Albert Pujols, now and then...Juiced?

Newsday carries a piece on the Albert Pujols story.  Did he or didn't he (juice with steroids)?

In the meantime, Albert Pujols - considered the best player in baseball who hasn't been linked to steroids - denied ever using steroids or PEDs in an article in last week's SI.

Color me cynical, but I'm not ready to call him Mr. Clean. I'm not saying he's drugged up, not by any means, but we've been burned so many times by athletes that we are trained to scoff at their denials. Sad, but true: when someone denies, I shrug and move on.

What else is there to do?

Look at the cover of a recent Sports Illustrated.  Compare with a cover of Muscle and Fitness a few years ago.  Are people decelerating their muscle and fitness or is there another reason Pujos appears so svelte?  Dramatic change.

Comments

[Thomas]

I don't know if I agree with this assessment. Not saying he is clean but it is VERY easy in a world of Photoshop, to doctor up an image to make someone looked ripped. Many MANY magazines do it now a days...

[Steroid Nation]

True enough

[Jenky]

A few of those magazines have celebrity covers and they are so common, seeing Karl Malone on one and he looks very muscular and a number of others.

Actually, if you looks at Pujols biceps in the picture, they look a bit bigger on the cover of M & F: but part of that might be the pose, the clothing, etc. His bicep still looks big on SI.

Though I know we are looking out for steroids, that whey and other proteins will pad you up. I can't really use much whey because if I'm trying to lose weight working out, I don't and I understand it's suppose to go to mostly muscle, suppose to in theory.

[Jenky]

Also with some models, they take those dehydration pills to remove water from the body, a bit of an amazing technique isn't it and though we may well doubt the athletes might do the same, when ever you see those "before" and "after" pictures, sometimes, they take those water reducing pills.

Also, above Pujols looks like he could have been oiled up. Olive Oil actually works on the muscles to limber them up. That was a common use years ago. I don't know about now but their may be other oils that are used.

[ben]

he looks completely different.....look at his face....he was absolutely doing something for enhancement prior.....no doubt...or he went through chemo..

[Zak]

His pose in M&F he is pushing on the bat, which engages all the muscles in his arm. In SI he isn't doing anything with that arm. Plus the lighting is completely different--all M&F covers are going to use lighting to maximize muscle. They can't have someone on the cover with pasty, flabby looking arms. They probably spray-wet his arms to give them a glow too.

I don't know if he did steroids, but the evidence gleaned from these covers doesn't imply much. His arms aren't that different in the two photos.

[Matt]

This dude is a phony just like the rest. His size is extremly different just look at these pictures and compare it to now. I doubt his thickness was doctored up in the pictures. He looks extremly thick in his chest and arms compared to now. Also look at the pictures of him at bat, his legs do look like a bodybuilders legs. Muscle and Fitness is the most steroid bloated book on the planet. If you want to distance yourself from steroids the last place i would think you would want to show up is in that book.

http://www.uslatino.com/newsDetail.cfm?item=2807

[Kyle]

Pujols is quite possibly the last great natural hitter. One needs to look no further than his production thus far in 2009 to trust this fact (22, 57, .324). According to the arguments above, would the "smaller" Pujols be having as much, if not more, production than his normal totals at this point in the season?

Before, during, and after the greatest years of steroid abuse, Pujols had held consistent numbers and has been subject to both mandated and voluntary urine and blood tests to validate his claims of being clean.

If nothing else, just think about common sense. Would Pujols, who is currently arguably the best player in Major League Baseball, and by the time he retires will probably be in the top 10 on Home Runs, RBI's, MVP's, etc., possibly think he could get away with steroid abuse? Manny's an idiot, so don't claim him. He can barely conduct an intelligable interview. Even if he wanted to, Pujols knows better. Luckily for us, he doesn't need it.

Pujols is as clean as it gets, and thank God, because MLB and America needs it.

[B]

"Pujols is quite possibly the last great natural hitter." Yeah sure, the last great baseball player that will ever be born. Great observation.

