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biggentleben

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Everything posted by biggentleben

  1. biggentleben
    Yet Tom House was introduced to steroids in the early 1970s in Atlanta by Gary Gentry, who talked about how they were used openly in the clubhouse of the 1969 "Miracle" Mets, so even steroids have been around for decades before they got as well known in the late 80s. The big reason the roids actually were more known in the 80s/90s is that baseball finally started using weight training to activate the roids and see guys over-inflate in size.
  2. biggentleben
    They aren't once you do deeper testing, but at a base level they show up the same, and the issue with going deeper is that the owners would have to give up some in order to get the level of testing that would separate legal substances from the illegal (yes, odd, but it is a negotiation, and much of the initial steroid use was highly encouraged and even promoted by the ownership end, so the players are wanting some buy back for the fact that it's all players getting blamed still on the steroids). Owners were not willing to offer up anything for deeper testing, and therefore, it leaves the game with a further shadow that could be eliminated with better testing.
  3. biggentleben
    More like CB Bucknor, umpiring jester.
  4. biggentleben
    I seriously have to watch this show when the kids are out of the house rather than after they've gone to bed because I laugh much too loud. Very well done show so far.
  5. biggentleben
    Great example of that - ARod, Bonds, Clemens, Manny going to have difficulty getting into the HOF. Francona, Torre, Bochy all near locks for HOF managing them while they were assumed to be using, along with Bochy overseeing Ken Caminiti when he was at his absolute worst in San Diego.
  6. biggentleben
    Yes, and no. A number of them don't mask anything at all, but they produce steroid-lite effects, or they metabolize into something that shows up on a test the same way that a steroid or another illegal PED would metabolize in the body.
  7. biggentleben
    You can use 9/10th of the things on MLB's banned list to do your job better. No one's going to test you for those and tell you that you cannot use them because they're legal substances sold and purchased legally. Obviously, the "dumb" argument to quickly follow is that "no one's paying me $2M to do MY job!", which is all well and good, but no stadiums are full of fans paying $50 each to watch you enter data into your computer either. I think anyone entering the discussion on PEDs needs to take a listen to the Shawne Merriman interview on Jonah Keri's podcast. The ridiculousness of the dialogue on the media/public side and the reality of what players really are restricted on are two incredibly different worlds, and certainly that is never portrayed.
  8. biggentleben
    I'd have to dig up the tweet, but it was something like 15 All-Stars have been caught since official testing began. That's a fairly high rate of the game's best players, let alone the others caught. MLB's testing program is more extensive than any major sport.
  9. biggentleben
    Thanks. It was definitely a personal piece, but one that I had definitely taken into consideration for the last few years since my grandfather's loss of vision. I'm certainly a fan of audio presentation of the game, and there is no sport more perfectly suited for radio than baseball. However, the decline of the game's quality in radio presentation has certainly hurt my enjoyment. I grew up listening to Herb Carneal, Ernie Harwell, Vin Scully, etc. Not a lot of voices like that out there anymore! On SunTrust, I've heard extremely good things on the fan experience from those who have been there. I'm interested to see the park once it's opened. The money issue is, well, a mess.
  10. biggentleben
    Well, I had to check it myself because I didn't believe it, so I would not doubt someone being questionable of such reports! The Braves announcers have a tendency to bend velocities up a MPH or two, which made me curious, but the Mets announcers were giving the same velo readings.
  11. biggentleben
    Fangraphs had him at a 92 MPH average for the game. They list a 93.6 as his top velocity, but the broadcast was going off of stadium gun, which you can assume was juiced a MPH or 3....so he was reading 95+ frequently throughout the game.
  12. biggentleben
    He was pumped up for his return to the Big Apple.
  13. biggentleben
    He found it near immediate. The radio broadcast was quite overreactive in watching the play in question live. It's gone around "Braves Twitter" quite a bit as another example of the radio broadcast's notorious desire to create a narrative that really isn't truly there. The ball didn't bounce hard back off his chest, but 1) it was sub-40 temps at the time in NYC, 2) Bartolo was on the mound, and while he normally is a guy who would be a soft tosser, sitting at 88 all game, he was running 95+ pretty frequently that night, and 3) the ball came off the chest protector, but it did delay on there a beat before coming off instead of following a normal hit-and-bounce trajectory. That was the observation watching it live, and my opinion hasn't been changed watching it a number more times.
