
He's a liar and a cheater of the highest order, and you're ok with that?
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Did I miss something? Was this already covered in here? No one cares that the biggest (ha!) superstar of the last decade has been proven by multiple sources to have lied, under oath, and to us the general public about his rampant cheating?
I mean, we all KNEW, but now we KNOW.
Doesn't everyone else hate him as much as me?
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Even now?
Even now that you know he's not even, technically, a human being anymore?
He's a liar and a cheater of the highest order, and you're ok with that?
IBB every single at bat. He's deliberately taken himself outside of the Game.
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* If the Commissioner feels Bonds flagrantly broke the rules of baseball or the law then he should be banned from the game and excluded from the Hall of Fame. I'm not to this point yet, but I may get there soon.
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* If the Commissioner feels Bonds flagrantly broke the rules of baseball or the law then he should be banned from the game and excluded from the Hall of Fame. I'm not to this point yet, but I may get there soon.
My initial reading of the evidence tells me that it's no less persuasive than the Dowd Report. OBviously there's a lot of reading left to do.
How's about this for irony... didn't Bonds resign from the MLBPA so that he could market his own license? And wouldn't that now preclude MLBPA from appealing any suspension on his behalf? Because if such an appeal did occur, under the current CBA, I don't see how a such a suspension could be upheld.
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I don't think MLB would have a basis for a suspension absent a positive test.
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While I have zero respect for Bonds and his accomplishments, I can't say I hate the guy either. In fact I pity him like I pity anyone who becomes addicted to a substance as dangerous and detrimental to one's health as steroids are.
Although, in response to Jim's comments about him being 1 of the 2 greatest hitters he's ever seen: While I agree what he does with his at-bats, his approach, is amazing, I wonder if the power he gained thru this steroid use didn't elevate him from a good hitter to what he is now? And by that, I mean, he still would have made contact but wouldn't some of those towering home runs been routine fly balls? Or some of those smoked line drives been bloop singles or even ground ball outs? Or, if he'd still be able to do what he does in his 40's like Williams' did (albeit with two sizeable interruptions to Williams' career)? It creates too many questions about what impact the drugs had on his performance to even compare him to someone like Williams, IMO.
I don't mean to portray Williams or any other past player as a gold standard of athletic integrity. I am pessimistic enough to believe that cheating has always been a part of baseball and will continue to be an issue. However, the degree to which Bonds has taken it, in my mind, puts him up there with the Chicago Black Sox and Pete Rose. And I do wonder if Bonds doesn't deserve a lifetime ban and any records removed from the record books if it's proved he's cheated for years.
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If Bonds continues to play, the HR record will be considered a joke, and rightly so.
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Barry Bonds won 3 mvp's naturally- I think that is beyond any doubt. He could have never used a drop and been a hall of famer. His peers, both hitters and pitchers, juiced and then he decided to do so.
I think that with zero drugs in the game Bonds still goes down as the greatest player of his generation, but his numbers aren't what they are now (though neither is anyone's- pitcher or hitter).
Ruth played in a segregated game against inferior competition to what would have been available. Bonds is in my all time top 10 positional players, regardless of juicing or not. You have to compare him to his contemporaries, just as in the days of segregated baseball.
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But, then again, historical records and the Hall hold absolutely no interest to me.
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the history of baseball means very much to me, but the problem is that one simply cannot tell how many numbers he added.
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If there is a wrong here, it is not that he got a record that he did not deserve, it is that his team won games (and other teams lost games) because he cheated.
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I bet Don Fehr still refuses to believe there is a problem.
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the history of baseball means very much to me, but the problem is that one simply cannot tell how many numbers he added.
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See- I would argue Bonds place within history is the same with or without juice- the greatest player of his generation.
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two things:
1) when I say player I meant non-pitcher
2) Many would say the Rocket is a juicer as well...
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two things:
1) when I say player I meant non-pitcher
2) Many would say the Rocket is a juicer as well...
Many may say that, but there isn't anything close to the evidence that exists (and existed before today) against Bonds.
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I'm not saying he did juice- just saying that the rumor is definately out there. Remember around the all star break how the story was going to go down any minute now that Clemens was suspended?
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I'm not saying he did juice- just saying that the rumor is definately out there. Remember around the all star break how the story was going to go down any minute now that Clemens was suspended?
