http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3890785

Not good for baseball, imo.

no one cares anymore, imo.

we know they were all roided up.

Who cares. Baseball has become a joke this decade.

So do we go with A-Fraud? A-Roid? or Gay-Roid? Decisions decisions...

I don't follow baseball, but wasn't A-Rod suppose to be the "savior". He'd break the home-run record without using any substances to enhance his performance. He'd save baseball! I'm sure I heard that on ESPN numerous times.

Even Bud Selig took steroids.

some people felt that way. i used too. but time has proven that almost every single player was using. i'm over it personally. i still love baseball. always will.

ESPN kissing the ass of an Yankee?????

blasphemy

No but that rat pelt on his head did.

You listened to ESPN on the subject of baseball. That's where you went wrong. ESPN is alright for football and basketball..both college and pro. They are absolutely god-awful when it comes to baseball. Get your baseball info from the internet. Stay away from TV. They know nothing.

You know what, I don't care. I'd guess a fair amount of these guys took something. I have no doubts. But at the same time, the pitchers were taking them as well.

The last generation of players took greenies and reds, or Uppers and Downers. That's a fact. I have inside the clubhouse knowledge of this.

In the 70's and even a tad before, football players were taking roid's Who's to say the baseball players weren't back then? Nobody?

You know why people take that stuff? Money for one, but to keep up also. I just don't care, and I think the guys with the juiced up stats still belong in the Hall. For one, they belong because it's supposed to be a place for baseball history, and like it or not, it's a part of baseball's past, present and future, second, plenty of old timers did some shady stuff. It's just sign of the times. Ty Cobb pushed a black dude down a set of stairs for being black and either killed him or nearly killed him. He's in the Hall. It's just the 24 hour news cycle in the hypocrisy of it all. You think Mickey Mantle and Billy Martin would've survived 5 minutes in this gotcha journalism society? Hell no.

Bottom line, I just don't care.

Or Babe Ruth...I agree with everything you said.

steroids go way further back than any of us probably even would think. I had a friend who played minor league ball in the mid 80's with the angels. Back in the days of Wally Joyner and Dave Parker. He only played in the bigs when they use to have the freeway challenge between the dodgers. But he told me roids were a huge thing used back then too. He said you would be so surprised of guys who used roids. He said he has used it before also. Later on, about 5-7 years ago, when we were playing in an adult baseball league he took roids for one cycle and just lifted like a beast for about a month. It was truely amazing how strong he got. From barely being warning track power guy he was going yard pretty regularly.

For a-rod I am sad to hear that he did use but at the same time unlike so many other guys who have said they used, Arods numbers haven't slipped. Whether that makes it okay or not I don't think so but just saying.

/THREAD

I'm actually thrilled

all the idiots in the media who crucified Bonds and said thank god the real savior A Rod is here to set things right!

In the face!

Of course no one cares that all of football is roided up and that these guys are all essentially trading 10-20 years of their lives so people can sit in their living room and enjoy them killing each other

Agreed, it's 'Gay-Roid' and it's not close.




fyp

He just confirmed to Peter Gammons on ESPN that he did take performance-enhancing drugs during his time in Texas.

He didn't say exactly what he took.

Yep.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3894847

I actually like ARod more now after watching that interview, than I have since he left Seattle. He was more honest and open about his Steroid use, and the motivations for taking it, than any active player has been since this whole steroid thing started. I hope ARod is the catalyst for people waking the fck up about baseball and sports in general. Great athletes who achieve the height of their sport, who don't take performance enhancing drugs, are the exception not the rule at this point, people need to wake up and stop living in a dream world.

Do you believe him when he says that he's been clean since he's been to NY?

Am I ignorant if I do?

i totally agree. i am so happy he handled it this way.

Um, well, since he's been in New York, they've had open testing, so I can completely believe it.

For things they can test for anyways......

I don't think they test for estrogen.

They should test for estrogen. No baseball player should have as nice of tits as A-Rod:

I bet A-Rod is thinking of Derek and not Biff rubbing down those tittas

his interview with Gammons seemed very scripted to me

"what's the truth?"

"well in 2001 i was under a lot of pressure blah blah blah..."

how bout an answer like "the truth is i took this stuff that made me a better athlete".

and when Gammons asked where he got the stuff, his answers were about it was the culture of the time and lots of people were doing lots of stuff. now i don't expect him to say "well my personal trainer Joe Smith gave me this stuff and shot into my ass whenever i asked him to", but he definitely dodged the question. he could have said some guy in the clubhouse gave it to him, a trainer or teammate that he doesn't want to name or whatever.

gayroid, like all the other people who got caught, is only sorry for actually getting caught. not for doing anything "wrong".

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?...;name=Neyer_Rob

that article sums up my feelings nicely.

I actually feel good about A-Rod having taken steroids. I used to feel kinda bad for how poorly he was treated by opposing fans....and his own fans....and the NY media and what not. I mean they really went after him.

Now, I find out he kind of deserved some bad karma. He still gets to keep all the money. And I dont have to feel bad that he gets shit on all the time anymore.

