MLB's Alex Rodriguez suspended 1 year for steroids use...

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martinvickers said:
Baseball strikes me as one of those odd sports. A large lump of its casual fan base seem to not care too much about the competition at all, just the spectacle. Bt like WWE.

Uhm, and in what sports DOES the fanbase care if their sport is doped:confused:
Oh that's right, all those sports without any real testing where the governing bodies have proved they will cover up any cases should they emerge. How convenient:rolleyes:

What a cowardly stance to take. "Na na na na na we are better than you because our sport doesn't do testing."

Do you boo Rio Ferdinand btw?

If not maybe you should think twice about sweeping comments about other fanbases.
 
Aug 18, 2012
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The Hitch said:
mwbyrd said:
According to Mr. Tygart: The regimen of performance-enhancing substances delivered by Anthony Bosch to Alex Rodriguez was "probably the most potent and sophisticated drug program developed for an athlete that we've ever seen," U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart told The Associated Press.

Guess US Postal wasn't so advanced afterall.

Source: http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/sto...-doping-plan-most-potent-ever-seen-usada-says

Lol wtf? Unless he knows something we don't that is outrageous.
 
Aug 18, 2012
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SeventhSon said:
It would be outrageous to assume Travis doesn't know something we don't.

Having now read the article I can see that he says the stuff reported on 60 minutes massively dumbed down A-rod's programme.

I was getting a bit carried away after reading accusations/insinuations of corruption against USADA by Thomas Hauser and Kimmage in their handling of the boxing stable goldenboy promotions.
 
the delgados said:
Rodriguez got booed in every ballpark but his own.
Hall of Fame voters never questioned the antics of steroid users during their careers. Denying them now seems a bit hypocritical.

You are correct to a degree. Rodriguez was booed by some at Yankee Stadium his first game back, UNTIL he got a hit, then all he got was cheers. So much for any moral angst with ambivalent NY fans.

The sports writers who have a vote for the MLB Hall of Fame have been very bullish on dopers. Mark McGwire, the single season home run king, has been eligible for 8 years and still has not got in and he never will. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa have been eligible two years and were down in the voting. Without doping these three get in first year.

There is a real stigma attached to dopers in terms of the ultimate accolade i.e. admission to the Hall of Fame, and I would bet Rodriguez salary he will never get in.
 
RobbieCanuck said:
You are correct to a degree. Rodriguez was booed by some at Yankee Stadium his first game back, UNTIL he got a hit, then all he got was cheers. So much for any moral angst with ambivalent NY fans.

The sports writers who have a vote for the MLB Hall of Fame have been very bullish on dopers. Mark McGwire, the single season home run king, has been eligible for 8 years and still has not got in and he never will. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa have been eligible two years and were down in the voting. Without doping these three get in first year.

There is a real stigma attached to dopers in terms of the ultimate accolade i.e. admission to the Hall of Fame, and I would bet Rodriguez salary he will never get in.

The stigma is attached by hall of fame voters who didn't care about steroids when covering the players careers. They knew what was going on, and now that it's out in the open, they pretend to be outraged.
 
May 26, 2009
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the delgados said:
The stigma is attached by hall of fame voters who didn't care about steroids when covering the players careers. They knew what was going on, and now that it's out in the open, they pretend to be outraged.

So just like cycling journalists then.
 
Aug 13, 2009
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A-Roid's lawyer sues New York Daily News reporters Nathaniel Vinton and Michael O'Keeffe. How is this connected to Cycling?

http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/02/06/65160.htm

Vinton and O'Keeffe were some of the best main stream reporter on the Armstrong story

Note who is representing Tacopina, Lanny Davis. The same Lanny Davis who worked closely with Wonderboy's paid liars Fabiani & Lehane. Same Lanny Davis who represented Bonds. Same Lanny Davis who was head of the criminal department of the justice department when they dismissed the first Armstrong criminal investigation
 
Race Radio said:
A-Roid's lawyer sues New York Daily News reporters Nathaniel Vinton and Michael O'Keeffe. How is this connected to Cycling?

http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/02/06/65160.htm

Vinton and O'Keeffe were some of the best main stream reporter on the Armstrong story

Note who is representing Tacopina, Lanny Davis. The same Lanny Davis who worked closely with Wonderboy's paid liars Fabiani & Lehane. Same Lanny Davis who represented Bonds. Same Lanny Davis who was head of the criminal department of the justice department when they dismissed the first Armstrong criminal investigation

Ah, but it pays well!!! :D
 
May 26, 2009
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Well after dropping his lawsuit vs MLB. I guess he just wants some court time and it makes "sense" to sue some reporters instead of a billion dollar business.
 
