The Baseball Thread 2007

[Tim McG]

Go back and read my (and others') comments in this thread, about why many many people believe increased muscle mass can cause a ball that would otherwise fly only to the warning track to be able to gain additional distance, due to increased power by the hitter.

If you don't understand that, then there's no use in further discussing the point.

I don't understand...?

OK, ask a body builder if he thinks 'roids will make you see the ball better or give you the skill to hit a curveball.

I freakin' DARE you to.

Any other justification beyond the reality of that simple point is patent bullshit...that or total Bonds envy.

The largely white controlled media told you to believe so.

Edited May 7, 2007 by GoodSpeak

[Tim McG]

....and you bought it.

Hook, line and sinker.

[Aggie87]

Go back and read my (and others') comments in this thread, about why many many people believe increased muscle mass can cause a ball that would otherwise fly only to the warning track to be able to gain additional distance, due to increased power by the hitter.

If you don't understand that, then there's no use in further discussing the point.

I don't understand...?

OK, ask a body builder if he thinks 'roids will make you see the ball better or give you the skill to hit a curveball.

I freakin' DARE you to.

Any other justification beyond the reality of that simple point is patent bullshit...that or total Bonds envy.

The largely white controlled media told you to believe so.

You keep dancing around my point about muscle mass creating additional power, which can create home runs out of warning track hits.

I agreed with you a LONG time ago in this thread that Bonds has superior vision and hitting skills. Why do you keep thinking this is the argument?

[jlhoots]

This thread has taken a strange turn.

Oh, well.

Milwaukee 21-10. That's what I care about today.

BTW those substances that "build muscle mass" aren't much good for your overall health (to say the least).

[Big Al]

Apparently there won't be a month of rumors or a nationwide tour, ESPN is reporting that

Roger Clemens Will Return to the Yankees

Fine. It will make his return to Fenway that much uglier than its ever been in the past, and it will make beating them that much more satisfying. Seriously, I'd rather have Lester back and working towards being an effective major league pitcher than Clemens. That's a much better "feel good" story anyway.

I can only imagine how much money Cashman offered to get him to make this decision now before their season slips away. Too bad there is no way that he can be ready to help them through the White Sox - Mets - Red Sox - Angels - Toronto portion of the May schedule. He might make it back in time to help with the beginning of June schedule, which is a series at Fenway and at Chicago before interleague play takes over. IMO, the Yankees will be very lucky if they stay five games behind by the time Clemens returns.

One question: Who will they blame when Roger blows his hamstring?

Wow, just when you think Clemens can't be any bigger whore....

[J Larsen]

Go back and read my (and others') comments in this thread, about why many many people believe increased muscle mass can cause a ball that would otherwise fly only to the warning track to be able to gain additional distance, due to increased power by the hitter.

If you don't understand that, then there's no use in further discussing the point.

I don't understand...?

OK, ask a body builder if he thinks 'roids will make you see the ball better or give you the skill to hit a curveball.

I freakin' DARE you to.

Any other justification beyond the reality of that simple point is patent bullshit...that or total Bonds envy.

The largely white controlled media told you to believe so.

Dude, as a fellow Giants fan (born/raised in SF) I want to get along with you, but you are a total spinmeister on this topic - I'd really like to see you actually address the point for once.

[Dan Gould]

Once again for clarity [ready?] muscle mass does not, will not, can not make you hit homeruns. PERIOD. That isn't its purpose. Are we clear on that yet?

No we are not because it is the DUMBEST FUCKING THING you've said to date, and considering the other extraordinarily stupid things you've said, its a title to be taken seriously.

[Patrick]

Had he still been playing, would Rafael Palmeiro receive a large helping of (well-deserved in my opinion) abuse? If he was pursuing a historic career stat, I think the answer is yes.

Does Jason Giambi not get this outside of NY, especially after that pathetic "apology"? I think he'd get more abuse if he was closing in on some historic milestone (500, 600HR), but he is not.

Palmeiro and Giambi get as much scorn from me as Barry does--Barry just happens to be in the news more often (...due to his greater batting success).

