No it's not, the attitude is that both are performance enhancers beyond "normal" means and that there is a massive double standard in how the morons(oops, I mean baseball writers) treat the two.

No. There is greater, a much greater, tendency on the part of steroid apologists to confuse the issue (intentionally?) with attempts to make amphs and steroids be the same. They are simply not the same. They don’t do the same thing, they don’t act on your body the same, and they don’t have the same physical result. People who insist on maintaining that they are the same are just ignorant, or are not engaging in good-faith argument.

Amps make you hit a baseball better than you normally could, Amps make your throws more accurate than they would be without them, how is that not cheating? Amps make you run harder than you would have, give you quicker reaction time etc.

I don’t believe this. Certainly don’t when you used as a regular every day enhancers over a long period of time. Ask any policeman or any other person with any experience (including physicians) dealing with people under the influence of drugs, especially uppers. They alter perception. They are addictive. You’ll have to increase the dosage to get an effect that will continually degrade. Also, training one way, with one set of natural responses, and then being under the influence on certain occasions is not a recipe for having your body respond consistently to situations and events that can occur with unpredictability. Having a mindset cultivated in one way is not good or safe when altered, especially temporarily. Your mind doesn’t adjust as readily as some here seem to think it does. The rest of your body won’t either. You don’t have this problem with steroids.

I was wrong about the timing. But what else changed between 2002 and 2005 so that everyone suddenly cared about steroids?

(Bonds didn't do anything to Roger Maris of course. He broke McGwire's record)

SBB's spoken to the first part, and the part about Maris reflects the simple fact that the whole "The media trashes Bonds because he trashed our boyhood heroes" theme of the Bonds supporters is laid upon the laps of the generation of Boomer sportswriters who supposedly worshiped that whole generation of sluggers. Never mind that most of those critical voices never even saw Roger Maris play---you'd have to be nearly 60 to really remember him from grade school---but it's an easy line to throw out even if the evidence to support it is slim and anecdotal.

Show me a study that a ball player who dedicates his life to the gym without roids performs significantly worse than one who does roid usage?

Do steroids create muscle tissue? If the answer is yes, what does that mean when someone uses them according to regimen prescribed by a professional trainer who is knowledgeable? What does more muscle tissue, and repairing muscle tissue, mean? Is that a qualitative difference when we're considering chemicals?

From Big Hair and Plastic Grass, the recently-published history of baseball in the 1970s:

"[Reggie] Jackson briefly ran afoul of the commissioner's office in July [1974], after the Oakland Tribune published a quote from a uncorrected galley proof of [Jackson's forthcoming autobiography]. The inflammatory passage revolved around Jackson's admission that he regularly took 'boosters, greenies, bennies, whatever,' and would 'continue to take them unless I get so much #### over this I am forced to stop.' Bowie Kuhn let Jackson know that he was not pleased with the revelation, but ultimately took no action against the A's outfielder."

If the press and other factions of the game really thought greenies were bad, they would have absolutely unloaded on Jackson, who they all rightly thought was an insufferable prima donna. Charlie Finley was pretty reactionary and really, really cheap and didn't press the matter at all. Neither did Bowie Kuhn, who interpreted his "best interest of baseball" power as essentially plenary.

Even when the meat was shoved in its nose and it was starving, the dog never barked.

Amps make you hit a baseball better than you normally could, Amps make your throws more accurate than they would be without them, how is that not cheating? Amps make you run harder than you would have, give you quicker reaction time etc.

I don’t believe this. Certainly don’t when you used as a regular every day enhancers over a long period of time. Ask any policeman or any other person with any experience (including physicians) dealing with people under the influence of drugs, especially uppers. They alter perception. They are addictive. You’ll have to increase the dosage to get an effect that will continually degrade. Also, training one way, with one set of natural responses, and then being under the influence on certain occasions is not a recipe for having your body respond consistently to situations and events that can occur with unpredictability. Having a mindset cultivated in one way is not good or safe when altered, especially temporarily. Your mind doesn’t adjust as readily as some here seem to think it does. The rest of your body won’t either. You don’t have this problem with steroids.

