The rise and fall of Rafael Palmeiro

[crawjo]

Mike Piazza is now in the HOF. I'd say that with his election, any pretense that the HOF excludes steroid users is pretty much finished. Note: I don't think Piazza is the first, not by a long stretch.

[MDtransplant757]

For the life of me I don't understand this line of thinking (and I have seen it a lot).

It is as if folks didn't mind steroids as long as they didn't help too much. As if the guys shooting needles in their backsides in the bathroom stall in the '70's were only cheating a little.

Those guys would have used the stuff McGwire was using if it was available.

The tech wasn't available, yes. You have 162 games or 154 back then. Greenies didn't make the players look like gorillas, they still looked like average men. But when it goes into the records that Barry Bonds cheated and didn't achieve his records naturally, then it taints the sport. That's how I feel anyway

[crawjo]

For the life of me I don't understand this line of thinking (and I have seen it a lot).

It is as if folks didn't mind steroids as long as they didn't help too much. As if the guys shooting needles in their backsides in the bathroom stall in the '70's were only cheating a little.

Those guys would have used the stuff McGwire was using if it was available.

Honestly, I suspect that if McGwire, Bonds, and Sosa had had the good sense not to break the season or career home run marks, the whole steroid issue wouldn't have become as big as it did. Lord knows that steroid users in other sports haven't faced the same level of scrutiny or demonization as they have in baseball.

[crawjo]

The tech wasn't available, yes. You have 162 games or 154 back then. Greenies didn't make the players look like gorillas, they still looked like average men. But when it goes into the records that Barry Bonds cheated and didn't achieve his records naturally, then it taints the sport. That's how I feel anyway

Not nearly as much as the exclusion of non-white players tainted the sport. And yet the people largely responsible for enforcing that exclusion are in the Hall of Fame, from Cap Anson to Charles Comiskey, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Tom Yawkey, etc. etc.

[MDtransplant757]

Not nearly as much as the exclusion of non-white players tainted the sport. And yet the people largely responsible for enforcing that exclusion are in the Hall of Fame, from Cap Anson to Charles Comiskey, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, Tom Yawkey, etc. etc.

You are correct, but most of the Negro league players are in the HOF. That and race attitudes were different back then

[Sessh]

You know there is an admitted steroid precursor user in the hall right?

You know Ruth got sick once from experimenting with animal testosterone right?

You know that steroid use was "widespread" in '60's the majors right?

Considering that steroids were being used in the '60's what do you think the odds are of everyone being elected in the past 40 years being steroid free?

This is why I don't care about PED's all that much. They had cocaine in the 1800's plus Pud Galvin experimented with animal testosterone in F'in 1889! People are in denial if they still think the "steroid era" is limited to the

8's and 90's. Anabolic steroids were synthesized in the mid 1930's and it took less than 10 years to make it into the hands of olympic athletes. Yes, Ruth experimented with sheep testosterone and it just made him sick.

Amphetamines have been around since the late 1800's as well. The baseball HOF is beyond tainted right now and the utter hypocrisy in coming down on guys in one "era" and not the others when PED's were just as

widespread is ridiculous. Baseball was fine with PED's. It's their bodies.

Tom House being candid about steroids.

Former major league pitcher Tom House used steroids during his career and said performance-enhancing drugs were widespread in baseball in the 1960s and 1970s, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Tuesday.

House, perhaps best known for catching Hank Aaron's 715th home run ball in 1974 in the Atlanta Braves' bullpen, said he and several teammates used amphetamines, and that he tried human growth hormone and "whatever steroid" he could find in order to keep up with the competition.

"I pretty much popped everything cold turkey," House said.

"We were doing steroids they wouldn't give to horses. That was the '60s, when nobody knew. The good thing is, we know now. There's a lot more research and understanding."

House, a former pitching coach with the Texas Rangers and co-founder of the National Pitching Association near San Diego, is one of the first players to describe steroid use as far back as the 1960s.

