I am ecstatic to see major sports journalists begin to start grappling with the real issues in public. Kudos to Le Batard and Simmons so far.

We are OK with Kirk Gibson hitting one of the most famous home runs ever on one steroid (cortisone), but we slam the Hall of Fame door on the face of everybody else who might have used the anabolic kind.

That's the whole point, though. Gibson took a substance under supervision by a doctor and with public knowledge. It's not cheating if you don't try and hide it. Doing it in the open allows us to have a frank and open discussion about what people are doing and if it should be permitted. Same goes for advances in golf clubs.

It is the very fact that we don't know for certain who was doing anabolic steroids or how much they were doing that has poisoned the whole sport. Players still aren't talking. The cover-up exacerbates the whole thing 100-fold.

That's a weird definition of cheating.

Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be breached by men with bats.

I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Sosa and you curse Bonds. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that Bonds', Sosa's and McGwire's usage, while tragic, probably saved the game. And the use of steroids, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saved the game. You don't want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me to hit balls far over that wall. You need me to cross that wall.

We use words like honor, code, loyalty...we use these words as the backbone to a life spent playing the game. Hall of Fame voters use 'em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to writers who write and profit from the entertainment I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it! I'd rather they just said thank you and went on their way.

Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a ball, get on the mound and stand opposed. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to!

awesome post bob, Primey for sure.

Allow me to be the first to give Bob a standing ovation for #4.

Indeed. Well done.

Le Batard needs to understand the difference between a "performance enabling drug" and a "performance enhancing drug". No one ever questioned Gibson's homer because the cortisone shot enabled him to get to the batters box, and no one would question Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, etc, if their use of steroids was prescribed as necessary by a doctor for them to physically get onto the field. None of them ever claimed it was- they've either denied usage or admitted to using for other reasons. No doctor has came forward and said, "I prescribed those steroids for Player X so that he could get on the field." So no, steroid usage during the PED era was nowhere near the same as a player taking a cortisone shot. If it were, Bonds and Clemens would be preparing their HOF speeches right now.

Well, a PED that lets a player reach the majors or get an MVP 'enabled' them to do it if you want to get picky. :)

As to using them openly, what happens if you use something that is viewed as 'bad' right now, regardless of doctors help (such as marijuana in many areas of the US)? You get arrested. Similar for ballplayers. If one says 'HGH won't hurt me and my doctor says how it can be used safely' and releases all paperwork showing it he'd still be labeled a cheater and viewed negatively by the press for pushing to make something against the rules legal to use. Thus the question of cortisone shots (which basically seem to let a guy play even though his body is saying 'don't or else') vs other steroids is more a 'we have used it for years so who cares'. Much like alcohol and cigarettes - both far more deadly than marijuana but try to make them illegal or put restrictions on them and you have a fight, just like you do if you try to make marijuana legal.

Logic and science are missing often in societal decisions. Trying to put logic into why item X is allowed and Y is not tends to just frustrate the person who is trying to use logic.

i'd just like to mention one more time that lebatard's show on ESPN is the best nationally televised sports talk show going right now by a wide, wide margin.


also, yeah, i saw "a few good men" on AMC last night, too.

Le Batard needs to understand the difference between a "performance enabling drug" and a "performance enhancing drug".

And by that token, anabolic steroids are "performance enabling" by allowing muscles to recover from the cortisol that physically prevents people from making the most of their workouts.

and no one would question Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Sosa, etc, if their use of steroids was prescribed as necessary by a doctor for them to physically get onto the field. None of them ever claimed it was-

Actually McGwire, Pettite, and a whole host of other players have all said they took steroids to recover from injuries.

A player that is injured but takes something that allows him to play through the injury at a level above what he would perform when injured is in fact enhancing his performance.

This false distinction between "enabling" and "enhancing" is the same as the false distinction between "restorative" and "enhancing" that the pro-greenie crowd tries to hide behind.

What could possibly be more performance enhancing than something that allows an athlete to take the field when he or she otherwise could not?