And compounding this is the fact that none of those tests that show that amps increase your concentration have ever tried to demonstrate how this affects motions as subtle as adjusting one's swing within a tiny fraction of a second in reaction to the changing direction of a Major League pitch. No question that amps can help focus your attention in wholly positive ways (as can cocaine) when all that's needed is for your mind to be clear. But when you add the necessity of taking a heavy bat and meeting a 95-MPH pitch on the sweet spot of your bat, the idea that amps are going to be able to add to a well-rested player's talent to do this is beyond being dubious, and it certainly can't be shown by any existing evidence.

If the press and other factions of the game really thought greenies were bad, they would have absolutely unloaded on Jackson, who they all rightly thought was an insufferable prima donna. Charlie Finley was pretty reactionary and really, really cheap and didn't press the matter at all. Neither did Bowie Kuhn.

What is your fascination with contemporary opinions on this issue. It shouldn't matter what the people thought at the time, heck it doesn't matter what the people think right now.

What is your fascination with contemporary opinions on this issue.

In part, because it puts the lie to the "protecting heroes" meme. Reggie Jackson was not a hero in the eyes of 1974 (*), yet he was still "protected" in 1974. His amp use isn't being airbrushed away 40 years later -- that's horseshit.

There's also the obvious difference in openness of use.

(*) The concept of hero barely existed in 1974, other than ironically. Nobody wanted to be one, nobody believed anybody else was one, and anyone that aspired to be one was pretty much openly mocked.

Even when the meat was shoved in its nose and it was starving, the dog never barked.

In the '60's and '70's amps were no big deal. They were used for weight loss. Hell, I had a great Aunt who'd get a "B12" shot from her Dr. once a month that had amps. She was really, really energetic. Couldn't touch a good curveball though.

From Big Hair and Plastic Grass, the recently-published history of baseball in the 1970s:

"[Reggie] Jackson briefly ran afoul of the commissioner's office in July [1974], after the Oakland Tribune published a quote from a uncorrected galley proof of [Jackson's forthcoming autobiography]. The inflammatory passage revolved around Jackson's admission that he regularly took 'boosters, greenies, bennies, whatever,' and would 'continue to take them unless I get so much #### over this I am forced to stop.' Bowie Kuhn let Jackson know that he was not pleased with the revelation, but ultimately took no action against the A's outfielder."

I've got the first edition of that 1975 Jackson book (Reggie), but unfortunately it runs 272 pages with no index. Does that book you mention cite a page in the Jackson book where I could locate that quote?

I've got the first edition of that 1975 Jackson book (Reggie), but unfortunately it runs 272 pages with no index. Does that book you mention cite a page in the Jackson book where I could locate that quote?

My interpretation is that it didn't make the final proof, but I'm not sure. My book doesn't have a cite.

In part, because it puts the lie to the "protecting heroes" meme.

So you don't get the argument in the slightest, is what you are saying. The protecting heroes meme is based upon writers today, protecting their heroes retroactively. It has nothing to do with protecting the heroes at the time of the events in question.

The writers didn't care about greenies at the time because the drug culture at the time was part of the locker room and nobody cared at the time if you took drugs.

The writers didn't care about greenies at the time because the drug culture at the time was part of the locker room and nobody cared at the time if you took drugs.

Amphetamines were part of American culture. Lot's of people used them, or had used them in the military, and people knew what they could and couldn't do.

So you don't get the argument in the slightest, is what you are saying. The protecting heroes meme is based upon writers today, protecting their heroes retroactively. It has nothing to do with protecting the heroes at the time of the events in question.

I understand it perfectly, which is why I understand how badly it fails. Writers today are doing what writers have always done WRT amps. They've consistently not cared, whether the players in question were their contemporaries or "yesterday's heroes." No significant faction of the game has ever cared a whit about amps, whether the users were contemporaries or "yesterday's heroes." Even today, when amps are "banned," scores of players get exemptions for nothingburger reasons.

They didn't care when amps stood alone as the "PED" of choice, and they don't care when amps are juxtaposed against steroids and they reflect upon arguments drawing parallels between the two. They don't care. They never have.

They don't care about amps when amp use is openly flouted and bragged about. They do care, and always have cared, about steroid use, even when it's done in back alleys and bathroom stalls and players routinely and vociferously deny it.

You do understand that a lot of the writers and principals from 1974 are now ... you know ... dead?

I've got the first edition of that 1975 Jackson book (Reggie), but unfortunately it runs 272 pages with no index. Does that book you mention cite a page in the Jackson book where I could locate that quote?

