PED Discussion

[Spudboy]

Is there a moderator on this board? PED stuff needs its own thread.....can you guys take it outside and duke it out?

 

This sort of deviation from topic happens al lot on Talksox. It does not last long.

 

And those two guys have a history that we all treasure.

[Emp9]

This pretty much sums it up...

 

Papi:"One, I have already contacted the Players Association to confirm if this report is true. I have just been told that the report is true," Ortiz said in his statement. "Based on the way I have lived my life, I am surprised to learn I tested positive. Two, I will find out what I tested positive for. And, three, based on whatever I learn, I will share this information with my club and the public. You know me -- I will not hide and I will not make excuses."

 

Terry Francona: "We admire his approach to this, which is, he's not going to run from it, he's not going to hide from it," Francona said after the game. "The first thing he needed to find out was whether he indeed tested positive or not, and he confirmed that this afternoon talking to the union. Now he needs to find out what he tested positive for. He needs some time to get some answers and then he's going to stand up and answer every question. I admire that courage."

 

Ortiz has never failed a banned substance by MLB. However, that was only part of the argument. One can't compare a one-off mistake to going out of your way to cheat. Clemens didn't just walk into his friendly neighborhood GNC because he wanted a protein shake. Clemens didn't lie under oath over grabbing a beverage from a dugout cooler in the DR. He was the Ivan Drago of SPs in MLB season after season and there is no Ortiz comparison.

[User Name]

Of course there's a comparison. Either willingly or unwillingly, they both cheated. The point here is that there are different circumstances to any case. What initiated this discussion was the extremist stance of "No PED users evah!!!11!!!" taken by some people here. I'm calling out the hypocrisy of it.

 

It's fine if you don't condone steroid use in MLB, but there's a difference between a cheater and a guy who took a bottle of cold medicine that has adverse effects on your hormone levels, like Mondesi Jr. did.

[mvp 78]

Of course there's a comparison. Either willingly or unwillingly, they both cheated. The point here is that there are different circumstances to any case. What initiated this discussion was the extremist stance of "No PED users evah!!!11!!!" taken by some people here. I'm calling out the hypocrisy of it.

 

It's fine if you don't condone steroid use in MLB, but there's a difference between a cheater and a guy who took a bottle of cold medicine that has adverse effects on your hormone levels, like Mondesi Jr. did.

 

I'm not sure why you keep believing the Mondesi story...

[User Name]

I'm not sure why you keep believing the Mondesi story...

 

Lies! All lies! It's a conspiracy!

[S5Dewey]

Of course there's a comparison. Either willingly or unwillingly, they both cheated. The point here is that there are different circumstances to any case. What initiated this discussion was the extremist stance of "No PED users evah!!!11!!!" taken by some people here. I'm calling out the hypocrisy of it.

 

It's fine if you don't condone steroid use in MLB, but there's a difference between a cheater and a guy who took a bottle of cold medicine that has adverse effects on your hormone levels, like Mondesi Jr. did.

 

Yeah. Here's the problem with that. To paraphrase the great Dr. Gregory House, "People lie. Everybody lies. People even lie to their doctor and if you'll lie to your doctor you'll lie to anyone!"

 

Dangle the prospect of a few million dollars in front of someone and see how quickly they'll lie.

 

Now, I'm not saying they're all liars. There are probably a few who have legitimate stories as to how they tested positive and I feel badly for those players. But.... I'd rather let a few (relatively) innocent players who could contribute to the Sox get away than I would have even ONE player on the team who cheated the game and the rest of the players in search of The Big Payday. Why? Because we can't prove who's telling the lies and who isn't and to give these (relatively) innocent players the benefit of doubt encourages the liars.

 

But that's just me.

[S5Dewey]

...and to carry that a bit farther, AFAIK there's no definitive proof as to how long the benefits of the PED's stay in a player's system so even though someone may have been 'clean' for a few season they still may be benefiting from the effects of the drug. These guys who build the muscle mass don't see it disappear the day they stop using the drugs. Even though they may sworn off the drugs they're still cheating.

[User Name]

Blackstone's formulation.

[illinoisredsox]

Of course there's a comparison. Either willingly or unwillingly, they both cheated. The point here is that there are different circumstances to any case. What initiated this discussion was the extremist stance of "No PED users evah!!!11!!!" taken by some people here. I'm calling out the hypocrisy of it.

 

It's fine if you don't condone steroid use in MLB, but there's a difference between a cheater and a guy who took a bottle of cold medicine that has adverse effects on your hormone levels, like Mondesi Jr. did.

