Rodriguez Ban

[Ian]

I support it. Even though its a bit biased coming from a life long Sox fan I am more importantly a fan of baseball. This guy sucks at all different levels. If he had done what he has done on any other team I would be just as supportive of a ban.

He took PEDs for years and got away with that because of Union bargaining... giving him a clean slate. He could have stopped then. Then he gets caught and says he did it but not anymore... could have stopped then... Then he gets caught RED HANDED by the MLB and comes out and publicly states he will fight any charges...

I say good bye and good riddance... And as a Sox fan I should support a season long ban, because it would force the Yanks to pay him for the rest of his contract. If Pete Rose gets banned for life for betting on a game, this crock of sheet did much worse and deserves the same.

[paradoxjim]

I'm a lifelong Yankee fan, but I agree with Ian - ARod is bad news thru and thru and should be booted from baseball. I'm disgusted that he's a Yankee and he's cheated and lied repeatedly to get the salary that he has. I don't want my kid looking up to that POS!

But, Ian, you have to get your facts straight. You might be careful what you wish for with the season long/lifetime ban. the following is taken from ESPN:

"If Rodriguez is suspended for all of next season, the Yankees would not have to pay the embattled slugger's $25 million salary for 2014. The unpaid money would not count against the luxury tax and revenue sharing"

[Ian]

I know they won't have to pay him for next season, but they still have him under contract for years after that. If he gets banned for a season/season and a half, they still have to pay him on the back end for the rest of his contract (assuming he doesn't get that voided.) If they ban him for life, the yankees can move on...

I just want him gone.

[Raider Ronnie]

Baseball is a joke !
Every last one of them are on something illegal.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

Baseball is a joke !
Every last one of them are on something illegal.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I don't think thats the case... at least there is no material evidence to support that claim. Unlike the overwhelming material evidence to support the claim that A-Rod (and others) were/are on something illegal...

[Raider Ronnie]

Bull.
A big % took them.
Owners looked the other way as did MLB powers to be.
It's all about $$$
If steroids was hurting the game you could bet your ass they would have done things much different.
But you got guys like Sosa & McGwire - a-Hole and hundreds in between hitting home runs at a record pace it was good for business $$$
Baseball is a joke.
I will say this.
I never liked him much when he was with the Sox but looking back (assuming he never juiced also )
What Pedro Martinez did while with the Red Sox and every guy he faced was juicing, best pitcher of my lifetime hands down !

Originally Posted by Ian

I don't think thats the case... at least there is no material evidence to support that claim. Unlike the overwhelming material evidence to support the claim that A-Rod (and others) were/are on something illegal...

Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

Bull.
A big % took them.
Owners looked the other way as did MLB powers to be.
It's all about $$$
If steroids was hurting the game you could bet your ass they would have done things much different.
But you got guys like Sosa & McGwire - a-Hole and hundreds in between hitting home runs at a record pace it was good for business $$$
Baseball is a joke.
I will say this.
I never liked him much when he was with the Sox but looking back (assuming he never juiced also )
What Pedro Martinez did while with the Red Sox and every guy he faced was juicing, best pitcher of my lifetime hands down !





Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I don't want to completely derail the thread from good ol Alex-bashing. Pedro was a wizard... I forget how much of an impact his years with the Sox had on my current love affair with baseball. That guy (along with Nomah) deserved a ring. I used to listen to EVERY baseball game on the radio as a kid because of those guys (I am a young'n.) Although a lot of the big names of that era were dragged through the mud, I still love the sport and support the ongoing effort to clean it up.

[Saltheart]

Ban A-rod forever. !!

