This is getting far more attention than it deserves (I am watching CNN while working), but here is the report. Expect a few days/weeks of blatant hypocrisy from sports announcers, commentators, fans, and owners, when everyone on the damned planet knew this crap has been going on forever. In fact, the same people bemoaning the ‘cheating’ are the ones who looked the other way when the home run was allegedly saving baseball in the mid t0 late 90’s. Steroid use was, at the time, deemed to be good for baseball, use was rampant and widespread, and owners, the league and players knew it, fans and announcers knew it (have any of you seen Sammy Sosa’s head?), and now we are going to have to listen to sanctimonious jerks pretend they never knew there was gambling going on. As annoying as the fans and announcers will be, the position of the owners and MLB will be even more irritating, as they ACTIVELY worked against ending steroid use. Their inaction was a clear green light to people who already would sacrifice everything for just a little more zip on their fastball and a little more power in their swing and a little more pep in their stride.
Imagine if, in ten years, the GOP and the media decide to get outraged about intelligence being finessed before the Iraq war, they launch an investigation, and then get shocked when they see what they find. That is the level of stupid this baseball steroid report is right now.
grumpy realist
“I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling going on here!”
Dennis - SGMM
“It (baseball) is a haunted game in which every player is measured against the ghosts of all who have gone before.”- Ken Burns in Baseball (1989)
So, now what? If every pre-steroids player and every post-steroids player is measured against the juicers then it seems that the measurement is dead.
So steroid use was good? How about corked bats or aluminum ones? Let’s not let the pitching lag behind. Every pitcher should be able to grease the ball with Vaseline as he sees fit.
In “saving” itself baseball moved ever closer to the WWE.
John Cole
Actually, I bet you would find that far more pitchers than any other position used steroids. not completely sure, but i am willing to bet that would be the case. What happens to the human arm when throwing 95 mile an hour fastballs for 8 innings twice a week 6 months of the year is unnatural, and the ability to recover faster would be unavoidable for many.
Incertus (Brian)
I couldn’t be happier about the names that came out in the report. About the only way it could be better is if Derek Jeter and Kurt Schilling got busted as well, but I’ll be satisfied with Roger Clemens, since he’s the pitcher whose been as dominant as Bonds was a hitter for all these years. Funny, though, that while Bonds was cranking all those homers at an advanced age and was accused nonstop of being a steroid user, no one even thought that Clemens was using something to maintain a 90+ mph fastball into his 40s. Hmmmm.
Gus
Actually, I’ve been hearing Clemens steroid rumors ever since steroid use became a big story in baseball. The names mentioned in the report are interesting. There are some huge stars there, but a lot of scrubs, too. Lots of guys hoping to hang on to their careers after major injuries. Personally, I didn’t really think about steroids in the late ’90s. I was naive, I’ll admit, but I didn’t know all that much about them then. On the other hand, I wasn’t among the “home run ball saving baseball” crowd. I’d rather see a multi-hit rally deciding a 2-1 ball game. Homers are a lot less interesting than pretty much any other aspect of the game.
incontrolados
I’m not excusing anyone, but maybe the reason no one ever thought that about Clemens is because Nolan Ryan had done much the same thing already.
As an aside — I’ve always thought that had Doc Goodin stayed clean and healthy, he would have been able to do the same thing — pitch into his 40’s that is.
But I cannot express the glee I felt when Clemens and Pettitte’s name came up. (Life long ‘stros fan here –if it’s not obvious)
incontrolados
Same here. Best game I ever saw in my entire life was a Ryan no hitter. There is nothing like it.
Dennis - SGMM
I want an autographed Roger Clemens Official American League Syringe.
Mark S.
Yeah, there are going to be plenty of sanctimoniousness, but there will also be some equally annoying contrarian articles (undoubtedly at Slate) talking about how this is no big deal because players in the 60’s and 70’s used greenies.
Peter
I think you’re greatly overstating the average fan’s awareness of steroids in baseball. I know a good number who were honestly shocked to hear how widespread it was, and a bigger number who are currently denying that the list is accurate or relevant.
Sam Hutcheson
Shorter Mitchell Report: Steroids don’t make much difference.