It will be interesting to see how Gary Sheffield is treated as he reaches 500HR.

[zen archer]

Once again for clarity [ready?] muscle mass does not, will not, can not make you hit homeruns. PERIOD. That isn't its purpose. Are we clear on that yet?

No we are not because it is the DUMBEST FUCKING THING you've said to date, and considering the other extraordinarily stupid things you've said, its a title to be taken seriously.

Isn't the biggest gain from steroids the recovery ? when i lifted it would wipe me out for days, so these guys

can recover quicker lift more often and create the muscle mass.

Goodspeak is kinda right , look at Sam Horn he was a big dude but didn't hit hundreds of home runs like Bonds. You have to have the whole total package a good eye , bat speed etc etc..

I don't think steriods increases your bat speed ?? .......does it ?

[Dan Gould]

Once again for clarity [ready?] muscle mass does not, will not, can not make you hit homeruns. PERIOD. That isn't its purpose. Are we clear on that yet?

No we are not because it is the DUMBEST FUCKING THING you've said to date, and considering the other extraordinarily stupid things you've said, its a title to be taken seriously.

Isn't the biggest gain from steroids the recovery ? when i lifted it would wipe me out for days, so these guys

can recover quicker lift more often and create the muscle mass.

Goodspeak is kinda right , look at Sam Horn he was a big dude but didn't hit hundreds of home runs like Bonds. You have to have the whole total package a good eye , bat speed etc etc..

I don't think steriods increases your bat speed ?? .......does it ?

Horn was a marginal ballplayer. He never had the hand-eye coordination or vision that Bonds showed even before he made the majors.

The simple facts are that he went from being a decent home run hitter to an extraordinary one, at an age where every other comparable player in history showed declining skills. He became an extraordinary home run hitter after hooking up with Greg Anderson and BALCO and after putting on an extraordinary amount of muscle.

Its hysterical to me that goodspeak can keep claiming, contrary to everyone else, that strength doesn't help you to hit home runs, when its his hero who chose to reconstruct his body with massive muscle power - you want to ask the cheater himself if he thinks being stronger helps him hit homers? Why else did he put on all that muscle?

Apparently, if you have "the gift" you not only put on muscle for no reason whatsoever, but you can beat extraordinary odds by becoming better when everyone else in the history of the game has shown declining skills.

That's a helluva "gift".

[Noj]

Couldn't Bonds have added muscle mass using Creatine or other supplements before they were banned? The rules were sketchy at the time Bonds is alleged to have abused steroids, and have since been clarified.

[donald byrd 4 EVA]

Q: Will ryan howard surpass his previous mark of 58 homers?

[Dan Gould]

Couldn't Bonds have added muscle mass using Creatine or other supplements before they were banned? The rules were sketchy at the time Bonds is alleged to have abused steroids, and have since been clarified.

Experts have stated that the muscle mass Bonds added in one offseason in the late '90s was so extreme that the only way it could have been done was through the use of steroids. Furthermore, I believe there are big differences between impacts that supplements have vs steroids. Its a whole 'nother thing altogether.

[Noj]

Bummer. I wish the only thing which had ever been juiced was the ball, then all that fun I had watching McGwire and Sosa hit bombs wouldn't be tainted. 450' towering shots bouncing off facades and all, it was awesome.

[Quincy]

Bummer. I wish the only thing which had ever been juiced was the ball, then all that fun I had watching McGwire and Sosa hit bombs wouldn't be tainted. 450' towering shots bouncing off facades and all, it was awesome.

Although if you remember McGwire's record breaker #62, it was more like a check swing that barely cleared the LF wall. Which goes to show what extra muscle will do for ya...though of course we all know muscle mass doesn't help you hit home runs.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

[sheldonm]

What i don't get is everyone thinks Bonds is cheating and everyone here thinks Roger juiced up BUT

he gets rewarded with 20 million plus a new hummer accolades from the NY media and fans .....

isn't he a cheater ?

Yeah, but he isn't playing for San Francisco....and he's the correct color.

