when he was reading from a script to get his story straight. give him some credit for admitting it though

Willie McGee looks very thin compared to current players in that Sandberg game hitting for the cycle. Who is that thin in today’s game? He was the NL MVP in 1985.

He cant just lay down laws and expect players to acquiesce, every move he makes has to be agreed upon by the Union, so they share just as much blame.

The players do have a right to privacy, the union and its policies/stances are there to protect all its members, and if some less than moral members of that are able to use those rules to their benefit, well thats the price you pay for equal protection. The clean players should hold their Union reps accountable, make a fuss so their voices are heard.

1) Baseball is and always will be America’s national passtime. Americans care about baseball for the sport itself and the integrity of it. I know that football might garner more of the attention, but that’s because it can be packaged much more effectively and because gambling is a major component of it not because people care about it more.

2) The owners, Selig, and players still have not publically accepted blame for thier responsilibilty in this mess, though I would say that the playres have accepted much more than the either two.

I’m glad that these articles have been written. Maybe they’ll do some good.

The NY Times did an article in December 1991 about how the East German’s were systematically using steriods since 1971.

The stunning domination of international swimming by East German women for nearly two decades was built upon an organized system of anabolic-steroid use, a group of 20 former East German coaches confirmed yesterday.

Their admission, provided to reporters in Bonn, is the latest evidence — and some of the most convincing — that senior sports administrators of the now-dissolved Communist state made performance-enhancing drugs a critical part of the training programs for the country’s elite athletes.

“We confirm that anabolic steroids were used in former East German swimming,” the coaches said in a signed statement. “Not all of us were involved in doping. The extent varied.” A Golden Period

Now of course the East Germans didn’t just come out of the blue—-or Red as of course the Soviets were at the heart of the beginning of the “roid age” where again it goes back to 1954 and the Soviet’s Weight Lifting Team. As the story is told; the US team physician opnely questioned the Soviet’s team´s doctor afterward, and the soviet doctor admitted that his team had been receiving testosterone injections—-the the first time anyone had ever ’admitted that steroids were used to enhance athletic performances.

But then there are unconfirmed sources that testosterone oral preparations were used by Germany´s Olympic team in 1936 for the Berlin Olympics, this rudimentary effort did little but back to the Soviets, however, rumors of discarded syringes in their dressing rooms made it clear that they were not using oral steroids anymore.

By the 1990´s, Anabolic Steroids had been introduced into the US athletic society, and their use had penetrated every possible sport including the professional ranks but also down to the High-Schools. But if you recall even back to 1987 the National Football League introduced it´s anti-steroid policy, and Major League Baseball was left as the most major sports organization in the world which still had no such policy. That is 22 years ago!

Let us look at a 1990 survey of of 2113 high school students where 94 (4.4) admitted using anabolic steroids. and by gender, we find that (6.5) of 1028 males and (2.5) of the 1085 surveyed females were already users of steroids. were athletes 5.5 used of steroids compared to non-athletes (2.4%)…YOU DON’T THINK THERE WAS A PROBLEM ALREADY! By 2003 these numbers as studied by the Center of Disease Control had doubled!

The first official hint in MLB was a eyeballed bottle of a nutritional supplement seen in Mark McGwire´s locker. The bottle contained Androstendione, a prohormone, or a compound which can convert into another one inside the body. At the time time, McGwire was en route to breaking Maris’s single season home-run record. MGwire retired shortly after breaking that record.

Then in 2002 Ken Caminiti revealed to Sports Illustrated that he used anabolic steroids, and that he estimated roughly fifty percent of the players in the league were using them also. This admission opened the floodgates where then Jose Canseco’s book published during the height of the steroids in baseball stated that , 85% of all players in MLB used steroids, where he admitted using them.

So who is kidding who? When you mention the following:

But here’s the problem. He’s the commissioner of Major League Baseball, a sport that has desecrated its holy grail (the record book), a sport in which many of the bigger stars (Bonds, Rodriguez, Sosa, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Andy Pettitte, Jason Giambi), have been exposed as cheaters.

all I see are this era’s All Stars who grew up in the 1980’s and 1990’s when steriods were already vogue in High School. Now here is a tidbit. Cheating became systemic, cheating in college basketball where recruiting became a real industry, cheating in football by spying on other teams practices is the next big deal with surveillance electronics…that is why pro teams have built their own indoor practice facilities….cheating in baseball was beefing up the players…..basketball and football players got bigger….so did golfers…no matter what a 300 lb lineman was unusual even in 1985 but now it is normal, even small.

So who is kidding who….

Who knows where this all started, the Bash Brothers? Who knows, however once it became a culture the union and Bud needed to step up and put some teeth in a policy. And we know that never happened and we are left with more roid stories then actual baseball stories.
 I would collectively put this on the players/union and Bud. However Bud needed to be more forceful have some balls and go after this issue, but he failed. He caved to the strength of Fehr and the union, just like the players caved and turned there face when other players had a needle sticking out of there backside.
 I don’t want to here Bud whine about the diffuclty he had dealing with the union. This is your freaking job Bud, that is why they over pay you by 15 million get the shit done.
 Some of the players finally are getting it right, Oritz and manager Ozzie, give a one year suspension, that has some guts into the policy. However to continue as is, the crap won’t go away.

none of the above are innocent, but the vast majority has to be on the players, they know who in their locker room are using, or are the ones using.