Ian
What sickens me is how journalists, bloggers, and baseball businesspeople love to throw in this “We are all to blame” line, which is crap on a stick. The fans are not to blame. MLB and the Players Association refused to get serious about testing, so we had no way of knowing who was using. And we watched because we love the game. I’m a fan, and I always supported tough testing and strong penalties. But I also rooted for my team, and impatiently awaited the day when the powers that be would get serious about the problem and stand up for the honest players left. Hopefully that day is here.
4tehlulz
What did Steinbrenner know, and when did he know it?
4tehlulz
Handy list of players here.
Incertus (Brian)
Actually, use of greenies or other amphetamines continues today. There wasn’t a test for it in MLB until they started the steroids testing, and players still get busted–I believe the only thing Bonds has officially been busted for is amphetamine use.
And personally, I think the difference is one of style, not type. The intent is the same–improve your performance. Whether the effect is negligible or tremendous doesn’t change the intent any, as far as I’m concerned.
bob
All a bunch of piffle. If you want to compare players from different eras, you look at the league average in whatever category during the player’s career. What is his deviation plus or minus from the mean and median. Compare these deviations with other players as measured in their own careers. This equalizes for the changes from era to era. That being said, Barry Bonds is the best fucking all around position player I have ever seen, going back to 1960 (first game Phillies/Reds.)I’ve been to many games, both National League and American League. I’ve been to the World Series. I’ve been to the All-Star game. I’m not the most knowledgeable, nor the most fervent fan, but I know some and I’ve been a fan all my life. Steroids, schmeroids, Bonds was INTENTIONALLY walked every 3rd time he came to the plate. Imagine if they pitched to him like they did to Sosa or McGuire or Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez. Shit, NOBODY would be catching the 80 or so homers he would have hit between 2000 and 2005. Measure him against his era. He wasn’t the only one on steroids at the time, but he was head and shoulders better than anyone else in baseball, including all the other roid rangers.
Davis X. Machina
Clemens’ last year with the Sox was rife with speculation about ‘roids, including his expulsion from the last game of the 1990 ACLS, which has ‘roid rage tattoed all over it. The 2000 Series, too.
No surprises there….
Rex
Radley Balko nailed it with a post at The Agitator yesterday that asked if it weren’t somehow more problematic how many cops were using steroids. I am far less concerned about Andy Petitte and Roger Clemens kicking in my door while juiced up on some designer enhancement drug than some cowboy cop out to make a name for himself.
The Other Steroids Problem
bob
No shit Rex
MNPundit
Sorry, baseball is the most perfect expression of the meaning of life every devised, it validates my belief in the supernatural by existing–it’s like one of Plato’s forms come to earth without being distorted.
So yes this is a big. fucking. issue.
Deal.
MBunge
“Barry Bonds is the best fucking all around position player I have ever seen, going back to 1960 (first game Phillies/Reds.)I’ve been to many games, both National League and American League. I’ve been to the World Series. I’ve been to the All-Star game. I’m not the most knowledgeable, nor the most fervent fan, but I know some and I’ve been a fan all my life. Steroids, schmeroids, Bonds was INTENTIONALLY walked every 3rd time he came to the plate. Imagine if they pitched to him like they did to Sosa or McGuire or Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez. Shit, NOBODY would be catching the 80 or so homers he would have hit between 2000 and 2005. Measure him against his era. He wasn’t the only one on steroids at the time, but he was head and shoulders better than anyone else in baseball, including all the other roid rangers.”
But in Bonds case, we have the weird situation of a great player suddenly becoming a far better home run hitter than he ever was before, years past the point when just about every other player in history saw their HR hitting ability decline. If Bonds doesn’t juice, he can’t hit those homeruns…which completely changes the way pitchers can throw to him.
Mike
Sirkowski
This is why I don’t watch pro-sports anymore.
D-Chance.
One difference. You still don’t have the dozens of guys in baseball dropping dead before age 45 like you do in pro-wrestling.
Incertus (Brian)
This is why I don’t watch pro-sports anymore.
If you think college sports is significantly cleaner, you’re being naive.
Sirkowski
I’ve never watched college sports, so I wouldn’t know (nor would care).
Keith
I’m envisioning something about the size of one of those marinade syringes for injecting turkeys
Peter Johnson
What’s disgraceful is that the government let this fester for as long as they did. Congress should have stepped in here a long time ago. Both parties are at fault, I’m afraid, for letting this atrocity bloom and grow.
