biggentleben

Ty Cobb also was vocal about not allowing any racial minority into the league, actually wanting any non-Christian in the league to be banned. He threatened quitting multiple times for this. He has plenty to do with the game being unequitable in his era.

The point is that any competition pushes the limits of finding an advantage, so if he doesn't want someone pushing that limit constantly, then it'd be wise to find an interest without competition involved.

I'd be curious to see the fan polls, because multiple polls on ESPN and Fangraphs in the last year (of the "quick poll" variety, not an article type) were decidedly in the "let the numbers speak" camp, the Fangraphs poll quite a bit more so than the ESPN, which makes sense with the more educated baseball fan in the Fangraphs poll. Also, Bonds and Clemens received significant support in the BBWAA this year. Many of them have supported other players in the past with questions about PEDs. It's not about a majority as much as it is a 3/4 majority of them don't agree that suspicions (no matter how strong) of PEDs shouldn't overweigh the accomplishments the player had on the field.

That's not the entirety of my argument. Like I stated, there were multiple factors that led to a large offensive output league-wide. Individual players each had different ways they accomplished that explosion.

No, my point is that we're railing on guys for taking stuff that wasn't even outlawed or against the rules of the game for the time they took it or guys who have never been shown to have violated a rule of the game through testing. The game outlaws things now that we're used commonly in the 1970s. Roy Halladay is widely considered to have used amphetamines from multiple sources, but he never failed a test, so I will still be voting for him on my IBBWAA ballot.

You do realize that the "steroid era" also coincided with two expansions of the league, right? Each time the league has experienced expansion throughout history, there's been a short-term rise in offense. Add in baseball finally accepting strength training as a valid way to train for the sport in the mid 90s, and you would have seen more offense with or without PEDs.

Any time there is a competition, our human instinct is to find the way to get an edge, and for most of these guys, it wasn't even an edge that was against the rules. When you play cards, there's strategy involved, and sometimes you catch wind of another player's hand through process of elimination. Is that cheating or strategy? Once baseball made the rules to ban certain PEDs, then anyone punished for taking them absolutely has their name tarnished. Manny Ramirez had arguably the best right handed swing I've ever seen, but he was caught cheating, and his numbers are then rightly called into question. Outside of a positive test, it's simply a gross case of proven guilty until proven innocent, and that's completely backward!

No, it allowed him and others to play on days when they were mentally and physically exhausted and gave increased focus and attentiveness on the field and at bat, which would certainly assist in numbers. Many of what we know as PEDs from the 90s and early 2000s were not (and are not) able to affect performance as much as greenies did.

You really believe anyone would support a HOF without legends such as Ruth, Aaron, Mays, and Henderson in it? That's the point. You can't change the past. The rules have changed now. A guy caught taking the same stuff as Aaron/Mays now is suspended. Until the mid 1990s, though, those drugs were rampant in the sport. Do you eliminate the guys who did it before it was outlawed or accept that as part of the game? When you have someone with a failed test or suspension, that's a much different thing, but suspicions swaying anything is BS.

I agree! Let's kick out Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Paul Molitor, Rickey Henderson, and Nolan Ryan. All were accused (or have admitted to) either taking something to enhance their game or working to ensure the game's competition was kept from being equal. That'll teach those blatant cheaters!!

You're certainly at the melting point. The rest is trial, but it's still crazy how the trial goes.

So he's automatically guilty? Odd, seeing as the biggest social phenomenon in the country right now is a Netflix series about someone's right to the assumption of innocence being robbed from him.

I've heard numbers rumored that Upton and Cespedes have both asked for $25M+ per season to go less than 5 years. So for 4 years, you're talking $100M. Not exactly a "few" million more.

I'd wager the Royals realize that the likelihood of getting Hosmer, Cain, etc. extended is minimal, so the next year or two is their window and then a tear down is coming again, so going for it with Gordon in the short term makes some sense as he already fits with the team.

There are some compelling things out there regarding stuff the documentary left out as well: http://www.pajiba.com/netflix_movies_and_tv/is-steven-avery-guilty-evidence-making-a-murderer-didnt-present.php I'm not as inclined to believe for sure he DIDN'T do it, but there's still some massive BS going on with the corruption of the police there.

Yup. I also know many Iowans who don't exactly like Iowa LOL.

Iowans?

And in four months, we'll start hearing front-runners suddenly and drastically shifting on major issues to pander to centrist voters. What's that say about their characters? They're politicians attempting to get elected. My point was that she at least had some bit of history cheering for the Hawkeyes on the season, starting when they were one of the few remaining undefeated teams.

That's rather my point.

I typically cheer for South Dakota State (but not USD!) and the Gophers. When they play, I have to choose who I'd rather see win. I remember the once in football when I was cheering for SDSU because my brother was a student coach and they had a big recruit visiting that next week, so coming off a win over a Big Ten team would help with the recruiting, and that season was during the Brewster years, so the Gophers were rough. There were probably other times I went Jacks over Gophers, though, in multiple sports, but the majority of the time I cheer maroon and gold. But you call Gopher athletics pathetic for that, yet my cousin and I have discussed St. Cloud vs. Gopher hockey games, and he's always cheering for the Gophers, yet he was a four-year letterman on the Huskies baseball team. What's that say about St. Cloud athletics then? Sometimes where you attended school is simply that - where you attended school. You hold some additional fondness for the school of course, but not cheering for them above all others is not some sign of moral repugnance.

