Playing devils advocate here...any chance that he unknowingly took a supplement? I dont know much about steroids & supplements but I find it unbelievable that 2 yrs after getting caught he does it again.
Playing devils advocate here...any chance that he unknowingly took a supplement? I dont know much about steroids & supplements but I find it unbelievable that 2 yrs after getting caught he does it again.
Championships since purchase by John Henry group: Red Sox 4 Yankees 1
The Red Sox are 8-1 in their last 9 postseason games against the Yankees.
How often does one of these guys admit that they were cheating and they got caught? It is more convenient to say that their protein shake must have somehow been contaminated with Nandrolone. It is kind of hard to believe that they were not cheating all along and finally got nailed. Especially when it is their second offense. I guess they felt that the reward was worth the risk.
$240 million vs. maybe not getting into Cooperstown? I’d say that huge reward was worth the minimal risk.
The league should void contracts of players who test positive. Let 38yo Robinson Cano try to get another 4 year $96 mill contract so he actually has something at risk...
Would that turn every juicer back into a free agent? Not that the team losing a key guy to suspension doesn't have to radically alter their roster and plans going forward...
But I believe in a free and fair election to the Hall of Fame, as long as voters count every legal PED: multi-vitamins, coffee, 5-hour Energy, protein bars (maybe), shots of Jack Daniels, oatmeal stout, Mounds bars (for pitchers), Lindor chocolate (for shortstops)...
If MLB and the MLBPA are serious about getting rid of PEDs, they need to make the penalties financial. you're not discouraging players from cheating their way to six figure contracts by penalizing them with a tainted legacy and the ability to keep every contractual dollar.
One posssibility might be to have every player who tyests positive (with X amount of re-tests to make sure it is not a false positive) is to make them play out the remainder of the current contract for the leaque minimum, or to deny arbitration/raises for players in their first 6 seasons, and make them play all the way to free agency for the league minimum.
I bet you would see a massive drop in PED usage at that point. At least in the Majors. Minor leaguers still have nothing to lose.
The owners would likely be all for it, but the MLBPA would balk. And they would be wrong to do so, because it gives the appearance that they promote PED usage in order to secure more money, which is exactly the opposite message MLB needs to be sending...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuP09m62sVs
It's been all downhill for baseball ever since they popped Pete Rose.
In 87, everyone knew people were using roids, but nobody cared. Baseball was fun.
Bart Giamatti ruined baseball. Even God knew this by smiting him a few days later.
The mantra was "Doctored baseballs = fine. Corked bats = cheating." The guy who basically made cheating really bad was bat stuffer Albert Belle, because he was such an intolerable human being. THere were dozens of stories about his bats and the suspicions, and there was the awesome Jason Grimsley story about swapping Belle's confiscated bat. If he had been nicer, it might not have been so frowned upon. (And Grimsley might have learned something about avoiding cheating rather than have his own HGH scandal.)
Of course, then Canseco spilled the beans and we learned what Jayson Stark summed up very well. "Fans don't like cheating if it leads to more home runs."
Last edited by notin; 11-20-2020 at 12:13 PM.