I was in a waiting room this morning and read an old issue of Sporting News. The backpage article was an e-mail written to the editor by a guy who used to be around steroids. He described what happened when he and his friends went off them. The symptoms sounded exactly what’s happening to Giambi. Anyone read this article? The issue had Steve Yzerman getting hit in the eye by a puck.
Don’t have that article but there seem to be a few ex-Balco athletes with steroid withdrawal symptoms.
Giambi, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery come to mind.
I’m sure there are a few more.
Still waiting for Bonds to show signs but he is a different animal somehow…
As a Yankee hater, I admit it brings me joy to think of all the $$$ they are paying him while he transforms into the 170 lb singles hitter he was before he started his mid-life growth cycle.
I was thinking exactly the same thing watching ‘Sportscenter’ this morning. Giambi- the roids may have come back to bite him in the ass. He was talking about lack of energy and drive- sounds like his T levels are depressed. I laughed when he said he was so tired he would come out of games in the 6th innning. In baseball? It’s about as hard physically as playing playstation. But who knows, it is a big world and he may have some mysterious ‘parasitic infection’.
You guys must be Red Sox fans or something. Let’s see how many of you can hit a baseball over 400 feet, and do it 50 times in a season in a game atmosphere. And playing it on your playstation doesn’t count. All the steroids in the world don’t change the fact that you still have to make contact with the ball to hit it. It’s funny how Giambi obviously started juicing in Oakland, and became a monster hitter. But all of a sudden he comes to New York, and now he’s a roid head. It is the difference between playing on a small market versus a large market team. Oh yeah, and couple that with the fact that most of your teams probably haven’t won squat since '96, I see where your sour grapes come from. And the reason that Bonds hasn’t felt any ill effects is because he never stopped juicing!!! All that bullshit about “test me right now…” he knows that he will never get tested!!
And for all of you yankee haters: I went through all of the late eighties and early nineties watching them suck, just like every other yankee fan; meanwhile, the most deserving player ever to put on a baseball uniform, Don Mattingly, went without a championship ring. The majority of their players when they won in 1996, 1998, and 1999, and 2000 were farm system products, not high priced free agents. What’s that line from Bolier Room? Oh yeah, “People who complain that money is the root of all evil don’t fucking have any!” So keep whining guys. It only makes NY look better when we win, and last time I checked the standings, oh yeah, we’re winning…Sorry if it sounds harsh, but I love my city and I love my team…Educate before you playa hate…Lata
I’m a Yankees fan actually.
I don’t hate Giambi but he is one of the most obvious roid heads in the league.
Unless you are a pitcher or maybe a catcher, baseball is not a taxing sport. It’s about as stressful as 3 holes of golf.
Try playing rugby for 80 minutes.
[quote]Outkast81 wrote:
You guys must be Red Sox fans or something. …[/quote]
ummm, no. actually baseball sucks now. it’s so inequitable. only a few of the large market teams have any legitimate shot each year. i used to be a fan of the yankee farm team, aka the kansas city royals. jesus F christ - it seems that every decent player the royals develop ends up donnning pin stripes. that steinbrenner f*ck never helped anyone like them either. the yanks are to baseball as the raiders are to football - talented egomaniacal asshole individuals. just that baseball is far less a team sport (it is a sport, right?) than football, which is why the yanks always have a shot, and the raiders are eternally fuct.
what the hell - go Red Sox.
Bastard F*ck Guy
[quote]deanosumo wrote:
Unless you are a pitcher or maybe a catcher, baseball is not a taxing sport. It’s about as stressful as 3 holes of golf.
Try playing rugby for 80 minutes.[/quote]
Physical exertion isn’t the only kind of taxation that the body can undergo, you know. And what kind of a yankee fan are you? You guys weren’t listening to my point. The only reason that Giambi’s roid usage came to light was his signing with the yankees. He became the star hitter on a large market team, right in the spotlight.
