PEDs, old style.

[DrungoHazewood]

Article from NPR on Pud Galvin. For those of you not alive in 1885, Pud was a star pitcher in the early days of the game. Hall of Famer, 300 game winner.

Seems that Galvin was quite open in his use of PEDs. You can read the article, but on at least one occasion ol' Pud drank an elixir of testosterone drained from bull testicles before pitching. Kind of a primitive steroid. The Washington Post was impressed enough by his subsequent performance to declare it a worthy product.

So... who's for ripping down Galvin's HOF plaque? How about an asterisk for his 365 wins?

[Moose Milligan]

Dunno about all that, but I'm gonna go look for a bull somewhere. Later.

[Camden_yardbird]

Was it illegal and against the rules then? If not then I have no problem with it.

Is it even against the rules now? Never seen that listed. Does Barry Bonds know? Because I think I saw him at a cattle auction the other day.

[Leitch]

Who cares? It's not like he hit a lot of home runs or anything.

[DrungoHazewood]

Who cares? It's not like he hit a lot of home runs or anything.

Not only that, but Nick Young wasn't even there for his 300th win!

[howie14]

They sell the "Rocky Mountain Oyster" at Coors Field. I wonder if frying the durned things increases or decreases the effectiveness?

[crstrobel]

Article from NPR on Pud Galvin. For those of you not alive in 1885, Pud was a star pitcher in the early days of the game. Hall of Famer, 300 game winner.

Seems that Galvin was quite open in his use of PEDs. You can read the article, but on at least one occasion ol' Pud drank an elixir of testosterone drained from bull testicles before pitching. Kind of a primitive steroid. The Washington Post was impressed enough by his subsequent performance to declare it a worthy product.

So... who's for ripping down Galvin's HOF plaque? How about an asterisk for his 365 wins?

He deserves to be in the Hall. Any one who drinks "Bull Juice" gets my approvial! LOL:D

[Migrant Redbird]

Seems that Galvin was quite open in his use of PEDs. You can read the article, but on at least one occasion ol' Pud drank an elixir of testosterone drained from bull testicles before pitching. Kind of a primitive steroid. The Washington Post was impressed enough by his subsequent performance to declare it a worthy product.

Thanks for posting that, Jon, since it validates a point I've made before about the probability of athletes using PEDs prior to the isolation of testosterone and the development of synthetic steroids. For all we know, Babe Ruth might have used some secret elixir.

However, I'm skeptical that any athletes prior to WWII actually found a PED with greater efficacy than a placebo would have provided. From what I've read, testosterone is metabolized in the digestive tract and loses its efficacy if administered orally. Early athletes would have needed to inject these testes extracts and it probably would have caused an immunological reaction that would have caused redness and swelling at the injection site and possibly flu-like symptoms similar to those reported by military servicemen being administered the anthrax vaccines.

So, the hypothetical use of PEDs is of academic interest, but I don't think we need to consider adjusting any records because of that. Of course, I also think it's foolish to talk about adjusting the records of recent decades because there's no way to prove who didn't use PEDs or to quantify how much it helped improve their performance.

[SteveA]

Article from NPR on Pud Galvin. For those of you not alive in 1885, Pud was a star pitcher in the early days of the game. Hall of Famer, 300 game winner.

Seems that Galvin was quite open in his use of PEDs. You can read the article, but on at least one occasion ol' Pud drank an elixir of testosterone drained from bull testicles before pitching. Kind of a primitive steroid. The Washington Post was impressed enough by his subsequent performance to declare it a worthy product.

So... who's for ripping down Galvin's HOF plaque? How about an asterisk for his 365 wins?

The issue is not using PEDs, it's using ones that are against the law. Hell, caffeine is a performance enhancing drug. My performance at work would definitely suffer without it.

There are some people who have a moral code and won't break the law. Not punishing those who will break the law to enhance their performance puts these honest folk at a competitive disadvantage. Period. And that can't be allowed.

Was what Galvin did against the law or the rules of baseball? I tend to doubt it, we didn't have the phalanx of drug laws then that we do now...cocaine was once an ingredient in coca-cola and LSD was legal for many years after it was discovered.

[Migrant Redbird]

The issue is not using PEDs, it's using ones that are against the law.

Not in this context. Baseball suspends players for getting caught using marijuana or cocaine, but no one is concerned about the impact of coke or hash on the sanctity of baseball's records.

The same is true of greenies, which is why baseball didn't suspend Giambi for flunking a 1st test for amphetamines. If that had been a steroid, he'd have been suspended for 50 games.

[TyCobb]

Not in this context. Baseball suspends players for getting caught using marijuana or cocaine, but no one is concerned about the impact of coke or hash on the sanctity of baseball's records.

The same is true of greenies, which is why baseball didn't suspend Giambi for flunking a 1st test for amphetamines. If that had been a steroid, he'd have been suspended for 50 games.

Cocaine and marijuana aren't going to make a player better. Baseball is trying to get completely rid of steroids. The Public and MLB probably could careless about Greenies. I mean 5 red bulls or coffee will get you wired enough to play baseball.

[Migrant Redbird]

Cocaine and marijuana aren't going to make a player better....

Isn't that exactly what I was saying?

[TyCobb]

Isn't that exactly what I was saying?

I won't doubt it. Long day at work.

[Lt Melmo]

So... who's for ripping down Galvin's HOF plaque? How about an asterisk for his 365 wins?

Doesn't look like he belonged in the Hall to begin with...

[DrungoHazewood]

Doesn't look like he belonged in the Hall to begin with...

You think so? I tend to believe that the dominant players of an era belong in the Hall. Galvin was one of the top pitchers of his era. He didn't last long enough to rack up more than 55 WARP because of when he pitched - short schedules, and radically changing pitching rules. When he began in the majors batters could call for a high or low pitch, he was throwing from a box 45 ft from the plate, underhanded, and wasn't allowed to snap his wrist. By the time he retired they were implementing rules that were essentially the same as today. In between the rules changed almost annually. Adapting to that kind of change and being expected to throw complete games in a majority of your team's games was a tremendous burden. Pitch counts? Ha! Those guys threw until it hurt too much to get the ball to the plate. I've seen data that indicates a pitcher of his era typically peaked at 23(!). Galvin was starting 50 games a year into his 30s.

No pitchers who began their careers in the 1870s were clearly better. From 1888 until Cy Young passed him he was the all time wins leader, and is still the all time leader among pitchers who pitched most of their careers before the 1893 rules changes.