Dan Gould

I think this writer has quite a few axes to grind. I don't know if the owners are as knee-deep in the distribution as he wants to make it out. My alternative theory has always been this: In the 80s, weight lifting became more common among ball players. "Loss of flexibility" wasn't as much of an issue as traditionalists warned. Steroids are rampant among hard core weight lifters, who also peddle themselves as "trainers" Steroids crossed over into baseball as players got stronger, hit more dingers, and started signing bigger and bigger contracts.

Miguel Tejada apparently will plead guilty to lying to Congressional investigators about conversations with other players regarding steroids. Will this put the fear of God into Clemens? Further proof that when you lie under oath, the Feds will get you, or at least try. Interesting that he is pleading to the charge, which tells me that it will include a fine, no jail time.

Very interesting info about the steroid he tested positive: and That last bit is very interesting, because A-Rod seemed to claim that he had an epiphany during spring training 2003. But he didn't specifically say he stopped then. Given how short the window is for a user to test positive, its practically a given that he had to be using during the 2003 season, which puts the lie to this whole claim of taking a good luck at himself and realizing he needed to grow up and stop using these substances. Another interesting tidbid: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/sports/b...html?ref=sports

Fwiw, Newsday says that his ex-wife was with him at the rented house, she was off-camera during the taping and that when the two of them came downstairs, just before filming began, both had 'red eyes'.

I am pretty certain that is a massive rip-off. The site design would have to have a shitload of doohickies to justify that fee. And yes, I am told that "shitload of doohickies" is the technical term.

Damn. Now I am going to have to pay attention to something other than when someone says "Hi Bob!"

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball...na_roberts.html That rant by A-Rod came out of left field, and I have a feeling he's going to be answering for it when the UM and Miami Beach PDs fail to back up his story.

:party:

Watching it the second time - I was cooking dinner at the same time and was walking back and forth, trying to listen to it all - and there seems to be even more contradictions. He was under so much pressure, but he won't say when specifically he decided to use, won't say what, won't say who he got it from, and has this weird fixation on GNC. Is it possible that what A-Rod is really saying that, amongst a team of hardcore juicers, he went down to GNC and experimented with supplements? Supplements that he now understands contained "ingredients that will trigger a positive test"? Someone has to nail this guy down on certain things: Was anything injected? Are you speaking of using supplements that you purchased at GNC? How did you feel while you used them? Did you feel stronger? Did you see the ball better? Did you have any of the side effects common to steroid use? I think Gammons is a great writer but he is too close to too many players and can't be counted on to do a serious interview. Edit to add that the supplement theory explains his "naive, stupid, didn't ask the right questions" statement.

Mathew, I totally agree. Did you notice how many weasel words he used? Its "pretty accurate" that he used from 2001 to 2003? Or that he was "stupid, naive, I didn't ask the right questions"? Those are the excuses given when you unintentionally take banned substances, not when you willfully decide because of the "pressure" of living up to his contract. How about the "I don't know what I took"? This is a guy who in high school was smart enough to eat chicken and veggies instead of pizza, but he took the "I'll use whatever you use" approach to steroids? I can't wait for the season to start - "A - ROID" chants ringing across the land. Darryl Strawberry never heard it like A-rod will.

But hasn't his body irreversibly changed? I don't really understand how any of these players are still allowed to play. I don't see how a suspension or fine is just. Just because they stop taking steroids, that doesn't mean their bodies immediately weaken to their previous state, right? Or am I wrong? I'm no expert. You actually bring up a very important issue. Baseball players started lifting weights, back in the 80s (there were probably a few before then, too, but it was discouraged because you were supposed to lose flexibility). Steroids simply make workouts more effective in building muscles. If you use steroids and don't work out, muscles don't magically appear. But if you use steroids and workout, muscle growth is greater, and the ability of the body to workout more frequently is improved. The problem is that you can't separate muscles built from steroids + working out from muscles built from steroids + working out + continuing to workout after going off the juice. Players have gone off steroids yet remained with pretty chiseled physiques (Ivan Rodriguez is one - everyone remarked about how much skinnier he was the year that testing started, but he was still a pretty strong guy, just no the muscle-bound guy he was. So, the reality is that you can use steroids, get stronger, stop using steroids and maintain a physique that isn't that far off what you were. Bonds used steroids and put on 30 pounds of muscle or more. He didn't have to keep using steroids after the BALCO story broke in order to maintain that muscle gain.

Its amazing how stupid some sportswriters are. Wallace Matthews of Newsday believed (before today's admission) that A-Rod's home run count stopped at the end of 2002. In other words, the numbers put up before there was a testing regimen are actually more trustworthy than the numbers A-Rod put up from 2004 on, when there was one, and he hasn't tested positive yet.

They say confession is good for the soul ... and let's not forget that when A-Rod "confessed" that he isn't best buddies with Jeter anymore, he went out and had a monster season. I'd have to say that given his talent, there's a chance he could have an even better year this year, which scares the crap out of me as a Red Sox fan/Yankee hater.

