Mark McGwire Admits to Steroid Use

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41

[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:

[quote]artw wrote:

[quote]ron-e wrote:

[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:
Steroids cannot help you with pitch selection or bat speed,[/quote]

I tell people this and they think am crazy. The people that never played the game always think that steriods is what helped Barry hit all of thoughs HR’s. It’s years of experience at the plate that helped him.

IMO
[/quote]

Barry Bonds own leaked grand jury testimony proves your assumptions to be incorrect. He, along with people I personally know who used HGH while playing with and against me in college, openly admitted that he felt the HGH had improved his eyesight and that he could noticeably track the ball out of the pitcher’s hand better.

Steroids and/or HGH can certainly help improve bat speed as well, and if the reasons why need to be explained to you then you probably haven’t read a single article on this site. I was and still am a huge Barry Bonds fan, but it’s clear that he used steroids and that they helped improve his onfield performance. [/quote]

I am going to go ahead and disagree with this. If they do so insanely improve your vision and bat speed, why wasn’t everyone pumping out 75 home runs per year? Because I’m pretty sure that almost everyone was taking the same things. And how does someone saying that they “felt” improved eyesight or bat speed prove it to be true? Statements of feeling don’t equal facts.

And pulling out the “you must haven’t read a single article” card is pretty weak. I have read my fair share of articles on here, and I am hard pressed to remember an interview in which a current or former PED user raved about their improved eye sight or improved intuition into recognizing pitch sequences.

There are plenty of steroid users whose names we will never know, because they never made it anywhere, and that is because they were not great athletes, not because they took the wrong PED’s.[/quote]

Steroids aren’t some magic pill that brings everybody up to Bonds’ level if you take enough of them. Accordingly, the fact that only Bonds hit 73 bombs isn’t proof or even anecdotal evidence that steroids are not legitimate PED’s regarding hitting skills. They don’t allow players to all play at high levels, they just make it easier for players to perform above what they normally would be able to do.

Bonds might have been the only hitter capable of hitting 73 on steroids, but there were a lot of other hitters that started to routinely hit 25+ homeruns a year that normally struggled to hit 20. (Brady Anderson, Jay Bell, Luis Gonzalez to name a few. These guys were subpar power hitters to say the least and they all managed to surpass 50 homeruns out of nowhere.) Bonds hit 73 bombs in '01 and while he may not have done so strictly due to steroids, the fact is that he never hit anywhere near that many without steroids and he himself has admitted that they (HGH specifically) helped his eyesight and his bat speed.

Another aspect of steroids that hasn’t been discussed here is that they allow players to be in the lineup when they would otherwise have been out a few days due to injury and they allow players to recover much faster than normal from surgeries, sprains, strains, etc. Steroids are clearly a way for an athlete to surpass his natural abilities. They are NOT a way to elevate everyone in an Major League uniform to Barry Bonds’ level.

And you’re right about the “haven’t read a single article” comment. It was weak. What I meant to say is that you must not have comprehended any of the articles you HAVE read or else you would understand the relation between strength and generating speed.

42

[quote]artw wrote:

[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:

[quote]artw wrote:

[quote]ron-e wrote:

[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:
Steroids cannot help you with pitch selection or bat speed,[/quote]

I tell people this and they think am crazy. The people that never played the game always think that steriods is what helped Barry hit all of thoughs HR’s. It’s years of experience at the plate that helped him.

IMO
[/quote]

Barry Bonds own leaked grand jury testimony proves your assumptions to be incorrect. He, along with people I personally know who used HGH while playing with and against me in college, openly admitted that he felt the HGH had improved his eyesight and that he could noticeably track the ball out of the pitcher’s hand better.

Steroids and/or HGH can certainly help improve bat speed as well, and if the reasons why need to be explained to you then you probably haven’t read a single article on this site. I was and still am a huge Barry Bonds fan, but it’s clear that he used steroids and that they helped improve his onfield performance. [/quote]

I am going to go ahead and disagree with this. If they do so insanely improve your vision and bat speed, why wasn’t everyone pumping out 75 home runs per year? Because I’m pretty sure that almost everyone was taking the same things. And how does someone saying that they “felt” improved eyesight or bat speed prove it to be true? Statements of feeling don’t equal facts.