Would it shock anyone here to find out Bagwell has juiced? Would it shock anyone to find out Clemens did? We know about only the tip of the iceberg with this entire generation of players. That being said, it is ridiculous to try to figure out what number are legit and what are not. How about all the middle relievers that throw 95 one year and 85 the next? How does that affect hitters numbers?
You just do not know, so I cannot say at all, don't see how anyone else can either. Bonds, like 10-75% of others in this generation depending on who you believe (union vs Cammy or Conseco) had chemical aid. Without it he was still the best. He is now the poster child for the steroid era as the greatest of his time. Fitting I would say.
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Did I miss something? Was this already covered in here? No one cares that the biggest (ha!) superstar of the last decade has been proven by multiple sources to have lied, under oath, and to us the general public about his rampant cheating?
I mean, we all KNEW, but now we KNOW.
Doesn't everyone else hate him as much as me?
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Just like with Palmeiro, nobody knows what Bonds might have done without steroids -- he probably would have hit 500 and maybe 600 home runs anyway -- but Bonds himself is the one who injected uncertainty into his legacy by what he did. That is the ultimate punishment.
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Would it shock anyone here to find out Bagwell has juiced?
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Just like with Palmeiro, nobody knows what Bonds might have done without steroids -- he probably would have hit 500 and maybe 600 home runs anyway -- but Bonds himself is the one who injected uncertainty into his legacy by what he did. That is the ultimate punishment.
Did he testrify to Congress? Palmeiro got away with it because his positive test was after his stint under oath. If they have positive proof of Barry's prior steroid usage, he could get Martha'd.
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I don't think he testified to Congress, but he certainly did to a grand jury. Just think, he might be the first person in a long long time to actually be convicted of perjury.
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I don't think he testified to Congress, but he certainly did to a grand jury. Just think, he might be the first person in a long long time to actually be convicted of perjury.
Clinton was convicted of perjury. He was fined and gave up his law license.
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Would it shock anyone here to find out Bagwell has juiced?
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Actually, Clinton wasn't convicted of perjury. The fine and suspension of his license to practice law were part of his settlement.
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depends on what your definition if 'is' is....
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He was impeached for failing to uphold his duties as President for, among other things, committing perjury and encouraging other to commit perjury on his behalf. The penalty for his impeachment was the aforementioned fine and loss of license.
The violation cited on so-called "speeding tickets" is actually "unsafe operation of a vehicle". Technically, I have never received a ticket for speeding in my entire life. Technically, Clinton wasn't convicted of perjury.
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Actually, Clinton wasn't convicted of perjury. The fine and suspension of his license to practice law were part of his settlement.
He was impeached for failing to uphold his duties as President for, among other things, committing perjury and encouraging other to commit perjury on his behalf. The penalty for his impeachment was the aforementioned fine and loss of license.
The violation cited on so-called "speeding tickets" is actually "unsafe operation of a vehicle". Technically, I have never received a ticket for speeding in my entire life. Technically, Clinton wasn't convicted of perjury.
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Clinton was never convicted of anything, by the Senate or by any court.
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While I can appreciate someone making the facts clear, how the hell did Clinton get brought into this?
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While I can appreciate someone making the facts clear, how the hell did Clinton get brought into this?
My fault - I was inaccurately rebutting the "nobody get convicted of perjury" thing. Should have gone with Martha Stewart who was not convicted of perjury either, but would've been less controversial.
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Furthermore, forget about this crap of "oh, he must have been juicing, because he looks smaller now" - please...
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to a grand jury.
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to a grand jury.
To anybody.
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to a grand jury.
To anybody.
You know, there were people upset with him for accepting the offer of a free blow job, too.
What's up with that?
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to a grand jury.
To anybody.
You know, there were people upset with him for accepting the offer of a free blow job, too.
What's up with that?
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Plus the people that were upset that he didn't have higher standards than Monica.
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You also think Katie Couric is attractive, so there's no accounting for taste.
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It was purely tongue-in-cheek, but she does nothing for me.
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It was purely tongue-in-cheek, but she does nothing for me.
I guess my wife is safe from you too.
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It was purely tongue-in-cheek, but she does nothing for me.
I guess my wife is safe from you too.
Yes, but is she safe from Clinton?