Funny, Sosa no doubt used Steriods, but isn't an asshole....is he booed in the AL? I like the fact Sosa has been doing fairly well this year....Bonds, breaking another black man's record pisses me off. Why? Because Hammering Hank Aaron didn't cheat! Oh yeah, and Bonds is a compete jerk.

Really? You mean like Wade Boggs cheated on his wife?

Better ask a Chicago fan about that one. Sosa had a very unflattering nickname given him by Cubs fans.

Corked bats and steroids and he gets a free pass. [Light brown, you see...kinda like a tan you'd get at the beach ].

Tell me....what proof do you have that Aaron didn't use performance enhancing drugs, eh? No proof must mean he was juicing. Being the BEST = Steroids....my newspaper sports reporter pissed at Bonds and in search of a headline told me so.

Let's examine the pseudo evidence the sporting jackals of the yellow journalistic Hearst Corporation used to hang Bonds, shall we? Look how big he was compared to his rookie year. And, damn...those biceps. I'll even bet his hat size is bigger now, too. Maybe he has an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend we can ask about some ironclad hearsay regarding some doping charts that may or may not exist. Fair is fair.

Ya think?

Babe Ruth was a jackass [and he cheated on his wife], too. Drank illegal booze openly during prohibition. Why isn't there an astrisk next to his name?

Guess what? So was/is Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale, Billy Martin, Julian Tavarez, Tommy Lasorda, Jeff Kent, Mike Schmidt, Brooks Robinson [racist], Tom Seaver, Earl Weaver, Eric Gagne, Ricky Henderson, Buddy Bell....

I could go ON, Berigan.

Seems we are awfully selective as to which ballplayer is an asshole and who isn't.

What is with you guys when it comes to kissing everybody's ass? Atletes are paid top play the game between the lines and not to kiss every baby within the entire continental United States, OK? Certainly it shouldn't be contigent upon sucking up to some wet-behind-the-ears reporter who constantly prods Bonds with question of his marital status.

I mean, geez.

Can we get a break on this "nice guy" bullshit?

....ah booze, the great performance enhancing drug!

[sheldonm]

What i don't get is everyone thinks Bonds is cheating and everyone here thinks Roger juiced up BUT

he gets rewarded with 20 million plus a new hummer accolades from the NY media and fans .....

isn't he a cheater ?

Yeah, but he isn't playing for San Francisco....and he's the correct color.

I have liked the Giants for years, dating to when I was a child living in California. My son's t-ball team last year was the Giants, and he loves to wear his jersey still, even though he's a "Husker" this year.

My dislike of Bonds isn't his color or that he's playing for SF. I'm not sure why you think the fact he plays for the Giants has anything to do with anything.

My dislike of Bonds has everything to do with him about to break the most sacred record in baseball, and perhaps all of sports. THE Home Run Record. The Home Run Record is about to be broken by a guy that's cheated to get there. That's the problem I have with Bonds. Quibble that he would have gotten 500 home runs without steroids, and I'd agree with you. Maybe even 600. But he wouldn't have the record in my opinion without his use of steroids.

Glad you aren't a racist, Aggie...but I fail to see how you have no problem with Roger Clemens or others like him accused of juicing, but you do have an issue with Bonds. Makes no sense to me.

Juice is juice.

And if we are going to astrisk Bonds, then we need to do a complete investigation of any ballplayer since steriods were available in the early 1960s. If you're content to damn one, then I say damn them all.

I'd love to see the home run record won by someone worthy of being on the same mantle that Aaron's held on by most people (granted, there were alot of mixed feelings about him back in the 70's, but I believe time has shown that he is a dignified, classy sportsman who is worthy of being called a sports hero).

If that means Pujols some day, great. If it had meant Ken Griffey Jr, that would have been great too. I still truly don't believe race is the issue, at least for me. It's the fact that Bonds cheated to get THE most important record in sports.

Funny you should use the term "mantle."

A certain highly touted Mickey Mantle was a falling-down drunkard.

But he's in the HOF.

Where do you draw the line, then? Which drugs are "OK" to use and which ones are not? Seems to be a fair amount of selective reasoning going on in the sports world of late.