You want it under the supervision of a doctor? Fine, Bosch (at least one of them) is a doctor. I'd be perfectly comfortable with requiring all uses of drugs in baseball requiring medical supervision. Preferably in conjunction with effective oversight of those doctors but that's a broader social issue. STill, say what you want about BALCO, they sure seemed to be keeping a close eye on their clients and were providing quality service.

You want openness. Excellent idea. I would love the NFL and college and high school football in particular to expose just how many shots and pills they are handing out each week and to whom and for what purpose.

And catheter in the penis? Never mind, I don't want to know.

If someone could fix the quotes (it should just be one giant block quote) in my lead-in that would be great. This was my first time using the new system and I didn't know what to do.

If someone could fix the quotes (it should just be one giant block quote) in my lead-in that would be great. This was my first time using the new system and I didn't know what to do.

Sorry, that would be post enhancing, not enabling. Can't do it.

Doesn't cortisone - by letting you play when your body is telling you that you are too injured to play - increase the chance of a more serious injury? Same thing with routine use of pain killers in sports (ask Kenny Easley about tylenol even). Those are under proper medical supervision. Arguably, anabolic steroids would be safer than that, if proper supervision would be allowed.

I think we know what Bob was watching on AMC last night. Did that movie actually win awards? Tom Cruise really chewed through some scenery down the stretch.

Le Batard needs to understand the difference between a "performance enabling drug" and a "performance enhancing drug".

Seriously? This is what you're going to try and hang your hat on? A completely meaningless, arbitrary, pedantic distinction between "enabling" and "enhancing?" That's pathetic.

If I were an athlete today, I'd have my doctor monitor my testosterone levels. So that when I measure 25mcg/mL(*) at age 20, but only 15mcg/mL at age 30, I can have my doctor diagnose me with "low T", and provide a testosterone supplement, and I have all the evidence I need that its not "performance enhancing", but merely performance restoring.

(*) I'm pulling numbers out of my ass...I don't know what testosterone levals are.

It's not cheating if you don't try and hide it. Doing it in the open allows us to have a frank and open discussion about what people are doing and if it should be permitted.

This is by far the best example of begging the question I've seen in a long time. Way to miss the point.

Gibson had his cortisone shot transparently because it wasn't (and isn't) banned. They'd be widely taking HGH transparently and with medical supervision too if they could (or as in the NFL, where they do this stuff with medical supervision if not transparently). McGwire's andro was famously in his locker when it wasn't against the rules - people still think he was cheating.

Echoing the kudos for LeBatard here. My respect for him just ratcheted way up.

I think an issue in baseball is that stronger fresher athletes upsets historical equilibrium, and history and equilibrium matter more in baseball than other sports.

In football, the players are bigger and stronger and faster, but that just means that (1) the players offset each other and (2) strategies, tactics and rules change to adapt.

In baseball, you get more statistial outliers (60+ HRs, < 2 ERAs) as individuals are more able to take advantage of individual matchups and exploit natural talent/performance disparities, and those records matter to people. For whatever reason, baseball has a "performance cap" that I think is influenced by history.

So, while I'm generally in the camp of being pro-PED usage (or anti-PED prohibition), I can see that its a more sensitive issue to baseball than it is to other sports.

i'd just like to mention one more time that lebatard's show on ESPN is the best nationally televised sports talk show going right now by a wide, wide margin.

Really? Then it must have improved a LOT from the first week. I used to LOVE his radio show from Miami (via podcast) and was really looking forward to his show on ESPN. Then I watched the first few episodes. Bleech. I no longer have cable, so I can't check, but he had a big gap to make up...

Le Batard needs to understand the difference between a "performance enabling drug" and a "performance enhancing drug".

