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Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Roger on a different hill

Roger"The Rocket"Clemens
Originally uploaded by Gbfan.

I worked from home today so I got the chance to watch Roger Clemens in front of Congress. After watching that, Roger Clemens comes off as someone even less credible. He did not seem like someone who cannot admit what he has done. If felt like your ego was keeping you from the truth. He seems like he does not want to lose his reputation. After watching all that, Brian McNamee might be a lier, but I trust him more than I trust Roger Clemens. This might have hurt your bid to get into the Hall Of Fame more than anything else.

What got me is when he talked about performance enhancing drugs and what he tells kids. He said that there is no shortcuts. The only want to succeed is hard work. To me this is a sign he totally does not understand why people take performance enhancing drugs. I have known people to "juice" as we called it back in the day. They did not do it so they could skip workouts. They did not do it because they wanted to sleep in and not work hard. The did it because they wanted to be better and were willing to do whatever it took to be better. They wanted to cross that gap between what they could do on their own and what they could do with help.

I have no doubt that Roger Clemens did not need performance enhancing drugs to get into the major leagues. No matter what he says, it was not only hard work that got him to the show. After today I realize that he was going to do whatever it took to keep being on the the best pitchers ever. I do not think performance enhancing drugs were a short cut for Roger Clemens. Lesser players could have taken them and got less results. I have no doubt that Roger Clemens always worked hard. Taking performance enhancing drugs was still cheating.

What gets me is that Roger Clemens could have blamed Major League Baseball. He could have blamed the owners for not testing. He could have blamed them for making taking performance enhancing drugs competitive necessary. I wonder if his ego got in the way.

Labels: baseball, congress, drugs, HGH, Roger Clemens, steroids

- Rich, 6:36 PM |

Saturday, December 22, 2007

No more Greatest of All Time

These might be bars someday
Originally uploaded by earthdog.

I have been thinking about Baseball, The Mitchell Report, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens. All I can say is lets retire the phrase "Greatest of All Time."

I have been one of the fans that really got down on the steroids era. I see everyone that did steroids as cheating. Even if baseball was not testing for steroids, they were against the rules since 1991.

They are cheaters, but they do not own the fault, not even most of the fault. The League, the office of the commissioner, and the union all have more fault that the individual players. They did not protect the players. In fact they went the other direction and enabled and encouraged this behavior.

I also blame the media. I am not sure why reporters did not dig into this earlier. The word was going around the clubhouse. No one was on the record, but a good reporter could have found some of the truth. It is like the news media thought it was better to keep the clubhouse code of silence.

I do not have a footnote for this story, I remember when Lenny Dykstra, came back from his plagued seasons of 1991 and 1992. In a clubhouse interview he made a comment about eating his vitamins as a joke. Everyone who heard that that clip knew that Dykstra was talking about steroids. Since there was no testing at that time no one did anything. Gary Cobb did a whole show on WIP in Philadelphia about steroids. I wonder why no one covering baseball full time picked up on this.

In light of how many players took steroids, it is truly a whole generation of players who took part of this. The report was full of All Star players. It was at the heart of the game. I am starting to soften on the idea that these players do not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. I have gone from no not any them to kind of no.

What I would ask of the media and of sports fans, lets retire the title of "Greatest of All Time." I am not saying that we cannot call a player great or amazing. Lets just not crown them the Greatest of all time in any category. Not the greatest hitter, the greatest pitcher, and not the greatest player. I do not care how many stats they rack up, how any MVPs or Cy Young awards they win. No longer can a new player or a player in the game right now be the greatest of all time.

I am not sure what Tim Kurchin is going to do on baseball tonight if he can no longer say a player is the greatest of all time. He might not know what do with himself, but he will find another way to say a player is great.

From here on out I think Willie Mays is the greatest player of all time. He was the best player in the best era of baseball. Lets leave it at that.

Labels: Barry Bonds, baseball, gary cobb, media, mitchell report, sports, steroids, tag overload

- Rich, 5:05 PM |

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Define Great

Last night Barry Bonds hit his career 756 home run. This makes him the all time career major league home run record. I think the all time professional record is Sadaharu Oh with 868 home runs in the Nippon Professional Baseball League. (In high school I had a history teacher who would use this as a trick extra credit question.)

The record is his. It is record that will stay his no matter what anyone thinks about his alleged use of steroids, the book Game of Shadows, the Balco Scandal, Victor Conte, or Greg Anderson. No one will take the record away from him. It will have to be beaten on the field. Even with evidence of steroid use that is spelled out in Game of Shadows. The record will belong to Barry Bonds and there will be no asterisk.