Regardless, it's not something that should definitively make you not vote for her. It's pretty minor overall.

No, it's not "common", but that also depends on what your definition of common as well. I'd say 75% of the league NOT using would constitute usage as not being a common occurrence, and no one I've known that's played in the league has ever estimated anything near 25%. I've heard comments like "a handful of guys in every locker room" on the HIGH end from those guys. That's 5 guys in every locker room, or 5 guys out of 50-60 guys that are part of a team when you add in practice squad players. So out of a league of 30 teams, that's 150 players out of the 1500-2000 players that suit up every season. I guess I don't consider that "common". I'll absolutely consider it an issue in baseball because I truly think baseball CBA issues do not allow for the level of testing that the NFL is able to employ upon its athletes, so more could be gotten away with. However, if you want to tell me that Mike Trout is juicing as you watch his workouts, I will gladly laugh in your face. He may work harder than any athlete in professional sports, and I'm including J.J. Watt. The man has trained himself incredibly well due to some of the best training in the world that certainly wasn't available to him when he was in high school. I'm sure if he walked away from the game right now, he'd lose 30 pounds of muscle in a year pretty quick. Those particular pieces of fact prove nothing about his usage or innocence of usage, just like the same about other athletes before him also was true. There's more than PEDs affecting better athletes in baseball, and not seeing that is as much or more blind than the guy who'd say there's no PED usage at all in the game.

I do think it's funny the media story of how poor the Big Ten has fared in the bowl season. The conference finished 5-5. Vegas had Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska as underdogs in their bowl games. Any Big Ten realist knew as soon as the matchups were released that Iowa, Indiana, Penn State, and Michigan State were in for a rough time (and Indiana dang near upset heavily-favored Duke). The conference went 5-1 in the rest of their games, including 3 they were underdogs in. By conference: 1-0 vs. independents (Ohio State won) 1-3 vs. SEC (Michigan won; Northwestern, Michigan State, Penn State lost) 2-1 vs. Pac-12 (Nebraska, Wisconsin won; Iowa lost) 0-1 vs. ACC (Indiana lost) 1-0 vs. MAC (Minnesota won)

I graduated from the U of M and played football for the Gophers. I've still cheered for other teams in my lifetime when playing the Gophers, specifically when South Dakota State was building their program and trying to get things going and the Gophers were a down team anyway. I was hoping for the Jacks to get the win to help the profile of their program, and I certainly don't think that'd call into question my love or loyalty to the program that I willingly gave hours upon hours of my life (and arguably my "normal" eyesight). I'm also not a Democrat. I'm actually currently registered as a Republican, though I classify myself as an Independent. I'll very likely edit my registration depending on the primary I choose to vote in for 2016. Many of my very conservative friends have numerous reasons for disliking her before all of this stuff.

I don't have any doubt that there are synthetic (and even still some anabolic) testosterone steroidal PEDs in use in athletics. I do not believe that it is rampant, and the experience of friends of mine who have competed in the NFL and in professional wrestling have given me some very good insight into the true effects of what PEDs do. Multiple friends and former teammates have made the choice to use PEDs to enhance their professional athletic careers, so I've gotten their perspective as well. That's why I always shake my head at the scare tactics of the HOF voters who panic about steroid users. Players got bigger, faster, and stronger as baseball FINALLY accepted the idea that lifting a weight wouldn't make you a worse ballplayer. Yes, steroids were involved with some, but the effects of the steroids at the time would have also had negative affects in their ability to play the game of baseball. What we did see different was the extension of players' effectiveness in their careers. I have no doubt that was due to the utilization of PEDs. The first full-time strength coach in professional football was hired before the AFL/NFL merger. The first such strength coach in professional basketball was hired before the NBA/ABA merger. Hockey had full-time strength coaches on multiple teams by the time Ronald Reagan left office. However, the Oakland Athletics were the first team in the major leagues to hire a full-time strength coach in 1990, having been the lone even half-time strength coach in the entire league previous to 1990. By the time the 1995 season ended, every single team in the major leagues had a full-time strength and conditioning coach. Much like the world of sabermetrics, some teams were drastically ahead of others in implementing the utilization of advanced training methods for players. I quite literally was speaking with a scout this last summer who talked with me about how revolutionary the squat has been to the last 5 years of high school scouting in baseball. A parallel squat has been a highly utilized training lift in football since Dick Butkus was playing.40-50 years ago. I was utilizing explosive power lifts to train for 9-man football in rural South Dakota in the mid-1990s, so the information was out there, but baseball was a very late adapter. Part of this is what I believe will be the final solution to the epidemic of Tommy John and oblique injuries that plague the game currently. Proper explosive training that utilizes the hips and legs can train a body to generate the kind of torque to generate high-level power while also keeping the body healthy and properly strained rather than overstraining as so many pitchers and hitters do now to hit the ball farther and throw the ball harder. Are there PEDs in the game still? Absolutely, and I won't ever claim that they've been absolutely eliminated, but synthetics are only a minor step ahead of the testing systems in the games, and I do believe that those who want to think there are a majority of players who utilize something illegal to enhance their athletic performance are easily influenced by the often minimally-researched media reports on these substances rather than taking the time to actually researching them to find out their true effects on the human body.