I think that's a silly distinction for reasons stated above. However, I think the issue is that PEDs are believed to have negative long-term health effects, while cortisone, as far as I know, does not, at least not in the Gibson context. Now, Emmitt Smith getting loaded up with cortisone to the point he can't feel his arms, then going out and rushing for 200 yards? That might have some negative long-term health effects. No serious person would argue players shouldn't be allowed enhancements to their performance that aren't completely natural. Players take creatine, take legal stimulants, heck Gatorade enhances their performance! We just don't want to see them risking their serious long-term health to do so.

i'd just like to mention one more time that lebatard's show on ESPN is the best nationally televised sports talk show going right now by a wide, wide margin.

I haven't seen it, but I've long thought LeBatard to be one of the more thoughtful national sports columnists with my only caveats being he seems really high on himself, and he is a bit too much of an apologist for players at times.

I think an issue in baseball is that stronger fresher athletes upsets historical equilibrium, and history and equilibrium matter more in baseball than other sports.

In football, the players are bigger and stronger and faster, but that just means that (1) the players offset each other and (2) strategies, tactics and rules change to adapt.

Scoring is waaaaay up in the NFL and the game is more popular than ever. People don't care about historical stats in football. They do care about historical stats in baseball.

Cortisone has negative long-term health effects. Cortisone doesn't heal your body it simply dulls the pain and inflammation of an injury. So it allows you to play full out while injured. That isn't a good thing for your body or your health.


I also will say that long term health is a red herring in this debate. We don't care about a player's long term health and we never have.

I also will say that long term health is a red herring in this debate. We don't care about a player's long term health and we never have.

Let me double up on this one. No one is refusing to vote Barry Bonds into the HOF because they're concerned about his reproductive functioning. They refuse to vote Bonds in because he had the audacity to hit more HRs than Hank Aaron, and the unthinking moralist brigades have decided randomly that Bonds' achievements were "unnatural" while Aaron's were not.

Let me double up on this one. No one is refusing to vote Barry Bonds into the HOF because they're concerned about his reproductive functioning. They refuse to vote Bonds in because he had the audacity to hit more HRs than Hank Aaron, and the unthinking moralist brigades have decided randomly that Bonds' achievements were "unnatural" while Aaron's were not.

Which again poses the question: Why did the HOF voters of, roughly, 1975-90 (*) not defend the "clean" players of the pre-greenie era -- their "boyhood heroes" like Lou Gehrig, Joe D., Yogi, etc -- against the assault on morals and the game's record book of hippie pill-poppers like Aaron and Stargell?

This is where the anit-greenie argument, tenuous to begin with, crumbles.

(*) The point here, of course, is not precision in the years, but to note that there was a HOF voting era in which the predations of the pill-poppers was well known and the HOF still without a known pill-popper soiling its corridors.

Look, here's the crux of the steroid argument. I've heard that 'everyone was doing it', and I've heard that 'everyone who took them knew damn well that they were cheating and that they were crossing a line'.

So which is it? Was steroid use like going 42 in a 35 MPH zone? Or was it flagrantly running red lights?

Which again poses the question: Why did the HOF voters of, roughly, 1975-90 (*) not defend the "clean" players of the pre-greenie era -- their "boyhood heroes" like Lou Gehrig, Joe D., Yogi, etc -- against the assault on morals and the game's record book of hippie pill-poppers like Aaron and Stargell?

They were fighting the communists!

But in all seriousness it is because they weren't viewed as hippie pill poppers by themselves or the media. I remember about a decade or so ago I watched a documentary about sports in the 1960's and one of the issues they talked about was drugged. They had some pro athlete talking about their time in the 60's and how he and his teammates hated hippies and their drug use and yet he realized years later that at the time he was more drugged up than the hippies.

The 50's, 60's, and 70's were really a different time and culture than what currently exists in America.

If Hank Aaron and the stars of his generation were playing nowadays and they were all popping pills now like they were then they would get a totally different reception than they did back then.

Which again poses the question: Why did the HOF voters of, roughly, 1975-90 (*) not defend the "clean" players of the pre-greenie era -- their "boyhood heroes" like Lou Gehrig, Joe D., Yogi, etc -- against the assault on morals and the game's record book of hippie pill-poppers like Aaron and Stargell?