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It was purely tongue-in-cheek, but she does nothing for me.
I guess my wife is safe from you too.
Yes, but is she safe from Clinton?
She's a good Aggie CPA, so I'd say so. I'll have to keep my eye on Shrub though.
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It was purely tongue-in-cheek, but she does nothing for me.
I guess my wife is safe from you too.
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She looks like The Joker raped a muppet.
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She looks like The Joker raped a muppet.
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Unfortunately, it's exactly what comes to mind when I see Katie Couric.
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Bonds is one of the two greatest hitters that i have seen in my lifetime, the other one being Ted Williams. he is a liar, and his HR records are now as phony as are Sosa's and McGwire's, but steroids did not make him a great hitter.
i don't hate him for taking steroids any more than i hate a friend of mine who did to try to make MLB. they are killing themselves, and i feel sorry for that.
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We had a similar hitting-rich era in the early 1930s, and now the players from that period are not accorded the same level of respect in baseball all-time great evaluations. So it will be in the 1995-2004 decade. Terry, Ott, Traynor, Averill, and Wilson have their modern counterparts in Sosa, Anderson, Palmiero, McGwire, and Bonds.
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To elaborate on the above, there was no steroid policy until 2002. Baseball cannot even rid themselves from 60+ years of amphetamine abuse.
Steroids increase strength and promote healing. These are "bad" things? Would baseball be a better on the field product had Bonds retired at the typical age of 35? Players today are in shape year around, and have medical and nutrition advances unknown to players of yore. An ACL once laid you up all year. Now its a two month layoff, and you come back stronger.
Regarding the ease of hitting HRs, Bill James references a change in strike zone reading in favor of the batter. Pitchers are more loath to challenge hitters, making the encounter a sort of batting practice. Homes runs sell, and everyone in baseball knows it.
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To elaborate on the above, there was no steroid policy until 2002. Baseball cannot even rid themselves from 60+ years of amphetamine abuse.
Steroids increase strength and promote healing. These are "bad" things? Would baseball be a better on the field product had Bonds retired at the typical age of 35? Players today are in shape year around, and have medical and nutrition advances unknown to players of yore. An ACL once laid you up all year. Now its a two month layoff, and you come back stronger.
Regarding the ease of hitting HRs, Bill James references a change in strike zone reading in favor of the batter. Pitchers are more loath to challenge hitters, making the encounter a sort of batting practice. Homes runs sell, and everyone in baseball knows it.
If I understand your post correctly then you are saying that as long as the results are good, it doesn't matter how you achieved them? To me that is fine if your sport is pro wrestling or some other spectacle where the spectator knows that it is a farce. But baseball? I don't want my kid growing up thinking that for him to be successful at a sport, then he must put himself in harms way just to be competitive. I'm no expert on roids but from what I've heard, when properly admistered for appropriate medical conditions then they are a useful tool. But I never hear anything but the dangers when used for bodybuilding and sports applications. My opinion is that when players think they have to put themselves in harms way physically just to play on an even field, then the sport is a farce, regardless how many homeruns a juiced up freakazoid can hit.
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To elaborate on the above, there was no steroid policy until 2002. Baseball cannot even rid themselves from 60+ years of amphetamine abuse.
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Rachel Ray = teh hot.
Hell, I'm even with ya about Patricia Heaton.
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Steroids increase strength and promote healing. These are "bad" things? Would baseball be a better on the field product had Bonds retired at the typical age of 35? Players today are in shape year around, and have medical and nutrition advances unknown to players of yore. An ACL once laid you up all year. Now its a two month layoff, and you come back stronger.
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Lots of players take steriods and can't play at Bonds level. I don't hate Bonds for taking steriods. I hate him for wearing the wrong unifom.
If it comes out that Bagwell took them I am not going to turn on him. He and Biggio may be the first astros in the hall of fame and they have earned it. Put the astrix by the era, not by the players.
If the league doesn't enforce the rule then I am not going to blame a player who doesn't follow a rule that others flagrantly ignore.
I think the league should adopt a cruel and merciless policy that will strip people of their job, records and money for cheating and actually enforce it. Until that happens I am not going to think less of a player--they are paid to play at the highest level possible. And its the players and their families who pay the price of the league looking the other way. And the price is horrible, I think of what happened to Caminiti. And How many high school and college kids fuck themselves up dreaming of playing in the pros?
