The Real Problem With The Current ARod Revelations
by timlacy on Feb 10, 2009 2:02 PM EST
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PrintDoug Glanville hits the nail on the head with another insightful NYT column---this time on the ARod revelations. Here's the excerpt I found most intriguing:
There is a lot of outrage out there about Alex. Not surprising. But what really surprises me is the lack of outrage about how a confidential and anonymous test could be made public. We seem to gloss over the fact that these players voted to re-open a collectively bargained agreement in a preliminary effort to address the drug problem. When privileged information is shared it effectively hurts anyone who has expected privacy in any circumstance, just as when someone made Brittany Spears’s medical records public.
This same point struck me yesterday. And why have only ARod's results been made public? Someone clearly has it in for him. Glanville on the same:
In the end, it isn’t about Alex Rodriguez, though we are making it about him. ...Sure, all this has come about because of certain choices he made, but he was outed by forces beyond his control, in a way that was not honorable. That is not good for any of those 1,200 players who were tested. That is not good for anyone. And why focus on Alex Rodriquez and not the other 103? Why weren’t there leaks about everyone?
And the conclusion:
I don’t see the good in selling our souls while claiming we want to chase the devil from our midst.
Whether you love or hate ARod---and I've sort of been in the latter camp for years---this is not the way to catch a cheater. There's a reason why our legal system has in recent years tried harder to regulate the way we collect evidence.
So this post is only indirectly related to the KC Royals. But philosophical issues with the game are relevant to us and the rest of the League. - TL
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I think there's been plenty of outrage
over the leakage of the confidential records. I’d sorely love to see the leaker punished severely. That said, it’s darned ironic to see anyone in the press taking that high horse, considering that such leaks are the bread and butter of the press business.
That said, I think the real reason the A-Rod revelations get people so upset is because many people (myself included) expected him to “sanitize” the home run record that Barry Bonds currently holds. We would have liked to see the home run record back in the hands of someone who played by the rules, we were okay with leaving it in Bonds’ hands for a little while with the understanding that it wouldn’t be there long, and now that tantalizing possibility is denied to us, the baseball fans of the 1990s and 2000s. The real record is stuck in the 1950s-1970s, and, entertaining as baseball has been since then, it can’t be considered in the same category.
Chaim Mattis Keller New York City's # 1 Royals fan!
Good take
I think there should be outrage over the leak, but I don’t think that should diminish the outrage over the act itself, assuming its an outrageable offense (which I have stated I don’t really care about).
Relive Royals History at royalsretro.blogspot.com
Your first paragraph...
…punishes the messenger. Glanville and the press in general are not the enemies. It’s the person involved in the 2003 testing who both released the test AND identified a player. It’s two-horned problem. That this person could do both means that he/she was high in the confidences of those in the process—-and that he/she had it in for ARod.
And three years of marginal help won’t significantly hurt ARod’s forthcoming sanitizing of the Bonds record. I think that Bonds was juiced longer, and he has a bigger ego/self-importance problem than ARod, so it seems. But I suppose you can’t be in the business too long without developing a huge ego problem.
Anyway, Glanville is right in repudiating the notion that you don’t sacrifice your ideals to combat evil. – TL
Bonds became a hulking mass between the 1998 and 1999 seasons, and he missed a third of 1999 with an injury that has been said to be the result of poor choices in his bulkification program. A-Rod admits to using from 2001. And from 2003 onward they were subject to the same testing, etc.
So, what are we saying? A-Rod sanitizes the record when he achieves it because he played 1.67 more juiceless seasons than Bonds?
I think your Royals Review word of the day is: cas⋅u⋅ist⋅ry.
The press is not merely the messenger
if no one was looking to publish illegally-obtained information, no one would be leaking it. No johns, no prostitutes.
And, no matter how well you think you can figure out how many homers A-Rod or Barry would have had without steroids, no one will perceive the record as “clean” because there’s no way to ever know for sure. Even if you have some sort of precise mathematical model, the perception will still be that the record is tainted.
Chaim Mattis Keller New York City's # 1 Royals fan!
Ruth was...
…an alcoholic. Is anyone claiming his record is tainted? And do we know everything about Aaron that we should? – TL
Alcohol is not a performance-enhancer
And until there’s any evidence that there’s something we DON’T know about Aaron, there’s no reason to even suspect.