My interpretation is that it didn't make the final proof, but I'm not sure. My book doesn't have a cite.

Too bad, but OTOH in skimming through those 272 pages I'd forgotten just how entertaining that book really was. Reggie's brawling and fussing with Finley and half of his teammates on just about every page. If that particular quote didn't make the final cut I'm sure that Reggie had nothing to do with the decision.

------------------------------------

The protecting heroes meme is based upon writers today, protecting their heroes retroactively. It has nothing to do with protecting the heroes at the time of the events in question.

No, what you see as "protecting" is nothing but an attempt to convey the reality of the 1970's drug and clubhouse cultures to the 21st century reader and listener. Your quarrel with this is simply that they should be reacting now in the same sort of way that they react to the steroids users of our times. But all that means is that you demand that they accept your equivalency arguments as proof that they're not "hypocritical", which is kind of silly for them to be doing if they don't agree with your premise. This is nothing but a repetition of Ray's tired old complaint that anyone who doesn't agree with his equivalency premise is being "dishonest". And that's exactly what I was talking about way back in post # 35. Once you get to that sort of rhetoric you've effectively terminated the conversation.

The point I meant to make originally was that even if we allow that restoration drugs were totally an accepted part of baseball culture in the 1960s and 1970s, "enhancement" drugs were also an accepted part of baseball culture in 1989 and in 1998 and in 2002. It's only since then that they are looked at differently.

New York Times, August 27, 1998:

"A dismaying little chill blew through the red-hot home-run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa last weekend, when McGwire admitted that for about a year he had been ingesting a substance called androstenedione. The over-the-counter pill is classified by the Food and Drug Administration as a nutritional supplement, and is legal under Major League Baseball's drug rules. Even so, it is banned by the National Football League and by the International Olympic Committee, which recently suspended an American shot-putter, Randy Barnes, for using it.

For a lot of people, this has tainted McGwire's otherwise thrilling assault on Roger Maris's single-season record of 61 home runs, and some have even suggested, not entirely in jest, that if McGwire beats the record he should have an asterisk next to his name denoting that he did so under questionable circumstances. ..."

******************************************

Numerous media outlets commented on the andro being found in McGwire's locker, immediately after the finding. Most pointed out that it was technically legal in baseball, but banned in most other sports, including the NFL. At a bare minimum, wide swaths of people believed the andro in the locker was a topic worthy of discussion and further contemplation, and raised important issues for such discussion.

As the Times story notes, people were talking "asterisk" almost the second the news came out -- which also happened to be months before the common narrative has Barry Bonds ingesting his very first PED.

AmphetaminesCigarettes were part of American culture. Lot's of people used them, or had used them in the military, and people knew what they could and couldn't do.

Fixed that for you.

Fixed that for you.

Well, yes, but I don't get your point.

I understand it perfectly, which is why I understand how badly it fails. Writers today are doing what writers have always done WRT amps. They've consistently not cared, whether the players in question were their contemporaries or "yesterday's heroes." No significant faction of the game has ever cared a whit about amps, whether the users were contemporaries or "yesterday's heroes." Even today, when amps are "banned," scores of players get exemptions for nothingburger reasons.

Again, why does it matter what writers say about it to begin with? We don't go by what the writers say about rbi, or gold gloves etc. We don't put stock into their opinion on other matters, why does it matter what they say? Just because the perception of speed is that it's harmless, or not cheating, doesn't mean it's not cheating.

Was Melky Cabrera using roids in 2009? Because I cannot tell from his stat line.

If Amphetamines don't enhance performance, why are they essentially universally banned by sport now? UNLESS YOU HAVE A PRESCRIPTION. It's not like they were all of a sudden reclassified by the DEA.

Caffeine enhances performance, too - not banned, why? Lots of drugs and treatments help you recover from injury, not banned, why?

Well, yes, but I don't get your point.

The point is that people at the time thought they knew what they could do and couldn't do.

Again, why does it matter what writers say about it to begin with?

Not just writers. No significant faction of the game has ever cared about amp use. Not players, not middle management, not front offices, not owners, not the commissioners office, not beat writers, not leisurely commentators, not HOF voters. Nobody.