This has to be laid at the feet of Major League Baseball, The Major League Baseball Players Association (The players union), and sportswriters. Blind eyes were turned all around. There were whispers about steroid use back in the early 90s. I remember whispers about Lenny Dystra using steroids after he came back from the 1991 car accident with Darren Dalton. People on the radio where talking about it, but no one thought it was worth investigating.

Most of that blame has to go to Major League Baseball. They did not want to do anything to upset the cart. Even if everything going on was not above board, it was important for them to keep labor peace. It did not matter what happened to the game. It did not matter what players were doing to there bodies. It does not matter that Ken Caminiti admitted to Sport Illustrated that he used steroids to win his 1996 NL MVP. That did not get baseball to snap into action. There is a chance if Baseball acted sooner that it might not have ever come to a day where the holder of the home run record has a cloud over his head.

With the truth of the world what it is, I will not write that Barry Bonds does not deserve the record. I will not say that he deserves an asterisk. I will not grit my teeth when people call him the Home Run King. You can say that Barry Bonds is the greatest home run hitter of this era, the greatest player of this era, or even the greatest hitter of this era.

There are some things that I do not want to hear from sports writers, sports talk show hosts, or sports fans.

1. "Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter, home run hitter, or player of all time." The current era has made this a meaningless statement. How can I measure the greatness of a man how did not have modern chemistry helping him v. a man how did what he needed to do to compete with other home run hitters? Barry Bonds and Willie Mays are almost apples and oranges at this point.

Every time I hear this I feel that history gets a little cheaper. I did not get to see Willie Mays or Hank Aaron play, but I respect what they meant to the game. I got to see Reggie Jackson and Mike Schmidt play in the dead ball era of the 80's. I feel discounting these players disrespects the game. Just call Barry Bonds the Best hitter of his era.

2. There is no drug that can help you hit. There is no drug that could help me hit. No drug would have made me good enough at baseball to get in into the minor leagues. Performance enhancing drugs work without question. The history of sport can show us that. The idea that only weight lifters and offensive linemen benefit from steroids is outdated. Just drop that. One of the key elements of hitting is bat speed. Steroids and Human Growth Hormone can both help with that. The line between Barry Bonds being a first ballet Hall of Famer and the best home run hitter is not that large. Performance enhancing drugs.

3. Fans don't care about steroids. I am tired of hearing this. I might not be so hurt by steroid use that I walk away from the game. I love baseball, but right now I feel like a sap. I feel like I have been taken advantage of by a friend I really love. I am willing to give baseball some slack for now, but I am sad about what I am seeing. I know I am not alone. Every baseball fan might not feel this way, but I know enough do.

In the end, who knows where baseball is going. I would love to think that the young heroes of the game like Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder are clean, but I don't know. I do not know if the next person to break the Home Run record will be clean. We will have to see what the game looks like in 10 years.

Labels: Barry Bonds, baseball, MLB, MLBPA, steroids, tag overload

- Rich, 4:12 PM |

Saturday, April 15, 2006

Bad News For Barry

It is a bad time for Barry Bonds. He has yet to hit a home run this season. Some people predicted that he would pass Babe Ruth already. He is still 6 behind on the all-time home run chart. On ESPN News earlier today that his elbow might be the problem causing his .167 batting average this season.

On top of that he is being investigated by federal prosecutors. I am not sure if this is causing him a problem on the field. Different players react different ways with off the field issues. Some of issues cause people to focus even more. I know that things are starting to pile up for him.

From the New York Times Bonds's Potential Problems Go Beyond Steroids:

"It was not immediately clear whether the January 2006 testimony was before the same grand jury now cited in the CNN story. But in any case, Bell has stated that she saw Bonds inject himself with steroids and apply creams that she knew to be steroid-related. Bell has also stated that Bonds gave her $80,000 in cash to buy a house and that he gave her specific instructions to deposit the money in amounts of less than $10,000.

Federal law requires banks to report transactions of $10,000 or more, and the question is whether Bell's financial testimony, perhaps conveyed to one or more grand juries, could also expose Bonds to charges of tax evasion, money laundering and evasion of federal banking laws."

I have such a hard time feeling sorry for Barry Bonds. Reading all these stories I feel that thought he could get away with whatever he wanted. If you lie to a federal grand jury when you have limited immunity, you get what you deserve.

No matter what happens Barry will be tainted for the rest of his life. His stats will be in doubt. Some people will always see him as a cheater. I wonder if this is something that he culture of sports likes. It gives people something to debate at the sports bar.

In the end I think it is tragic for baseball and Barry. Maybe Barry Bonds is a tragic hero of a Greek drama. All the elements are there. In the end his hubris might be his undoing.

Labels: Barry Bonds, baseball, ESPN, steroids, taxes

- Rich, 4:08 PM |

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