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Brady Anderson, Rafael Nadal, and Serena Williams


DonRocks

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What do they all have in common?

Anderson.jpegNadal.jpegWilliams.jpeg

I'll give you one hint: it isn't that they spent six hours a day in the gym getting these physiques; there's no time to do that - not with the enormous amount of skills one must acquire that are specific to baseball and tennis.

Spend six hours a day in the gym, and you won't have the skills necessary to play these sports.

Spend six hours a day practicing these sports, and you won't have these physiques.

This post is dedicated to Lance Armstrong.

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Incidentally, I was standing right next to Mark McGwire less than one month ago. I was absolutely certain it was him because of where we were, and because he was remarkably tall, but one thing he didn't have? He didn't have those bazookas for forearms that he used to have. Okay, of *course* he doesn't - he's retired - but his arms were so big in 1997 that they simply weren't natural. I also think McGwire is an example of a nice guy who got caught up in the steroid culture (he admitted it early on, so it's not like he tried to hide it [ETA - apparently, this is not true since Google said he didn't come out until 2010, but I swear I remember him saying he was taking a "dietary supplement" in 1997 that was essentially a steroid])..

I remember seeing McGwire in the 84 Olympics. He was already more muscular than most ball players.

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I remember seeing McGwire in the 84 Olympics. He was already more muscular than most ball players.

Oh, he jacked 49 as a rookie (1987). No doubt he's a big guy - with Andro, coupled with his great natural size (he's on the far side of 6'5"), he was a king among kings.

1987: mcgwire87tp.jpg

1997: Mark+McGwire.jpg <---- imagine *this* guy at 6'5".

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"Tennis Has A Doping Problem" by Sujay Kumar on thedailybeast.com

Mark my words: Just as the 1990s were regarded as "historic" in baseball, so, too, is today's "Golden Age of Tennis." We will look back upon this era with every bit as much regret and cynicism as we now look back upon Lance Armstrong and Brady Anderson (batting leadoff and leading the AL in RBIs (RBIs?!) at the all-star break, and hitting 50 home runs when Hank Aaron never did).

And where is the backlash against Arnold Schwarzenegger and Vasily Alexeev? Or is it okay for powerlifters and bodybuilders to use the same drugs they pump into racehorses like Secretariat?

7-time Mr Olympia Arnold Schwarzenegger (*):

Arnold-Schwarzenegger.jpg

Gold Medalist Vasily Alexeev, who set 80 world records:

alexeev_SI.jpg

Secretariat, shown here winning the Belmont by 31 lengths:

Belmont_-Stakes_-31-lengths_photo1.jpg

(*) As hard as this may be to believe, I don't blame athletes one bit for using steroids, and to be perfectly honest, I very much respect Arnold Schwarzenegger for coming right out and saying he did; it's the lying, the tainting of historic institutions such as baseball, the ruining of other peoples' careers, that I have a problem with. Lance Armstrong will always be a hero to me - just this week, he wrote this Tweet about a friend of mine who is currently shellshocked by a recurrence of breast cancer, but he still shouldn't have hurt other people when he covered for himself.

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Thing is, you don't have to be a ripped behemoth to hit HRs out of the park at an unnatural pace. Refer to Rafael Palmeiro as the ultimate fraudster.

Then there's Sammy Sosa, who is becoming Michael Jackson....

Bonds, unlike Sosa or McGwire, would've been a HOFer without 'roids, presuming that he started (ab)using around 2000 or so. I can be a little self-righteous about it, but my favoriite ballplayer of all-time, and the biggest reason why I'm a White Sox fan, was speaking out against steroid use in the sport long before anyone else. The team even tried to trigger more stringent testing around 2001 or so. And it continued to be ignored. No one wanted to see the truth in the 1997 HR race. You just heard, "baseball is back!"

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I'm not sure you can say the same thing about other sports, because baseball has always been built on statistics and the record book....Sosa, Bonds, McGwire, Palmeiro, Rodriguez and the rest of them destroyed the record book. That's their cardinal sin.

The other sports -- tennis and bicycling in particular -- certainly have changed as a result of 'roids, but smashing the record book to smithereens is baseball's unique steroids casualty.