I mean...since the Black Babe Ruth in Barry Bonds was unfairly blasted by the headline seeking jackals of the sporting media.

Dude, it's the cheating that pisses people off...not the fact someone is a dick or a drunk (which is still bad) but it's the CHEATING....being drunk is stupid....but cheating is .....cheating!

Edited May 7, 2007 by sheldonm

[BERIGAN]

George Will on the real home run champ......

Henry Aaron's legacy

By George Will

Sunday, May 6, 2007

This city has belonged to five nations -- France, Britain, Spain, the United States and the Confederate States of America. Or four, if you think, as Lincoln did, that the Southern states never succeeded in seceding, so the CSA never existed. In any case, Mobile has done much for the national pastime of the country to which it currently belongs.

Mobile has incubated tremendous major league talent. In a few games in 1969, the ``Miracle Mets'' had an all-Mobile outfield. Five Hall of Famers were raised here -- Satchel Paige, Willie McCovey, Ozzie Smith, Billy Williams and the man whose achievements gain luster from the contrast between him and the man who may soon surpass one of those achievements. As Barry Bonds continues his gimpy, joyless pursuit of such glory as he is eligible for, consider the odyssey of Mobile's greatest native son.

San Francisco Giants Barry Bonds watches after hitting his 739th career home run in the second inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks during a baseball game, Saturday, April 21, 2007 in San Francisco. (AP Photo/George Nikitin) Henry Aaron's parents had moved south from Selma, drawn by work in the shipyards during World War II. So many blacks came here that Davis Avenue -- named for Jefferson Davis -- became known as Little Harlem.

You think that is incongruous? Try this. Grip a bat as a right-hander -- but with your left hand on top. That is how the man who would hit 755 home runs in 23 major league seasons gripped his bat when, as an utterly uncoached 17-year-old, he signed his first professional contract, with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues, who recognized an uncut diamond.

When he boarded the train to his future, he had $2 in his pocket. He had never had his own bed, and with the Clowns often slept six nights a week in a bus. He remembers sitting with teammates in a Washington restaurant ``hearing them break all the plates in the kitchen after we were finished eating.''

Aaron's signing bonus with the Milwaukee Braves was a cardboard suitcase. In his first Spring Training, during a game against the Red Sox, Ted Williams came running from the clubhouse to see whose bat was making that distinctive sound. The bat had a slender handle and was whipped by wrists developed hitting dipping and floating bottle caps, pitched by Aaron's playmates when, as was usual, baseballs were scarce.

He was 0 for 5 in his first regular season game, which was the first day in which players were no longer allowed to toss their gloves on the field when coming in to bat. Soon, however, Time magazine was heralding ``The Talented Shuffler'' who ``is not as dumb as he looks when he shuffles around the field.'' Misperceiving, through the lens of race, economy of motion for lethargy, sportswriters called him ``uncomplicated'' and ``a child of nature.'' Lonnie Wheeler, who helped Aaron write his autobiography ``I Had a Hammer,'' notes that Joe DiMaggio's similar understated manner was characterized as dignified and graceful.

In 1973, as Aaron approached Babe Ruth's record of 714 home runs -- he would break it in April 1974 -- he received, according to the U.S. Postal Service, about 930,000 letters, more than any nonpolitician in America. Dinah Shore was second with 60,000. Much of his mail was hateful. He took out his anger on baseballs. The 1973 season was the last in which horsehide balls were used. Aaron's 714th was the first home run ever hit with a cowhide ball.

When Aaron retired, he was Major League Baseball's last link to the Negro Leagues. Today he is baseball's link to the era when home runs did not cause fans, suspecting steroids, to view sluggers with a moral squint. Aaron became baseball's most methodical -- and, properly measured by total bases, most effective -- hitter after being raised in a household where, he remembers, ``we almost never ate anything that was store-bought. I've gone many, many weeks with just cornbread, butter beans and collard greens.''

