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Alex Rodriguez tested positive for roids' in 2003

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Buckeyeskickbuttocks;1402752; said:
Agree

It did help with something... just not hand eye coordination....
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It helps with tons of crap.

To be a HOF'er, the hand eye coordination is obviously already in place. A-Rod and Bonds are HOF'ers without roids.. they are legends with them.

It's a shame really. Selig turned a blind eye and it is killing baseball.
 
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Buckeyeskickbuttocks;1403138; said:
Great points, Jax... I agree with you that Baseball is to blame for promoting the use more than individual players are (That's not to say players are "just following orders" here, they do bear culpability for their own actions). That said, considering the rampant use - as between position players and pitchers - the playing field, though not level across eras, was level with respect to itself. that is to say - a juiced Canseco at bat against a juiced Clemens is essentially a wash.

Not that Walter Johnson and Babe Ruth are on equal footing.
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I would argue, and it seems the explosion in offensive numbers would support me, that the rampant use of steroids did not benefit pitchers to anywhere near the same degree as hitters.

Why that is, if true, is open to some interesting discussion. I think roids could help a pitcher recover between starts and have stronger legs and these would both be a benefit. I think roids would screw a pitcher up more than help him however in the same way it is so easy for a pitcher to "over throw" or be "too strong" in a given start. There is a huge amount of finesse in pitching that steroids simply cannot help you with and would probably work against you. Throwing a ball even 1-2 mph faster than "normal" can take a lot of movement away from a pitch and anyone who's played above HS level can tell you movement is everything. You simply cannot throw a string straight pitch past a good hitter no matter how fast you throw it. They will eventually time it and crush it.

My opinion is that simply having more physical strength to throw a ball harder (if steroids even do that for you) won't make you a better pitcher. In contrast having more strength to swing a bat faster/harder and recover quicker for everyday players will indeed make you a better hitter.

Not hard fast indisputable science by any means, just my .02.
 
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Jaxbuck;1403306; said:
I would argue, and it seems the explosion in offensive numbers would support me, that the rampant use of steroids did not benefit pitchers to anywhere near the same degree as hitters.

Why that is, if true, is open to some interesting discussion. I think roids could help a pitcher recover between starts and have stronger legs and these would both be a benefit. I think roids would screw a pitcher up more than help him however in the same way it is so easy for a pitcher to "over throw" or be "too strong" in a given start. There is a huge amount of finesse in pitching that steroids simply cannot help you with and would probably work against you. Throwing a ball even 1-2 mph faster than "normal" can take a lot of movement away from a pitch and anyone who's played above HS level can tell you movement is everything. You simply cannot throw a string straight pitch past a good hitter no matter how fast you throw it. They will eventually time it and crush it.

My opinion is that simply having more physical strength to throw a ball harder (if steroids even do that for you) won't make you a better pitcher. In contrast having more strength to swing a bat faster/harder and recover quicker for everyday players will indeed make you a better hitter.

Not hard fast indisputable science by any means, just my .02.
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Another really interesting question I always had is was Greg Maddux so deadly effective for so long because of steroids...not because he used them, if anyone didn't he didn't, but because so many other pichers were just tossing nuked gass, and he was pounding corners with junk balls. Guys like Maddux, Moyer...I think they may have benefited from the Roids era because they were the distinct minority, almost like knuckleballers in a sense.
 
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Jaxbuck;1403306; said:
I would argue, and it seems the explosion in offensive numbers would support me, that the rampant use of steroids did not benefit pitchers to anywhere near the same degree as hitters.

Why that is, if true, is open to some interesting discussion. I think roids could help a pitcher recover between starts and have stronger legs and these would both be a benefit. I think roids would screw a pitcher up more than help him however in the same way it is so easy for a pitcher to "over throw" or be "too strong" in a given start. There is a huge amount of finesse in pitching that steroids simply cannot help you with and would probably work against you. Throwing a ball even 1-2 mph faster than "normal" can take a lot of movement away from a pitch and anyone who's played above HS level can tell you movement is everything. You simply cannot throw a string straight pitch past a good hitter no matter how fast you throw it. They will eventually time it and crush it.

My opinion is that simply having more physical strength to throw a ball harder (if steroids even do that for you) won't make you a better pitcher. In contrast having more strength to swing a bat faster/harder and recover quicker for everyday players will indeed make you a better hitter.

Not hard fast indisputable science by any means, just my .02.
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I may have my facts wrong, but I thought Clemens or someone like him, is said to have gained like 5mph on his fastball after the age of 35... I get what you're saying about over throwing and so on though and I admit there is a finesse component (Greg Maddox, for example).

As to the hitters era (roids or no) I guess I don't see the issue there. baseball has a long history of Hitters or Pitchers eras.... They moved the mound up and down... they moved fences in and out... so on. We've seen a move to smaller parks since Camden was built, and I figure that has some to do with the power number increase... likewise, with expansion, less skilled pitchers were tossing balls to big hitters and thus giving up more hits and HRs. What would the effect been if there weren't roids too, I don't know... but.. I would think it's not strictly a roid issue.