“Fehr and Orza have to wake up and see that the public — the people who are responsible for ponying up the money that pays for their multimillionaire members’ contracts, whether it be by ticket prices, souvenir purchases, or by buying the products of the advertisers who wind up financing the billion-dollar TV contracts — isn’t going to put up with MLBPA members cheating, then lying about it, all in the name of "I didn’t think I could live up to my contract”, or jealousy, or whatever other reasons, stated or not, for doing PED’s."

How are we going to put up with the MLBPA members cheating?? People still are going to the games, buying merchandise, etc. The only way to fix the solution is to stop going to games and buying products

It’s not just that he’s lying. It’s that he doesn’t care. He’s dismissive. Even now, fine, you got him, but at the end of the day what is it to him? Nothing. He knows that all he’ll have to do is withstand some booing and give some quick “apologies” and nothing that actually affects his money or tenure with the team will happen. It’s that attitude that turns me off.

Arod has openly admitted but not where he can be called in on perjury charges. They can’t do anything to you for lying on TV.

Bonds and Clemens have clammed up while testifying in congress or such and under current investigation.

BIG DIFFERENCE.

And does anyone really think Arod would have said anything if it wasn’t published?

Who knows, if any legit steroid rules get enacted AND enforced, we could go back to the stats of the pre-divisional era…personally, I’d like to see Sam Crawford’s mark of 309 career triples challenged :-)
But of course, legit steroid rules actually being enforced is about like wishing for Wrigley to be rebuilt out of solid gold—it just ain’t gonna happen.

and it really burns to agree with Worf, even peripherally, but…

you’ll do a LOT better keeping steroids out of the hands of children by legalizing and regulating it.

Union picks a company. Baseball picks a company.

Each sample is divided and half sent to each company.

If both come back clean obviously not a problem/

If both come back poisitive obviously there is a problem.

If one comes back negative and one positive they have a third company in the wings and that determines what it is.

Obviously a second testing of the sample in a positive test always.

I used to work in HR for a company that did drug testing. Current employees always got the benefit of the doubt and it was retested.

Here’s scary. 15 or so percent of the positive tests came back negative on retest.

A good friend just started dating an employment lawyer. She’s not a baseball fan so is looking at this from purely a legal standpoint. She had some more to say and is going to summarize it for me and email me if people might be interested in me posting it.

This has nothing to do with steroids but I found it kind of amazing.

US Cellular Field is now the 8th oldest ballpark now that the Yanks and Mets will open new facilities (Older parks are Cubs, Red Sox, Dodgers (hard to believe it’s 3rd isnt it), Royals, Twins, Mariners and Blue Jays) and it will be 7th when the Twins open their new park in 2010 so in 20 years its gone from #1 newest to #24th.

Also anyone else as baseball fans happy to see Griffey and Glavine going home so to speak to finsh their careers?

 Which stands for "The economy sucks so hard it made me misplace my job so now I don’t have one Association of America"

for owners and their wallets, but truly set the sport back in both moral compass and keeping MLB as THE national sport. I think he’s an asshole.

Dan

I think I must have missed something.

MLB steroid policy in 2002:

A first-time offense would only result in treatment for the player, and the player would not even be named.

This wasn’t very good, so before the 2005 season, this was MLB’s policy:

A first positive test resulted in a suspension of 10 games, a second positive test resulted in a suspension of 30 games, the third positive test resulted in a suspension of 60 games, the fourth positive test resulted in a suspension of one full year, and a fifth positive test resulted in a penalty at the commissioner’s discretion. Players were tested at least once per year, with the chance that several players could be tested many times per year.

Players were suspended for steroid use in 2005. Still, MLB made it tougher at the end of the year:

A first positive test would result in a 50-game suspension, a second positive test would result in a 100-game suspension, and a third positive test would result in a lifetime suspension from MLB.

There have been numerous players suspended under this policy (see Sergio Mitre, 50 day suspension just this year).

Why are you guys arguing about the union and players rights? Maybe the penalties should be steeper. But, the argument that the union/players have privacy has been lost a long time ago.

Fehr and Orza have to wake up and see that the public… isn’t going to put up with MLBPA members cheating, then lying about it, all in the name of “I didn’t think I could live up to my contract”, or jealousy, or whatever other reasons, stated or not, for doing PED’s.

They have, and they will continue to. The steroid scandal has done nothing to hurt baseball’s bottom line, and mostly consists of posturing by the same baseball columnists and sports talk show hosts who knew about he problem and failed to say anything at the time.

And why are we acting like the A-Rod incident is a sign that we haven’t been doing enough? The incident took place before testing was implemented. The Clemens incident took place before testing was implemented. Bonds? Before testing was implemented!

… are all “to blame”. It isn’t one “leader” or one “player”. Selig does not make $18 million to police this crap—he makes it because as one of his critics seems to contradict himself (in claiming that he’s over paid) in pointing out that he has been at the helm of the greatest financial expansion of the game. The players did it to get paid and with the strength of their self interest they made a killing and they still live by the code of the cheat and they have contempt for the so called “rat” more than they do their own greed. Do I assume that the vast overwhelming majority of players used steroids—absolutely.

It’s amazing to me what people want to believe? Or maybe it isn’t or shouldn’t be amazing? Greed is a very strong motivating force, from the utility scrub trying to make the league minimum, to the “homeowner” who has no equity in their house and never had the ability to afford the loan but decided they had to get theirs, too…even if they didn’t understand what they were doing…(what a f’d up country!!!!! and we are surprised by the scope of cheating amongst a bunch of under educated over-represented millionaires)

If owners believe that they have the negotiating strength to impose a strict testing program with meaningful penalties for violation then they should do it. If not, then the sport is better off embracing steroids and promoting itself like professional wrestling—there’s probably more in it for everyone that way.