The Baseball Mentality

[gh]

From column in SF Chronicle this morning by Tom Fitzgerald

<<Expos manager Frank Robinson has a different take on steroid use. "What you are doing is taking advantage, which is different than cheating,'' he told the Toronto Globe and Mail. "To me, it's like what you have in the game now whenever a baserunner relays the catcher's signs to the hitter." Wow, the man who used to be baseball's top disciplinarian thinks using steroids equates to stealing signs. Wait till John Ashcroft hears about this.>>

[MJD]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

>From column in SF Chronicle this morning by Tom Fitzgerald

<<Expos manager
>Frank Robinson has a different take on steroid use. "What you are doing is
>taking advantage, which is different than cheating,'' he told the Toronto Globe
>and Mail. "To me, it's like what you have in the game now whenever a
>baserunner relays the catcher's signs to the hitter." Wow, the man who used to
>be baseball's top disciplinarian thinks using steroids equates to stealing
>signs. Wait till John Ashcroft hears about this.>>

Look at the Mar 2 post at 5:28am for the original Globe article.

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/tfn/di ... sage=45487

[RMc]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

Another story in the LA Times:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... ldballgame

[MJD]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

Doesn't this look awfully familiar?

"Like nobody else during our time, Bonds had developed an acute batting eye and a remarkable sense of patience. Anabolic steroids and human growth hormones didn't help develop either of those traits."

http://www.sportsline.com/mlb/story/7254366

[MJR]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

This guy obviously didn't read the story in Outside Magazine where they guy went on a steroid/hgh cycle and reported on it. HGH will infact better your eyesight and steroids will enable you to react quicker to the information received from that increase in visual accuity because of the increased training load that the body can undergo without breaking down.

What an ill-informed deek.

[Realist]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

A one-man anecdotal report on all these wondrous changes hardly qualifies as scientific evidence. Where's the peer-reviewed research?

[MJD]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

"He returned to Busch Stadium Saturday at least 20 pounds trimmer,..."

"I'm really not in touch with any of that stuff," McGwire said. "I usually hear it from friends, and I tell them I really
don't want to hear about any of that stuff. I don't have any opinion on any of that stuff. It's just very unfortunate."

That he doesn't have an opinion?

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports ... Cards,+Mac

[gh]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

I have no idea if HGH/roids can improve visual acuity (although I would think if they did we'd have the Pentagon co-opting every gram available to pump into jet jockeys and snipers), but Bonds is turning superhuman this year, despite being under unbelievable scrutiny.

His hand-eye is mindboggling at this point as this USA Today guy notes

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball ... dner_x.htm

Guy in the local paper the other day also noted there was a game where Bonds saw 16 pitches. Took 15 of them and the one he swung at he hit for a home run. This really is defying belief, particulalry at age 40.

[bf]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

If only all MLB players were on Barry's skill level. (And moreso, T&F) But The Problem is... 1. will he have health problems sometime down the road...? and 2. collegians and highschoolers assuming that's the only way to achieve full potential. Either we have SAFE drugs, or crack down everywhere - anything in between, and things will stay messy (and depressing).

[The Kitchen Cynic]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

>Bonds is turning superhuman this year, despite being under unbelievable scrutiny.<

But let's just remember what we've learned from track. If that scrutiny does not include year round unannounced testing with harsh suspensions for the first infraction, it doesn't mean a thing.

MLB's program is bullshit. It's ineffective and always will be because they apparently do not want to get serious.

[Dutra]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

>I have no idea if HGH/roids can improve visual acuity (although I would think
>if they did we'd have the Pentagon co-opting every gram available to pump into
>jet jockeys and snipers), but Bonds is turning superhuman this year, despite
>being under unbelievable scrutiny.

His hand-eye is mindboggling at this
>point as this USA Today guy
>notes

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball ... 4-04-19-ga
>dner_x.htm

Guy in the local paper the other day also noted there was a game
>where Bonds saw 16 pitches. Took 15 of them and the one he swung at he hit for
>a home run. This really is defying belief, particulalry at age 40.>

He's also hit more HR's than swung and missed so far this season.

[Track fan]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

Hear no evil see no evil........

[MJD]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

I think that you can access this because it is via google.

"You might find an answer in an essay by the late, great paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, titled ''Why No One Hits
.400 Anymore.'' Gould found that throughout baseball history the average batting average in baseball stayed almost
constant, with the mean hovering around .260. This suggested that, over time, pitchers and hitters developed in size
and skill at roughly the same pace. Simultaneously, however, the averages of baseball's best hitters declined."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/magaz ... ner=GOOGLE

[MJD]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

>I have no idea if HGH/roids can improve visual acuity (although I would think
>if they did we'd have the Pentagon co-opting every gram available to pump into
>jet jockeys and snipers), but Bonds is turning superhuman this year, despite
>being under unbelievable scrutiny.

His hand-eye is mindboggling at this
>point as this USA Today guy
>notes

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball ... 4-04-19-ga
>dner_x.htm

Guy in the local paper the other day also noted there was a game
>where Bonds saw 16 pitches. Took 15 of them and the one he swung at he hit for
>a home run. This really is defying belief, particulalry at age 40.


Pretty sure he is starting to feel his age or something else is going on. Now Randy Johnson on the other hand...

[gh]

Re: The Baseball Mentality

Nasty sinus infection.