Posted on 01/28/2015 5:29:35 AM PST by LeoMcNeil
I agree that most of McGuire’s and Sosa’s home runs would have made the seats unaided by drugs. But, during 500 or more official at bats in a season, just 3 or 4% of those 370-390 foot potential fly outs that reached the seats due to the batter being 3-4% stronger (or more) could make the difference between hitting 50 homers and 65 or 70.
Baseball much more than other sports likes to think they preserve comparability over time when it comes to official records.
Nobody cared much about steroids until records were blown away instead of players just getting a little edge over their own competitors.
The dude is a genius, what can I say?
Without the roids, McGuire, Sosa, or Bods would have ever reached 60 in a season. They weren’t that good. And yes, I’ve seen all of them play.
For sure. Which is why we hear a lot more about McGuire-Bonds-Sosa than we do about pitchers like Roger Clemens.
I was in the scrum on Waveland Ave ;-) That was a fun, fun day with a whole lot of drinking going on.
That said though, without the roids Sosa and McGuire weren't all that great. Sosa was a 40 homer a year guy without the juice, and McGuire would have been busted up and broke down without the healing effects.
“Those two in particular either hit it a mile or they struck out, there really wasn’t an in between.”
Sosa wasn’t doing that for the first several years of his career. Suddenly hitting 20-30 more home runs than you ever did before, and you just happen to look like the Hulk all of a sudden? Coincidence?
The drugs work. That’s why professional athletes take them.
“Much like the Michael Sam coming out of the closet story and the “controversy” surrounding the Washington Redskins name, the steroid story is a creation of the sports media.”
“The sports media considers themselves Lord over sports, the gatekeepers of a strange morality created by themselves.”
The sports media doesn’t care about the rampant use in NBA and especially the NFL. Look at the coverage those sports get as compared to MLB. Those sports have the highest % of casual fans, and they don’t care either. All the changes in the rules and officiating support offense, which casual fans tend to find very attractive.
I think most MLB fans do care about PEDS.
Freegards
I agree. I think most sports these days — certainly at the professional level — are little more than full-contact Kabuki.
“Which is why we hear a lot more about McGuire-Bonds-Sosa than we do about pitchers like Roger Clemens.”
Very true, not that we didn’t get a daily dose of Roger Clemens there for a while. Pitching isn’t as exciting as home runs, the records aren’t as iconic, and Clemens bulked up over the course of his career, not over the course of a couple of seasons. Still, 30 lbs of muscle is quite a bit.
Were you any less entertained knowing Sosa was on roids? I know I wasn’t. At the end of the day, baseball is about entertainment. If fans walked away from Wrigley entertained, what difference does it make if Sosa or anyone else was on roids? It’s still a legitimate game, the outcome isn’t pre-determined. Lord knows if it was the Cubs wouldn’t have lost so much.
“Heck, these days baseball is trying to figure out how to create more offense because ultimately offense is what gets fans in the stadium.”
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Doing something to prevent 4 hour games would help too.
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I don’t think baseball fans gave two hoots about steroids. I was a Cubs fan back then (they’re still my NL team) and once or twice a year we’d head to Chicago for a game. Everyone knew Sosa was on the roids, everyone knew McGuire was on them too. No one cared.
In fact, no one cared until records really started tumbling. It’s just a little disingenuous to not care about roids until a couple of “precious” home run records get toppled. Even then, most MLB fans didn’t care and to this day a majority couldn’t care less. Majorities want to see McGuire in the Hall of Fame, it’s the media that’s keeping him, Bonds and Clemons out.
I am not sure how (or if) we address these “problems” in baseball and other sports. Players are now bigger, stronger, faster and better than they were in the “olden days,” even without PEDs. Equipment is better, too. This is true in all sports. Pole vaulters went from what, bamboo poles, to fiberglass and now to some sort of composite material. The surface on which they run has been improved. The shoes they wear are better, etc. etc. The advances in golf technology are too obvious to mention.
Given these advances, must we put an asterisk after every broken record? Perhaps we should draw the line at PEDs. But what of vitamin supplements, and God forbid, Gatorade? It is an issue of line drawing. I suspect the lines will be erased eventually.
And in the great scheme of things, does it matter? You go to the movies, and the guy gets the girl (or the guy gets the guy, etc.) or he does not. You go to the game and the home team wins or it loses. You go home and about your business.
I disagree. So there. Baseball is a business, it’s not going to cater only to the media about PEDS. If a majority of actual fans wanted legal PEDS they would give them legal PEDS. So why haven’t they? Fear of what the media will say? Ratings, merch, and butts in seats are what matters, right?
Good luck with your Cubs, best Cubs team in a while.
Freegards
I’ve always found the complaints about length of games annoying. Everyone knows what they’re getting into when they go to a baseball game. It could be over in 2.5 hours, it could take 4 hours. Even longer if it goes into extra innings. I don’t think length of games is keeping people away, attendance is still very high. In fact, in the last 40 years attendance has gone way up even as time of game has gone up. If you look at attendance figures in the early 70’s no team was drawing over 1 million fans a season. These days there really aren’t any teams drawing less than 1.5 million. So I’m not sure that length of game is really turning fans off.
I think fans in the NFL would like to see quarterbacks hit more and would like to see defensive players not fined or suspended for hits to the head. The NFL doesn’t listen to fans or players, they’re scared to death of the media though.
The Cubs ought to be decent this year. The Tigers are my AL team, I’m from Michigan so they’re really my #1 team. We could have a Tigers-Cubs World Series.
There is not an issue of SI that doesn't feature some story or angle on the gay-lesbian-transgender theme, and almost every article in every issue finds some way to positively mention obama. I had to stop reading it.
Here in Italy, the cyclists ride as if they own the road, much to the frustration of drivers. I'm surprised there are not a lot more accidents.
Belichick learned from his Cleveland fiasco. And I wonder how long Brady would have languished on the bench if Drew Bledsoe had not gotten injured.
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