And pulling out the “you must haven’t read a single article” card is pretty weak. I have read my fair share of articles on here, and I am hard pressed to remember an interview in which a current or former PED user raved about their improved eye sight or improved intuition into recognizing pitch sequences.

There are plenty of steroid users whose names we will never know, because they never made it anywhere, and that is because they were not great athletes, not because they took the wrong PED’s.[/quote]
Another aspect of steroids that hasn’t been discussed here is that they allow players to be in the lineup when they would otherwise have been out a few days due to injury and they allow players to recover much faster than normal from surgeries, sprains, strains, etc. Steroids are clearly a way for an athlete to surpass his natural abilities. They are NOT a way to elevate everyone in an Major League uniform to Barry Bonds’ level.[/quote]

I already made this point above. And it is not that I didn’t comprehend the articles, it is that I simply do not focus my reading on articles that revolve around steroids, as I stated above.

I think that we are ultimately arguing over a gray issue, as it is a combination of many factors that come together to enable tremendous athletes to play at such an elite level. I do agree that some below average players were made decent by their usage. I do not, however, believe that a great player who has used steroids, would be only average without them. I can easily agree that Bonds and McGuire probably would not have reached the records they did, without the PED’s that they used, but ultimately that is something that we will never know.

43

Couldn’t resist sorry.

44

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/turns_out_craig_counsell

45

Anybody read Ball Four by Jim Bouton? Great book. Funny as hell.

According to J.B. pretty much everybody back in the fifties and sixties were jacked on beans or greenies as he called them.

It also makes me appreiciate more what Henry Aaron did “clean”. The guy never looked like he weighed more that about 190…wet.

I could give a rats ass if M.M. juiced. That homerun contest in Boston in 98’ was great entertainment. I think that was the one where McGwire apologized for not hitting more homers cause his pitcher was awfull.

46

[quote]WestCoast7 wrote:
One intriguing argument that I have heard is the correlation between steroid use and the ability to play more overall games. If athletes are using steroids to recover from injury faster, then they are essentially being given the ability to play in more games than athletes 50 years ago. Some would argue, that as a result of steroid use, McGuire had a definite advantage over Aaron, as he could miss fewer games due to injury, thus gaining more attempts to jack balls out of the park. I think this is a fair argument.
[/quote]

Hank Aaron and McGwire is a a bad example of this. Even with the steroids McGwire averages 117 games per season while Aaron averaged 143 games per season. Aaron had a very long career as well. 23 years of baseball compared to McGwire’s 16. Hank Aaron had almost twice as many At Bats than McGwire over the course of their careers. 12,364 vs. 6,187.

47

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
His lie in deflecting suspicion of his steroid use by letting reports “find” a bottle of androstenedione in his locker and attributing his results to that was the start of the movement against prohormones.

I don’t feel sorry for him. It was snake-like of him to concoct this lie. I am not saying he was obligated to admit to using anabolic steroids – no one is obligated to confess to an illegal act – but that does not exonerate him from that particular deception.[/quote]

Lie? How is it a lie if he believed that it was helping? And if he didnt think it helped then why would he be taking it? Your fears of deception are overblown, and as you say, it’s not as if he coulda said “yeah, it helps, but not as much as the gh”

48

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:

[quote]BradTGIF wrote:

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:

[quote]Big_Boss wrote:
Well…say it ain’t so,Mark.

Mark McGwire finally came clean Monday, admitting he used steroids when he broke Baseball’s Home run record in 1998.

I guess getting snubbed for HOF made him come clean. Sucks for him…[/quote]

His lie in deflecting suspicion of his steroid use by letting reports “find” a bottle of androstenedione in his locker and attributing his results to that was the start of the movement against prohormones.

I don’t feel sorry for him. It was snake-like of him to concoct this lie. I am not saying he was obligated to admit to using anabolic steroids – no one is obligated to confess to an illegal act – but that does not exonerate him from that particular deception.[/quote]

I don’t feel sorry for him either, but damn, I’m not mad at him like you are Bill. I’ve never been in that situation so I can’t say if I’d have acted the same way, I’d like to think I would have come clean about this stuff but I’ll never know. [/quote]

I’m not “mad” at him with regard to having any such emotion.