[The Dad Fisherman]

Don't want him banned....l want the Yankees to pay him the money they owe him. He gets banned and they are off the hook for something to the tune of 80+ mil. Why should they get a "Get out of crap contract free" card, While other teams don't get that option. Suspend him like everybody else caught using PED's.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[fishbones]

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

Don't want him banned....l want the Yankees to pay him the money they owe him. He gets banned and they are off the hook for something to the tune of 80+ mil. Why should they get a "Get out of crap contract free" card, While other teams don't get that option. Suspend him like everybody else caught using PED's.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I think he has 4 years left on his contract. If he gets suspended through 2014, he still has 3 years left and the Yankees will be on the hook for it. That's a lot of money for an over the hill player who hasn't played in 2 years and who's skills were diminishing even before the injuries and suspension.

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by fishbones

I think he has 4 years left on his contract. If he gets suspended through 2014, he still has 3 years left and the Yankees will be on the hook for it. That's a lot of money for an over the hill player who hasn't played in 2 years and who's skills were diminishing even before the injuries and suspension.

That's what they get for signing a guy for ten years/250 million.....
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Ed B]

Notice that all the other guys on that list are either from the Dominican Republic or Nicaragua or Venezuela. These are just the guys who were unlucky enough to be with the wrong lab at the wrong time.

While I'm no fan of ARod, trying to make him the fall-guy and example for a problem that has been so widespread is not sufficient for what Seleg needs to do to clean baseball.

[iamskippy]

Just saw a Jose C. Commercial for HT! I love it
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Raven]

he should clean the locker rooms

[Ian]

Well no ban, but I'm starting to like the punishment more and more. Its makes the yanks pay out his contract. It suspends him for a long time. Ad it puts a guy who has an unnatural need for people to love him in ballparks where everyone hates him for the rest of his career.

Kinda like life in prison vs death sentence.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Raider Ronnie]

They should ban David Ortiz if they are going to ban A-Rod.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

They should ban David Ortiz if they are going to ban A-Rod.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

You are right, they both committed the same offenses.

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by Ian

You are right, they both committed the same offenses.

That's funny....I don't remember Ortiz's name coming out as part of the Biogenesis Scandal.

Care to point out where he was mentioned as part of this...including the Obstruction of a League Investigation, which is why A-Rod got hit with the Biggest Suspension....since they are guilty of the same offenses.

[Saltheart]

He hasn't done squat in years. After sitting out the rest of this season and all of next season he'll be lucky if he gets on base by getting hit by a pitch! Good riddance!

[Raider Ronnie]

You really think David Ortiz has never done steroids throughout his career ?
If so you got to be the biggest homer going !

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

That's funny....I don't remember Ortiz's name coming out as part of the Biogenesis Scandal.

Care to point out where he was mentioned as part of this...including the Obstruction of a League Investigation, which is why A-Rod got hit with the Biggest Suspension....since they are guilty of the same offenses.

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

You really think David Ortiz has never done steroids throughout his career ?
If so you got to be the biggest homer going !

Did I say that? Don't think I did.

A-Rod, and the other dozen players, are being suspended for their involvement with Biogenesis....I didn't see Ortiz's name mentioned at all in this case......so how could he be Banned for the same offense as A-Rod when his name never even came up as part of this investigation

Reading Comprehension......a lost art.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[Raider Ronnie]

I could care less about Biogenesis.
The game has been dirty since before an average guy like Brady Anderson all of a sudden hits 50 home runs one year.
Selig knew players were doping, owners knew.
The game is a joke ! I couldn't be bothered to watch !
Funny how Canseco came out and spilled the beans on players and he was made the goat as was Bonds some years ago & A-Rod is now.

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

Did I say that? Don't think I did.

A-Rod, and the other dozen players, are being suspended for their involvement with Biogenesis....I didn't see Ortiz's name mentioned at all in this case......so how could he be Banned for the same offense as A-Rod when his name never even came up as part of this investigation

Reading Comprehension......a lost art.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

[The Dad Fisherman]

Every sport has its PED users/abusers....been that way since they were around. Anything that requires an athlete to gain an edge....not just baseball

[Raider Ronnie]

So what did Roger Maris use to gain the edge and break Babe Ruth's home run record for a season ?
How about Willy Mays, Don Dimagigo, Mantle, Ted Williams, ect.... What were they on ?