Remember when Jose Canseco put out his first book, and everyone called him crazy, and then he ended up being right. Then, he came out with that second book, and named ARod and everyone was like.. "Okay, enough is enough, Jose.. you can't make claims like that.. you have no proof. And ZAP, he was right again. People need to start recognizing.

the real bummer is the guys who toiled in the minors for years trying to make it, did it clean, but never made it to the bigs. or the fringe guy, had potential but could never quite get to the next level from mediocre to good/all star range, but played clean for all those years. if those guys had used enhancements, then maybe they'd be the guy getting huge paychecks and endorsement deals etc etc. but they did the right thing and now they'll never know if they could have been better than the guy next to them if everything had been on a level playing field.

Interesting story in this regard. Will Clark and Rafael Plameiro were coming up as first basemen in the Texas system at about the same time. Clark was the power hitter who scouts saw as a potential 500 homerun guy. Palmeiro was considered by scouts to be a singles or doubles hitter at best. Clark went on to have a nice career, but had some injuries and never reached the potential that many scouts thought he had as a potential hall of famer or 500 homer guy. Palmeiro of course went on to juice up and hit 500+ homers and would have gotten in the hall of fame if he hadn't tested positive.

This sad story sums up the entire era in my opinion.

Pete Rose's ban should be lifted. That is all.

totally different and irrelevant.

agreed.

here's a pretty good article though, points out how many record holders/potential record holders probably won't make it to the hall of fame. pretty sad really

http://espn.go.com/espn/columnists/archive...me/jayson-stark

Not really. These guys that have used steroids have cheated. The worst thing that will happen to them is not being inducted into the HoF. While Pete Rose, who did bet on baseball is banned for life. These guys should be banned is what I'm trying to say.

gambling on the game is far worse than steriods. far worse.

Um no. They cheated and were paid for it. They enhanced themselves and took away much more from the game that Rose ever did.

I like Arod but I don't see how his interview makes him a better person or one to get any sympathy. His reasons for taking roids is ridiculous to me. I am supposed to feel sympathy for him because he got paid a ton of money and had the pressure's to perform? Who asked for that money? He did. It's not like he was sitting there and got a call one day and they said, hey we will pay you a shit ton of cash to play. He had his agent get him that figure. Don't ask for it if you can't handle it imo. Regardless, who cares, it's the leagues fault for knowing all this stuff has been going on and pretending it didn't exist.

Not to disregard the point of your story, but Will Clark was drafted by that loser organization in Sf in '85 and debuted with them in '86. In '94 he signed with the Rangers as a FA. Raffy was drafted by the Cubs in '85, debuted in '86 with them, and was traded to the Rangers in '88. They both came up at the same time, but in two different organizations; in fact, they never even played in Texas together.

Side note: Will Clark is a pos racist according to some, and did not like playing second fiddle to Bonds after he arrived in '93 at all (or Kevin Mitchell prior), one reason why he left SF after that season. Then again, that could be a 'Bonds is a prick' thing, not a race thing.

Then you better toss Gaylord perry out of the hall of fame, along with all the guys in the 50's and 60's who popped amphetamines before the game.

I mean that's the thing the league has always turned a blind eye towards using drugs/enhancers, they have never taken responsibility for this. They always looked the other way when it comes to this. And not just baseball either.

I loved Will Clark when I was a little kid (we had no team in FLA so I rooted for the Giants). He had a great career.....but yeah by all accounts he is a redneck jerk who spent all his offseason time hunting instead of working on his game....so he never improved. He was the same guy in 86 as he was in 94.

Will Clark was all-world coming out of college....pretty sure he won the golden spikes award.

gaylord perry is my go-to-guy for arguing why steroids is not THAT big a deal. he wrote a detailed book about all the ways he cheated. but it was the kind of cheating that baseball embraces (like stealing signals....hello 1951 Giants) whereas they look upon performance enhances with utter disdain. it is a weird dichotomy.

gambling strikes at the very heart of sport. if you question whether the player or manager really wants to win becuase of betting then you've lost the very thing that makes sports what they are. all sports rest on the fundamental assumption that every team and every player on each team is doing everything they can to win. gambling destroys that. steroids are because of that. completely different. and if you dont understand, well then, you dont understand sports, i would say.

in fairness, they could only ever prove that Pete Rose bet on his teams to WIN.....which means he had more incentive than anyone to get them to win. so the integrity of the contest argument is not really that valid here.

Pete Rose should be in the Hall. If a disgusting, horrible ass like Ty Cobb got in then a guy with a gambling problem should get in to. And then there is a guy like Mickey Mantle who everyone loves and remembers fondly. His behavior today would have resulted in 19 outside the lines specials, 4 highly publicized trips to Betty Ford, and at least 3 tear-filled interviews with Peter Gammons where he apologized for his drinking and his lechery.

but it puts the question into your mind. why did he take that guy out and put that guy in? to win? or to lose? if the answer is not uquestionalby to win, then we have a serious problem. and his gambling was that serious problem. cannot be allowed in any form.

and i dont believe for a second that he always bet for the reds to win.

well pete rose says the truth is he only bet on his team to win. if that's true then he really didn't do anything to cheat those games in which he wagered on. but the words "truth" and "pete rose" don't exactly go together, so believing anything he says is an exercise in futility.

same for aroid now...the "truth" is he took enhancements, but we're supposed to believe that he didn't know what those enhancements were for 3 years while he was taking them? he also said the time frame of 2001-2003 was "pretty accurate". what does that mean?

So performing enhancing drugs is not destroying the game?
lol

Did he bet on them to win every single game? Or were some games more important to him than others?