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I'm not sure you can say the same thing about other sports, because baseball has always been built on statistics and the record book....Sosa, Bonds, McGwire, Palmeiro, Rodriguez and the rest of them destroyed the record book. That's their cardinal sin.

The other sprots -- tennis and bicycling in particular -- certainly have changed as a result of 'roids, but smashing the record book to smithereens is baseball's unique steroids casualty.

I agree with you in many ways (especially for you and me, since baseball was such an important part of our childhood, and the numbers 60, 61, 714, 755, etc. mean so much to us), but I immediately thought of Lance Armstrong's 7 Tour de France wins. I suppose "wiping them off the record" is easier than putting an asterisk by Bonds' 73 home runs, but what if there were clean riders during those 7 years? Or doped-up riders in other years as well? Or winners of individual stages who were doping? Steroids make such a huge difference that people who have never taken them don't understand just how dramatic it is. I also hate to bring up Pete Rose again (and I promise this will be the only time in this thread), but he most likely got his 4,256 hits cleanly, just like Ripken most likely played his 2,632 games cleanly (is it just me, or are those two numbers harder to memorize than the other records?) Or maybe they didn't - after all, Ripken was good friends with Brady Anderson. And no, I'm *not* accusing Cal of anything; I blame Brady Anderson for any "guilt by association" here. Also, who the heck knows if Djokovic is doping? I again bring up Stijn Jaspers from Clemson - it isn't just bulk; it's endurance, recovery time, etc. I also feel like a passive racist for not loving Serena Williams, and yes, I admit that some of it is because of her early lack of sportsmanship (in particular, for not complimenting her opponents - everything was about her, her, her), but it's primarily because I think she dopes - same way I feel about Nadal, the difference being that Nadal has always been gracious both in victory and defeat.

You know, as hard as I may seem on folks who take steroids, there are really only two things that grate me to no end: 1) harming others in the process (which Armstrong did), and 2) tainting the record books (which Bonds and company did). I don't blame athletes for trying to get an edge, especially when it can be the difference between working as a gym teacher, and being a multi-millionaire.

NFL linemen. Nobody ever mentions them. But boy, they've sure gotten big and fast in the past 20 years. I think steroids, human-growth hormone, testosterone, etc. can make a positive difference in everyday peoples' lives who can benefit from them medically; I also hate them for what they've done to athletes of previous generations who didn't take them, elbowing them aside in the record books.

Basically I just said in four paragraphs what you said in two short sentences.  :)

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A lot of people acknowledge that steroids in baseball blew away home run records and distorted the home run plateaus we had all come to appreciate -- 500 HRs being the automatic ticket to the Hall of Fame, 61 (or 60 in 154 games) for home runs in a season, 714 and then 755 for storied careers....steroids obliterated those numbers forever.

But in my mind, the steroids effect in baseball was even more sweeping. Steroids turned 275' flyouts into 350' HRs, sure, but they also turned ground balls to the second baseman into screaming gappers, or soft flyouts into doubles and triples, or swings-and-misses on inside fastballs into scorching extra base hits.

Rather than expunge a roughly 20-year period from the record book entirely, or asterisk individual performances from the '90s and '00s, we are now left with our own individual interpretations of what the record book means to each of us. That's a shame, a real shame, to those of us who grew up with the sanctity of those accomplishments.

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I don't want this to be sexist, but I'm watching the US Open right now, and there's not even a whisper of the obvious....why is that? Can you look at Serena side-by-side with Maria Sharapova or Maria Kirilenko and not immediately conclude that Serena is juicing?

Why the awkward silence on this topic by the sports world?
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I don't want this to be sexist, but I'm watching the US Open right now, and there's not even a whisper of the obvious....why is that? Can you look at Serena side-by-side with Maria Sharapova or Maria Kirilenko and not immediately conclude that Serena is juicing?

Why the awkward silence on this topic by the sports world?

It's discussed in the comments section of the si.com tennis forums (often in Jon Wertheim's columns). It isn't just Serena - it's a lot of people, and once they're outed, they should be treated with the same scorn as Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong.

