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  1. #1
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    Well... at least they're going after the big guys...

    Good to see that MLB is suspending Neffi Perez for another 80 games for HIS 3RD POSITIVE STEROID TEST!

    Yeah... cycling is the dirty sport. They tossed someone for the world's largest race for suspicion of lying about where he was during a random drug testing period when he might have been subjected to a test. People get 2 year suspensions for one positive test and fired from teams when its suspected that they are doping.

    Neffi Perez is going to sit out the remainder of this year for getting caught again. Mmm hhmmm.

  2. #2
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    I thought the amount of suspension was negotiated with the players' union - not the "luxury" they have in cycling (I'm guessing). If MLB players were being sponsored by companies as opposed to being paid a salary by teams, I'd guess they would be treated a bit differently.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by hc5duke View Post
    I thought the amount of suspension was negotiated with the players' union - not the "luxury" they have in cycling (I'm guessing). If MLB players were being sponsored by companies as opposed to being paid a salary by teams, I'd guess they would be treated a bit differently.
    So you're excusing the drug use in Major League Baseball because the graduated levels of suspension were worked out in negotiations? Is that right?

    And really... how is it that the multi-billion dollar revenue stream of Major League Baseball doesn't classify the teams therein as companies?

  4. #4
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    Doping: Not So Simple Maybe

    Commercialization, big money, technology, sophistication in training, more events, INJURY, and doping, are, in my opinion, of one piece. Talking about "doping" as evil incarnate in the modern context does not work for me.

    I am not saying that I am an advocate of doping. I do not know enough about it. However, if doping can be done in a healthy way, and all things are relative, all things are subject to cost-benefit analysis, I do not understand why the complete opposition.

    Purists in the modern era of sports seen to me out of place. When people, terrific athletes, in all sports, are getting their bodies hacked up like just so much sausage and cheese in a side of the road picnic watching the racers go by, how can a medical ethicist rule out the use of drugs to keep people healthy and maximize performance.

    Taking it outside the realm of cycling, for a moment, can you really justify being a purist in that way and allow tennis to be a game with 150 mile per hour serves because of techology? I do not understand that.

    If drugs will permit the body to better absorb the punishment of sport, can their use be ruled out because records we hold dear will be cheapened. Let the athlete pay with his or her body, when drugs might make the cost less in those terms. I get the argument that drug abuse in this realm can be quite dangerous and unhealthy. No one can be in favor of that. That is abusive and should be unlawful for anyone to administer.

    On the other hand, I am tired of the increasing incidence of serious injury (including long term wear and tear) in sport, all sports, and the view that a sport can be considered pure unless everything that can be done to reduce that incidence is.

    In the meantime, if the doping done in cycling serves no such purpose but instead is solely and only a performance enhancement, sorry for interrupting.
    Last edited by greybeard; 08-03-2007 at 03:55 PM.

  5. #5
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    I'm not excusing what they're doing, I'm saying there is a reason why the players get such a slap on the wrist. MLB could try to impose a much harsher punishment scale, but then they'd be risking another players strike.
    Last edited by hc5duke; 08-03-2007 at 03:55 PM. Reason: no need to quote

  6. #6
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    Austin, TX
    Quote Originally Posted by MulletMan View Post
    Good to see that MLB is suspending Neffi Perez for another 80 games for HIS 3RD POSITIVE STEROID TEST!

    Yeah... cycling is the dirty sport. They tossed someone for the world's largest race for suspicion of lying about where he was during a random drug testing period when he might have been subjected to a test. People get 2 year suspensions for one positive test and fired from teams when its suspected that they are doping.

    Neffi Perez is going to sit out the remainder of this year for getting caught again. Mmm hhmmm.
    I don't mind the distinction in oversight and punishment. I see doping/performance enhancing as much more dangerous to the foundation of sports like cycling, track, weightlifting, swimming etc. where results are directly tied to individual performance and measurements of weight, time, distance, etc. The governing bodies SHOULD be more draconian in their enforcement and punishment.

    There just isn't enough of a causal link, to me anyway, between steroid or HGH use in baseball and the standings in the National League West to enforce it any more than MLB already is. Sure, Neffi Perez should be punished, and I'd venture that 80 games is probably one of the longest, if not the longest, suspension of a player outside the Chicago Black Sox. Great.