Nobody cared in 1955, when the locker rooms were populated with crew cuts and war heroes; nobody cared in 1970, when the locker rooms were populated with acid droppers and war protesters; no one cared in 1974 or 1979, when people like Reggie and Pete Rose were telling the world they popped amps, go #### yourself; nobody cared in 1985, when attempting to buy a few lines of coke could get you a year suspension from the commissioner; no one cared in 1998, when the 'roid muscles started really popping; and no one cares in 2012, when a note from your mom can get you an exemption and all the amps you need.

No one has ever cared about amps.

Not just writers. No significant faction of the game has ever cared about amp use. Not players, not middle management, not front offices, not owners, not the commissioners office, not beat writers, not leisurely commentators, not HOF voters. Nobody.

And?????


It doesn't mean that they aren't the same type of cheating as roids. It means that the masses don't have the education to understand that they are the same type of cheating (and we are back full circle)

Appeals to the mass authority will never sway an argument, and it never should.

No one has ever cared about amps.

And we are trying to change that. It's the exact same type of cheating as roids, but people are just to set in their ways to understand that.

Appeals to the mass authority will never sway an argument, and it never should.

Where are you seeing an appeal to the masses? I'm talking about baseball factions. No one in baseball has ever cared about amps.

Was Melky Cabrera using roids in 2009? Because I cannot tell from his stat line.

I can't tell from his 2011 or 2012 stat line whether he was using. As I wrote in the other thread, the biggest change has been that he found an extra 60 points of BABIP over the past two years, and I don't see how that's attributable to steroids.

The argument for so long has been that steroids lead to an increase in home runs. (Even though the studies can't demonstrate that.) But then when a player adds 60 points of BABIP, the people saying steroids explain Melky don't even stop to realize that he wasn't hitting more home runs. Mainly, his batting average shot up.

Side note: It's useless arguing with Andy about amps vs. steroids. Because he makes ludicrous arguments and then when he runs out of those he disengages and loudly announces that he's not going to discuss the issue anymore.

It's only a matter of time before he bows out of this thread, proclaiming that he's done discussing the issue and if you want to discuss it more feel free to do it without him.

Just because the perception of speed is that it's harmless, or not cheating, doesn't mean it's not cheating.

That assumes to be true that which is to be proved.

The way we see drugs in general, and many drugs (and alcohol is one) in particular, has greatly changed since the '50's and '60's. Doctors back then were much looser about prescribing drugs, especially uppers and downers. This was because many of the risks and effects were not largely known--or were minnimized. The tobacco industry wasn't the only business minnimizing and covering up the effects of their product. We now know more about the effects and the side effects of drugs. Moreover, again, that players may have thought amphs (or whatever) did such a such doesn't mean that they in fact did do that. They used to believe that "rubbing dirt on it" was a cure-all, too.

If Amphetamines don't enhance performance, why are they essentially universally banned by sport now?

No one says they don't have any kind of effect. Maybe they, or their progeny, are great for horse races. Short burst of speed in events that take place every few weeks or months. Hell, speed probably could turn Clint Eastwood into Barney Fife.

So ballplayers were taking amps recreationally? That's why they are banned?

Side note: It's useless arguing with Andy about amps vs. steroids. Because he makes ludicrous arguments and then when he runs out of those he disengages and loudly announces that he's not going to discuss the issue anymore.

It's only a matter of time before he bows out of this thread, proclaiming that he's done discussing the issue and if you want to discuss it more feel free to do it without him.

Considering that all CFB has done so far in this thread is proclaim himself the only valid judge of the "correct" view about amphetamines ("the masses don't have the education to understand that they are the same type of cheating"), I'm not sure what there is to discuss. Perhaps prior to the upcoming HoF vote, he and you can set up a booth or something where the masses can come to be informed about how hypocritical and dishonest they are.

----------------------------------------------

So ballplayers were taking amps recreationally? That's why they are banned?

They were banned for one very good reason (long range health effects) and one ancillary reason (PR). Not that there's anything wrong with the outcome, for as Morty notes, our knowledge and understanding about the dangers of amphetamines is far greater now than it was BITD.

The point is that neither drug usage was legal, that both enhanced performances, but one is acceptable and one is not. They are both cheating and both led to records being broken and led to tainted games. The difference is that the Hank Aarons and Willie Mays of the world are given a pass because the people that worshiped them aren't intelligent enough(or informed enough) to recognize that it's cheating in a similar vein.

