let's assume the report is accurate, it's all over TV and the internet.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1748786


aside from the fact that i'm beaming right now (i've been waiting on edge for this report side the beginning of the indictment), it says they were GIVEN the steroids but they may not have actually been administered... but this is certainly exciting. what do you all think?

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For a while there, I was considering writing a piece hitting on this subject and many others like it. It would be called "When It Was A Game". This piece would show how sports over the years (IMHO) have been on the decline due to steroid use, overpaid players, and what not.

Remember the days when the players were great due to natural ability and actual skill. Not steroids. It just pulls from the integrity of the game.

Some games/sports are lacking any sense of sportsman-like conduct all together now. And I have seen it decline over the last decade or so. Take basketball for example. Someone dunks... they get all up in your face and talk shit. I know this isn't always the case... but it happens more often than not. It's all about one upping and talking shit. I don't mind a little rivalry (hell, I don't mind a lot of rivalry)... but it gets out of hand and gets taken out of context in a bad way.

As for steroids, I believe no player should be allowed to play under the influence of any substance. Show us what you have on a consistent basis. Not what you have when you fucking have to roid up and take shit. Any player worth his/her salt shouldn't have a problem with this.

Sorry for the ranting... just a subject I have firm beliefs on.

I honestly believe that the majority of baseball fans don't give a fuck about steroids, myself included. The real injustice in sports is NBA officiating.

i'm just curious, where exactly is the line drawn? i'm assuming you don't have a problem with a guy lifting weights on the most hi-tech machines available, with the most skilled trainers that money can buy, right? and what about diet? is it okay to eat foods that help you to bullk up? sport protein shakes and stuff? what about tobacco? didn't all those old-school fellas used to smoke or at least chew? isn't nicotine a stimulant?

i know this is all nitpicking, but i'm curious to know exactly where the line is drawn? what about a pitcher that has six fingers instead of five? is that an unfair advantage? i'm personally of the school of thought that professional athletes, in their nature, are supposed to be bigger and stronger and faster than anyone else. in order to provide the best entertainment possible, the most homers or the most strikeouts, or the biggest dunks, or whatever it is.

i don't think there's anything wrong with how sports have changed. they mirror our society. society has changed. for example, there used to be stupid fucking rules like every man has to wear a hat when outdoors, and then has to take it off when indoors. this is the society in which the idealized sports heroes of the past were living. and weren't a great many of these legends alchoholics, and smokers, and who knows what else?

so i don't understand, why steroids? why do we care about steroids? how are they necessarily worse than million-dollar professional trainers and dieticians, and spending 5 days a week in the gym (which those old-schoolers didn't do either, did they?). i don't understand where the line is drawn, and how it's not being drawn arbitrarily.

do you REALLY think people don't care? if they don't that's pretty fucking sad. man, i think it's absolutely horrible that one of the greatest records in sports is being threatened by a cheater. i don't even know if scoring 100 points in a basketball game is as huge as the home run record in baseball. and the fact that people could sit there and say "meh, whatever, it's fun to watch people with giant foreheads smacking balls over the wall 70 times a season" shows they don't understand the true underlying problems that arise when something like this happens in professional sports.

shit, alex rodriguez (despite my current ire towards him) is naturally talented and a special player to watch. so was ken griffey junior before he turned into that samuel l. jackson character from "unbreakable," running into walls and diving around breaking every bone in his body.

at this point in my life i'm certainly not as enthralled with baseball as i was as a child, but it's a pretty huge deal to find out that some of the most important players in modern history have tainted the spirit of the game. except gary sheffield, he's a piece of shit. look at his stats for his career... they're deffintely worth scoffing out and making fun of him and the team that overpaid for his shitty ass.

and barry bonds never hit over 50 HR in a season then suddenly hit 73? Come on, that fucking guy took equine steroids like a motherfucker.

the end.

not to downplay wilt, but there's a couple things going on there. first of all, he was really tall at a time when not as many folks were. so there's an edge that has nothing to do with skill. then there's the whole thing i've heard people assert before that once he had a ridiculous number of points, it became something where most if not all of the other guys playing in the game focused on him getting as many points as possible, maybe including the guys on the other team.

whatever. you didn't even slightly address the issues i raised, such as multi-million dollar staffs of trainers and dieticians and all that shit. it's not just steroids. it's the nature of competition, that over time folks are gonna find things that make them excel and everyone else either goes along or gets left in the dust. so again, records from the past are already in a different league, seeing as the entire climate has been evolving for a long time into one where folks are pushed to excel at the highest level possible.

are the sporting arenas even the same size they used to be? and what about pitchers? don't pitchers have way more behind them today then they did back in the day? support staff? regiments? videos they can watch to see their form? there are so many things that are different today. everything has evolved. i just don't understand why steroids are the straw that breaks the camel's back. do you fault writers from a hundred years ago for drinking absinthe? do you fault musicians for using drugs? so why athletes? and why just the drugs? or do you hate the fact that physical theraphy and working out and diet regiments have come a long way, too?

This piece would show how sports over the years (IMHO) have been on the decline due to steroid use, overpaid players, and what not.

i just don't buy this, esp. not re baseball

baseball players have gotten bigger, faster, stronger. i'm sure some of them (not a ton) are on the 'roids. use of steroids is shameful and should be punished, but 'roids have been around a long time. dunno if using them is better or worse than getting hopped up on pills.

comparing steroids to protein shakes and weight machines is like comparing LSD to a head rush from standing up too fast. the level of magnification is pretty great. training better, smarter, longer is a whole different thing than injecting shit you would never get from food for the sole purpose of gaining muscle mass.

we can't ignore that the whole process of playing the game has been streamlined. this is a much more significant performance development than what is probably spotty steroid use. guys don't waste movement--the science of hitting, running, fielding has progressed. players today are just better on the whole than players used to be.

really, though, baseball as a game has changed very little over the last thirty or forty years. there are no more jerks in the game today than there were then--we just have a tell-all culture now, so we know a lot more about them.

people always fetishize the past with regards to sports. we all do it. i mean, tracy mcgrady might be a better basketball player than dr. j was. but i would never admit that, if it's true. these things have a visceral impression on you when you are young that they rarely if ever have on you as an adult.

for me, i have delved into the strategy and physics of sports to compensate for the diminished initial rush, and i find it's actually a more rewarding pastime that way. i am personally invested in the game of baseball first, 'my' team second. the historic arc of the game is permanent.

Obviously, sports and the nature of the game have changed since the times of Johnny Unitas, Wilt Chamberlain, and Dimaggio. Everything evolves... sports are not excluded.

I have no problem with the technology that is being applied towards sports and manipulated by atheletes. As far as machines (weight training and the like)... no big deal. But when it comes to taking mass doses of substances to drastically alter the physiology of atheletes, that gets me.

I understand supplements and diets. It is necessary to maintain a healthy intake of nutrients in order to increase stamina/durability/performance, what have you. But steroids take it too far in my opinion.

I guess when everyone takes a look at sports, sonically, you have to draw your own conclusion. And that's where my lines are drawn. It's a moral decision, and everyone has to grapple with it themselves and see where they stand.

Maybe I just miss Larry Bird.

That's all!

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