Originally Posted by The Dad Fisherman

Every sport has its PED users/abusers....been that way since they were around. Anything that requires an athlete to gain an edge....not just baseball

[The Dad Fisherman]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

So what did Roger Maris use to gain the edge and break Babe Ruth's home run record for a season ?
How about Willy Mays, Don Dimagigo, Mantle, Ted Williams, ect.... What were they on ?

What were they testing for back then?


"A participant in an endurance walking race in Britain, Abraham Wood, said in 1807 that he had used laudanum, or opium, to keep him awake for 24 hours while competing against Robert Barclay Allardyce"


"Thomas Hicks, an American born in England on January 7, 1875, won the Olympic marathon in 1904. He crossed the line behind a fellow American Fred Lorz, who had been transported for 11 miles of the course by his trainer, leading to his disqualification. However, Hicks's trainer Charles Lucas, pulled out a syringe and came to his aid as his runner began to struggle.

I therefore decided to inject him with a milligram of sulphate of strychnine and to make him drink a large glass brimming with brandy. He set off again as best he could [but] he needed another injection four miles from the end to give him a semblance of speed and to get him to the finish.[10]
The use of strychnine, at the time, was thought necessary to survive demanding races, according to sports historians Alain Lunzenfichter"


"The fascination with six-day bicycle races spread across the Atlantic and the same appeal brought in the crowds in America as well. And the more spectators paid at the gate, the higher the prizes could be and the greater was the incentive of riders to stay awake—or be kept awake—to ride the greatest distance. Their exhaustion was countered by soigneurs (the French word for "carers"), helpers akin to seconds in boxing. Among the treatments they supplied was nitroglycerine, a drug used to stimulate the heart after cardiac attacks and which was credited with improving riders' breathing. Riders suffered hallucinations from the exhaustion and perhaps the drugs."


"The father of anabolic steroids in the United States was John Ziegler (1917–1983), a physician for the U.S. weightlifting team in the mid-20th century. Ziegler learned from his Russian days that the Soviet weightlifting team's success was due to their use of performance-enhancing drugs. Deciding that U.S. athletes needed chemical assistance to remain competitive, Ziegler worked with the CIBA Pharmaceutical Company to develop an oral anabolic steroid. This resulted in the creation of methandrostenolone, which appeared on the market in 1960. During the Olympics that year, the Danish cyclist Knud Enemark Jensen collapsed and died while competing in the 100-kilometer (62-mile) race. An autopsy later revealed the presence of amphetamines and a drug called nicotinyl tartrate in his system."

"The American specialist in doping, Max M. Novich, wrote: "Trainers of the old school who supplied treatments which had cocaine as their base declared with assurance that a rider tired by a six-day race would get his second breath after absorbing these mixtures." John Hoberman, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, said six-day races were "de facto experiments investigating the physiology of stress as well as the substances that might alleviate exhaustion."

[The Dad Fisherman]

...and this is just baseball.

"Players have attempted to gain chemical advantages in baseball since the earliest days of the sport. In 1889, for example, pitcher Pud Galvin became the first baseball player to be widely known for his use of performance-enhancing substances. Galvin was a user and vocal proponent of the Brown-Séquard Elixir, a testosterone supplement derived from the testicles of live animals such as dogs and guinea pigs.

The book The Baseball Hall of Shame's Warped Record Book, written by Bruce Nash, Bob Smith, and Allan Zullo, includes an account of Babe Ruth administering to himself an injection of an extract from sheep testicles. The experimental concoction allegedly proved ineffective, making Ruth ill and leading the Yankees to attribute his absence from the lineup to "a bellyache".

During World War II, both the Allied and Axis powers systematically provided amphetamines to their troops, in order to improve soldiers' endurance and mental focus. After the end of the war, many of those returning troops attended college, and when they did, they applied their knowledge of the benefits of amphetamine use first to college sports, and then to professional sports, including professional baseball.