People that defend amp users while attacking roid users are doing it out of either piss poor education, or a misguided sense of loyalty to their heroes. No other reasoning behind it.

This is exactly the sort of mentality I was referring to in #35. There's no way to respond to an argument that frames the issue in terms of generational hero worship and / or lack of intelligence.

There's no other way to reasonably frame the issue.

At best all that effect does is to restore a player's natural talent during times when he's fatigued. There is zero evidence on the playing field that it has ever done anything more than that. If you want to consider that effect in itself a form of "enhancement", that's your druthers, but it's of a nature that's distinctive from the sort of enhancement effect of added muscles.

I had forgotten how stupid this argument was. Andy believes amphetamines are just like coffee because he once read a book by someone saying that amphetamines don't always help. The dozens of studies showing the ways in which amphetamines boost athletic and mental performance are dismissed as insufficient, but we just know that steroids boost performance.

Yes, this is the part where Andy demands laboratory studies replicated under major league playing conditions for amps (see his bold portion above which alludes to this), but has never required a fraction of that kind of evidence to conclude that steroids are performance enhancing.

Show me a study that a ball player who dedicates his life to the gym without roids performs significantly worse than one who does roid usage?

That's a nice dodge, which is essentially an admission that your claims about amps can't be backed up.

This is the part where Andy's demands for lab tests of baseball players w/r/t amps are met with similar requests for lab tests of baseball players w/r/t steroids, and Andy's response is to call it a "nice dodge."

He is simply not arguing in good faith. It is dishonest.

As for your counter-question, you show me any weight-addicted and non-juiced player who's improved his late career performance relative to his own past prime years, to any degree comparable to Barry Bonds. We all know that Bonds is sui generis, a genius comparable to Einstein yada yada yada, but there's a reason he went from weights alone to weights + steroids, and I doubt if it was because he was just trying to qualify for cruising time at Muscle Beach.

And that was the part where Andy uses a sample size of one - Bonds - to "prove" steroids are performance enhancing.

If steroids enhance performance to that degree than Bonds was the only user.

The congressional hearings took place in March of 2005, a full three and a half years after Bonds broke the single season home run record. These hearings were the cumulative result of many factors, but if Bonds really had been the focus of that investigation, it's funny that he wasn't even asked to testify.

Not at all. He was under investigation for perjury at the time.

As for your counter-question, you show me any weight-addicted and non-juiced player who's improved his late career performance relative to his own past prime years, to any degree comparable to Barry Bonds.

That's easy: Barry Bonds.

Bouton is very clear in Ball Four that he doesn't think greenies help. In fact, he says they hurt. They give you a false sense of effectiveness.

This is a definition of "very clear" that is almost unique to Morty Causa. In fact, Bouton doesn't say that at all. What he said is that this is a drawback to greenie use. That's not the same thing as saying that they don't help. if I wrote, "The trouble with steroids is that they make it so you can work out too much, and you think you're getting to be a better player, but you're really getting musclebound and so you lose flexibility and hit worse," that does not mean steroids hurt you. It means they can.

No. There is greater, a much greater, tendency on the part of steroid apologists to confuse the issue (intentionally?) with attempts to make amphs and steroids be the same. They are simply not the same. They don’t do the same thing, they don’t act on your body the same, and they don’t have the same physical result. People who insist on maintaining that they are the same are just ignorant, or are not engaging in good-faith argument.

Your argument is either bad faith or stupid or both. The issue is not whether they "do the same thing, they don’t act on your body the same, and they don’t have the same physical result." The issue is whether they both enhance performance, not the mechanics of how. Poisoning an opposing player is not the same as kidnapping his mother and holding her at ransom to force him to play badly. It's a different crime, acting in different ways, with a different mechanism. But they both have the same effect of getting him to play badly.

I mean sure, technically amp usage is a magic pill that makes you instantly a better ball player,

Compared to what? Are you seriously saying that a well rested player's natural talent level would be improved by amphetamines? If (for instance) Hank Aaron had started amping up as a 20 year old, are you claiming that his career stats would be greater than they were? If not, then how does that square with what you're saying?

Actually, he should be seriously saying that your conception of "natural talent level" is a poorly-thought out construct that doesn't make any sense and has no applicability to the situation. And yet, even so, yes. Amphetamines improve performance. They do not simply allow a player who is hung over to play as if he were not hung over. You've been told this repeatedly. You've even been given studies proving it.