Imagine Babe Ruth playing half his games in Colorado... lol
 
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Bucklion;1403318; said:
Another really interesting question I always had is was Greg Maddux so deadly effective for so long because of steroids...not because he used them, if anyone didn't he didn't, but because so many other pichers were just tossing nuked gass, and he was pounding corners with junk balls. Guys like Maddux, Moyer...I think they may have benefited from the Roids era because they were the distinct minority, almost like knuckleballers in a sense.
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I didn't see an explosion in the amount of power pitchers during this era so I'd say that guys like Maddux were effective because any pitcher in any era is going to be if he can locate like Maddux could. He is the quintessential "pitcher" as opposed to "thrower".

Buckeyeskickbuttocks;1403322; said:
I may have my facts wrong, but I thought Clemens or someone like him, is said to have gained like 5mph on his fastball after the age of 35... I get what you're saying about over throwing and so on though and I admit there is a finesse component (Greg Maddox, for example). As to the hitters era (roids or no) I guess I don't see the issue there. baseball has a long history of Hitters or Pitchers eras.... They moved the mound up and down... they moved fences in and out... so on. We've seen a move to smaller parks since Camden was built, and I figure that has some to do with the power number increase... likewise, with expansion, less skilled pitchers were tossing balls to big hitters and thus giving up more hits and HRs. What would the effect been if there weren't roids too, I don't know... but.. I would think it's not strictly a roid issue.

Imagine Babe Ruth playing half his games in Colorado... lol
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On Roger specifically he is the type of power pitcher with the right kind of mechanics (all legs) that would indeed benefit from steroids it would seem. Kevin Brown is the classic example of an all arm power pitcher who obviously did not benefit from steroids quite so much. Overall I think they did nothing for or hurt more pitchers than they would have helped.

Agree 100% that its not only steroids responsible, I just think it will be called the steroid era for simplicities sake. Smaller parks and huge advances in video/the science of hitting played as much of a role as anything. Also lost in the steroids is the "juiced ball" that seems to have been forgotten once the juiced players surfaced. There was definitly something to the tighter wound ball.

Like you say, I think all of this together led to an explosive offensive era, one of many in the ebb and flow of baseball history. You can already see a swing back toward pitching in the past couple of years (but of course it can be argued that's when they cut back on steroids so....).

Steroids will taint the era in peoples mind because most consider it cheating and will focus solely on that. I know it may not be 100% perfectly logical but I am one of those who feel the records set by Maris, Ruth and Aaron should not be broken by guys who were on steroids. It just doesn't feel right. Emotional, somewhat irrational and biased? Yep. But thats how I feel on the topic.
 
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Unless a player gets caught by a current MLB test for performance-enhancers, I for one don't give a damn about this kind of news. If MLB doesn't have the balls to do what it takes to keep steroids and other enhancers out of their game, like they didn't back when A-Rod and others took these "private" tests, they get what they deserve when roid-users put up crazy stats and get the media/congress all in a tizzy about the integrity of the game. Test every player, every day/month/year, and suspend anyone who breaks the rules--but if somebody plays the game, those stats stand IMO.
 
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I am a sports purist so anything less is not a viable athlete to me. All the pro sports let ideals go to make more money and that detracts from the games themselves. I don't need it.
Come back Jolting Joe!
 
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A-Rod has admitted to Peter Gammons that he used performance enhancing drugs. ESPN hasn't aired the interview yet, it's still ongoing.

EDIT - excerpts indicate that he hasn't said what he used, and he said it was only when he was in Texas.

Of course, at this point, we can all choose whether we believe him or not.

AR: "I did take a banned substance."

"I'm sorry."

Gammons: "You're saying it was during 2001-03?"

AR: "That's accurate."

"Since then, I've proved I didn't need it."
 
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Alex Rodriguez admits taking PEDs during 3-year period - ESPN

"I felt a lot of pressure"

Yeah, let's have a pity party, I mean forget people who have to figure out how to feed their kids and keep them from getting killed on the streets...making 25 million dollars a year to swing a stick 5 times a night playing for a team nobody cares about...now THAT's pressure, baby.

I didn't think there was any way I could think the guy was more of an assrocket until today.
 
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Bucklion;1403460; said:
"I felt a lot of pressure"

Yeah, let's have a pity party, I mean forget people who have to figure out how to feed their kids and keep them from getting killed on the streets...making 25 million dollars a year to swing a stick 5 times a night playing for a team nobody cares about...now THAT's pressure, baby.

I didn't think there was any way I could think the guy was more of an assrocket until today.
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note to Alex; if you keep your mouth shut people might still wonder if you are a complete prick. When you open it you leave them no doubt.
 
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