Pujols is probably like A-Rod and has been taking them before he hit the major leagues. There's some evidence that Aaron took steroids as well. His numbers from age 35-40 are some of the highest of his career--just like McGwire and Bonds. Steroids were certainly used in the late 60's in baseball. In 1973 there was a Congressional Committee that investigated the use of PEDs in all levels of sports in the US. Here is Rep Harvey Waxman at the recent Mitchell Congressional Investigation:

In 1973, the year I first ran for Congress, the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce concluded a year-long investigation that found — and I quote — “drug use exists … in all sports and levels of competition … In some instances, the degree of improper drug use — primarily amphetamines and anabolic steroids — can only be described as alarming.”

The Committee’s chairman — Harley Staggers — was concerned that making those findings public in a hearing would garner excessive attention and might actually encourage teenagers to use steroids. Instead, he quietly met with the commissioners of the major sports, and they assured him the problem would be taken care of.

Chairman Staggers urged Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to consider instituting tough penalties and testing. And he trusted Commissioner Kuhn to do that. In fact, in a press release in May 1973, Chairman Staggers said — and again I quote — “Based on the constructive responses and assurances I have received from these gentlemen, I think self-regulation will be intensified, and will be effective.”

But as we now know from 30 years of history, baseball failed to regulate itself.

Almost all of the records you've seen in the past 40 years in baseball are due to PEDs. Its time to wake up about these professional ballplayers. If you need a hero, look elsewhere.

[Jason]

In the late 90s, sportswriters turned a blind eye to steroids. Inflated numbers were blamed on everything from tight baseballs to small ballparks, natural weightlifting and expansion leading to watered-down pitching. After the scandal really broke, sportswriters wrote stories about how ashamed their profession should be to not report on steroids, and to keep making excuses. With A-Rod, Manny, and now Pujols, they are back to making excuses for the players they want to believe in because they feel that is the only way to save baseball. Manny and A-Rod have gone down, Pujols is only a matter of time. All three have Dominican roots (even though A-Rod has dual citizenship). How many great Dominican players HAVEN'T used them?

Even if Aaron didn't use roids, greenies were big back then... amphetamines. In his defense he moved to a much smaller ballpark at the exact same time he had a late-career spike in production when he moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta. However, I wouldn't say for sure anybody was clean, even back then.

Pujols is likely 3 years older than the Cards program says. I'd say in a couple years we'll start seeing the typical steroid injuries, which are generally in areas where muscle meets bone, i.e. ligament and joint injuries. Steroids causes muscles to grow too strong for the ligaments to keep up. He will get those injuries. He will one day be outed. We will all know the truth before too long.

[Cody]

Anybody who claims that Pujols uses steroids either doesn't understand baseball or hasn't even really looked at his numbers, or watched him bat.

Pujols is great, not because he has power but because he is a great hitter. Every at bat is good because he makes adjustments from pitch to pitch like no one who is playing the game right now, or in recent memory.

So how can we claim he uses steroids if the best part of his game is his brain? Steroids will help your power, and the quickness of your bat, but they are not going to stop you from striking out.

Pujols may be the best hitter to ever play the game, and there is truly no reason to believe he is taking steroids or ever took steroids. The only difference in his body now is that he is more toned than he was when he began his career.

What's even more impressive is the numbers he puts up with the players around him, we should really be worried about is how many RBIs he could have if people actually got on base in front of him, or if he had someone to protect him behind him.

[Joe Sparks]

Get a grip on reality if you think Pujols is clean!

The bat looks like a toothpick in his hands! There is no time in the day to do anything else if you look like that without artificial enhancements!

[Jay Gee]

McCarthyism, pure and simple. What a joke.

[Jim]

Good grief at the idiot Cardinal fans. They are the biggest group of hair-brained homers in all of sports. Look at Pujols before he arrived in the league. Give me a freaking break. Any player can thwart doubts by taking a simple lie detector test. I assume Mr. free pass fraud Pujols will never EVER take that route. Cause why would you take a test if you have something to hide? Less denying, more PROVING.