    Of course I'm in the camp that is pretty apathetic about steroids in baseball for those very reasons. I mean, look at the list of players who have gotten caught. They aren't very good for the most part. You can take all of the steroids you want, but you still need the world class hand eye contact or the ability to place your pitch exactly where you want it in the strike zone to get any results.

    So steroids has helped Barry Bonds hit 100 or so extra home runs (I'd argue, assuming he took them, they've taken some away too, as his body's had to carry all that weight around the last few years). Has it helped him get a ring?
    Last edited by A-Tex Devil; 08-03-2007 at 05:18 PM.

  7. #7
    I'm generally on A-Tex Devil's page when it comes to baseball and steroids and question whether size alone produces homeruns (I actually think the quick recovery benefits of some steroids might help pitchers more than batters, too), but there's an issue that continues to nag at me. And I think it somewhat responds to what I'm reading in (or reading into?) graybeard's post, as well. And that's that, until we've got somewhat definitive evidence that any particular substance is "safe" for the body, that it conclusively does not lead to longterm injury or body breakdown after retirement, that it doesn't shrink your nads, or whatnot, then a certain number of the participants in any sport in which those substances are used (to enhance performance) will, out of a sense of caution, prefer not to use them and take any risk. Those athletes, whether we characterize them as "purists" or simply "more risk intolerant" are faced with an unfair choice: either risk harming your body longterm by taking what others are taking against your better judgment, or risk being "enhanced" out of existence by everyone else. That sort of off the field decisionmaking and risk tolerance matrix should not, in my mind, enter into the competition of Sport.

    If one football player decides that he doesn't like the tast of Gatorade and chooses simple water instead but becomes fatigued during practice because of a lack of electrolytes (I know this is a dumb example, but stick with me...), that's their problem. That's a decision made not with one's personal longterm health in mind. On the other hand, if one biker decides not to blood dope or whatever they do because no one's quite sure whether it's safe or not and he's not willing to risk permanent damage to his health because he prioritizes his post-race career in a different way than his competitor, that's a different story.

    Long story short, I think too much of the focus on performance enhancement issues in sports these days has been on the illegality of various substances or the influence on kids, and not enough on the tilted playing field effects of making players choose a personally acceptable level of health risk instead of mandating it across the board.

    I don't know how to fix that, exactly. Some people will always be willing to accept more risk for performance. But we might start by not getting apoplectic about anyone taking any "banned substance" and kicking people out of a sport for 5 years for taking their asthma drugs and the like, and instead actually determining what the effects, both short and long term, are of using various substances. Then educate people on what we know (and perhaps try to instill an ethos that's a little more tilted away from "win at all times, at all costs"). There just seems to be too much hysteria and knee-jerk reactions to the words "performance enhancement" and no one outside of scientists really has a clue about the potential long term effects of any particular substances. So we just ban them all and treat them all alike. That doesn't make sense to me.

  8. #8
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    I have a great deal of ambivalence about performing-enhancing substances, mostly because of the arbitrary nature of what's legal and what isn't, ditto who gets caught and who doesn't, and the futile police state that sports become when you try to enforce out-of-competition rules. That doesn't mean I like them, but it puts me in a conundrum when I try to figure it out.

    Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins is ambivalent, too:

    Maybe we shouldn't ask athletes to live up to ideals that, let's face it, are unsupported by the chronically weak performance of human nature. Maybe it's time to decriminalize performance-enhancing drugs, in view of the fact that the first drug cheat was an ancient Greek and runners brought sport-doping into the modern age in 1904 by dosing themselves with strychnine.

    Our Air Force gives fighter jocks "go-pills" to get them through long missions, but we don't refuse to call them heroes because they're on speed. So what's this strange amnesia that causes us to seek purity in athletes? Why should they have to meet a higher moral standard than soldiers? Call me naive . . .


    See http://tinyurl.com/2gwlal for the column.

  9. #9
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    Southern Pines, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by mapei View Post
    I have a great deal of ambivalence about performing-enhancing substances, mostly because of the arbitrary nature of what's legal and what isn't, ditto who gets caught and who doesn't, and the futile police state that sports become when you try to enforce out-of-competition rules. That doesn't mean I like them, but it puts me in a conundrum when I try to figure it out.

    Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins is ambivalent, too:

    Maybe we shouldn't ask athletes to live up to ideals that, let's face it, are unsupported by the chronically weak performance of human nature. Maybe it's time to decriminalize performance-enhancing drugs, in view of the fact that the first drug cheat was an ancient Greek and runners brought sport-doping into the modern age in 1904 by dosing themselves with strychnine.

    Our Air Force gives fighter jocks "go-pills" to get them through long missions, but we don't refuse to call them heroes because they're on speed. So what's this strange amnesia that causes us to seek purity in athletes? Why should they have to meet a higher moral standard than soldiers? Call me naive . . .


    See http://tinyurl.com/2gwlal for the column.
    Sally Jenkins is a jerk. The title of her column is Winning, Cheating Have Ancient Roots. So winning by cheating is somehow desirable. Does she mean something like pro wrestling? Give me a break. Ancient roots? What about cannibalism and prostitution. Does she want to legalize them, too? How about torture, uh, sorry. I think somebody already made that legal.

    Look, those pilots she is talking about are faced with life-or-death situations. They must remain alert if they are to survive the mission. Pilots I know tell me that they are rarely used, but they are available, just in case. Use of them out of the aircraft would still be a court martial offense, or at least a non-judicial undesirable discharge.

    Sportsmanship is a more recent concept. Ms Jenkins tells us several new things coming along that work around sportsmanship. It continues to get ridiculous. How do we stop it from escalating to an insane level? How about a rocket fuel suppository? Control has to be defined at some point. Why not at the point at which the outcome of a contest is influenced? That would be sportsmanship.

  10. #10
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    Don't hold back, now . . .

  11. #11
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    What?

    Was there something wrong with the rocket fuel idea?

  12. #12
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    Los Angeles

    Thumbs down

    I am COMPLETELY in agreement about the banning of performing enhancing drugs such as steroids, etc. But...I am disturbed that the rules of such change from year to year. For instance, what about caffeine -- why isn't that considered? (..as it shouldn't be), but then again there seem to be many arbitrary substances -- and uses of such that are rather ridiculous. Ingredients in cold medicines? Ingredients in asthma medications? Etc.

    The "powers that be" need to look at what they're doing. As for now, I think a lot of what's going on is political and self-serving, and getting more ridiculous year by year.

  13. #13
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    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by mapei View Post
    Maybe we shouldn't ask athletes to live up to ideals that, let's face it, are unsupported by the chronically weak performance of human nature. Maybe it's time to decriminalize performance-enhancing drugs...
    Sounds like the "all-drug olympics"

    In response to what its sponsors claim is an idea whose time has come, the first All-Drug-Olympics opened today in Bogota, Columbia. Athletes are allowed to take any substance whatsoever before, after and even during the competition. So far 115 world records have been shattered! We go now to correspondent Kevin Nealon, live in Bogota for the weightlifting finals. Kevin?

    Dennis, getting ready to lift now is Sergei Akmudov of the Soviet Union. His trainer has told me that he's taken anabolic steroids, Novocaine, Nyquil, Darvon, and some sort of fish paralyzer. Also, I believe he's had a few coquetails* in the last hour or so. All of this is, of course, perfectly legal at the All-Drug Olympics. In fact, it's encouraged! Akmudov is getting set now, he's going for a clean and jerk of over 1500 pounds, which would triple the existing world record. That's an awful lot of weight, Dennis, and here he goes...

    Oh! He pulled his arms off! He's pulled his arms off! That's got to be disappointing to the big Russian! You know, you hate to see something like this happen, Dennis. He probably doesn't have that much pain right now, but I think tomorrow he's really gonna feel that. Dennis, back to you!



    *stupid filter
    Last edited by gus; 08-06-2007 at 05:26 AM.

  14. #14
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    Hot'Lanta... home of the Falcons!
    Video of The All-Drug Olympics sketch from SNL.

    --Jason "its funnier if you do not know what the ending is" Evans

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by MulletMan View Post
    Good to see that MLB is suspending Neffi Perez for another 80 games for HIS 3RD POSITIVE STEROID TEST!
    Well, all he has to do is set his sights on a record and MLB will let it slide.

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