Jul 10, 2012
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Baseball is a whole other animal. If the cyclists sitting on the road in the 1998 Tour was an athlete pushback that delayed the implementation of a movement to clean up the sport, then baseball players are far worse.

Worse yet, they see all of this as another chapter in the ongoing saga of labor relations in baseball, which came to a head in the 1970s when baseball management actually was screwing over ballplayers in regards to salary and the union for the first time won a battle by getting free agency. Move on to the 1980s, and baseball owners were more concerned about colluding to tamper with free agency then dealing with baseball's very real recreational drug scandal.

Move on to the 90s, and baseball management was more concerned with rolling back the players' labor gains of the 1970s and 1980s, wiping out the 1994 season and championship series and driving fans away from buying tickets. Then baseball turned a blind eye in the late 1990s because they needed the home runs in order to get the fans to come back.

It took a polarizing figure, Barry Bonds, who is the Lance Armstrong of baseball, to turn things around. His career became the sort of excess that caused many to change their minds on the importance of drug testing in the sport, because Bonds was standoffish and greedy when it came to seeing his name in the all time record books.

The players union had to be dragged into the new world of drug testing kicking and screaming because they saw it as a concession to management. Because of this attitude, baseball is nowhere near where cycling is in confronting this menace.

Case in point: Barry Bonds records still stand. Lance's have been erased. Lance's Tour victories are gone, while teams of the past that benefited from PED use get to keep their World Series trophies. Alex Rodriguez should have been banned for life and his numbers erased from history, but instead he gets a slap on the wrist 1 year ban.

I will give credit where it is due. When MLB investigated A-Rod, they didn't simply rely on testing to catch him. Tests do not catch the real cheaters. Real cheaters find ways to evade the tests, then point at their clean record as evidence that they don't cheat. MLB launched an investigation into A-Rod as USADA launched one into Lance, and it was the testimony of others who got both in the end.

The problem with the tests not catching the real cheaters is solidarity. Friends will not want to testify against friends. I think the Armstrong debacle is proof enough that he didn't have many friends. In order for baseball to truly go after the cheaters, they are going to need players to turn on players. I think this will be a tough mission because union solidarity will be a big factor. Especially when that solidarity is based on a past where the players union had a legitimate beef against ownership and it was solidarity that helped them win the day.

I'm not sure where baseball goes from here. They are doing something, but it isn't enough.
 
Race Radio said:
Note who is representing Tacopina, Lanny Davis. The same Lanny Davis who worked closely with Wonderboy's paid liars Fabiani & Lehane. Same Lanny Davis who represented Bonds. Same Lanny Davis who was head of the criminal department of the justice department when they dismissed the first Armstrong criminal investigation
Actually, as stated in the RR's link, Judd Burstein is representing Tacopina. Lanny Davis represented Tacopina in the past.

So far as I know Lanny Davis has not represented Bonds. Nor has Davis ever been part of the DOJ. Lanny Breuer was head of the criminal division between 2009 and March 1, 2013.
 
Case in point: Barry Bonds records still stand. Lance's have been erased. Lance's Tour victories are gone, while teams of the past that benefited from PED use get to keep their World Series trophies. Alex Rodriguez should have been banned for life and his numbers erased from history, but instead he gets a slap on the wrist 1 year ban.

You must've missed the past 2-3-4-5 yrs of BBHOF voting where Bonds WILL NOT EVER....EVER EVER EVER get into the HOF, and his vote totals have gone down down down, each and every year he's been on the ballot( ala Mark McGwire/Raphael Palmeiro).


I think that's far worse than Wonderboy getting his precious titles stripped from him. What's even sadder, is the fact that Bonds is still in denial about his doping. The punishments fit the crimes in both cases IMO...neither S&^%bag is relevant in their sports any longer, that's far worse than any ban either can or will receive.
 