Wilfred
Baseball has been deteriorating ever since they a)lowered the mound, and b)took the high strike away from pitchers. Raise the mound back to where it was and call strikes through the letters and 50% of steroid driven home runs will go back to the pop ups they used to be.
D-Chance.
John Cole wrote:
Selective memory is a requirement for sports reporting and commentary. The same experts who were, in the 2006 NFL draft, proclaiming Reggie Bush to be a “once in a generation” pick, a “can’t miss #1 overall”, a “no-brainer and anyone who didn’t pick him first would be making the worst mistake of their franchise’s history”… well, they were the same experts on ESPN just this past week asking, “gosh, maybe Bush was overrated… a bust… not ready for the NFL… wasn’t it obvious to everyone”?
So, yeah, expect the sports guys to develop a 48 hour case of Outrage Syndrome and ignore their own words from 10-15 years earlier. Nothing new under the sporting sun.
LiberalTarian
I was talking to a toxicologist the other day who said you can’t really take this whole thing very seriously. Recall in the pre-controlled substances act of 1970 all sorts of shit was OTC and perfectly legal. He says the idea that the players of yesteryear were so much more noble is a fantasy we enjoy but it doesn’t have much basis in truth. Oh well, so what.
Michael D.
Put “Steroids in Sports” on the list of things I couldn’t give a shit about. If they want to screw up their own bodies, I don’t care.
My only caveat is this: If they end up having to be treated for liver cancer or any of the hundreds of ailments this causes, then they should have to pay out of pocket for the treatment. There should be a stipulation on that in their insurance policy.
I also think this is a good idea for:
– Smokers
– People who screw themselves up in drunk driving wrecks
– People who drive motorcycles without helmets
– People who don’t wear seatbelts
– Etc.
Taxpayers and people who buy insurance shouldn’t have to be burdened with the costs of stupidity. BTW, that’s probably a HUGE portion of the cost of health insurance in this country.
My favorite saying:
“It’s not that I think stupidity should be punishable by death. I just think we should take the warning labels off of everything and let the problem take care of itself.”
kc
Imagine if, in ten years, the GOP and the media decide to get outraged about intelligence being finessed before the Iraq war
It’d be like waiting 15 years after we twiddled our thumbs while Saddam gassed his own people, and then whipping up public outrage over how Saddam GASSED HIS OWN PEOPLE.
Tom in Texas
Well, they are playing a contact sport. There’s an elevated risk of injury or long term damage inherent in the sport. Why should we pay for an ex-boxer’s mental health issues? Or Trent Green’s MRI’s?
spanielboy
Take a walk down memory lane, via Balloon Juice, with these stories about one of those persons on the report’s list –
https://www.balloon-juice.com/index.php?s=Palmeiro
I had searched the history of this blog to find where POTUS Bush defended Palmeiro because he was Georgie’s friend, and no one who is friends with George ever did drugs!
gogiggs
“What’s disgraceful is that the government let this fester for as long as they did. Congress should have stepped in here a long time ago. ”
Why should Congress have stepped in? In what possible way is this a concern for Congress? You know I hear there’s a lot of illegal drug use in the recording and movie industries, should Congress get into that, too? Why baseball and not football?
I understand that the media have a lot of air-time to fill and a desperate need for content, so I get why they pretend to care about this issue. What I don’t get is why anybody else does.
jcricket
I was with you until the last sentence, which is just false. The biggest causes of runaway health insurance spending are:
1) End-of-life and premature-baby care. We’ve moved the “boundaries” of life quite far (in each case) at an enormous cost. Those are both areas with a lot of gray and I’m not going to argue we can 100% eliminate it, but some rationing makes sense.
2) Caring for people that put off taking care of problems due to sporadic or poor health insurance. You decrease the cost of preventative care, make it more attractive to people, and the ultimate costs in health insurance go down.
3) we’re all paying for the uninsured through taxes and increased costs spread inefficiently elsewhere through the system.
4) Unnecessary tests due to “defensive/malpractice driven” medicine (or just pay-for-productivity medicine)
5) Unnecessary & over prescription, especially of me-too drugs that could be replaced with generics.
6) Overhead levels in private insurance that are 10x what Medicare and the VA achieve.