However I do have a bias: MAG-10 was worth a lot of money to me and, while a prohormone ban likely would have eventually come without McGwire’s lie, I fully expect he hastened the prohormone ban by a year or more.

Prior to his scheme to pin his obvious steroid results on androstenedione, the public had never heard of it and there was no political interest in banning the substances. He personally accomplished the start of that, for no reason other than having thought up a lie and having thought it up quick.

At the time Congress was considering the ban and working on bills for it, the one substance that particularly drove the ban, and really the only one they were familiar with (based on discussions) was androstenedione. And that, from Mark McGwire. Whose results, whether muscle mass, bloated facial appearance, or added home runs were not due to androstenedione.[/quote]

Never thought about it that way.

To the rest why do people continue to act like steriods don’t effect every aspect of an athlete. It’s a hormone, the body is completely controlled by hormones. These $10million dollar athletes don’t risk their careers just to look muscular. Of course it helped them hit the ball, elite sub 10s sprinters have run 5% faster after a short cycle imagine how good a person’s bat speed will look if it was 5% faster.

49

Ok here is a different way of looking at this whole picture

Mark McGwire played 14 seasons before his big year during that time he was a lifetime .261 hitter averaging 31 HR per year. Start the stats again with the year he hit 70 and from that point to the end of his career he has a .267 Avg, and if you take out the two years he hit 70 & 65 HR (BTW his average during these two years was .299 & .278) he averages 30 HR per year

Sammy Sosa was a career .256 hitter averaging 19 HR per year. Again start the stats with the year he hit 66 (his batting average for the year of the chase was .308) and his average through the end of his career is .286, the home run number if you remove the year he hit 66, he averages 45 per year.

Bonds just for comparison was a .289 hitter prior to the year he hit 73 and was averaging 33 HR per year. Again start the stats the year he hits 73 his average is .319 through the end of his career (his batting average for the record year was .328). Also if you remove the year he hit 73 he averaged 33 HR per year through the end of his career.

So how much did the “supplements” really help? For somebody like Sosa the result is huge, for McGwire it didn’t do much outside of the record year.

Bonds is the one I don’t understand, the guy had HOF numbers prior to going after the record.

50

[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Ok here is a different way of looking at this whole picture

Mark McGwire played 14 seasons before his big year during that time he was a lifetime .261 hitter averaging 31 HR per year. Start the stats again with the year he hit 70 and from that point to the end of his career he has a .267 Avg, and if you take out the two years he hit 70 & 65 HR (BTW his average during these two years was .299 & .278) he averages 30 HR per year

Sammy Sosa was a career .256 hitter averaging 19 HR per year. Again start the stats with the year he hit 66 (his batting average for the year of the chase was .308) and his average through the end of his career is .286, the home run number if you remove the year he hit 66, he averages 45 per year.

Bonds just for comparison was a .289 hitter prior to the year he hit 73 and was averaging 33 HR per year. Again start the stats the year he hits 73 his average is .319 through the end of his career (his batting average for the record year was .328). Also if you remove the year he hit 73 he averaged 33 HR per year through the end of his career.

So how much did the “supplements” really help? For somebody like Sosa the result is huge, for McGwire it didn’t do much outside of the record year.

Bonds is the one I don’t understand, the guy had HOF numbers prior to going after the record.[/quote]

Doesn’t tell you when they started using, just a guestimate. And if MM started when he got injured you have to give him time to recover from teh injury then exceed how he was before the injury

51

I think he admitted to save face. He’s saying things like he would’ve hit 70 without 'em and they only helped his body feel normal and he wished he hadn’t done 'em. We all know that that bottle of test didn’t smash those dingers and he had to work his ass off, but he’s lying through his fucking teeth saying all that shit and there’s no way he really believes that. Now LaRussa is praising him for coming clean and Selig is talking about how great he is that he got it off his chest. It’s all a show folks, and don’t be surprised if sometime in the near future others come clean. Pete Rose lied for what, 20+ years and people were quick to forgive his lying shithead ass. What a joke.

52

The only really great player from his era that I can think of that probably didn’t use anything of the sort is Ken Griffey Jr… unless rumours about him have popped up…

[quote]hungry4more wrote:
I’m a firm believer that they should just fucking end the ban on drugs in professional sports. [/quote]

x2.