PED's werewidespread in the 60's and who knows about the 50's. We know Mantle used amphetamines in the 50's, so how many others did? What about Hank Aaron who has admitted to using amphetamines during

his career. Why is it ok for Aaron to do it, but not Bonds? I find it hilarious that he has come out and said we need to come down harder on steroid users. Why don't we start by kicking him out of the HOF? That would

never happen though. Baseball and apparently many fans are still in denial about this and prefer to just blame it all on the 80's and 90's. It is utter hypocrisy. How many records have already been set using PED's? How

many championships won? My guess is countless and now we're trying to take the PEDs away? It will never go away. There are numerous PEDs that are so specialized that they are completely undetectable by any

test. With all the money that's on the line in MLB, you think guys won't take the risk of using PEDs to get more of it?

Here is a very amusing short film about Dock Ellis's no hitter that he pitched while on LSD with Dock's voice narrating. He also touches on greenies and why people used them and that 90% of players back then were

on them.

[video=youtube;_vUhSYLRw14]

You actually told me about Ruth, and while greenies were the precursor to steroids as we know them, I don't see the big deal, and to be honest, i don't know the chemical makeup, side effects or anything about greenies. No one got massive like Mark McGwire back in those days either

Amphetmines do something that steroids cannot do; they increase reaction time and focus. That, to me, is more valuable than what steroids offer and would seem to make it a better performance enhancer than

steroids.

[El Gordo]

They do not grow the body.

The certainly didn't grow :rolleyestf: Palmeiro's body. Maybe he really is innocent.

[Tony-OH]

Hmm, I read it and it was very well written article, but I have a little different take. The problem with guys like Palmeiro is that they just won't take responsibility for their actions. Had he just come out and admitted taking the steroids, I would have had a lot more respect for him. He seems like he's become a very bitter man, and part of that is he hasn't fully taken responsibility for his actions. He still is claiming the "tainted B-12 shot," but what caused his power to surge suddenly a year from Free Agency at the age of 28?

Raffy was a great natural hitter, but I think he got greedy and like many of the other players out there, he knew he needed to put big power numbers to get the big contract. It's too much of coincidence that his power surge happened at the same time he was coming up for free agency and after coming off a down season for him.

From age 21-27 over 3649 PAs, Palmeiro hit a home run every 38.4 plate appearances. From 28-38 years old he homered once every 16.9 PAs over 7324 while making $76,306,496. He basically homered over twice as much as he ever did and we're supposed to believe that once he was caught it was a tainted B-12 shot?

Sorry, I don't feel for the guy one bit. I understand why players were talking steroids and although I would never vote one into the Hall of Fame(not that I have a vote), I'm not going to judge them all with the same brush. What I would like is to see some damn personal responsibility. Just say, "I did it". I don't care if you are sorry or not, just take personal responsibility for doing something they knew was wrong.

Palmeiro is still using the B-12 excuse and it's embarrassing regardless or what can be proven or not in a court of law.

[OFFNY]

Here is a very amusing short film about Dock Ellis's no hitter that he pitched while on LSD with Dock's voice narrating. He also touches on greenies and why people used them and that 90% of players back then were

on them.

[video=youtube;_vUhSYLRw14]

We actually have a thread for that.

It's an excellent article, and includes his (what Ellis asserts to be) a no-hitter that he once threw while on L.S.D.

The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis

(by Patrick Hruby)

Meet the man behind baseball's most psychedelic myth.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=Dock-Ellis

Here is the thread: ) http://forum.orioleshangout.com/forums/showthread.php/141717-The-Long-Strange-Trip-of-Dock-Ellis-(Outside-the-Lines)?highlight=Dock+Ellis

I hope that you chime in on it (the thread.)

o

[El Gordo]

You are correct, but most of the Negro league players are in the HOF. That and race attitudes were different back then

Yes, in the Negro league HOF, not the MLB. Connie Johnson's and Bob Boyd's jerseys hang there. If they were good enough to hang there why aren't they good enough to hang in Cooperstown? There are 18 Negro League players in the HOF Trust me that's not most of the all the Negro League players.