So yes, there is a portion of healthcare spending that represents people who get diseases/illnesses through reasonably preventable activities (smoking, being massively obese), but far less of this is a factor when compared to the 6 items I listed above.
I spent a fair bit of time working in the medical research arena (including big public health studies) Michael, so please don’t perpetuate this myth.
bob
mbunge, bonds was hitting over 40 hr/yr before steroids and was being walked a lot. Besides, I don’t give a fuck if he “got better” late in his career. Hank Aaron hit 47 homers at 37. It was his best year. Two years later he hit 40. Bonds hit 73. At 37. His best year. Two years later he hit 45. Both had power dropoffs after 40, steroids or no. So yes, I repeat, Barry Bonds is without question the best position player I have ever seen, and I have seen live all the good players in both leagues at least once since 1969. I include Aaron, Mays, Rodriguez, Henderson (possibly the second best) Schmidt, and so on. Pitch to Bonds in 2002,3,4 and I guarantee he has 20 more homers per year. Really, he’s the best ever. Steroids or no. Besides, why pick on him, he’s not the only fucking one.
jcricket
Just another example :-)
bob
Babe Ruth could buy cocaine over the counter. Darryl Strawberry was hounded from baseball for doing what Ruth could do anytime he wanted. I say we need to give cocaine to ballplayers to equalize the advantage that Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Walter Johnson and all the other great players of the teens and twenties had. Oh and no negroes.
jcricket
Ah the good ol’ days. Brings back memories… I was wearing an onion on my lapel, as was the style at the time.
jo6pac
I’m sure I’m suppose to care about this but I don’t. It’s seems to me there are a few other things that might be more important, but that’s just me I’m sure.
I hope Barry goes free.
jo6pac
Doubting Thomas
Ahhh, Ayn Rand would be proud! Jesus would think you suck, however.
Emma Anne
Yeah, what Ian says. I have wanted steroids out of baseball ever since I found out about them, but what was I supposed to do about it?
And who else isn’t surprised to see John Rocker on that list?
Robert Johnston
The analysis being offered of this “report” sucks ass.
The number one point that almost everyone seems to be ignoring:
1) There’s no way in hell that the Players Union allows for any unilateral punishment based on this report that goes beyond the scope of the collective bargaining agreement.
Selig isn’t going to suspend any active players. He isn’t going to fine anyone. He might pass out a dirty look or two, he might be able to negotiate suspensions with players who think a show of contrition will be paid back in endorsement money, and he might just be able to get away with vacuously suspending players already retired, but nothing more than that is ever, ever going to happen. Bud knows it. The players know it. The press sure as hell should know it, at least if they’ve ever covered MLB labor relations. Labor relations are going through a period of unusual kindliness and stability, the owners and players are making vast sums of money, and they’d all literally put a bullet between Selig’s eyes before allowing him to take a move that would practically force the union to strike.
This report has already achieved its one and only purpose: forestalling Congressional investigation. Anyone expecting more than that out of it just hasn’t been paying attention.
HyperIon
I’m siding with Jesus on this one.
I get really tired of libertarians ranting about how THEY have to pay money for bad choices by others. Life is NOT fair. Seldom do most folks get “what they deserve”. Get over it. (And be relieved that YOU are not always held accountable either.)
bob
Ayn Rand was addicted to amphetamines, alcohol and nicotine. Who paid HER medical bills? Her dumbass disciples, I guess.
Pug
I’m envisioning something about the size of one of those marinade syringes for injecting turkeys
Speaking of which, I bet that turkey you had for Thanksgiving was also on steroids. Mine too.
Stand back, Bob Costas has the vapors. George Will is going to faint dead away. It’s all so terrible for the “purists”.
Why, they had no idea. None of us knew.
jcricket
Probably the same government she railed against, just like Rudy being treated by government-run healthcare.
Also of interest, something like 70% of all cancers are either environmental or genetically related (and environment doesn’t mean smoking, it means exposure to toxins, etc.).
Yes, there are dumbasses, and outside of health insurance, they get punished for the most part. But focusing on a few anecdotes misses the bigger picture (as usual) and more importantly get the facts, trends and explanations wrong. But that’s par for the course with any Libertarian critique/comment about healthcare.