Gentlemen, please read the following. It will open your eyes, and perhaps shut your mouths:
"They are a thrill a minute, this 2004 edition of the Yankees, and thank goodness for that. Competitive balance is all fine and well, but not when it results in bland, disposable McChampions. Professional sports needs its juggernauts to serve as an underpinning, and the Yankees do that better than any team in sports. They stay out of jail, play the game the way it's meant to be played and give baseball fans their money's worth. You want to boo Jeter and Rodriguez and Sheffield? At least you know they'll be in the lineup.
Bad for the game? Hardly. The Yankees lead the majors with 34 come-from-behind wins, and so far this season they have overcome disadvantages of at least four runs six times (they didn’t do that once last season). Four of those rallies have been from disadvantages of five and more runs, something they haven’t done in any of the three previous seasons.
The Yankees' toughness is not a chip-on-the-shoulder, cowboy-up kind of phony toughness that the Red Sox make such a big deal of possessing as much as a toughness that comes with years and years of being asked to assume responsible roles.
Quantrill and teammates Tom Gordon and Rivera are 1-2-3 in appearances, which tells you something about the type of year it's been for the Yankees. The fact they sit atop the division tells you the type of team they are: one that is very good for the sport. It's one of the many responsibilities that come with being a Yankee."
Brings tears to mine eyes!! Study hard gentlemen…there will be a quiz tommorrow…Lata
Back to the topic:
I’ve heard all kind of anti-steroid propaganda since the baseball season started and I have to tell you, it’s a bit of a farce.
If you’ve read any of the articles related to performance enhancement on this site, you’d realize that it’s really not about enhancement anymore. It’s more about preservation. Furthermore, just about everyone is ‘on’ and any talk otherwise is either from the minority or merely posturing.
Sure, there are players out there who have benefitted greatly from anabolics and reaped the big bucks as a result, but would you blame them? They play 162 games per year and often play 6 nights a week.
Everything is relative. Football is played once per week because the players can’t move until Tuesday. Now if you were expected to get your head beat in once a week and then recover in time to practice Wednesday, then you’d probably take a needle in the rear once or twice a week too.
Baseball is obviously not the same as Football in it’s exertion, but they play 6 nights a week as a result. Games last three hours. Each at bat would average 2-3 swings of the bat. Sprinting around the bases, night in, night out is also taxing as well as throwing numerous times a game takes it’s toll when you play everyday.
But bottom line is that Giambi’s been tested for cancer, HIV and now this parasite. Steroids don’t cause such problems.
The guy is obviously sick. Quit slandering him and wish him the best of health. I sure do, Jason.
P.S. I’m not a Yankees fan. And why does it always have to be about the Yanks v. the BoSox? It’s like listening to the liberals and conservatives go at it. Heck, go Cubs, Go Rangers. I’d even say go Jays, but we don’t need to go there.
Yes, Giambi was tested for those ailments. And the results were negative, so saying steriod abuse doesn’t cause them is moot. He may well have been tested for ulcerative colitis and offered a hysterectomy, and it doesn’t matter. The media will only report the most exciting/scary/attractive information, so putting out the idea of a Yankee with aids or cancer is a money maker. I wish him the best, but if he is paying for his steriod abuse then he made his bed and now must sleep in it.
Rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for Microsoft.
KC as a farm team? I’ll give you that. How about the Jays and Expos? The number of allstars who left the Expos after training in their farm system (Ottawa Lynx is great ball to watch)is staggering.
Oh yes, baseball as a taxing sport. Sure it is. To operate at a high level in any physical pursuit is taxing. Baseball/Softball are explosive sports, in a different form than football/rugby. I’ve been a softball player since I was 4, played football and trained ruggers.
Hit, run, throw, catch. Run some more. It all adds up. Just because there is no sanctioned bodily contact does not make it an soft sport. I’m the first to admit there is downtime but the first to defend the action that does take place.
t bone,
Good points, there’s likely a lot of sensationalism happening here. It’s like the saying goes, ‘Everything you read in the news is true, except the stuff you know about’.
