Steroid Nation

A-Rod heats up MLB steroids controversy with #600 looming

Let's get the dope straight...nonprescription use if anabolic steroids is/was/will ILLEGAL.  The history was long ago documented here.  So why do writers continue to be wrong about this?

Anabolic steroids are controlled substances.  Nonprescription use is as illegal as using Valium or amphetamines without a prescription.  Sales outside the legal sales chain is likewise a felony.  Why can't people understand that?  From The Bleacher Report:

PEDs have, unfortunately, became a part of baseball. Its gotten so bad that there is an era, known as the Steroid Era, that defines the time in which steroid usage was at its peak. We will really never know how many players actually used steroids before, during, or after the Steroid Era.

The problem with PEDs and baseball is it is impossible to quantify how much PEDs helped players' performance. I heard one person say that at least 100 of A-Rod's home runs shouldn't be counted due to his steroid use, while another thought that since A-Rod hit 91 home runs while in Texas (he admitted to steroid use from 2001-2003 while he played for the Rangers), those 91 homers shouldn't count.

I have a big problem with that thinking. If you are going to diminish home runs, it has to be all or nothing. It is impossible to say whether or not steroids aided any of those home runs that A-Rod hit. In fact, there are actually a lot more factors that affect home runs than just PEDs. Here are just a few of several factors:

• Technology: Baseball bats have come a long way since the dawn of baseball. Now, bats are quite a technological marvel, and the bigger and better sweet spots allow for more power out of the swing. Imagine how many home runs Babe Ruth could have hit if he used the bats that players use today!

• Technology (part 2): Training (without PEDs) is so advanced at this point that players are bigger and stronger than ever. When comparing the accomplishments of players now to players in the early 1900s, it really is like comparing apples to oranges. Yet, we still need to name a home run king in all of baseball history. Is that fair?
• Stadiums: In just New York, the two stadiums are polar opposites. Yankee Stadium is notoriously small, while Citi Field is notoriously large. Can you say that some "cheap" home runs in Yankee Stadium are diminished because they would not have been a home run in any other park? Can you diminish the statistics of players who played in Coors Field when balls were flying out of there before they kept the baseballs in humidors?

The point is, there are a lot more contextual factors that go into records and statistics than just PEDs. If we don't diminish statistics for other factors, we can't for steroids. I know that steroids are an illegal substance, but at the height of the steroid era, they weren't banned by baseball. I really can't blame the players for using PEDs to get any advantage they can, in a game as competitive as baseball, while using PEDs wasn't illegal. Can you?

If the writer is in college he should check his logic.  Illegal is illegal.  If murdering your wife isn't prohibited by baseball, it remains illegal (kicks the dog here in frustration).

Perhaps worse than the failure to appreciate the law, would be the consistent rationalizations for cheating.  Cheating is cheating, there are no excuses.  Considering the widespread cheating in college, and in general, people must b very skillful in scheming excuses. Should your banker steal money from your account because he needed a new car?  He can rationalize it...this paragraph is morally disgusting.

I don't want to condone players using illegal substances, but I can't blame them either. As a college student, I liken the use of PEDs to the use of Adderall, or any other study drug. Due to the rigor of college, tons of students illegally take the perscription drug Adderall like it's no big deal, to study better. It's impossible to know how much better of grades students get from taking Adderall, though, or how many students actually take a study drug. You can't say that a student really got a 3.4 GPA, when his/her transcript says 3.7 and he/her took Adderall. Same thing with steroids.

When it comes to study drugs, there is no testing by colleges for it, so you can't really blame students for trying to get any advantage they can. Same as in baseball, before PEDs were illegal, all players did was try to get any advantage they could.

Hall of Famer Whitey Herzog: MLB allowed stroids to juice the game

In the Daily Herald Barry Rvvner quotes new HOFer Whitey Herzog on steroid and PED use in baseball.  Herzog discusses the attendance factor, the envy factor, and the cheat the old timers factor (assuming they were clean.

Back in the early '90s, it was always amusing when the Athletics got off their team bus in spring training and walked past the Cubs' dugout.

Inevitably, at least one Cubs player would say, "There goes the Oakland Raiders again."