Mobile's public library, writes Wheeler, ``opened its doors to blacks before other Southern cities encouraged them to read.'' Spring Hill College here, which integrated -- by conscience, not coercion -- in 1954, was praised by Martin Luther King in his ``Letter from Birmingham Jail.'' Today, if you turn onto Satchel Paige Drive, then onto Bolling Brothers Boulevard (Frank and Milt, nephews of a major leaguer, played a combined 19 seasons), you reach Hank Aaron Stadium, home of the Mobile BayBears.

When Bonds hits his 756th, real fans, who know how to read the record book, will yawn, confident that Aaron's record will remain the real one until Alex Rodriguez, who has 175 more home runs than Bonds did when he was Rodriguez's age, breaks it.

Edited May 7, 2007 by BERIGAN

[Dan Gould]

Scott Proctor should be suspended for his actions in today's game. It all starts with an extremely cheap play by Josh Phelps, going three feet to the side of the plate to hit the catcher for no apparent reason. At least he took his retaliation like a man and trotted to first, and then Proctor throws behind someone's head ... what a punk.

Well, the league took notice:

Torre suspended one game, Proctor suspended four.

[Tim McG]

Sheldonm,

There is only one thing wrong in what you're saying....he is to have allegedly cheated. The media jackals write about as if it were pure fact. It is nothing more than mere speculation.

There is no substantiated proof to support that he juiced. None....and that's what pisses me off.

Until that solid evidence comes along, I prefer to enjoy the event for what it is: History in the making.

[Tim McG]

Couldn't Bonds have added muscle mass using Creatine or other supplements before they were banned? The rules were sketchy at the time Bonds is alleged to have abused steroids, and have since been clarified.

Forget it, Noj.

I have said that a thousand times if I've said once. People just want to believe what they want to believe.

[Tim McG]

Dude, as a fellow Giants fan (born/raised in SF) I want to get along with you, but you are a total spinmeister on this topic - I'd really like to see you actually address the point for once.

I fully understand your point, Larsen.

The problem I have is not that Bonds shouldnt get an astrisk, it is it needs to be proved first. That's all I'm saying here.

The secondary issue is that muscle mass does not make you hit HRs. Vision, timing and skill make that happen. Ask any ballplayer who has hit a HR and they will tell you the very same thing. And I will say this until my dying day.

I am around baseball coaches and players all spring long [i announce basball games]...in fact, one of my former students is in the big leagues right now playing OF for the Royals [shane Costa] and not one of them, almost to a man, will tell [except for the hated dodger fans] you a HR is not hit because you're the biggest or strongest guy on the team. Even the former pros I have spoken to say the same exact thing.

I believe a man is innocent until proven guilty and a media lynching isn't proof, my friend.

Edited May 7, 2007 by GoodSpeak

[J Larsen]

Vision, timing, skill and strength make it happen - if you are a total weakling you're not going to smack a ball 350 feet no matter how perfectly you hit it (if anyone knows this it's me!)... similarly the stronger you are, the less perfectly you have to hit a ball to make it travel a given distance (witness McGuire's check swing homers).

So are you Kruk or Kuip? Miller? Angel? Greenwald?

[Tim McG]

Vision, timing, skill and strength make it happen - if you are a total weakling you're not going to smack a ball 350 feet no matter how perfectly you hit it (if anyone knows this it's me!)... similarly the stronger you are, the less perfectly you have to hit a ball to make it travel a given distance (witness McGuire's check swing homers).

I get your point, but thankfully no total weaklings play MLB

But I will tell you this: As a golf coach, I have 5'11" skinny teenager on the HS team I help coach who hits 300+ yard drives on a continuous basis. He would be hard pressed to crack a peanut shell. Vision, timing and skill.

So are you Kruk or Kuip? Miller? Angel? Greenwald?

None of the above...PA announcer here. Been doing this [and football/track] since 1990. Though Lon Simmons is more to my liking as a comparable sounding voice.

I try to sound like the deep voiced PA guy the A's had for many years back in the 1980-90s or the PA guy for the Angels during that same time period.

It's a great gig...somebody let's me speak through a microphone, play music between innings and nobody tells me to shut-up!

Getting paid to watch baseball....sometimes life is good

Edited May 7, 2007 by GoodSpeak