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What you have effectively is a giant uncontrolled experiment occurring nationwide at all levels of sport, but the dosing and types of enhancement drugs represent a vast improvement over the cruder agents employed by eastern bloc Olympians and extending into the NFL in the 1970s. It may not be medically sanctioned, but this field is achieving a level of sophistication which may render some of the early anecdotal horror stories moot. What separates these actions from previous perturbations affecting baseball (ie, the color line, WWII, 1930s offensive explosion, DH, 1960s pitching)is that steroid use crosses the line of individual initiative and thereby puts others at a competitive disadvantage. Again, until 2002, this was all legal. The objection seems based more on the latter point of competitive initiative and can only be supported on that basis.
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I agree that Mel Ott would be HOF material in any era, but his and other offensice statistics of the 1930s were all inflated, and thus diminished in relative terms. Street and Smith's current yearly preview issue addresses this directly, ranking Bonds seventh all-time behind Ruth, Aaron, Foxx, Mays, Gehrig, and Ott in peer-adjusted home run totals. That is the proper and only way to rank these players. It negates the extraneous factors given above.
Player Avg +PctNow take the 2002 National League, which batted .259 as a whole. The league leaders, again with percentages over the league average, were as follows:
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Terry .401 +32%
Herman .393 +30%
Klein .386 +27%
O'Doul .383 +26%
Lindstrom .379 +25%
Player Avg +PctNow, tell me how that era adjustment takes into account that the guy at the top of that list had his bat speed remarkably raised (and now it's speculated even his eyesight improved) by taking steroids?
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Bonds .370 +43%
Walker .338 +31%
Guerrero .336 +30%
Helton .329 +27%
Jones .327 +26%
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What you have effectively is a giant uncontrolled experiment occurring nationwide at all levels of sport, but the dosing and types of enhancement drugs represent a vast improvement over the cruder agents employed by eastern bloc Olympians and extending into the NFL in the 1970s. It may not be medically sanctioned, but this field is achieving a level of sophistication which may render some of the early anecdotal horror stories moot. What separates these actions from previous perturbations affecting baseball (ie, the color line, WWII, 1930s offensive explosion, DH, 1960s pitching)is that steroid use crosses the line of individual initiative and thereby puts others at a competitive disadvantage. Again, until 2002, this was all legal. The objection seems based more on the latter point of competitive initiative and can only be supported on that basis.
I disagree that objections to steroid use in baseball can only be supported on the basis of competitive disadvantage, but I think competitive disadvantage is the chief reason that makes steroid use different from other forms of cheating. If you cork a bat or scuff a ball, that's also cheating, but other players don't have to risk their health and life in order to neutralize it.Quote:
I agree that Mel Ott would be HOF material in any era, but his and other offensice statistics of the 1930s were all inflated, and thus diminished in relative terms. Street and Smith's current yearly preview issue addresses this directly, ranking Bonds seventh all-time behind Ruth, Aaron, Foxx, Mays, Gehrig, and Ott in peer-adjusted home run totals. That is the proper and only way to rank these players. It negates the extraneous factors given above.
How can peer-adjusted home run totals take into account steroids when not everyone uses them? An era adjustment to statistics only works when the advantages and disadvantages of the era apply to everyone.
For example, the National League as a whole batted .303 in 1930. The batting leaders, and the percentage by which they exceeded the league batting average, were as follows:Player Avg +PctNow take the 2002 National League, which batted .259 as a whole. The league leaders, again with percentages over the league average, were as follows:
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Terry .401 +32%
Herman .393 +30%
Klein .386 +27%
O'Doul .383 +26%
Lindstrom .379 +25%Player Avg +PctNow, tell me how that era adjustment takes into account that the guy at the top of that list had his bat speed remarkably raised (and now it's speculated even his eyesight improved) by taking steroids?
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Bonds .370 +43%
Walker .338 +31%
Guerrero .336 +30%
Helton .329 +27%
Jones .327 +26%
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What, pray tell, is the crime?
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I grant that anabolic steroids have been illegal for some time, but the lack of enforcement is a failure of management, not the individual violators.