Because greenies enhance performance invisibly - by changing brain chemistry, while HGH enhances performance visibly, by changing muscle chemistry. And sportswriters aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, sometimes.

and yet he realized years later that at the time he was more drugged up than the hippies.

Also, there's definitly a different mindset when you're using laced coffee, and comparing your use to people sitting around stoned. God knows, I've said "At leastI'mgettingthehouseclean!!!" more than once.

But in all seriousness it is because they weren't viewed as hippie pill poppers by themselves or the media.

Yes, exactly. Whereas roiders are viewed by themselves and the media as roiders.

The 50's, 60's, and 70's were really a different time and culture than what currently exists in America.


Pill poppers were inducted to the HOF well after the 1970s ended, including several in the wake of the Pittsburgh drug trials of the mid-80s.

But in all seriousness it is because they weren't viewed as hippie pill poppers by themselves or the media. I remember about a decade or so ago I watched a documentary about sports in the 1960's and one of the issues they talked about was drugged. They had some pro athlete talking about their time in the 60's and how he and his teammates hated hippies and their drug use and yet he realized years later that at the time he was more drugged up than the hippies.

Or, to put the disconnect into one historical document. Okay, this isn't a jock, but the contradiction was just as risible and blatant.

The hippies were largely middle class dropouts whose gurus were from the same class. They may have been using the same drugs that the street people and blue collar types were hooked on, but other than that they had little or nothing in common, especially when it came to their political views.

The 50's, 60's, and 70's were really a different time and culture than what currently exists in America.

If only more people realized that, these steroid discussions would be a lot more informative.

If only more people realized that, these steroid discussions would be a lot more informative.

Yes, if there was less hypocritical ######## about modern drug usage as opposed to historical drug usage, things wouldn't be nearly as stupid.

Pill poppers were inducted to the HOF well after the 1970s ended, including several in the wake of the Pittsburgh drug trials of the mid-80s.

So?

Yes, Sam, what we need to do is to get everyone into a time machine and impose our current knowledge and attitudes about drugs on the players of the past, in order to shoehorn Barry Bonds into the Hall of Fame. Maybe you can get a government grant to do that.

Yes, if there was less hypocritical ######## about modern drug usage as opposed to historical drug usage, things wouldn't be nearly as stupid.

There's no hypocrisy. They're different drugs, with different impacts and different circumstances of use. Two generations of HOF voters, with significantly different historical experiences and influences, have had the opportunity to weigh in on amp use in baseball and neither has seen fit to deem it worthy of reputational penalty. The earlier generation could have defended the HOF, and their boyhood heroes, from being soiled by amp users, and didn't.

(And of course, even today, MLB allows players to play amped up. Dozens of players trodding the mallparks of 2013 will be hopped up pill-poppers.)

So?

So the permissive culture of the late 60s and 70s got significantly less so, and pill-popper druggies were still voted into the HOF en masse.

So the permissive culture of the late 60s and 70s got significantly less so, and pill-popper druggies were still voted into the HOF en masse

So?

There's no hypocrisy. They're different drugs, with different impacts and different circumstances of use. Two generations of HOF voters, with significantly different historical experiences and influences, have had the opportunity to weigh in on amp use in baseball and neither has seen fit to deem it worthy of reputational penalty.

One changes chemistry internally. The other externally. The distinction is completely due to the fact that people are idiots.

The distinction is completely due to the fact that people are idiots.

Isn't it pretty to think so?

Any Given Sunday is a pretty terrible movie, but it does have some interesting stuff about the new team doctor played by Matthew Modine and his ethical responsibility. IIRC, Lawrence Taylor wants Modine to give him another cortisone shot so he can take the field, but Modine thinks it's irresponsible and could lead to a more serious injury.

IIRC, Lawrence Taylor wants Modine to give him another cortisone shot so he can take the field, but Modine thinks it's irresponsible and could lead to a more serious injury.

An NFL team doctor would never worry about that.

