Another day, another drug story
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Sep 10, 2007 
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It seems like we’re getting a story a day now on players who obtained HGH or some other performance enhancing drug. Rick Ankiel, Troy Glaus and now Jay Gibbons.
Did the Yankees already serve their time when Jason Giambi was dragged before Sen. George Mitchell in July? I know one thing, plenty of players on every team must be praying they’re not next.
The Yankees Chick has some thoughts over on her blog. What do you think? Is this an issue for you or does the pennant race still mean more?
Every team has dirty laundry and every manager of the last 10 years must have some personal knowledge or suspicion of use by his players. Managers are loyal to their players, but that has to burn some guys. Of course they turned a blind eye for some job security of their own.
I don’t condone use of PED’s by any player, but I’m glad that the one Yankee that everyone suspected came clean. I thought Giambi was such an idiot for saying what he said earlier this season. As far as I know, he was the first active player to say that he knowingly did steroids. Everyone else used the excuses of flaxseed oil, protein drinks, and vitamin b-12 shots. His reward for going along with the dog & pony show? Immunity. He doesn’t look like such an idiot anymore.
The funny thing is that investigative reporting is digging up more dirt than the Mitchell investigation, which in my mind was to discourage Barry Bonds from breaking the HR record. That didn’t work out like they planned.
Now you’re going to see all kinds of names come out of the woodwork. Not too bright and apparently not rich enough to get the designer drugs. Funny how Canseco and Giambi almost look like saints. But that’s how we are in America. Athletes fess up to their mistakes and we accept them and even cheer for them. After all, nobody’s perfect so who are we to judge?
This issue is DOA. It’s just not sexy.
Hy sleeper story is who gets the second seed the Angels or Indians, cuz if the tape of season ended in the next ten seconds and self destructed like Tom Cruise’s career, then we would face the 2nd seed.
I would so get a kick listening to the whinning and insecurities of Red Sox Nation if they had to travel 7 hrs to the O.C.
As long as we’re getting existential, here’s a hiliarious review of last nite’s VMA show:
_Britney Spears’ black bikini sparkled, but her “comeback” performance at the MTV Video Music Awards last night fell as flat as her ill-fitting blond weave._
_Glassy-eyed and out of step, Britney seemed lost in a sea of pole dancers and overmuscled male models who groped her so much she wasn’t even mouthing the words by the time her number ended._
_Cuts to the audience revealed fellow artists rolling their eyes. 50 Cent looked like he might have just thrown up in his mouth, and Rihanna was flat-out laughing to a table guest. “She didn’t seem like she wanted to be there. There was no spark,” said rapper Common. “I don’t wanna disrespect her, but she can’t sing!”_ (ya think)
_Record-producing rapper Akon was a bit more diplomatic: “I think she needed to have focused more on the show and less on the parties.”_ (pot, meet Kittle)
_Brit love interest Criss Angel, who reportedly worked so hard with the singer to prepare for the show, lazily watched the disaster unfold from monitors on the red carpet._
_Britney wasn’t a bad girl. At the end of the performance, she was just bad._
“Is this an issue for you or does the pennant race still mean more?”
Before I get off my soapbox, I’d like to add one more thing. As far as I’m concerned, unless another active Yankee is implicated, this is a non-issue for this team. Jason took a pre-emptive strike (most likely accidental)that was humiliating at the time, but, really, turned out to be much ado about nothing. Giambi, Bonds, Sheffield, McGwire, & Sosa were just the tip of the iceberg. As the shock wears off, people will get off their high horses and realize that the enemy looks more like the Ankiels than the Bonds’ of the world. Eventually, it will cease to be a big deal. We’ve cleaned our house and the pennant race is the only thing that matters now.
Dr. Acula,
No pix? It was nasty GROSS!
You mean Pix of Britney?
Not worth the trouble, she’s no fun on lithium and whatever sex appeal the pop tart had ejected from the toaster years ago.
I have a slideshow on ARod shelling KC tomorrow, featuring newly minted icon, Harlen Chamberlain, and of course the Dean Martin Yankee Diggers!!
Does the pennant race “still” mean more? That presumes that the playoffs and performance-enhancing drugs are issues 1 and 1a in my mind. In reality, PED’s are issue… oh, I dunno, one million?
Don’t think PED’s are a terribly important or interesting problem. Really, really wish people would shut up about them and focus on the games.
Pete -
I feel very strongly about the use of steroids, drugs, PEDs etc. in professional sports.
Here in CT our children have been affected – stealing $$$ from parents to go buy steroids in Mexico – to the point where the kids are now drug tested if their teams reach state championships.