Satchel Paige (1971)

Josh Gibson (1972)

Buck Leonard (1972)

Monte Irvin (1973)

Cool Papa Bell (1974)

Judy Johnson (1975)

Oscar Charleston (1976)

John Henry Lloyd (1977)

Martin Dihigo (1977)

Rube Foster (1981)

Ray Dandridge (1987)

Leon Day (1995)

Willie Foster (1996)

Willie Wells (1997)

Bullet Rogan (1998)

Smokey Joe Williams (1999)

Turkey Stearnes (2000)

Hilton Smith (2001)

[crawjo]

You are correct, but most of the Negro league players are in the HOF. That and race attitudes were different back then

The people I mentioned in my earlier post actively conspired to keep non-white players out of Major League Baseball, thus maintaining a segregated sport and denying significant economic opportunity to African American and Latino baseball players. This is not a matter of "race attitudes were different back then." It was a racist conspiracy. Are you seriously going to argue that Bonds and Clemens did more to taint the sport by cheating to win, than the people who conspired to keep thousands of deserving athletes out of the Major Leagues?

[MDtransplant757]

The people I mentioned in my earlier post actively conspired to keep non-white players out of Major League Baseball, thus maintaining a segregated sport and denying significant economic opportunity to African American and Latino baseball players. This is not a matter of "race attitudes were different back then." It was a racist conspiracy. Are you seriously going to argue that Bonds and Clemens did more to taint the sport by cheating to win, than the people who conspired to keep thousands of deserving athletes out of the Major Leagues?

Not at all. Again, race attitudes were extremely different, but black players were eventually allowed in. Should black players have been in at that point? Yes, no question. Would that happen today, absolutely not. No one would do something like that nowadays, because that isn't acceptable; whereas back then it was.

[El Gordo]

If Palmeiro was using PED's during his power surge years then why didn't his body and head "grow"? And why wasn't he caught along with Ortiz and company in 2003? If it was because he was using sophisticated masking agents, why did he get caught using a crude steroid like Winstrol. He is a smart guy, he wouldn't have shaken his finger at Congress and then turned around and juiced himself for the first time. The fact is the size of your muscle mass is limited by your genetics. You can pump your self up faster with PED's, but not to any greater extent than normal weight training would. So those who think steroids are worse than Amphetamines because they "grow your body" are misinformed.

[MDtransplant757]

Yes, in the Negro league HOF, not the MLB. Connie Johnson's and Bob Boyd's jerseys hang there. If they were good enough to hang there why aren't they good enough to hang in Cooperstown? There are 18 Negro League players in the HOF Trust me that's not most of the all the Negro League players.

Satchel Paige (1971)

Josh Gibson (1972)

Buck Leonard (1972)

Monte Irvin (1973)

Cool Papa Bell (1974)

Judy Johnson (1975)

Oscar Charleston (1976)

John Henry Lloyd (1977)

Martin Dihigo (1977)

Rube Foster (1981)

Ray Dandridge (1987)

Leon Day (1995)

Willie Foster (1996)

Willie Wells (1997)

Bullet Rogan (1998)

Smokey Joe Williams (1999)

Turkey Stearnes (2000)

Hilton Smith (2001)

I didn't know that. Pardon my ignorance. They should be in Cooperstown, IMO.

[DrungoHazewood]

Honestly, I suspect that if McGwire, Bonds, and Sosa had had the good sense not to break the season or career home run marks, the whole steroid issue wouldn't have become as big as it did. Lord knows that steroid users in other sports haven't faced the same level of scrutiny or demonization as they have in baseball.

Remember, this is the same sport where Ford Frick added an asterisk to Maris' record because he was just some young whippersnapper unworthy of beating The Babe's mark. We love our milestone numbers. Probably too much.