So because people were either hypocrits or ignorant regarding drugs before it is OK that they are ignorant or hypocrits now because it is tradition?

i'd just like to mention one more time that lebatard's show on ESPN is the best nationally televised sports talk show going right now by a wide, wide margin.

That's kind of like bragging that you have the tastiest vomit.

Le Batard is a legitimately good sportswriter, though.

Any Given Sunday is a pretty terrible movie, but it does have some interesting stuff about the new team doctor played by Matthew Modine and his ethical responsibility. IIRC, Lawrence Taylor wants Modine to give him another cortisone shot so he can take the field, but Modine thinks it's irresponsible and could lead to a more serious injury.

Even more disturbing is the portrayal in the movie "Friday Night Lights" when high school player Boobie Myles gets hurt and everyone - coaches, players, fans, family, all pressure him to get back on the field before he's ready.

An NFL team doctor would never worry about that.

Right...isn't the story that Modine is young and naive, and the older doctor played by James Woods doesn't bat an eyelash about this stuff?

I'm laughing in full agreement with McCoy's line of argumentation in this thread. SBB, you're picking up the recent tendency to beg the question around here - 'the BBWAA is correct that steroids and amps are fundamentally different, as proven by the fact that the BBWAA has historically behaved as though steroids and amps are fundamentally different, QED.' You're just arguing that they're right to exclude steroids suspects from the HoF because they're excluding steroid suspects from the HoF.

I don't consider it one "BBWAA." They're different people, with different experiences. There's no reason to believe a white guy born in, say, 1935, who would have been a 50-year-old voter in 1985, to be permisssive toward drug users.

Nor were the voters of, say, 1985, weighing the differences between amps and steroids. They were weighing the differences between amps and not amps. They picked amps -- overwhelmingly. So amps have been deemed not worthy of concern as against both steroids and ... no drugs at all. That's a pretty definitive reocrd.

If someone could fix the quotes (it should just be one giant block quote) in my lead-in that would be great.

Fixed it.

I've always taken the position that professional sports should remove restrictions against medically-supervised PED use in exchange for (1) full disclosure about what athletes are using, (2) a full-fledged program to educate people on what's being used, the benefits of supervised use, and the risks of unsupervised use (and abuse).

-- MWE

It was some time in the 60's that cortisone became the go-to treatment for a sore arm. From the Williamsport Sun-Gazette two weeks ago, when Denny McLain was in that town:

McLain said that between 1968 and 1969, when he went a combined 55-15 and threw 661 innings, he took 43 injections of cortisone to be able to pitch through pain.

The Tigers knew full-well that Denny's arm was hamburger when they peddled him to Washington.

Even more disturbing is the portrayal in the movie "Friday Night Lights" when high school player Boobie Myles gets hurt and everyone - coaches, players, fans, family, all pressure him to get back on the field before he's ready.

Boobie Miles is a real guy, of course, and the portrayal seems to reflect reality. That injury changed the trajectory of his life, it appears. I enjoyed reading Buzz Bissinger's short FNL sequel focusing on Boobie Miles.

as usual mike is the most reasonable person like evah

mike should work as a professional arbitration person because he got COMMON SENSE

bob's #4 is AWESOME PRIMEY!!!!

sportswriters/fans/players do not now and have never worried about this "long term health" bullstuff. if they did then cortisone and painkillers would be banned RIGHT NOW and would have been banned a long LONG time ago. remember jim bouton saying that a pitcher would eagerly take something that gave him 5 MPH more on his FB if he knew before that it would take 5 years off his life. he said that in 69.

the ONLY reason that people are seriously UP SET about roids is because of The Sacred Home Run Record. lets be honest. it is why absolutely NOBODY even the roid haters/they should be banned/stats stricken from the records blahblah only obsess about barry lamar and home runs. if barry lamar had hit .394 being careful not to break The Ted's Sacred .400 Barrier, and had broken The All Time Sacred Doubles And Triples Records, wouldn't nobody have cared - and oh yeah - he couldn't break The Sacred All Time RBI Record neither.