[Matt]

Whatever happened to innocent before proven guilty. Its fans like you who just continue to cast doubt on anybody and everybody. Stop being the puppet of media hysteria and think for yourself for once. If everybody who takes steroids becomes Barry Bonds then I want to know where to find them. It still takes skill and remember ITS A GAME! We are only to be entertained.

[Fuzzman]

Receding hairline, giant muscles, and inhuman athletic ability - Albert Pujols is THE LATINO BARRY BONDS.

We are only to be entertained? Grow a brain and then try to figure out whom is the puppet of the media. He is an impressive hitter, as if that was all that mattered.

You should at least suspect that he is juicing. By the way, it takes skill AND performance enhancing drugs to be as good as Barry Bonds, not just the drugs.

RIP Ken Caminiti
RIP Lyle Alzado

You don't KNOW his moral character because you are just a fan.
You don't KNOW that he is "clean" because he isn't strenuously tested.
You don't have an argument if you think others don't understand baseball as well as you do.

Baseball owes young people good role models. It's hard to see why Albert Pujols is so interesting as a high-performance piece of meat. We should be more concerned with what his physique and performance implies to impressionable young athletes.

[Rob]

GO PUJOLS!!!!!

[Jeff]

Albert Pujols IS the LATINO BARRY BONDS?
I assume you KNOW his moral character.
And you KNOW he is not clean because why?
Fuzzman grow a pair and admit you don't KNOW nothing because nothing has been proven. Inhuman athletic ability? So all Hall of Famers were juicing? What we are teaching are young is everybody is a liar, don't trust no one, and to judge everyone.

[Mike]

The disparity in magazine covers could be due to the fact that muscle & fitness is trying to make pujols look jacked in their cover shot. This can be done by using flattering lighting and tanning. These things can definitely make someone look much more cut than they normally would. It also can be done by having the person who is about to be photographed go through a workout just previously before having their picture taken. As anyone who lifts weights can attest to when you go through a workout you get a pump to your muscles that will make them look bigger just by working out. There are also other things that can be done to achieve this effect, but I'm not an expert on the subject so I just listed the obvious.

Muscle & Fitness would obviously try to do this with anyone on their cover, and I would suspect that at least one or a combination of these things was done to make pujols appear larger. Sports Illustrated on the other hand does not care how big a player looks on their cover and I suspect that none of these things were done. This could be the reason for the difference in his appearence in these pictures.

Now, whether Pujols has used or is still using steroids I have no idea. I am very skeptical of any player nowadays who puts up huge numbers based on the fact that baseball has had such a huge steroid problem for years. If I had to give an answer I would suspect that Albert, along with in my estimate about 85% of other baseball players in this era has at some point used steroids. However, I would not condemn him based solely on these cover shots.

[Joe]

Just a tidbit, steroids give a man the alpha personality, ultimate confidence, and ability to focus better. Its not just strength, power, and speed. I've heard pro atheletes can take small amounts of stuff that would never come up on a drug test, just as long as they don't go overboard they won't get caught.(Like dumbass Manny, his testosterone levels were 10 times higher than a normal man, thats why he got caught)

There are plenty of steroids that don't increase mass just strength and in a baseball player thats what they want. They don't want to be bodybuilder sizes and get ousted, thats just dumb.

Pro Football players test regularly and guys are pressing 225 50 times!!! Thats steroid use at its finest...

[Bober]

Yeah right. Pujols is clean...Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha...what a total joke. Either we accept that PED's make baseball more interesting or we don't. If we like the results we should open the flood gates. Soon enough there will be entirely biological enhancers that will be undetectable so what's the point. All ball players should join club Juice-holz and go for the gusto. It's the American way.