 

Someone with your avatar has no business lecturing anyone on lying and cheating

[User Name]

Someone with your avatar has no business lecturing anyone on lying and cheating

 

You do know it's a joke about Trot Nixon?

[mvp 78]

You do know it's a joke about Trot Nixon?

 

You know Kuip, Red Sox fans may not like hearing this but Trot Nixon wears #7 because of his boyhood hero Mickey Mantle.

[S5Dewey]

Blackstone's formulation.

 

Blackstone's formulation works well in the legal arena but not so well in real life. It assumes that everyone is innocent, often in the face of tremendous circumstantial evidence if no hard evidence is present.

 

There seems to be no shortage of owners who are willing to ignore the circumstantial evidence and pay these players for their sometimes obvious transgressions. I just don't want John Henry and the Sox to be one of those owners. I don't WANT any of them owners to do this but since they have the right to do it they will continue to. They, like too many other people, think that if they have the right to do something then it's the right thing to do.

 

Or...maybe their motivation is greed which allows them to overlook the moral aspect of encouraging cheaters.

[S5Dewey]

I find the entire PED issue has a parallel with escalating player's salaries.

 

IMO no owner wants to pay the players the millions of dollars they're paying them, just as IMO they don't want to sign known PED users. (The owners MUST know in their hearts that these players are cheaters, don't they??) They just don't trust the other owners to NOT pay the salaries or sign the PED users. There is no honor among these thieves!

[User Name]

Blackstone's formulation works well in the legal arena but not so well in real life. It assumes that everyone is innocent, often in the face of tremendous circumstantial evidence if no hard evidence is present.

 

There seems to be no shortage of owners who are willing to ignore the circumstantial evidence and pay these players for their sometimes obvious transgressions. I just don't want John Henry and the Sox to be one of those owners. I don't WANT any of them owners to do this but since they have the right to do it they will continue to. They, like too many other people, think that if they have the right to do something then it's the right thing to do.

 

Or...maybe their motivation is greed which allows them to overlook the moral aspect of encouraging cheaters.

 

It works well in real life. Or is the legal system a cartoon? The point is to not condemn the innocent because of the cheaters, and that's the way it should work. You are conflating two different topics here.

 

The question is, should all guys who fail a test, regardless of circumstances, be run out of the league? That's the question that needs to be answered here.

[Kimmi]

Whenever I see ARod get a game changing or game winning hit, it makes me sick. All I can think is, freaking cheating scumbag. The same is true for Cruz, especially when he played for the Orioles.

 

If we signed a player like Braun, I would have a very difficult time pulling for him, and yet, I would have to pull for him.

 

I don't care how good he is. No thanks.

[mvp 78]

Whenever I see ARod get a game changing or game winning hit, it makes me sick. All I can think is, freaking cheating scumbag. The same is true for Cruz, especially when he played for the Orioles.

 

If we signed a player like Braun, I would have a very difficult time pulling for him, and yet, I would have to pull for him.

 

I don't care how good he is. No thanks.

 

And yet, we have Ortiz.

[S5Dewey]

And yet, we have Ortiz.

 

Seriously? This "Ortiz" argument has to be one of the most spurious one's I've ever encountered anywhere.

 

On the one hand we have a player who tested positive for "something" 13 years ago, something MLB won't even identify to Papi so he can defend himself. I've always felt that there's something patently unfair about a system that will find someone guilty of something and not give the guilty party a chance to defend himself. Isn't that almost the definition of a "kangaroo court"?

 

OTOH we have ARod who has been identified by more than one person as a PED abuser and served a suspension for PED usage. And you want to equate those two?

 

Papi said at one time that he believed he's been tested more than any player in baseball and the tests have always come back negative. At some point this goes beyond rationality and becomes a witch-hunt. 13 years just may be that point.

[mvp 78]

Did he fail a test? Yup. Is it all that much different than Cruz, ARod, Palmeiro, et al? Nope.

 

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Spudboy]

Whenever I see ARod get a game changing or game winning hit, it makes me sick. All I can think is, freaking cheating scumbag. The same is true for Cruz, especially when he played for the Orioles.

 

If we signed a player like Braun, I would have a very difficult time pulling for him, and yet, I would have to pull for him.

 

I don't care how good he is. No thanks.

 

Amen.

[User Name]

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

U srs brah?

[TheBabeStrikesBack]

Seriously? This "Ortiz" argument has to be one of the most spurious one's I've ever encountered anywhere.

 

On the one hand we have a player who tested positive for "something" 13 years ago, something MLB won't even identify to Papi so he can defend himself. I've always felt that there's something patently unfair about a system that will find someone guilty of something and not give the guilty party a chance to defend himself. Isn't that almost the definition of a "kangaroo court"?

