Steroids in the 70s?

[Sports Guy]

The Pittsburgh Steelers steel curtain teams were known to be steroids users...And it wasn't just them...It was all over the NFL in the 70s.

Now, when you look at the players in the NFL in the 70s, they weren't huge like they are today.

So, this gets me to MLB and steroids in the 70s....They didn't test for it...Didn't care about it, etc...

So, why are we to believe that steroids weren't a part of the game in the 70s, just as they were in the NFL?

Why are we to believe that it was prevelant in one major sport but not another?

[Spoonless]

Quick Google search came up with this article from 2005:

SAN FRANCISCO - 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.

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, human growth hormone and “whatever steroid” they could find in order to keep up with the competition.

“I pretty much popped everything cold turkey,” House told the Chronicle in a story published Tuesday. “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.”

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/7721721/

[Sports Guy]

Quick Google search came up with this article from 2005:

http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/7721721/

Thanks for that...Very interesting.

So, what does this mean? Should we whip out all the records?

[Spoonless]

Thanks for that...Very interesting.

So, what does this mean? Should we whip out all the records?

Honestly, I don't really know. I mean, I really do feel genuinely bad for the guys that did it without using steroids, but with how widespread it was, I don't think you can ever weed out the numbers affected by them. I mean... 'roided batters taking on clean pitchers, 'roided pitchers taking on clean batters, 'roided batters taking on 'roided pitchers. What about amphetamines? What about that center fielder who was tired as hell from a night out drinking that pops a couple greenies and makes a spectacular diving catch?

[jcroemer]

Honestly, I don't really know. I mean, I really do feel genuinely bad for the guys that did it without using steroids, but with how widespread it was, I don't think you can ever weed out the numbers affected by them. I mean... 'roided batters taking on clean pitchers, 'roided pitchers taking on clean batters, 'roided batters taking on 'roided pitchers. What about amphetamines? What about that center fielder who was tired as hell from a night out drinking that pops a couple greenies and makes a spectacular diving catch?

House has no idea what he was popping. In the 60s and 70s they did speed, which House mentioned. But he goes on to say they popped anything they could to get an edge... I'm guessing that they weren't using real steroids and if they did, they weren't using them properly. Sounds like careless experimentation that House is discussing.

[jcroemer]

Thanks for that...Very interesting.

So, what does this mean? Should we whip out all the records?

During that time period the common thinking was still that ballplayers did not need to be muscular to succeed. That came along after the benefits of free agency reached the common players - the early 1980s?

[Spoonless]

House has no idea what he was popping. In the 60s and 70s they did speed, which House mentioned. But he goes on to say they popped anything they could to get an edge... I'm guessing that they weren't using real steroids and if they did, they weren't using them properly. Sounds like careless experimentation that House is discussing.

Then it must be careless reporting that the article flat out states that House said he and teammates took steroids, and that he stopped after he learned about the long-term damages improper use could cause.

[backwardsk]

House has no idea what he was popping. In the 60s and 70s they did speed, which House mentioned. But he goes on to say they popped anything they could to get an edge... I'm guessing that they weren't using real steroids and if they did, they weren't using them properly. Sounds like careless experimentation that House is discussing.

Or like a random Saturday night. :wedge:

Don't wipe out any records. No asterisks. Document what was going on during the eras and let the fans form their own oppinions.

[1983orioles]

Thanks for that...Very interesting.

So, what does this mean? Should we whip out all the records?

The quick answer to this is no - it's just impossible to tell who did what when and what it means.

A deeper answer would be that records are just that - records - meaning the numbers of things are "recorded" - written down for posterity or whatever. Part of the problem is that baseball writers and fans attach so much value to these numbers. It is recorded that Barry Bonds hit more home runs in his career than Aaron and Ruth. This is a fact. Whatever value we want to attach to this, in the end, probably doesn't (or shouldn't) matter - because Bonds's home runs should not detract from what Aaron and Ruth did in their careers. There is much more to their playing career than just how many home runs they hit because these numbers should be contextualized - Ruth, Aaron and Bonds did not, for the most part, face the same pitchers or play in the same conditions - so flat out comparing their numbers is ultimately meaningless. In other words, what Bonds did does not wipe out what Ruth or Aaron did, even if he hit more home runs than them.

Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm arguing here anymore - main point: too much value has been placed on records - they are not sacrosanct - just numbers. Not that numbers aren't important, of course.