Trying to use these as a fig leaf to defend current (or recent past) users who are genuinely looking for an unfair edge in competition is pathetic.
Chaim Mattis Keller New York City's # 1 Royals fan!
If anything
Booze should hurt your performance. It’s remarkable that Ruth and Mantle lived as long as they did, let alone play baseball at a higher level. It’s similar to the Michael Phelps situation. The guy won all those gold medals and he tokes out of a bong. Wow! To me, that makes his achievements that much greater. Dude must have a hell of a work ethic or an unbelievable God-given talent. It’s not fair to compare guys with problems that should hurt their performance with guys who take things that help their performance. That’s like comparing apples and kumquats.
Yes, I'm still alive. Sorry to disappoint you.
Ruth
…BTW, Ruth is known to have used amphetamines and use at least one corked bat. Taint!
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Feb 10, 2009 5:10 PM EST up reply actions
It has also been speculated...
…that Aaron used amphetamines. My point is that clean is a moving target. But I agree with most that steroids and HGH belongs to a different class of PEDs than amphetamines.
I also disagree that alcohol would necessary hurt one’s performance. In small doses it could relax you. Of course dehydration would become a problem at certain points in the season. – TL
This is an odd thing to debate, but I think a medical professional would tell you that of course alcohol isn’t going to help your performance; it is going to hurt it. Relaxation helps performance? It also makes you lose focus. Does that help performance? What about the decrease in hand-eye coordination? There’s no logical basis for saying that alcohol could ever be a performance enhancing drug.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Feb 10, 2009 5:29 PM EST up reply actions
Except in bowling, darts and pool
We always did feel the same, We just saw it from a different point of view, Tangled up in blue.
-Bob Dylan
by Royal Kingdom on Feb 10, 2009 5:30 PM EST up reply actions
it also makes you more attractive to the opposite sex
Bringing you more-or-less replacement level analysis and commentary since sometime in 2008.
by Matt Klaassen on Feb 10, 2009 5:33 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
And them more attractive to you
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Feb 10, 2009 6:04 PM EST up reply actions
What about ritalin?
For performance-enhancing reasons…I don’t know if there have ever been any studies done on its effect on attractiveness.
"Now…put that in your [BLEEP]ing pipe and smoke it." -Hal McRae
by Sweep_the_Leg on Feb 10, 2009 6:15 PM EST up reply actions
The cause of
and solution to all of life’s problems!
Chaim Mattis Keller New York City's # 1 Royals fan!
by cmkeller on Feb 10, 2009 6:30 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Alcohol
There is evidence that suggests that one is a better driver after drinking one beer than when completely sober. However, this driving ability dramatically drops after after the first.
I can see where a bit of relaxing might help performance, but the effects of one beer are almost certainly less than gatorade, a snickers bar, and perhaps even plain water.
If we’re serious about cleaning up baseball, we should make all players fast for 48 hours before playing a game. Also, everyone should use the exact same bat and play in the exact same stadium. They should arrive at the stadium the exact same way (parachuting in…obviously).
"I DARE you to make less sense."
I wonder...
if a Junior Pena clone could hit a Junior Pena clone fastball. That would be fascinating
"I DARE you to make less sense."
I thinkit is pretty obvious
That the Federal Government has completely blown the Bonds case to the point that it is nearly un-winnable at this point, and there is a growing fear that all this sanctimonious bull shit “we need a martyr to send a strong message to the youth of America” is what is fueling this wave of steroids media coverage now.
It was just last week that the judge in the Bonds case said that the ‘positive tests’ were most likely in-admissible. Does no one else see a HUGE coincidence that right after that bomb drops, the A-Roid story is right there in its shadow to keep ‘roids in the forefront, and if that isn’t enough, lets toss in Tejada right on top of it.
The whole thing is a joke. The media is being used as nothing more than a propaganda machine, MORESO than GW used FOX Noise as a propoganda machine. It’s embarrassing.
BOOM! ROASTED!
The real problem is that people are still talking about it
Even on this site where it appears most people are tired of the steroid talk and tired of how much the media is talking about it, we’re still talking about it. We’re still creating fanshots, fanposts and front page articles about it. Can’t we show our disdain for the mainstream media’s overreaction to this by not overtreacting to it ourselves? And not overreacting to them? Just a thought.
