We have evidence that, as rr suggests, a significant percentage of baseball players used PEDs ... but not 50% or 75%.

50% would not surprise me in the least. What percentage would you consider significant?

...before one throws terms like "steroid era" around, one waits for a bit more evidence other than random estimates being thrown out by the likes of Canseco...

I guess a need to get me one of them handy pocket guides to the Canseco accusations. I just can't ever seem to remember which ones are to be taken as gospel and which are to be dismissed out of hand.

I just don't get the idea that there's such a huge chasm between drawing reasonable inferences about what certain individuals did and drawing reasonable inferences about how many individuals might have done similar things.

But people at this site, and I guess you're to be counted among them, have been accusing the entirety of baseball for the steroids problem, and I'm surprised you see enough evidence to do so

.


I suppose I am in this group. My view is:

The individual users are responsible for their choices
and
It is/was ALSO a systemic issue for which MLB/Selig, management, the media and MLBPA all have some responsibility.

I just don't get the idea that there's such a huge chasm between drawing reasonable inferences about what certain individuals did and drawing reasonable inferences about how many individuals might have done similar things.

The difference is that in the first case there are specific facts and chronolgies to go on in determining any particular player's guilt or innocence. We can agree or disagree about the meaning of these facts and chronologies, but at least we're not drawing conclusions from the ether.

In the second case there's a reasonable inference that more were guilty than have so far been outed, but when you go from that---to pretending that you have any specific percentages that you can bank on with any assurance---to tossing out inferential innuendo about any specific player or players based on that purely hypothetical percentage---that's where the true "slippery slope" begins. When someone like JC talks about the "steroid era" he's meaning it as a way of deliniating the era when the steroid scandals have taken place, without any innuendo directed against anyone about whom there's no specific knowledge to date. But when others throw out the same phrase in an attempt to blur the distinction between the guilty and the innocent, their use of language is not so disinterested or benign.

And when I read garbage like "how do you know for sure that Ripken didn't juice" in the same posts that say "how do you know for sure that Bonds did?", then you can see what the effects of this sort of high school level sophistry can lead to.

As for Canseco, maybe by his next book he'll name names and dare people to sue him, and we can begin to see how much of what he says is true and how much is libel. At this point only a fool would try to figure that out. People have often stressed to me the need for players to keep a good lawyer on retainer, but I have a feeling that Canseco might wind up needing the best lawyer of them all.

but when you go from that---to pretending that you have any specific percentages that you can bank on with any assurance---to tossing out inferential innuendo about any specific player or players based on that purely hypothetical percentage---that's where the true "slippery slope" begins.

OK. Except I didn't. Unless you're counting that throwaway Griffey comment a couple of weeks ago, which I thought I'd made clear was for illustrative purposes only.

EDIT: So what I'm really trying to get at with you and JC is just how much evidence you need to see before you're comfortable inferring that x% of MLB players used, and how big a number x has to be before you're comfortable using "steroid era" to delineate a period of time when PED use in MLB was rampant. I'll understand if you guys are too busy with the sophists to respond to that.

And meanwhile, of course, this is all being done by people who clawed against suggestions and insinuations that Bonds was using, who disrobed retro for suggesting Ankiel might be on something, and now have NO PROBLEM accusing some 50% of baseball of cheating.

Here's the problem. I'm not ACCUSING some 50% of baseball of cheating. I'm SAYING they probably used these performance-enhancing substances. In my way of thinking, that's not cheating, because the rules against them either didn't exist or weren't being enforced, and in the environment at the time players had to keep up with what was being done by their competition. And saying that somebody "cheated", if this cheating wasn't morally wrong, is not an accusation, just a statement about what's likely to be true.

If there were only 10 players in the majors who had access to stuff that gave them a distinct advantage, I'd have a big problem with that. That's what the media implies with their scapegoating (Palmeiro deserves zero votes for the Hall of Fame!). But everyone had access to these things. I have a bit more respect for the players who refused to do things they saw as unnatural, but I wouldn't lose all respect for any players involved in these scandals.

IE,
the Union flatly refuses to answer that. I asked them that two plus years ago.

but when you go from that---to pretending that you have any specific percentages that you can bank on with any assurance---to tossing out inferential innuendo about any specific player or players based on that purely hypothetical percentage---that's where the true "slippery slope" begins.

OK. Except I didn't. Unless you're counting that throwaway Griffey comment a couple of weeks ago, which I thought I'd made clear was for illustrative purposes only.

I realize this, and I apologize for not making it clear that I wasn't even thinking about you when I wrote that sentence.

EDIT: So what I'm really trying to get at with you and JC is just how much evidence you need to see before you're comfortable inferring that x% of MLB players used, and how big a number x has to be before you're comfortable using "steroid era" to delineate a period of time when PED use in MLB was rampant. I'll understand if you guys are too busy with the sophists to respond to that.

Well, JC already uses that phrase and I don't, but in reality we both know that since this is the only era where many players have been busted for steroids, the use of that term in and of itself, to distinguish it from all other eras, is not all that out of line. What I object to, and I'm sure he does, too, is the use of it as a sort of all-purpose excuse for exonerating specific players whom we know didn't just play in the era, but were directly responsible for the fact that it is often referred to by that term. And even worse is the use of that term to cast innuendo on those players about whom there is no legitmate suspicion at all, other than guilt by era association.

But as to "how much evidence," etc.: That's a tough question, but if it begins to approach 20% to 25% of the leaders in major offensive categories or strikeout categories, that might be cause to raise an eyebrow. Or if that strikes you as too elitist, make it 20% or 25% of all players. And as to what constitutes proof, either confessions, failed drug tests, failure to answer questions under oath, being named by contemporaries who are not afraid of being hauled into court for libel, records from distributors, and the like. IOW the same mixes of proof that's led most of us to believe that Bonds, McGwire, Palmeiro and those scores of no-names have juiced.

At that point or beyond the moral culpability would still be there, but it would have to be seen in a more relativistic light. At that point I would probably become a true cynic just like the rest of the cynics I read here.

But I'd still believe that guilt or innocence should be decided on a case by case basis, and I wouldn't change my standards of evidence. The span of a player's career by itself says nothing about any individual.

IE,
the Union flatly refuses to answer that. I asked them that two plus years ago.

Perhaps you can save that post of mine above so that I won't have to read something like that again two years from now. I'd also be interested to read that thread you're referring to, and the exchange in question, if it's not too much trouble.

IE,
the Union flatly refuses to answer that. I asked them that two plus years ago.

Perhaps you can save that post of mine [#107] above so that I won't have to read something like that again two years from now. I'd also be interested to read that thread you're referring to, and the exchange in question, if it's not too much trouble.

A polite second request to Mr. Dial for such a citation is hereby submitted. I know he's not trying either to bluff us or duck the question.