And yet, even so, yes. Amphetamines improve performance.

So does coffee.

I can remeber Tony Gwynn giving an angry interview where he stated that amphetamines were the real problem and were being ignored during the steroid witch hunt, so SBB somebody cared.

Amphetamines improve performance. They do not simply allow a player who is hung over to play as if he were not hung over. You've been told this repeatedly. You've even been given studies proving it.

Again, show me a study that tested the effects of amphetamines on the ability of a well-rested athlete to hit a Major League level pitch. Or show me a study that tested the effects of amphetamines on the ability of any well-rested person to enhance his performance in any activity that requires the sort of high level reactive skills that you need to play Major League baseball. You say I've be "given studies proving it", but that's BS and you know it is.

Another question: How many well-rested players ever took amphetamines in the first place? How many people who can get 8 hours of unaided sleep ever start using sleeping pills?

The distinction is simple: Amphetamines can keep a ballplayer awake and alert when he otherwise should just be taking a nap. But amphetamines can't turn a well-rested .240 hitter into a .250 hitter, or turn Robinson Cano into Wade Boggs.** It's not like studying for an exam where nobody's trying to distract you during the test, and the exam room is perfectly silent and allows those pills you took to work their magic unimpeded. When you show me a "study" or a "test" that replicates conditions even remotely analogous to those facing a Major League hitter, please pass it along.

**And steroids can't turn Bobby Bonilla into Barry Bonds. But they can help Barry Bonds develop the level of muscle strength that can complement his inborn talent and take it to new levels of performance, as was demonstrated in his wholly unprecedented late career power spikes. Obviously that does not mean that steroids are any kind of a "magic pill", but I've never once said that they were.

amphetamines can help Mickey Mantle forget the gallons of booze he drank the night before and see the ball

amphetamines can help Mickey Mantle forget the gallons of booze he drank the night before and see the ball

Absolutely true, but if Mickey Mantle hadn't consumed those gallons of booze the night before, he'd be far less likely to have needed the pills in the first place.

and if a frog had wings,,, so your argument is that mantle didnt cheat because he didnt need to be drunk? sorry dont follow

and if a frog had wings,,, so your argument is that mantle didnt cheat because he didnt need to be drunk? sorry dont follow

If you want to equate what greenie users did to get themselves on the field after a hangover with what a healthy juicer does to gain a competitive advantage over non-juicers, that's your privilege. If you don't see the distinction between those two scenarios, I doubt if any argument will ever convince you.

i thought the argument was that greenies arent cheating but roids are, if you are saying that roids and amps are different, is there anyone here saying they arent different? they are both still cheating

i thought the argument was that greenies arent cheating but roids are, if you are saying that roids and amps are different, is there anyone here saying they arent different? they are both still cheating

No, that's the argument of the radical revisionists who believe that if they can only show that roids and amps are either or both "cheating" and "performance enhancing," then they've "won."

Caffeine is "performance enhancing." It has been conclusively proven to have postive effects on both aerobic and anaerobic exercise and exertion. Like amps, caffeine acts as a nervous system stimulant, increasing focus and concentration. Unless the radicals are suggesting a purge of all coffee sippers from the ranks of the honest, they're going to have to remand themselves back to the drawing board for work on their principles and definitions -- which are in desperate need of adult supervision.

For the life of me, I don't get the desire to defend steroid users.

If nothing else, the whole sordid affair was a stain on baseball, even if what they did wasn't technically "cheating" at the time.

What is the downside of purging steroids from baseball?

It seems to me the steroid defender are defending their "childhood heroes" ever bit as much (and probably more) than the amp defenders.

For the life of me, I don't get the desire to defend steroid users.

Mostly fanboyism. Also, (misplaced) notions of privacy, loyalty to the saber cause (*), and the frisson of excitement from mocking the establishment and conventional wisdom.

(*) Most of the dedicated saber community are radical revisionists on this question, a position which has become both a core tenet of the catechism and an article of faith.

... another core tenet of the saber philosophy is that the numbers generated in baseball games are inviolate, and integrated -- which is to say, all there is to know about player performance is found -- and to be found -- therein. Even proven violations of baseball rules regarding drug use is deemed inherently inadmissable for consideration -- see, e.g., the Melky Cabrera situation.