The immoderate moderator
No, that’s not the problem. Talking about it is not an overreaction, for anyone to whom baseball is meaningful. Panic, despair, or canceling your Extra Innings package to your neighbor is an overreaction. But talking through the big news of the day to sift its meaning is healthy.
by 2X2L on Feb 10, 2009 3:56 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Strike “to your neighbor”. Editing on the fly always gets me into trouble. I should either type and immediately post, or type, edit really carefully, and post. But type, quick fix-up, and post is lousiness waiting to happen.
The overcoverage of this story is just getting annoying to me
The mainstream media is overcovering it and the internet is overcovering how much the mainstream media is overcovering it. Sometimes too much is just too much.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Feb 10, 2009 4:05 PM EST up reply actions
That’s fair.
My choice has been to keep the TV off. I read the initial brief report of the A-Rod leak online Monday, and a read the initial report of his comments to Peter Gammons yesterday. I read Doug Glanville’s piece in the NYT yesterday and also Ray Ratto’s column in the SF Chronicle, both of which I thought were well worth the time. And that’s it. For me, the rest of my attention to this issue has been paid in the virtual company of people with whom there is some healthy and stimulating give and take, mostly here and at McCovey Chronicles. No bloviators.
One more. Just now I read the excerpts from the Marvin Miller interview on ESPN.com, which is worthwhile for anyone following up on timlacy’s original point in this Fanpost.
Let me get this right: At a media site...
…dedicated to fans talking about the KC Royals and ML baseball, you’re advocating that we ignore the big baseball news of the last 24-48 hours? That’s like a historian telling folks we need to be more presentist and future-focused. – TL
by timlacy on Feb 10, 2009 4:05 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Ignore it?
There have been at least 5 different articles/fanposts/fanshots about it in the past few days. I didn’t say it shouldn’t have been talked about at all. I’m saying enough is enough, in my humble opinion.
The immoderate moderator
by Scott McKinney on Feb 10, 2009 4:13 PM EST up reply actions
FYI: This has been my...
…only outlet for discussion of the ARod story. Yep. I mean I’ve seen headlines elsewhere, and picked up on Glanville piece through BCB (the Cubs site). But I’ve read only the Glanville piece and have discussed it with no one else. I don’t get ESPN. – TL
Doug Glanville writes good columns
and is good as a guest on XM but the story isn’t nor should it be about how the information was accessed. Glanville was a union rep and is taking the standard union side.
I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
Correlation is not causation.
Also, he “was” the union rep. He has some distance now, so I think we can give him the benefit of the doubt. His correlation coefficient is running about 0.25, methinks. – TL
I don't know about other unions
but I do know my grandfather, father, uncles and cousins are all loyal union members and they are as loyal to their union as the day is long. You don’t just walk away from tight organizations like that with no ties. Once you are a member you defend them for a long time. This isn’t a teachers union who has pretty much zero power and little loyalty amongst it’s members.
I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.
this news is starting to bore me
i can’t even watch MLB network anymore right now because of this.
Founder of the Johnny Giavotella fan club.
as a law student
this revelation presents a variety of problems. but, to go back to the Bonds part of this, I predicted, almost immediately, that the positive tests would not be admissable in court. the leaks of that test are questionable at best, much like the evidence obtained about A-Rod. It’s not that I disagree with outing all these destroyers of national innocence, it’s just that it’s got to be done with justice in mind. Simply throwing allegations around and coercing participants to testify goes against the American ideal of justice. Forcing Greg Anderson’s mother in law to submit paperwork or granting warrants to her place on frivolous IRS claims just to out Barry Bonds is the very fringe of tolerable/questionable government conduct. As far as A-Rod goes and the other players tested in 2003, they should remain anonymous for justice’s sake. BUT, the moral of this story is to not allow a Sports Illustrated reporter to become SOOOO obsessed with you that she knows more about your substance use than you do. A-Rod got burned.
Farnsworth's imitation tight-pants now on sale at Dick's!
by kcisbetterthanstlateverything on Feb 11, 2009 12:24 AM EST reply actions 1 recs
Blah blah blah
who cares? You were surprised? I think we should know everyone else’s names from that test and then we can get back to playing baseball instead of bitching and moaning about our precious little kids that will be destroyed because of this. Just to let you know, they’re not that innocent. Teens spend 31 hours a week on the internet, and 2 of those looking at porn.
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