[Daniel S]

It is amazing how uninformed, naive and just plain wrong most sports fans and sportswriters are about performance enhancing drugs. Performance enhancing drugs are used by most if not all record breaking athletes in todays sports.
I used to be naive too. Back in the 80's when Canseco and McGwire played for the A's, being a bay area sports fan, I thought that they were just amazing athletes. I was amazed and enamored with athletes that could shatter existing records with ease. I loved to watch Bo Jackson, Canseco, Florence Griffith Joyner without even questioning the validity of their accomplishments.
When the allegations about steroids abuse by Jose Canseco came out, I considered it sour grapes. Eventually, I woke up and realized that records usually aren't broken by much. When an athlete destroys an existing record, now I always think that the person is juicing. Just look at the evidence.
I have been researching articles about PED'S, athletes, records, and all the info I could about sports. It is an accepted fact by most experts that in track and field, and world class competitive cycling that all of the top competitors in those sports cheat. They have too, or else they won't be competitive.
As for Albert Pujols, there is no doubt that he was a juicer. The Dominican Republic has thousands of young kids who love baseball, and see baseball as a ticket for a new life. They have for many years. If you were a young boy in the Dominican Republic(or any other relatively poor Latin American country), wouldn't you rather live in the USA, make millions of dollars playing a game for a living? Thousands of young boys there dedicate their lives to emigrating to America. And they will do anything they have to to make the major leagues. Think of the choice; work on a farm, work at your uncles fish market, living in squalid conditions, with your family barely making ends meet, or having millions of dollars, several homes, girlfriends, and fame and fortune in America. It seems to me that 100 out of 100 young Dominican baseball players would do anything they could to enhance their performance(including me if I was one of them!)
Most people don't realize the allure of performance enhancing drugs between two different societies like here and in Latin America.
For American kids, becoming a pro ball player means possibly fame and fortune and a great life, but the allure for a Latin American boy is so much more urgent. It could mean a better life for him and his family, higher social standing, a better community ball park back home, etc. I would guess that most, if not all, young latin ballplayers use PED's. American kids usually have a good life regardless of whether they become a pro athlete or not.
As for whether Pujols is juicer now, he probably is. The numbers don't lie.
Now I see PED's with a different eye. My opinion is for every one who gets caught, there are at least 5 to 10 who get away with it.
Just read Game of Shadows, interviews on youtube of trainers, or anybody who is in the know. Another thing; don't believe that someone is telling the truth because you admire them. Just because you admire a certain athlete doesn't mean they are telling the truth. The cheaters lie through their teeth. They only admit the truth when they are caught(except Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and a few others).
So don't be naive, do your research, and when somebody like Florence Griffith Joyner breaks an existing world record by three-quarters of a second, or when Michael Johnson breaks an existing world record by half a second, or when somebody like Bo Jackson runs a world-class 40 meter dash at 220 pounds, Or somebody wins 7 Tour de France's in a row after having cancer, when the past great cyclists of the past couldn't win more than four in a row. Then you will know something is up. Don't be just another person who thinks with their heart and believes that super-human athletes still exist.
Why do people think with emotion instead of examining the evidence?
I guess that is the way people are. I guess that is why Scott Peterson's mother still thinks her son didn't butcher Laci!

[Albert lover]

Screw all of you
Show me evidence. O wait u can't

Pujols has had consistent numbers his while life.
Just because he played in the steroid era doesn't make him a steroid user.

[Albert lover as well, but...]

I am an Albert fan. Seriously -- I am. But, looking at it objectively, I gotta say it don't look good for the hometeam. Roids don't have to literally turn you into the Hulk from ol' Bruce Banner -- but they DO help you get from SI Cover Albert to M&F Cover Albert.

So, if something like that WERE to come out, I would not be surprised. In the least bit.

"Show me evidence"... who knows -- there may BE evidence. But just like w/ Big Papi, it trickles out at random times. I think the point is that you just can't trust that time for anyone being "without-a-doubt" clean.

But if Griffey is ever found to be juicing, I'm going to beat my dog like I was Mike Vick.

[Mark Kaufmann]

I think AP is one of the next generation users in that his start on PED's was likely long before his Major League career so the statistics we use to gage an abuser is not so obvious. Brady Anderson, Luis Gonzalez, Big Pappi (cut by the Twins due to lack of power) pretty clear even without the evidence.

AP and A-Roid just enough younger so that the 5 -> 50 HR enhancement was not so obvious to the casual fan.

I feel for St. Louis, a great baseball town, they already lived this once with McGuire now likely doomed to repeat.