Of course the idea that ‘it wasn’t illegal in baseball’ is absurd. Those Clubhouses are in the United States where it was and is illegal – just ask your local police. Those who for whatever reason ‘protected’ their athletes from the law have made a big mistake.
Yesterday, this section of the Bill Madden column in the Daily News caught my eye:
“There’s no way of knowing how many players are taking it – only the suspicion that many of them are.
Or as one long-time, respected baseball person said to me: “In my opinion, more than half the players in the game are taking stuff and they’re going to continue doing it until there’s a test.”
So this scandal goes far beyond Barry Bonds. Jose Canseco casually drops Alex Rodriguez’s name and unfortunately it can no longer be dismissed. You want to believe that everything about A-Rod’s MVP season is genuine, just as fans in Tampa Bay want to believe in Carlos Pena’s out-of-nowhere career year.”
I had already heard whispers about Alex, Clemens, and Damon – who all apparently have to make trips to see their own doctors at home at times during the season.
What’s that all about?
Joan in Cheshire-
chill out Joan, I hear “whispers” too, that’s why attend group therapy with Tony Soprano.
I don’t have a problems with increased testing, but I have no taste for gut speculations.
As for what is legal and illegal, please, Babe Ruth drank like a fish during the prohibition era. When do we tear down his monuments?
It blows my mind that people still care about performance enhancing drugs. NFL analysts/writers/fans don’t care, so why is it still such a big deal for baseball analysts/writers/fans?
I love how there is more outrage over a baseball player using this than All Pro NFL players like Rodney Harrison and Shawne Merriman.
Adam,
Here is the reason. It’s because baseball writers are the old, white middle class guys who remember what the game “used to be”. Columnists, writers and analysts and the general public don’t care that those athletes use anything because they are cattle. But they get outraged that people would try to ruin the nostalgic game they grew up with.
Obviously, the public cares thats why no one is going to the ballpark anymore and the game is down. Right??
If I was to personally rate how much I care about these steroid tests and the current stretch run, the stretch run to me is about 100 times more important. I just dont care about steroids, I have already assumed 80% of baseball players take them and all these guys having their names brought up really isn’t a big deal for me
I find it amazing ,that St Louis Cardinal’s mgr Larussa ,
always seems to have a player that’s under suspicion for substance abuse.When he managed the A’s Macgwire Conseco,and a young Giambi.St Louis, Mark again now Ankiel.Larussa has a alcohol problem. He lost a young Cardinal pitcher recently with the same alcohol dependency.Some of the bigges”roiders” were under his mgmt. Except the one that manipulated the record past Hank . This
era in baseball leaves a question marks on long standing broken records.
As a fan ,I would like to see someone like Arod ,who isn’t associated with any substance clean up the records. He is doing it in his prime slow and steady.
Gibbons is not a shocker – he was always a one dimensional player and if he didn’t have his bat, he’d be a career minor leaguer so gaining whatever advantage he could isn’t that hard to grasp. Same situation with Ankiel. You do what you can to make your career. Bad judgement, and inexcusable, but what would you do? million dollar contract and play ball or be an insurance salesman?
Honestly, I just wish the issue would go away.
The pure joy my 10-year-old has felt when A-Rod has hit another homer has been magical this summer. I hope Alex is clean, but if he’s not, I hope it never comes out — why should the kids have to deal with that?
FV
For the baseball days of my youth..when (according to Jim Bouton and Don Mincher) most of the players on the St Louis Cards, Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers and Seattle Pilotswere on greenies. The Beatles were singing such wholesome songs as “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and “With a little Help from my friends”. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones and Jim Morrison set a fine example to the youth for living clean healthy lives. Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes had 50 bongs on an album cover.
Just wait till Roger’s name comes up………….
Because of the way the issue’s blown up, no one will be safe.
If A-Rod hits 60, you know some paper out there is going to do all it can to be the first to try to come up with some juice…
It’s disgusting, it’s disappointing.
But I’m not just talking about the players or the media here….
i couldnt careless about the roids issue
Ankiel is a non-issue. He used a hormone that was legal in the United States with a prescription, with a legal prescription, for a reason that, while not the official use of the hormone, is an accepted prescribed use, while it was still legal in the MLB. He stopped using after it was banned. He at no point in time attempted to hide his use, using his real name, real address, etc.
Non-issue.
Also: while rehabbing as a pitcher (before his change to full-time outfielder).
Ankiel’s prescription was illegally obtained (HGH is only for AIDS patients and people with HGH deficiency) and filled by a pharmacy that was giving everyone and their mother steroids and HGH.
Not that I usually judge the looks of men, but is Jay Gibbon’s the ugliest guy in MLB? i think he could be.