More than that - ESPN is reporting that he acknowledged using PEDs from 2001-2003. And the interview with Gammons will air at 6 pm. I think its smart of him to 'fess up because there was no other way around it. Now will he discuss in general terms what it was like in MLB at that time? Will he rat anyone else out? How apologetic will he be? His problem has always been that he is so careful with image, he ends up sounding plastic and fake. And now where does he go from here? That's three years of home runs that are tainted. And he's admitted something that he denied many, many times. Definitely must-see TV at 6 pm.

Word. Yet he's still a scumbag who had three rounds to put away Danny F-ing Partridge and couldn't do it.

Its been reported in a couple of places that A-Rod will do an interview with ESPN, possibly today, probably with Gammons, and yet I can't find anything about it on their website or on any of their channels. Seems as though, if they had that critical "get", they'd be promoting the hell out of it.

The pantheon is Johnny Adams. Not sure that anyone belongs with him, but in the same neighborhood: Junior Parker Albert, Freddie and B.B. King Otis Rush

Wouldn't Benny Green's Blue Notes also qualify? I remember reading in DB that Green was going to record a set of Blue Note associated tunes and thinking that would be one to get, but only many years later did I stumble across a copy at a Borders in VA, the only copy I've ever seen. And I'm certain it never came out stateside on BN.

At his age and considering his body type, I think the Phils should say "thanks for the memories" and let him walk at age 32 to whoever bids for him. We know how well those body types last, and he looks more like Mo Vaughn than Ortiz does, and some people think Ortiz is on the way down now. I know I wouldn't want to commit a big, long free agent contract to him three years now, even if he averages 48 homers a year the next three years.

Ryan Howard and Phils avoid arbitration, sign three year - 54 million dollar deal. No buyout of any free agency years, which I am sure was never considered by Howard. He essentially gets his enormous arbitration request for this season, and the Phils avoid the risk that his number might have netted him even more in the two years before free agency. If he continues to put up the numbers, it makes him easier to trade if it becomes obvious they won't meet his demands in free agency.

Record setting performances and enormous contracts - or at least keeping a high-paying job in the major leagues - are the ill-gotten gains of this era. I don't see how you can question championships, and I say that even considering the fact that the Yankees were all over the Mitchell report. We can only barely try to tease out the cumulative effects of Bonds' juicing on his total home runs. Its impossible to decide that a specific achievement at a particular moment in time was because of steroids rather than talent. And anyway, testing with penalties started in 2004. If there are championships to question, its the years prior that should be looked at. The Red Sox championships are clean!

I am not familiar with the exact details but minor league players aren't members of the Player's Union yet. To their credit, MLB initiated whatever rules they wanted as far as how often they test, and the results bear it out - the vast majority of players caught using banned substances are minor leaguers. I do believe that going forward the rate of use has declined. The problem now is more sorting out the steroid era than believing that the proportion of users is the same. Call me naive if you wish - I realize that there is no test for HGH and its a constant battle to find a way to detect the newest drugs. But I think between the testing regime, the risk of penalty as well as how steroid users have been treated, steroid use is much lower than it was and is more likely to go down than to ever rise again.

You need recovery after six hours on a bike! And beyond that, cyclers used because of how it effected their performance, too. And recovery in baseball came from amphetamines, because of the day-after-day marathon of the season, not because of the stress of the competition. Were their non-bulked up steroid users? Yeah, I am sure there were. But it was Bonds, Sosa, McGuire who bulked up and shattered records. That is the shame of the steroid era, the setting of records - or in Clemens' case, the extension of careers from maybe-a-Hall-of-Famer to no-doubt-about-it-status. When I hear that Fernando Vina used, I say so what? He didn't do shit on or off the juice. Until now, it was the guys who bulked up who had used and transformed their careers, they were the ones with the targets on their backs. At this point, I don't think any player from that era should be elected to the Hall anymore.

I don't think there's any question that A-Rod won't be in legal jeapardy here. But the damage to his reputation, and for Yankee fans, the possible effects of the upcoming tabloid hounding (not to mention the possibility that A-Rod doesn't respond well to the way the crowds might treat him), will be significant. I also think there's a significant possibility that Gene Orza will be sacrificed - its really bad PR to have the number two in the union calling A-Rod to warn him about his September 2004 'random' drug test. Makes it pretty likely that Orza, working off of the list of "anonymous" test results, made some effort at least to protect the biggest stars from getting caught when the results would be public. Who knows how many others of the 104 positives that he called? I'm sure it was mostly the prominent cheaters.

It's the exercises you do when on steroids, not really the 'roids as far as how bulky you get. That's what I thought, but from the article: I think most people know Deca as the weight lifters drug of choice, but apparently it does matter what you take, as well as the exercises you do (which I always knew to be high weight, few reps for bulk and lower weight, more reps for definition, but when you're serious enough to be on steroids and spend hours in the gym, who knows?).