"U.S. Open Doping Loophole Creates Drug Testing Gap for U.S. Players" by Douglas Robson on si.com

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On 9/7/2015 at 1:03 PM, Kibbee Nayee said:

I don't want this to be sexist, but I'm watching the US Open right now, and there's not even a whisper of the obvious....why is that? Can you look at Serena side-by-side with Maria Sharapova or Maria Kirilenko and not immediately conclude that Serena is juicing?

Why the awkward silence on this topic by the sports world?

Oops.

"Maria Sharapova Failed Drugs Test at Australian Open" on bbc.com

"Tennis Star Maria Sharapova Admits She Failed Drug Test at Australian Open" by Josh Peter on usatoday.com

If it makes you feel any better, Maria, you're not going to be alone. The shit will hit the fan at some point, and when it does, you'll have *lots* of company.

I think one problem with this discussion is that I've seen first-hand just what these drugs can do to people, and just how *amazingly* powerful they are. If you haven't seen it, they're like some imaginary "black box," but they are the difference between winning and losing, between being ranked #10 in the world, and not even being on the pro tour. *That* is how potent they are.

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Don't know where this fits, but Dee Gordon has been suspended 80 games for failing a drug test for two banned substances.  I'm now even more peeved that Harper lost the batting title to him on the last day of last season, and I like Dee Gordon.  It's not like just a "that's the way it goes" thing anymore. Very grumbly.

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24 minutes ago, Pat said:

Don't know where this fits, but Dee Gordon has been suspended 80 games for failing a drug test for two banned substances.  I'm now even more peeved that Harper lost the batting title to him on the last day of last season, and I like Dee Gordon.  It's not like just a "that's the way it goes" thing anymore. Very grumbly.

"Why Did Dee Gordon Take Steroids? Better Question: Why Wouldn't He?" by Bob Nightengale on usatoday.com

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This has nothing to do with the above, but it's interesting that I remember the following four numbers:

1. 755 (Hank Aaron)
2. 714 (Babe Ruth)
3. 660 (Willie Mays)
4. 586 (Frank Robinson)

And I have *no idea* how many home runs Bonds has, and I also have *no idea* who else has hit 600 home runs, nor do I want to know.

I also want to point out that people must - *MUST* - think the same of Maria Sharapova and Dee Gordon as they do Lance Armstrong (other than the fact that Armstrong harmed people trying to protect himself, which is a separate matter and is, by itself, a legitimate reason to dislike Armstrong). I doubt we'd have heard of any of the above had they not been juicing - at least Armstrong came back from a near-death battle with testicular cancer which had spread to his brain.

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On 3/7/2016 at 10:37 PM, DonRocks said:

Oops.

"Maria Sharapova Failed Drugs Test at Australian Open" on bbc.com

"Tennis Star Maria Sharapova Admits She Failed Drug Test at Australian Open" by Josh Peter on usatoday.com

If it makes you feel any better, Maria, you're not going to be alone. The shit will hit the fan at some point, and when it does, you'll have *lots* of company.

I think one problem with this discussion is that I've seen first-hand just what these drugs can do to people, and just how *amazingly* powerful they are. If you haven't seen it, they're like some imaginary "black box," but they are the difference between winning and losing, between being ranked #10 in the world, and not even being on the pro tour. *That* is how potent they are.

"Maria Sharapova Banned For Two Years For Failed Drug Test But Will Appeal" on bbc.com

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Mar 8, 2016 - "The Case for Brady Anderson Being Clean of Steroids" by Joe Vasile on beyondtheboxscore.com

EXCUSE ME ?!

Quote

It has been 20 years since Baltimore Orioles outfielder Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs, shattering his previous career high of 21. It's commonly accepted that Anderson was using steroids during that 1996 season. The only problem is that there is zero evidence of him using outside of the home run spike.

Hank Aaron never hit 50 home runs, and Anderson hit 50 *exactly* when the steroid scandal was at its peak, in 1996. He was leading the American League *in RBIs batting leadoff* at the All-Star break, and during his entire 15-year career he never again hit even HALF that number.

I don't want to criticize this author, but *come on*.

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