ImJohnGalt
That’s only because his head and shoulders were artificially enlarged.
Robert Johnston
No, not really. Bonds was probably the best position player since Willie Mays even before steroids were in the picture. Steroids just helped nudge him over the line to best since Babe Ruth.
myiq2xu
I guess the record books will have to add some more asterisks.
Robert Johnston
Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes to deliberately injure opposing players and was a raging lunatic racist who gambled extensively and almost certainly threw a few games in his day. If he doesn’t get an asterisk, no one does, and I don’t think there’s a steroid moralizer out there who’s been campaigning to put an asterisk next to .366
Chuck Butcher
If we will just insist on making games something more than games and rewarding participation in games so hugely we will have people looking for an edge. When its real real important people start looking for an edge.
I drag race, there are classes I have to stay away from because money buys what it takes. It becomes reasonable to spend 10x the value of my entire car to put another 10 HP to the track. Its silly but true, so there are people who will do what it takes for multi million dollar per year contract and also to just hang on to a bench position because there’s a mortgage and kids.
We do this with college athletics all the way to pro stadiums on the public nickle and we’re surprised?
Anne Laurie
Taxpayers and people who buy insurance shouldn’t have to be burdened with the costs of stupidity. BTW, that’s probably a HUGE portion of the cost of health insurance in this country.
Michael, there are a lot of people who said that about people with AIDS. After all, being “queer” is just another stupid lifestyle choice, right?
Most of these “Not MY Problem” dillweeds finally shut up after Magic Johnson publicly admitted he was HIV-positive (do you remember the tee-shirt “Always use a condom, no matter how Magic you think your Johnson is”?) But the hardcore Talibangelicals, like Republican presidential candidate Huckabee, still think of people like Andrew Sullivan as “plague carriers” who should be put into camps.
But to get back to the Giant Baseball Scandal: It’s not a coincidence that Warren Harding and Shoeless Joe Jackson were contemporaries, and it’s not a coincidence that Dubya Bush and Barry Bonds are the meaner, more “gifted” modern equivalents. As the Wiccans say, “As above, so below.”
4tehlulz
Nevermind Pete Rose; probably 70% of the writers who go apeshit over Bonds think Pete is getting a raw deal.
I’d rather have Barry Bonds trying to hit better than someone who was beholden to gambling interests, personally.
Robert Johnston
As a general rule agreed, although Rose is a special case: I can’t get that worked up over people downplaying his gambling because people so vastly overrate him even before taking his gambling into account that I never even get that far when discussing Rose’s merits.
If we had a Hall of Playing a Really Long Time as a Slap Hitter with Moderate Plate Discipline and No Power Who Created a Net Vast Number of Outs on the Bases with the Shittiest Baserunning in the History of the Game Misinterpretted as “Hustle,” Thereby Accumulating Lots of Singles and Modest Value, then you might be able to reach the argument that Rose is getting a raw deal because of his gambling attachments.
As it is, we have a Hall of Fame in baseball. It’s supposed to include the best of the best. From 1968-76 Rose played like a Hall of Famer, but hardly an inner circle Hall of Famer. The rest of his other 16 seasons in the league he ranged from no better than good to downright horrible. As a baserunner Charlie Hustle was Jorge Posada with a bit more speed and vastly worse judgment, and Jorge’s judgment is, in the eyes of this Yankees fan, already comically bad on the bases. Rose is a marginal Hall of Famer without the gambling, and if there’s one thing the Hall of fame doesn’t need it’s more marginal Hall of Famers.
bob
Robert Johnson, you are a man after my own heart. And with a hellhound on your trail the whole time! I have great difficulty deciding who is more overrated, Pete Rose or Reggie Jackson. Like Rose, Jackson played like a hall of famer until he hurt his knee (people forget the A’s won the 1972 World Series without him) from then on he was mostly a DH. You described Rose to a T. I hated him from the first moment I saw him run out a walk. Charlie Hustle. Charlie Horseshit.
bob
And Nolan Ryan is to pitching as Pete Rose is to hitting.
dave
Amen bob!!!
I cannot begin to describe how sick I am of the average baseball fan’s worship of mediocre white guys for their “hustle,” “heart,” and “grit” to the exclusion of vastly more talented athletes of a slightly “darker” hue (If you catch my drift).