 

OTOH we have ARod who has been identified by more than one person as a PED abuser and served a suspension for PED usage. And you want to equate those two?

 

Papi said at one time that he believed he's been tested more than any player in baseball and the tests have always come back negative. At some point this goes beyond rationality and becomes a witch-hunt. 13 years just may be that point.

 

And the only reason that he would be tested that many times is if he had previously tested positive.

[mvp 78]

U srs brah?

 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - Mark Twain

[S5Dewey]

And the only reason that he would be tested that many times is if he had previously tested positive.

 

Right. And I have no problem with that. IMO he's now exonerated himself and deserves the same credit as anyone else who's gone 13 years without a positive test.

[Bellhorn04]

I'm of the belief that PED transgressions are not all created equal and it's reasonable to regard some as worse than others.

[User Name]

I'm of the belief that PED transgressions are not all created equal and it's reasonable to regard some as worse than others.

 

^So simple.

[jacksonianmarch]

Jacko, it's really simple:

 

David Ortiz failed a test back in 2003, and has never failed a test again. He's been tested numerous times, and you can essentially, and realistically, chalk it up to drinking a tainted supplement here in donkeyland. Do you know how many times athletes have gotten suspended here from international competition from drinking a tainted supplement? The DR olympic committee has had to take complete control over what supplements people take here. It doesn't matter: Vitamins, cold medicine, it's a mess. And even better, he owned it, and moved on.

 

Clemens f***ing cheated. He never failed a test, but you know he cheated multiple times, and threw his wife and best friend under the bus after receiving steroids multiple times.

 

So subject A failed a test, and didn't even get notified what for because of what can be interpreted as a minor issue. Manny got notified because he was using steroids outright, no tainted supplements. Subject B is a heavy user, shits on other people to save his legacy, and is a class A *******.

 

Seems identical to me!

 

The point is, both are cheaters. And while Clemens is speculation (strong, strong, nearly ironclad speculation), Ortiz FAILED A TEST.

 

And Ortiz was notified in 2004 that he tested positive, and didn't confirm it until the story leaked. So once the story leaked, all of a sudden, he felt the need to find out what he took? Where was the urgency a decade prior? And the testing that was performed was for PED's, not masking agents like HCG or building blocks like Andro. They were testing for anabolic steroids. Ortiz was doing steroids in 2003.

Edited June 24, 2016 by jacksonianmarch

[S5Dewey]

The point is, both are cheaters. And while Clemens is speculation (strong, strong, nearly ironclad speculation), Ortiz FAILED A TEST.

 

Ok, in a black-and-white world I'll give you that. But can people please give this a rest? If you're going to use his failing a test as evidence that he was using (although I certainly don't equate whatever Papi was using with whatever Roger was using) then you also have to use his not failing a test as evidence that he's not using. In your black-and-white world you can't have it both ways.

 

Now, if you want to hold something against him that happened 13 years ago that's fine but it's also significant that Papi's best years were during the years when he was being tested repeatedly and passing every test.

[User Name]

The point is, both are cheaters. And while Clemens is speculation (strong, strong, nearly ironclad speculation), Ortiz FAILED A TEST.

 

And Ortiz was notified in 2004 that he tested positive, and didn't confirm it until the story leaked. So once the story leaked, all of a sudden, he felt the need to find out what he took? Where was the urgency a decade prior? And the testing that was performed was for PED's, not masking agents like HCG or building blocks like Andro. They were testing for anabolic steroids. Ortiz was doing steroids in 2003.

 

I need some proof that the testing was steroid-specific. As far as I've read, it was PED testing. Sources please.

[S5Dewey]

I need some proof that the testing was steroid-specific. As far as I've read, it was PED testing. Sources please.

 

An excellent point, and something that's often overlooked. All PED's are not created equal.

[moonslav59]

Nobody, even Papi, knows what he tested positive for, except the lab and the few people who have the results and are not telling anyone anything.

 

Username is right, he tested positive for some kind of PED, but we may never know what it was.

 

We can choose to believe Papi was not a longtime user of PEDs up to 2003 or not. That would be all speculation, but Papi has done very well after 2003, while some others who come off steroids flop pretty quickly.

 

Papi used something. He admitted it. He never said what it was though.

 

Clemens lied, cheated and ruined other people's lives to try to convince the public he wasn't a cheater. He's also had other transgressions beyond PED use that I believe money silenced, but I'll just leave it at that.

 

Clemens lives in my hometown. Even his hometown knows him for what he is: evil.