Jul 10, 2012
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What if Lance got to keep his TDFs and all of his accomplishments but didn't get voted into a Cycling Hall of Fame. That is basically the comparison you are making.

Even if Bonds doesn't get into the Hall, he can always comfort himself at night by saying that the Hall voters are just guys who don't like him, while he can still point to the record books and see his name as the all time champ.
 
What if Lance got to keep his TDFs and all of his accomplishments but didn't get voted into a Cycling Hall of Fame. That is basically the comparison you are making.

But he didn't , so it won't happen regardless.

Even if Bonds doesn't get into the Hall, he can always comfort himself at night by saying that the Hall voters are just guys who don't like him, while he can still point to the record books and see his name as the all time champ.

I think 95% of baseball fans actually dislike Bonds, and eventually, his being held out of the BBHOF will get to him. Look at Pete Rose........

Bonds is a ******bag, and most of the writers don't like him anyways, so him being linked to PEDS already decreased his chances of ever getting in.

McGwire "denied" too, then finally fessed up, where'd that get him? deeper and deeper down on the ballot.

Who cares if he holds the HR record, everyone knows he did it illegally.
 
babastooey said:
In A-Rod's case it was not a fellow player who did him in but Anthony Bosch who headed up Biogenesis, a front to dispense PEDS to athletes and who personally administered PEDs to A-Rod. Bosch claims he received death threats from A-Rod people in his 60 Minutes interview which if true does reveal a violent underbelly to ratting out which would inhibit other players from speaking out.

However Bosch was under threat of prosecution and had to give a sworn statement about A-Rod. It seems if people are forced to give sworn evidence on pain of perjury, then and only then do they fess up a la Hincapie.

However a lot of players were really pi$$ed at A-Rod and many promoted kicking him out of the player's union. He was generally not well received by other players who were not close to A-Rod.
 
There are some important differences between Bonds and LA:

1) Bonds was an exceptional talent before he began juicing, or at least before he went on the full program at the end of the 90s. If he had retired at that point, his numbers definitely would have put him in the HOF. Many in the BBWAA think that PED users should be in the HOF if a case can be made that they would still have accomplishments at a very high level without doping. So I wouldn’t say it’s a foregone conclusion he won’t be in the HOF.

Suppose Lemond had begun using EPO in the 90s, when he could no longer keep up (and he is on record as saying if he had been younger at the time, had more of a career ahead of him, he might have), and won some more TDFs. Would people still consider him not worthy of a cycling HOF? That is the kind of comparison one should make.

2) Bonds did not instigate team wide doping, or pressure others to dope.

3) Bonds did not harass or file lawsuits against those who called him out.

4) Bonds did not have a charity shield. He did not claim to be an inspiration to anyone.
 
Aug 13, 2009
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KingsMountain said:
Actually, as stated in the RR's link, Judd Burstein is representing Tacopina. Lanny Davis represented Tacopina in the past.

So far as I know Lanny Davis has not represented Bonds. Nor has Davis ever been part of the DOJ. Lanny Breuer was head of the criminal division between 2009 and March 1, 2013.

I am an idiot!

Sorry, I mixed up my Lanny's. Breuer worked with Fabiani, was head of the criminal division and represented Clemens not Bonds
 
Aug 13, 2009
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Merckx index said:
3) Bonds did not harass or file lawsuits against those who called him out.

Bonds did smear Novtizky very successfully with the help of several "Journalists"
 
BroDeal said:
It may have been that the players were turning on him. Suing the union was not the brightest move.

The players clearly turned on him. I'm just wondering what effect that would have on one of the biggest egomaniacal jerks of our time. :)
 
MarkvW said:
The players clearly turned on him. I'm just wondering what effect that would have on one of the biggest egomaniacal jerks of our time. :)

I think he realizes he won't be making the HOF, he's not well liked, and this lawsuit was proof to further back up both. he knows he's a ******, he knows folks do not like him. He was finally told "this will not make you come out looking good at all" by his handlers.

You DO NOT "sue": the union, the commish, etc. It's just something you do not do. he's not smart enough to do that. he can't take it back now, even if he dropped the suit, his image, and legacy have now been tarnished forever. So, he's screwed regardless of his final stats.