But whether or not he’s a Yankee has nothing to do with wishing him well and a quick recovery. Even if you’re a BoSox fan, how do you expect to get rid of the curse if you’re cheering on the death of Yankee players?
One last thing that someone said. "if Giambi’s abuse of steroids caused this, then he made his bed and he has to lie in it’ - paraphrasing.
Well, I’m not sure that’s the case. Being a multi-million dollar athlete, I’m not sure he ever would have been allowed to ‘abuse’ steroids. There’s a difference between use and abuse and I don’t think he ever approached the level of abuse. He was a big boy, but not that big.
This is an interesting topic. First off, let’s hope that Giambi does not have a life-threatening disease. With that said, is he suffering from sort of steroid side effects or withdrawal symptoms? Maybe. One thing must be for sure, he’s had to tell his doctors about his steroid use… amounts, types, etc. And let’s not even pretend that he might not use steroids… geez louise… no one here could be that stupid.
But, I’m certain his doctors are checking into everything, including potential complications from his steroid use.
OutKast81:
Yeah, the Yankees are so great… hopefully they’ll get beat again in the World Series by a team with a quarter of the Yankees’s payroll.
I know that Rob Coates gets upset about anything off topic, but this guy needs to be put in his place. I do not understand why everyone hates the Yankees, but I digress. My point was not that the Yankees are so great… my point is that the Yankees are good for baseball. Let me ask you this…did you watch the last world series in which the Yankees played the Marlins? Do you think as many people would have watched if it wasn’t David vs. Goliath? Don’t bother answering because you are disagreeable anyway.
Yes they have the highest payroll and a roster of all stars. But how much revenue do you think they bring to the small market teams, merely by playing away games? Their tax money helps major league baseball pay for the survival of small market teams. The 2001 World Champion Diamondbacks won with a team that was basically leased from the MLB. The marlins did the same. No one complained when these teams were bought to win a championship. Maybe in your delusional world, the small market teams play for free, and the players are all heart, with families starving unless they win. Wake up bro. They all play for money, and the money is green in NY same as it is in Arizona or Florida. But who would you rather watch? A roster of all stars, or a bunch of farm-system call-ups? If people didn't like what they saw, attendance for Yankee away games would be low. But it is higher than it has ever been, and they are on pace to set major league record attendance levels. People want to see them play. You hate to love them, because in every opposing fan and player's heart is the desire to win. I'm done, all my best to Jason G. for a speedy recovery.
Outkast,
Can’t say that I’ve ever hated the Yankees. I think you’re missing my point.
My point was what does hating the Yankees have to do with wishing Giambi ill health?
Some would call me a bit of a Yankee sympathizer.
BTW, good luck with getting the Unit. I’d love to see him go to NY and have a true run at 300 wins.
And thanks for putting me in my place. You really don’t make it easy to cheer for the Yanks when most fans are such defensive jerks.
[quote]Rob Coates wrote:
And thanks for putting me in my place. You really don’t make it easy to cheer for the Yanks when most fans are such defensive jerks.[/quote]
ROFLMAO. If anyone here is suffering from ?roids withdrawal, I think it is Outkast. Bro, you are a great student of the Yankees, but this thread was about the BALCO folks, not the pinstripes. Tune it down man!
Stone
P.S. Part of being the big kid on the block is being hated or disliked to a degree.
People won’t like the Yanks because they pay for the best players and win as a result.
Boston will always be hateful of the Yanks. Leafs fans will always hate the Canadiens. It’s rivalry. Enjoy it. It’s what sport is all about.
And Canadians fans will always hate the Leafs and Bruins to a level beyond measure.
t bone,
I think that goes without saying.
The thing that befuddles me, and I guess disturbs me as well, is why isn’t the fact that roids have been around for forty years ever brought up?
Do those in the sports media ignore this on purpose, because they don’t want to believe that guys they grew up watching may have been juicing as well?
I’m sure that guys who were juicing back in the day were a lot rarer, but there were definitely some…