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These are interesting and provocative points. Bonds is getting away with using these agents not because the punishments are lenient or non-existent; rather, his actions sell the game. It was the home run derby of 1998 which wiped away the memory of 1994's strike, much as Babe Ruth's transition to everyday status removed the stain of the Black Sox scandal. If steroids are to blame for that, then perhaps we should follow Canseco's advice to incorporate it into the training regimen and give the people what they want. The media, political opportunists, and what baseball purists are left can disagree, but they are a minority. Owners and players know what makes the highlight reel, and steroids are the elixer for a game reeling from self-inflicted wounds.
None of us has the ability to discern the steroid users in the current age, so tweaking the broader statistics to further separate the "cheaters" from the rest seems improbable and imparts unsupported bias. One cannot cherrypick data to support a hypothesis, so all of the players need to be combined into the reference population.
I grant that anabolic steroids have been illegal for some time, but the lack of enforcement is a failure of management, not the individual violators. No one is forcing East Germany to return gold medals because investigations finally proved the obvious. We turn a blind eye when it's our own. Life is full of surprises that way, and we may not want to know for our own sense of security and emotional nostalgia.
Honus Wagner alone among marquee players engaged in weight and strength training, eschewed alcohol, tobacco, and female debauchery, and had a shortstop rating margin between him and the number two guy greater than than that between #2 and #10 on Bill James' all-time list. Unfair advantage? They're all doing offseason fitness now, including Bonds. Bonds and his bulked-up cohorts may simply be showing a new path to career longevity, and without the fundamental dishonesty of the DH. At 42, Mays was roaming aimlessly in the Mets outfield, and Ruth staggered in pain around the bases. What, pray tell, is the crime?
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I grant that anabolic steroids have been illegal for some time, but the lack of enforcement is a failure of management, not the individual violators.
So you're OK with committing crimes if the law enforcement is weak in that area? I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that you think with the logic of a 6-year old, or that you are apparently completely morally bankrupt.
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If that's the case, then "moral bankruptcy" is endemic.
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I'm explaining possible motives,
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don't be surprised who falls into the net.
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The six year old logic you cite is more characteristic of those who simply want the problem to disappear if we can just hoist Bonds up on the steriods petard as an example to the rest of those who still care about MLB.
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Bonds, for all the hew and cry, has always tested negative.
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So did Gaylord Perry, a career-long cheater. Was he morally bankrupt, or extremely clever?
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There has never been a period of "purity" in baseball.
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The DH allows players unable to run to remain active, a process affecting half of MLB from 1973.
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Steroids have been a factor for the past decade, and at worst generates monster home runs and keeps players around longer. Health risks incurred are of consequence only to the player and his family
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don't be surprised who falls into the net.
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I like this part, why care that Bonds is a documented and admitted cheat, liar, and criminal, cause we don't know who else might have been squirting cow crack into his butt cheeks. We'll put this on hold until the next person has their personal trainer convicted and a two year study of their drug addiction published.
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Steroids have been a factor for the past decade, and at worst generates monster home runs and keeps players around longer. Health risks incurred are of consequence only to the player and his family
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.
Tell the high school kid that is convinced he has to roid up to make the majors that the health risks are "of consequence only to the player and his family."
I won't even get started on your innate inability to differentiate between players breaking the law and players playing as a DH.
Do you really believe the shit you're shoveling?
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I think his point is that both steroids and the DH allow older players to stick around and compile stats in ways that were not available to players in the past. Makes sense to me, but since his argument dares to go against conventional wisdom about steroids, you skip his point and go right for his throat. Real mature.
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I think his point is that both steroids and the DH allow older players to stick around and compile stats in ways that were not available to players in the past. Makes sense to me, but since his argument dares to go against conventional wisdom about steroids, you skip his point and go right for his throat. Real mature.
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She looks like The Joker raped a muppet.
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Steroids have been a factor for the past decade, and at worst generates monster home runs and keeps players around longer.
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I think the tragedy of the steroid era is that a player like Bonds felt he had to go there in the first place.
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What is this "the owners let the players get away" with taking steroids stuff? If you don't think the owners knew *exactly* what the players were doing then you must have missed several thousand "chicks dig the longball" commercials Major League Baseball put out in the late 90's. If the owners were so fucking serious about the steroid problem then they wouldn't have to have Congress pull them by the short hairs to get them to address the issue.
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give two shits