  14. biggentleben
    AL Division winners: Toronto, Cleveland, Houston AL Wild Card: Seattle, Boston NL Division winners: Washington, Cubs, Dodgers NL Wild Card: Mets, St. Louis AL MVP: Mike Trout AL CY: Marcus Stroman AL ROY: Andrew Benintendi NL MVP: Corey Seager (dark horse Giancarlo Stanton) NL CY: Clayton Kershaw NL ROY: Dansby Swanson
  15. biggentleben
    I have talked about it before around these parts a few times, but I have a pretty extensive history with eye procedures. This past week, I had to have yet another one, and it caused me to reflect on my vision, and with opening day coming around the corner, baseball was on the mind. I decided to put it to an article, and I hope you enjoy! https://calltothepen.com/2017/04/02/mlb-appreciating-visual-beauty-game-baseball/
  16. biggentleben
    My 77 wins is based on the team playing consistent 73-75 win ball all year and one of KC or Detroit going in the tank midseason, so they'd pick up a couple extra games that way. I'm also figuring on Chicago selling off even further early on and being a 100+ loss team.
  17. biggentleben
    Warning - due to an eye procedure I'm going to have today, I wrote this roughly a week ago and it got published yesterday, so there were some changes in between that my editors didn't catch. https://calltothepen.com/2017/03/28/minnesota-twins-2017-season-preview/ Since it seems like the comments are giving issues, feel free to comment here, and I'll respond as I'm able.
  18. biggentleben
    I have no issues with pausing live TV on my Vue on my Roku TV.
  19. biggentleben
    Never said a monopoly, but in this country, we melt together based on skin tone so much. I remember being astonished the first time my TA in college from India immediately identified my cultural background. I'd always simply identified as white, but for him, there was more than just that behind who I was, and he found that intriguing (granted, this was for an anthropology course, but still). I had similar experiences frequently with students from other countries while in college who could identify what my primary background was, not just that I was white. That is something that is fairly unique to our country, for better or for worse.
  20. biggentleben
    That's why I did include the "in this country" part. I have noted from friends that there is a significant difference with Japanese-Americans and Japanese in how they view other Asian cultures, and that's somewhat expected, but I have also found it sociologically fascinating that for many groups that have incredible differences and racism in their home countries, they find a bond in this country as being grouped together - Korean/Chinese/Vietnamese/Japanese/etc. are all Asian, Indian/Pakistani/Iranian/Saudi are all Middle Eastern (which isn't even correct with India, but anyway), and Sudanese/Ethiopian/Egyptian/Nigerian are all African, for instance. In their home countries, they'd have different opinions of the countries they get grouped with in the U.S., but here, they tend to bond together as they "feel" a common racism across their regional identification. Obviously, these are sociological things that have much deeper explanations and things to pare out, but it is something in this country where it does end up where shade of melanin matters.
  21. biggentleben
    Everyone has a level of racism due to their background and upbringing that we daily must evaluate in our own thoughts and actions, but there is a different "us against the world" mentality that is prevalent more in particularly WASP whites than in any other social group, and throughout history, that particular population (WASP whites) in this country has had the ability to legislate more racism than any group in this country.
  22. biggentleben
    Yes. To both.
  23. biggentleben
    He's still a very, very, very long shot to make the team. The Braves are actively shopping for an outfielder that could possibly back up all three outfield positions, and they also just got two very plausible candidates from the WBC who hadn't really had a chance to establish themselves. If there's ever a spring where stats mean nothing, a WBC spring is it.
  24. biggentleben
    I thought Buster Olney's idea was good to expand the event to having the prelims during spring training, then hold off on the semifinals and finals for All-Star week, and turn the week into a showcase event, starting with the Futures Game Sunday, Home Run Derby Monday, WBC Semifinals Tuesday, then (this is where I will vamp from what Olney suggested) have a combination of the All-Star game, WBC finals and one off day during the week, whether that off day is between the AS game and WBC final or the semis and the other two events are consecutive on Thursday/Friday. You finish with Saturday/Sunday off for the players to get their rest. If you do that sort of schedule every three years, are you really going to have that many people upset about the AS game being disturbed, especially now that it's back to being a truly meaningless showcase event?
  25. biggentleben
    I think the issue is also where heads go when the word racist is used. A person can make a statement that is racist without being a homophobic racist at their core. Someone can make a statement that has racist undertones that are not intended, but are still there nonetheless. On the other hand, because someone makes that sort of statement does not make that person a monster or a horrible person. I do think there are some culture/race issues within baseball for sure, and those who have played a decade in the majors have likely been so ingrained into that culture that they don't even realize there is an issue anymore...
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