Was Manny a life long cheat like Canseco?

[Gurgi]

Do you think Manny did PED's his whole career? Or do you think he started when his career began to look shaky?

[Can_of_corn]

Do you think Manny did PED's his whole career? Or do you think he started when his career began to look shaky?

I find it hard to believe that someone would cheat with testing in place but didn't cheat when testing wasn't in place.

[mweb]

Where's the Manny "cheated" in a similar way to many players during not only his era, but all the way back to the 50's option?

[Skeletor]

Where's the Manny "cheated" in a similar way to many players during not only his era, but all the way back to the 50's option?

Imagine what Mantle would've done with HgH. The stuff is a magic potion. And the steroids they come up with these days turned a middle of the pack HoFer into the best player of the past 130 years in his late 30s.

This stuff is so much better than greenies. Greenies aren't in the same vicinity as performance enhancers as the stuff these days.

[SammyBirdland]

Where's the "of course he was" option? That being said, I'm sure he's joined by an embarrassing percentage of other players. They say our current testing is so lame that you have to be really stupid to get caught, that it's more of an "IQ test" than a "drug test".

Canseco and Bonds didn't get drugs out of the system. They made players learn to be smarter about hiding it.

[orayole]

I'd say likely started in the minors.

[mweb]

Imagine what Mantle would've done with HgH. The stuff is a magic potion. And the steroids they come up with these days turned a middle of the pack HoFer into the best player of the past 130 years in his late 30s.

This stuff is so much better than greenies. Greenies aren't in the same vicinity as performance enhancers as the stuff these days.

Bonds was much better than a middle of the pack HOFer. I think you're overrating the effects of modern steroids as well.

So are older players innocent of cheating because the stuff they took to get a leg up wasn't as effective as the modern stuff?

[Skeletor]

Bonds was much better than a middle of the pack HOFer. I think you're overrating the effects of modern steroids as well.

So are older players innocent of cheating because the stuff they took to get a leg up wasn't as effective as the modern stuff?

They're not innocent. But if taking modern steroids is the equivalent of armed robbery then taking greenies is like soliciting a prostitute. Sure, it's embarrassing and you've got some explaining to do to the wife, but you're not going to prison over it.

[Skeletor]

And, no, I'm not overstating the effects of modern steroids. If taken under the care of someone who knows what they're doing (like BALCO, for instance) they are amazingly effective.

[twoBshorty]

The idea that he just started doing this doesn't past the smell test, the way everyone laughed derisively when Ron Washington tried to claim that he just happened to start snorting lines for the first time at age 57.

I'm sure he's far from the only one, but he was incomprehensibly stupid enough to get caught twice.

[Sports Guy]

I don't know...but I do know he should be a HOFer and it shouldn't even be a question.

[mweb]

They're not innocent. But if taking modern steroids is the equivalent of armed robbery then taking greenies is like soliciting a prostitute. Sure, it's embarrassing and you've got some explaining to do to the wife, but you're not going to prison over it.

It's not just about greenies, plenty of guys took steroids as early as the 60's. Now, were they as effective as the current ones? No, but that is totally irrelevant in terms of the severity of the "crime" or "cheating."

[4TheO's]

I don't know...but I do know he should be a HOFer and it shouldn't even be a question.

so should Raffy but I don't see that happening........Manny wouldn't have put up the #'s he did had he not been doing it for years before he got caught.....as it was evident after his bust of PED's..his career wasn't the same (either is David Ortiz for that matter).....where as players like Bonds, Raffy, Clemens, McGwire were great before and would have been great without them.....

[ledzepp8]

Bonds was much better than a middle of the pack HOFer. I think you're overrating the effects of modern steroids as well.

So are older players innocent of cheating because the stuff they took to get a leg up wasn't as effective as the modern stuff?

I think you're severely underrating the effects of modern steroids. Obviously Barry Bonds was already a HOFer, but steroids clearly made arguably the best player in the history of the game (stats wise). He had 4 of the best seasons in the history of the sport in his age 36-40 seasons.

PEDs took Bonds from a Frank Robinson kind of career to like Babe Ruth x 100.

[mweb]

I love how you guys are using one extreme example to make your point. Tons of guys have used steroids over the past 15 years yet the effects generally were not so drastic.

There have been plenty of studies done on this and I'm confident in my position.