THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I still have yet to see anyone tackle the “recovery” aspect of steroids, which is actually the first thing I ever learned about steroids, creatine, HGH, etc.

I’m very surprised to see the citations of steroids increasing upper body strength more than lower body strength.  I guess I just don’t understand the science behind that (since it isn’t really explained).  Hormones travel throughout the bloodstream, and I was under the impressions that receptors were everywhere.  I would assume strength gains appear greater in the upper body because of social factors, not biological ones (though I’d hope the researchers factored this into their analysis).

The site writer sort of glosses over the fact that bat weight impacts how far balls get hit, and just focuses bat speed.  While I’m sure bat speed is a lot more important, I wonder if increased upper body strength allows players to use bigger bats and still catch up to fastballs?

Also interesting to learn how Adair gives almost all of the credit of the power or bat speed to the lower body muscles.  I wonder how you test that.

Any power gained by steroid users is from bat speed, not bat weight.  Players have used lighter and lighter bats as the years have gone by.

I think even Bonds uses a very small bat.  Strangely, Soriano is one of the few players who uses a big bat, I think he uses a 36.  And he’s pretty far down the list of suspects, certainly not a guy who has ever bulked up.

As to “the ‘recovery’ aspect of steroids”, I have recently added an entire site page addresing that issue.  It is located at (click name).

The site remains dynamic, in that pages will be added, and existing pages augmented, on an on-going basis.

SI Vault:

http://www.cosellout.com/?p=251