According to writer Zev Chafets, Mickey Mantle's fade during his 1961 home run chase with Roger Maris was the indirect result of an attempt by Mantle to gain a substance-based edge.[9] Chafets alleges that Mantle was hampered by an abscess created by a botched injection of a chemical cocktail administered by a "quack" doctor, Max Jacobsen.[9] According to Chafets, the injection included steroids and amphetamines, among other substances.

In his autobiography I Had a Hammer, which was co-written with Lonnie Wheeler and published in 1992, outfielder Hank Aaron wrote that he accepted an amphetamine pill from an unnamed teammate and taken it before a game during the 1968 season, after becoming frustrated about his lack of offensive performance. Aaron described it as "a stupid thing to do", observing that the pill made him feel like he "was having a heart attack".

Former pitcher Tom House, drafted in 1967 and active in MLB from 1971-1978, has admitted to using "steroids they wouldn't give to horses" during his playing career. According to House, the use of performance-enhancing drugs was widespread at that time.[11] He estimates that "six or seven" pitchers on every team were at least experimental users of steroids or human growth hormone, and says that after losses, players would frequently joke that they'd been "out-milligrammed" rather than beaten.

Third baseman Mike Schmidt, an active player from 1972-1989, admitted to Murray Chass in 2006 that he had used amphetamines "a couple [of] times". In his book Clearing the Bases, he said that amphetamines "were widely available in major-league clubhouses" during his playing career,[12] and that "amphetamine use in baseball is both far more common and has been going on a lot longer than steroid abuse".

Relief pitcher Goose Gossage, active from 1972-1994, also admitted to using amphetamines during his playing career, in a 2013 interview with Ken Davidoff. In the same interview, Gossage voiced the opinion that amphetamines are not "a performance-enhancing drug", though he admitted that using them was illegal at the time.

During the Pittsburgh drug trials in 1985, several players testified about the use of amphetamines in baseball. Shortstop Dale Berra admitted that he had used "greenies" while playing for both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the AAA Portland Beavers, and stated that while in Pittsburgh between 1979 and 1984 he had been supplied with the drugs by teammates Bill Madlock and Willie Stargell. Outfielder John Milner testified that while he was playing for the New York Mets, he had seen in the locker of teammate Willie Mays a powerful liquid amphetamine he called the "red juice".

Steroids finally made it to baseball’s banned substance list in 1991, however testing for major league players did not begin until the 2003 season. Evidence of steroid use was rampant. Offensive numbers were way up. In 1996, the Orioles, Mariners, and A’s all broke their single season home run records. 1998 saw Mark McGwire destroy Roger Maris’ home run record, closely followed by Cubs slugger Sammy Sosa. Three years later, Barry Bonds broke McGwire’s home run record. A change in the nature and frequency of injuries also pointed to increased steroid use.

[Raider Ronnie]

All this steroid crap comes back to 1 thing for me.
Baseball benefited from the use of steroids with Sosa & Magwire then Bonds and A-rod.
Now these hypocrites (Selig & owners) turn on those guys because they are catching heat from the public & Gov.
Yet the Pete Rose is Banned and the guy with the most hits ever in the game will probably never see the hall of fame, for what, gambling when he was a manager, not a player.
I could care less about baseball, bunch of hypocrites !

[Saltheart]

In 1969 I took up throwing the hammer on the high school track team. We were lucky to have an Olympic caliber guy in the area who came and worked with us for a day. The first thing out of his mouth was that we should stay clear of steroids! As high schoolers we had never even heard of them but apparently their use by the elite athletes was already well under way even that long ago.

Did Ortiz juice? I have no idea. Did he stop? I would say absolutely yes. Is he still hitting? Yes. So perhaps if he did use them at all it must have been little since his abilities did not crash dramatically like others did when MLB started cracking down and testing.

[Mike P]

Originally Posted by Raider Ronnie

So what did Roger Maris use to gain the edge and break Babe Ruth's home run record for a season ?

Eight more games.