in the 60s/70s "anti-drug" people were hysterical about LSD/peyote ( i remember seeing this anti-drug movie obviously made in the late 60s where some young beautiful blond girl is given LSD and she is driven permanently insane and commits suicide because of it) heroine and mary j wanna. nobody gave a shtt about greenies. cocaine was great until the drug dealers started shooting (i mean with guns) too many people. eric clapton's pro-cocaine use song was a big hit - wasn't exactly "i seen the needle and the damage done"

it is obvious that what is socially good/ok/bad to do changes over time. it used to be perfectly legal to beat/rape your wife. if used to be perfectly OK for teenage males to have sex with females over 18. it used to be perfectly OK for males over 18 to date/marry teenage females.

in baseball it used to be ok to do all KINDS of stuff it is no longer OK to do. and very obviously until That Evulll Barry Lamar Bonds Who Is Bout The Worst Person In The World, broke The Sacred All Time Home Run Record. we want to go and punish him NOW for what he is supposed to have done THEN.

which is stupid. do we want to go back and prosecute all the males who are now Old Guys who married when they were in their 203/30s/40s/older to teenage grrls as young as 13 when it was legal and socially acceptable to do this? even now it is not really socially acceptable for an Old Guy especially an Old Rich Guy to go marry some 20-40 years younger female( who has to be over 18) - he gets laughed at and she is referred to as a "trophy wife"

sportswriters and lots of fans don't agree that any substance enhances performance unless it makes the muscles larger. i would bet that if greenies had not been banned but put in the same category as mary j wanna in the ML CBA that wouldn't sportswriters have cared.

There's the BBWAA of 1985, who weighed the differences between amps and no amps, and overwhelmingly picked amps. Then there's the BBWAA of 2012, who looked at steroids and said this cannot stand. In between, there was the BBWAA of 1998, who vehemently attacked Steve Wilstein's andro reporting, and wrote valentines to Big Mac's musculature saving the game, because chicks dig the long ball. Before that, there was the BBWAA of 1988 and 1995 who, faced with brief public outbursts of anti-steroid feeling, looked at steroids and judged them uninteresting or irrelevant.

We rely on all of these BBWAAs to choose baseball's "immortals" and shape its lasting legacy.

It's too bad these four or five BBWAAs that existed within a quarter-century's time didn't write their sports columns for DC Comics. Julius Schwartz could have designated them as BBWAA-One, BBWAA-Two, BBWAA-Three, BBWAA-Prime, BBWAA-S, and so on.

DC Comics eventually streamlined their stupidly gnarled continuity into one coherent timeline-- but then, explaining why the rings of different Green Lanterns would be variously powerless against wood or the color yellow is far more important to get straight.

The BBWAA of 1988 denominated Willie Stargell a first-ballot HOFer three years after John Milner and Dale Berra testified under oath that Pops was not only a greenie user, but a greenie pusher.

The BBWAA of 1988 denominated Willie Stargell a first-ballot HOFer three years after John Milner and Dale Berra testified under oath that Pops was not only a greenie user, but a greenie pusher.

Bonds should have instituted Bonds Bars for teammates to wear on their hats after making good plays and hugged Jeff Kent to cultivate a We Are Family atmosphere in the clubhouse.

McGwire was a fun-loving, forearm-bashing teammate, too. Hugged not only his own guys, but the other teams' guys.

Didn't work for him.

I've always taken the position that professional sports should remove restrictions against medically-supervised PED use in exchange for (1) full disclosure about what athletes are using, (2) a full-fledged program to educate people on what's being used, the benefits of supervised use, and the risks of unsupervised use (and abuse).

-- MWE

I'd go along with that as long as those doctors were all from the Mayo Clinic or some similar group of blue ribbon physicians, and as long as the PED use was for strictly regulated periods of rehabilitation.

I'd go along with that as long as those doctors were all from the Mayo Clinic or some similar group of blue ribbon physicians, and as long as the PED use was for strictly regulated periods of rehabilitation.

You mean like only for day games after night games? Or if there was a long trip before the series?