That's how big the Mark McGwire/Jose Canseco Athletics were, and it wasn't just the big boppers.

It was a monstrous team, one that didn't go unnoticed by Hall of Famer Whitey Herzog, who had his own take on steroids this past weekend and remembered when several NFL and MLB teams inhabited the same facilities.

"I think you have to look at the baseball teams that shared stadiums with the football teams," Herzog said, while not specifically naming the Athletics, since the Raiders were in L.A. from 1982 to 1996. "There's a lot of cities where they worked together in the training rooms. The football players were going from 250 to 335 and they got faster.

"Baseball players watched that and next thing you know they had something going.

"I was fortunate I didn't have to manage during the steroid era. I managed during the drug era. I had players with problems. Everybody knows that.

"I often wonder how many games we lost as managers in the '80s because of drugs. But by the same token I wonder how many victories managers got in the '90s because of steroids."

Herzog pointed to the work stoppages of 1990 and 1994 as another factor in the performance-enhancing explosion.

"Baseball was down after the strike and McGwire gets all those home runs (in 1998) and it brought baseball back," Herzog said. "Everybody goes back to the ballparks. So maybe that's where the mistake was made.

"If they stopped it then, maybe we wouldn't have the situation we got. I don't know the answer to that.

"Baseball looked the other way because they didn't want attendance to fall. I don't think it was right, and I don't like that a lot of records were broken. It's hurt a lot of retired players trying to get here (to Cooperstown), and I think it's just plain wrong.''

Dishonest WWE diva Dawn doped too

The Daily Examiner says a WWE groupie not only is accused of embezzlement, but that she juiced her physique as well as her bank account:

Did steroids make Dawn Marie allegedly embezzle funds from her own “charitable” organization aimed at helping retired wrestlers with medical and other expenses? Well, Dawn Marie admitted to using the drugs while in the WWE according to the Connecticut Post newspaper. If this is a precursor to an excuse for what she has been accused of, a lame attempt at diminished capacity due to excessive drug abuse, then it is a lousy escape attempt.

Anabolic steroids change behavior (news flash) but generally do not thought to enhance financial fraud.  Then again, a case could be made for some Bipolar mania exacerbated by the drugs.

Gone but not forgotten: Feds close in on Armstrong doping

As everyone (except me, because I have taken a break) knows Lance Armstrong retired from the Tour de France (TDF, or Take da Fraud considering the drug scandals) but apparently US Prosecutors continue to ride on.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Feds continue to be interested in Armstrong's performance boosters.

Federal prosecutors handling an investigation into cheating in professional cycling have subpoenaed documents from an arbitration case that sought to prove that Lance Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs.

The documents contain depositions from former teammates and associates of the seven-time Tour de France champion during a period when a promotions company was trying to prove that Mr. Armstrong employed banned drugs and practices—known as doping—during his cycling career.

Jeffrey Tillotson, the attorney who represented the company, SCA Promotions Inc., in the arbitration hearings, said it received a subpoena for the records on July 16. He is preparing to send the files to the federal prosecutors in Los Angeles who are handling the investigation, he said.

We love the next paragraph about PEDs generally not being illegal.  Oh yeah?  That's patently ridiculous.  There is a difference between using an illegal prescription drug for non-indicated reasons, or abusing a controlled substance, and the public's or the law enforcement's general lazy disregard of the abuse.

Mr. Armstrong has repeatedly denied doping allegations and has not been charged with any wrongdoing.Using performing-enhancing techniques in sports is generally not against the law in the U.S. But federal prosecutors could make the case that Mr. Armstrong defrauded investors by accepting sponsorship dollars with the understanding that he would not use the drugs, if they prove that he doped.

In our view the problems pursing Armstrong remain several:

• He has build up a great 'feel good' following with his charitable works
• He could have taken prescribed drugs legally, for instance androgens as replacement following cancer
  
• People close their eyes when an idol is tainted...evidence ESPN's Stewart Scott's lovefest about Armstrong on the eve when the TdF ended Sunday.  He pointed out a small but vocal minority object to LS's drug use.  Golly gee...