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THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

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Thursday, January 03, 2008

The SlumpBusters

By Tangotiger, 10:35 AM

Trying to bust a slump?  No worries, it’s only women.  Voting in drug abusers and addicts into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?  We need someone in there.  Wife-beaters already in, or eventually in, various hall of fames?  They all deserve redemption. A presidential candidate admitting to past cocaine use?  Presidents abusing alcohol?  What’s a little vino among friends.  But, gosh-darn it, if I am an old white guy, and I have my Harlequin fascination with baseball, then I expect my baseball players to be virgin with cocaine, steroids, and hGH.  Let them abuse all other vices, including amphetamines, alcohol and women which you probably term as “harmless vices.. but drugs is a dirty business”. 

Live in the real world, baseball writers.  You want to make baseball as romantic as you want.  Fine.  But, don’t try to impose your fantasy into the world’s reality.  If an athlete is going to abuse something, I’d rather he do it to himself.  It’s not my fault you give the number 61 such romantic properties.


#1    david Smyth      (see all posts) 2008/01/03 (Thu) @ 18:42

I agree (I think). I really don’t give a crap who used steroids. When I was a teen, I did more than my fair share of pot and other mind-enhancing drugs. When I became a licensed health professional, I was really into weight training, and I used my privileges to obtain HGH (this was 25 yrs ago or so), and shot it up a few times (it had no effect that I could tell). So, I can easily imagine that if I were a pro baseball player, I would have chosen to use steroids, (albeit probably more informed, more carefully, and more discreetly than the typical player).

So I tread lightly in the judgement arena.


#2    tangotiger      (see all posts) 2008/01/03 (Thu) @ 19:04

In that case, BaseRuns will not get my vote on a first ballot for the Sabermetricians Hall of Fame.  I need more time to investigate this.


#3          (see all posts) 2008/01/03 (Thu) @ 21:28

So you’re telling me that I read a ‘roided up explanation of How Runs are Really Created?


#4    HarryAbles      (see all posts) 2008/01/04 (Fri) @ 10:42

We know James was clean:
http://www.baseballreliquary.org/images/_DSC0275_477_320.JPG

Burden of proof is on you, David.


#5    david smyth      (see all posts) 2008/01/04 (Fri) @ 19:27

The timelines don’t match up. I did the HGH (like, 3 times) in the mid 1980s. BaseRuns came in the mid 1990s. I’ll try to come up with a photo (like that of B James here), that will prove I wasn’t roided up.


#6    Tangotiger      (see all posts) 2008/01/07 (Mon) @ 12:41

http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/anotherview/all-left_col-a.6213625jan06,0,5659224.story

...a decade of baseball history has been tainted, and a generation of young athletes received the wrong message from their heroes about using illegal, performance-enhancement drugs.

That’s a quote from Congressman ... uhh… who cares.  Just put any Congressman’s name here who has nothing else to worry about.

Imagine giving Elvis, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan drug tests?  They gave Elton John, Led Zeppelin, and Green Day the wrong message!  These guys could have reached their potential the right way!

And Elvis turned impressionable girls into a tizzy.

More Phony Outrage. 

***

I’ll bet alcohol and cigarette-using politicians (of which I’m sure there are a few) send a worse message to their own children than juiced up athletes or stoned-out rockers.

Who will think of the children?  Think of your own.  Talk to them, instead of other parents’ kids.  If your kids ain’t listening to you, you can bet your last dollar someone else’s kid ain’t listening to you either.

The role model of kids is the people they love.


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