i’m aware of the standings, and they don’t bother me. i think the cubs are a better team than the cardinals this year, and i’m surprised and pleased that we’re well above .500 and actually in contention for the wildcard – or even the division. if we don’t make it, them’s the breaks.

This reminds me of yesterday’s posts from another Cardinal fan—hoof something, and I’m too lazy to go back and look.

Why can’t a fan from another team make comments without people jumping all over them? It’s not like it was ripping on the Cubs or the Cubs fans. I’m not sure astrostl is hoping to acheive anything other than a little thought-provoking, and it’s a shame if that isn’t possible.

Keith and louslovechild have great responses - and that’s what I like best about this site. People can be objective about the Cubs and othter teams. I’m a little surprised by repsonses that have nothing to do with the post and are more emotional reactions, especially considering some of the sources - ones that I don’t recall reacting like this. I suspect if most of them took a step back and read them again, they’d think twice about posting.

as i noted, i was only skimming the threads as i ran into those. i only dropped by in the first place to just get a glance at perspectives since VEB (viva el birdos, the cardinals sbnation blog) had a front-page post about how the strikes called for wood in the 9th inning on the fourth of july game were the exact ones not given to looper while pitching to soto. i just wanted to see how the perspectives differ between sides, especially in light of the dubious call on yadier molina’s check swing.

anyway, at the time i was reading the threads it was mostly post-action. as a regular at VEB i have found that few individuals take the time to check old topics for new posts, or especially respond to them if they happen to be of a contentious nature. since the hgh comments were spreading across two topics here, the subject seemed sufficiently consistent to discuss in a side topic.

what am i hoping to “achieve” with this fanpost? nothing so great as to call it an achievement, for sure. it took me perhaps fifteen minutes to throw it all together. it just happened to be something on my mind, and i thought it might generate an interesting discussion. what i suppose i’d hope to happen is for the hotheads to reconsider their positions, and perhaps for the more rational ones to respond as you said you almost did.

although i made this post public, and not just for myself, i’m personally satisfied and pleased with the civil responses by individuals such as louslovechild, keith, shanghai badger, and jcg996 so i got back at least what i put into it. i haven’t and don’t lump all or even most of BCB into this category, just those who say the things that they did. i think as much can be inferred from my tone. and for what it’s worth, i didn’t see the soto at-bat because i was celebrating the holiday and my DVR overwrote it. i did see the ninth, though, and whether or not they were balls i thought wood’s called strikes were excellent pitcher’s pitches.

i don’t think ankiel is god’s gift to baseball, or even the outfield. i think i offered more relevant matrial.

it was a joke, and i think it is fairly obvious. grant me more credit than that and i’ll respond in kind.

If a Cub player got nabbed for using HGH "from a doctor, with a prescription" you would be all over it mocking him and calling him names.

if the player was a current outfielder and former pitcher, and the event surrounded tommy john recovery in 2004? honestly, i wouldn’t consider it to have a notable influence in the present day. even if derrek lee claimed, “man – i drugged up a storm in 2005!!” i’d think that was unfortunate, but i’d be glad that he admitted it and presume that he’s no longer abusing. this isn’t to say i think he has anything to do with PEDs, it’s just a random hypothetical example which i would consider to be both more recent and meaningful which i’d still be willing to ultimately accept. bonds, for example, has a long history of both evidence and denial so if he “came clean” it would mean a lot less to me.

just to play devil’s advocate, afaik there’s still not an effective test for HGH.

that being said, i think that ankiel would have to be crazy to risk it now.

“why not?” is a fair question, and i could have done a better job of answering it in advance.

as i understand it: he had tommy john in july of 2003. he began receiving HGH in january of 2004, and had stopped taking it by december 2004 at the latest. it wasn’t until march of 2005 that he decided to convert to the outfield, and he only played in 85 minor league games that year. he did not play the game of baseball in 2006 because of knee surgery, and his breakout performance was not until 2007 in the minor leagues.

i don’t claim to know the lingering effects of HGH, but i’m doubtful that taking it in 2004 could directly cause 2007 results. if it were a matter of pitch -> tommy john -> stop pitching -> start hitting -> hello majors, with no gaps in-between, i would share some of your skepticism. especially if he was on a short leash, or forced to audition like any other position player. the team had all the patience in the world for him, though, tommy john is only supposed to take 6 months for a position player, and even if you go back to 2001 you’ll find him putting up a .286/.353/.638 10HR line over 105 ABs in rookie ball.

The only reason to suspect HGH use is because it’s often tied to steroid use (using HGH to build muscle mass, then using steroids to turn that muscle mass into strong muscles).

HGH on its own has no positive benefits for injury recovery, strength, speed, or athletic ability. It builds mass but that mass is mostly cells retaining water – that mass doesn’t add strength.

I mean, c’mon.

i never claimed that his prescription was “legitimate”, only that it was a prescription, and that it came from a doctor. i take this to be slightly more defensible situation than, say, some seedy coach in the locker room or a store called STEROIDZ-R-US. i went on to say that i personally question the degree to which the prescription was sought for enhancement as opposed to recovery.

as indicated above, i’m lightly familiar with the studies that either discount or dismiss HGH’s benefits as a PED, but i stress that it’s only light. since i haven’t done what i would consider to be a sufficient amount of research on the subject, i’m not inclined to stir up a hornet’s nest by attempting to defend a socially controversial scientific position.

Did the Cardinals know?

If he is under their care, he should be getting all of his prescriptions and rehab care from their doctors. It shows how desperate he was to hang on to his career, if he went over the head of the team that he worked for. It further shows that if the organization did not know, that they could have really cared less of his insubordination by the fact that there was never any self imposed suspension when the news came out.

This goes for several organizations…though not just cardinals

With all that said…I don’t neccessarily blame him for doing it. If all I could do was play baseball and I was deseperate, who knows what I would have done.