53

[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
The only really great player from his era that I can think of that probably didn’t use anything of the sort is Ken Griffey Jr… unless rumours about him have popped up…

[quote]hungry4more wrote:
I’m a firm believer that they should just fucking end the ban on drugs in professional sports. [/quote]

x2.

[/quote]

I’d buy that. People forgoet how great Griffey really was. Looking through his stats of his first few years it looked like he had the talent to challenge for GOAT status.

54

[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Ok here is a different way of looking at this whole picture

Mark McGwire played 14 seasons before his big year during that time he was a lifetime .261 hitter averaging 31 HR per year. Start the stats again with the year he hit 70 and from that point to the end of his career he has a .267 Avg, and if you take out the two years he hit 70 & 65 HR (BTW his average during these two years was .299 & .278) he averages 30 HR per year

Sammy Sosa was a career .256 hitter averaging 19 HR per year. Again start the stats with the year he hit 66 (his batting average for the year of the chase was .308) and his average through the end of his career is .286, the home run number if you remove the year he hit 66, he averages 45 per year.

Bonds just for comparison was a .289 hitter prior to the year he hit 73 and was averaging 33 HR per year. Again start the stats the year he hits 73 his average is .319 through the end of his career (his batting average for the record year was .328). Also if you remove the year he hit 73 he averaged 33 HR per year through the end of his career.

So how much did the “supplements” really help? For somebody like Sosa the result is huge, for McGwire it didn’t do much outside of the record year.

Bonds is the one I don’t understand, the guy had HOF numbers prior to going after the record.[/quote]

From my understanding Bonds was pissed that the white guy was getting all the love.

ps. Where did lankymofo go? figured he would have chimed in by now.

continue.

55

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
The only really great player from his era that I can think of that probably didn’t use anything of the sort is Ken Griffey Jr… unless rumours about him have popped up…

[quote]hungry4more wrote:
I’m a firm believer that they should just fucking end the ban on drugs in professional sports. [/quote]

x2.

[/quote]

I’d buy that. People forgoet how great Griffey really was. Looking through his stats of his first few years it looked like he had the talent to challenge for GOAT status.
[/quote]

No one will ever match Babe Ruth’s numbers. There were a few seasons that Ruth hit more homers than a few other teams did.

Griffey is great and is likely clean seeing as how he started to get much worse after age 34 but he never had the potential to be the best ever.

56

Ok here is the big question then;

Do you put them in the HOF or not?

57

[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Ok here is the big question then;

Do you put them in the HOF or not?[/quote]

Jesus Christ, of course you do. To try and deny entry based on the use of performance enhancing substances or circumventing the rules shows complete ignorance of how baseball is and always has been played.

58

[quote]buffalokilla wrote:

[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Ok here is the big question then;

Do you put them in the HOF or not?[/quote]

Jesus Christ, of course you do. To try and deny entry based on the use of performance enhancing substances or circumventing the rules shows complete ignorance of how baseball is and always has been played.

[/quote]

Then why not put Pete Rose in??

His numbers from his playing days are definately good enough.

Granted what he did as a manager was shitty but were not talking about him going in as a manager only as a player.

59

[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:

[quote]buffalokilla wrote:

[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Ok here is the big question then;

Do you put them in the HOF or not?[/quote]

Jesus Christ, of course you do. To try and deny entry based on the use of performance enhancing substances or circumventing the rules shows complete ignorance of how baseball is and always has been played.

[/quote]

Then why not put Pete Rose in??

His numbers from his playing days are definately good enough.

Granted what he did as a manager was shitty but were not talking about him going in as a manager only as a player.[/quote]

They guy cheated. The only thing everyone really agrees on is that you don’t know what would have been. I vote no, because 1, he’s a cheat, and 2, you don’t know what his numbers would have been.

60

[quote]lanchefan1 wrote:
Then why not put Pete Rose in??

His numbers from his playing days are definately good enough.

Granted what he did as a manager was shitty but were not talking about him going in as a manager only as a player.[/quote]

I haven’t thought about this for a long time; did he bet against his own team while a player and a manager or just while a manager?

If just while he was a manager, I think he should be put in as a player.

If while a player, I take a different view on kind of conflict of interest. The net result would be lower quality of play, so that would be a problem. In that case I’d say deny because he was sabotaging things, not improving them.