[DrungoHazewood]

Steroids of some form have existed for a very long time. Other PEDs just as long. HOFer Pud Galvin was taking steroid-like extracts from bull testicles in the 1800s. Baseball players are like any other person - if given a sufficient incentive and almost no chance of punishment they'll do what they can to get ahead. If you want to go back to a clean era of sports you'll need to go back to at least the 1860s when the best teams were from gentleman's clubs, nobody was openly paid, and nobody really had a big incentive to cheat.

No asterisks, no wiping of anything. Just accept that there have always been players who did stuff to get ahead that others were unwilling or unable to do.

[J.D.]

Steroids of some form have existed for a very long time. Other PEDs just as long. HOFer Pud Galvin was taking steroid-like extracts from bull testicles in the 1800s. Baseball players are like any other person - if given a sufficient incentive and almost no chance of punishment they'll do what they can to get ahead. If you want to go back to a clean era of sports you'll need to go back to at least the 1860s when the best teams were from gentleman's clubs, nobody was openly paid, and nobody really had a big incentive to cheat.

No asterisks, no wiping of anything. Just accept that there have always been players who did stuff to get ahead that others were unwilling or unable to do.

Can we just agree that every era in baseball and probably in every sport cheated in some way, and move on with our lives?

[jcroemer]

Steroids of some form have existed for a very long time. Other PEDs just as long. HOFer Pud Galvin was taking steroid-like extracts from bull testicles in the 1800s. Baseball players are like any other person - if given a sufficient incentive and almost no chance of punishment they'll do what they can to get ahead. If you want to go back to a clean era of sports you'll need to go back to at least the 1860s when the best teams were from gentleman's clubs, nobody was openly paid, and nobody really had a big incentive to cheat.

No asterisks, no wiping of anything. Just accept that there have always been players who did stuff to get ahead that others were unwilling or unable to do.

You make a great point here. The history of baseball has also been a long history of cheats. From the dirty play of the 1890s, the game fixes that plagued the game for the next two decades, to the spitball, corked bats, greenies, steroids, hgh, emery boards, vasoline, etcetra etcetra etcetra...

Where do you draw the line? I think altering the natural chemistry of the human body in order to achieve athletic results is a good place to start. I want to watch humans participate in sport, not chemically or genetically-altered ones. Maybe the overall level of competition is a little lower, but it makes for a better game.

[square634]

You make a great point here. The history of baseball has also been a long history of cheats. From the dirty play of the 1890s, the game fixes that plagued the game for the next two decades, to the spitball, corked bats, greenies, steroids, hgh, emery boards, vasoline, etcetra etcetra etcetra...

Where do you draw the line? I think altering the natural chemistry of the human body in order to achieve athletic results is a good place to start. I want to watch humans participate in sport, not chemically or genetically-altered ones. Maybe the overall level of competition is a little lower, but it makes for a better game.

But where do you draw the line there? Much of the point of medicine, for example, is "performance enhancing." What about surgically-altered players, like with Tommy John surgery? And if that's okay, then what happens when (hypothetically) new techniques become so good that stronger tendons can be placed into a still-healthy shoulder?

[DrungoHazewood]

Where do you draw the line? I think altering the natural chemistry of the human body in order to achieve athletic results is a good place to start. I want to watch humans participate in sport, not chemically or genetically-altered ones. Maybe the overall level of competition is a little lower, but it makes for a better game.

I don't know where you draw a line, but you won't get any two people to agree to that, either.

There were a lot of folks in the 1860s and 1870s who thought the transition from amateur to professional baseball was the line they drew. Anyone who got paid to play a game wasn't worth watching.

And does Sudafed count as altering natural chemistry? What about antibiotics? How about cortisone shots? What about painkillers? Or Tylenol? What about protein shakes? Or Andro? What about reinjecting your own red blood cells? And similarly, what about Brian Roberts' special contact lenses? Or any contact lenses? Or glasses? Or Tommy John surgery? If your natural ability and immune system and ligament strength aren't enough to allow you to play MLB, why should you be allowed to take drugs and have surgery and augment your body with technology to make up for it?

[jcroemer]

But where do you draw the line there? Much of the point of medicine, for example, is "performance enhancing." What about surgically-altered players, like with Tommy John surgery? And if that's okay, then what happens when (hypothetically) new techniques become so good that stronger tendons can be placed into a still-healthy shoulder?

How can you compare using chemicals for a boost when you are healthy to using chemicals to recover from an injury?

Are the tendons human? Alright, good to go. The users still has to perfect the muscle/tendon's action.