What do you think about athletes using performance enhancing drugs?
0 voters
So it appears that Barry Bonds did use THG and other performance enhancing drugs – Documents: BALCO VP said Bonds used THG
What do people think?
Performance enhancing drugs are the bane of sports today.
I have seen first hand the negative effects certain performance enhancing drugs can have on an athletes mind, body and soul. Its scary stuff. Particularly steroids. If you have ever witnessed roid rage you will know what I mean. And not only do these drugs induce sporadic unpredictable bouts of rage, the long term affects often include severe depression.
I do not know exactly what the effects of THG are, but I do know that Barry Bonds, as an idol for many young ball players, has basically given the message that in order to succeed you need to cheat.
Bonds is a cheater.
However, I did read a newspaper article a couple of months ago (cant remember what paper) that gave the opinion that performance enhancing drugs really do not provide much of an advantage when it comes to swinging a bat. They cannot improve hand~eye coordination, timing, etc…
Personally, I really feel the use of any type of performance enhancing drugs in sports is WRONG simply because it is dishonest. Face it, they are cheats. In the big entertainment team sports the governing authorities should do all they can to stop its use but I don’t think they really care. Big stars means big business and if a big star gets caught, the embarrasment hurts their sport’s image besides the player’s image. They do give an edge to their users whether it’s pushing the fences closer to the batter or getting a little extra sauce on the tennis serve or slapshot or whatever. And sh!t, the way these gladiators look in the contact sports now is downright scary. I hear some American High School kids even feel they have to take steroids because they will do anything to beat their competitors or have a chance of fulfilling their dream of being recruited on a college or pro team.
In athletics you not only have people abusing steroids for extra power or speed, but people taking EPO to increase their stamina and endurance. Hell, maybe we should give the medals to the pharmacists instead of the athletes
IMHO, the people who take performance enhancing drugs should be severely punished and/or banned from participating in the sport. And the authorities should start speaking out against it in addition to stamping it out. Some of these people end up with ill-gotten wealth while others just get horrible side effects (possibly life-threatening). The young people need to learn that honesty is the best policy.
in a large way, it’s too late for the option of removing records from the record books, imho … how many athletes used drugs and never tested positive? what about all those records?
still, a lot of players seem to focus on the individual records, so if you tell them you will take the records away if they are proven to have used steroids, they might stop … or just develop another balco-like drug and have years of use without anyone catching on.
it’s a tough call, and one comparable to so many other situations, broadly speaking - like copied cds. every time companies think they have “the solution”, some dude cracks the code in less than 3 hours. just imagine what other drugs are out there right now, and balco is just the first one we have heard about.
as a big hockey fan, (at least until this latest episode), i wonder how many nhler’s are on the sauce?
With a guy like Barry Bonds, over the past few years his assault on one of the most sacred of baseball records has been so thoroughly watched. So when he uses THG and other enhancing drugs, it’s like a the biggest and worst kind of joke has been played. All those celebrations, adulations, reports, lawsuits on certain baseballs etc, it’s such a farce that it’s like to me, get off the bleeping field already. It ain’t real and so stop jerking folks around. We’ll just “give you” the record and give it a big old asterick next to it.
I think he should be banned for life, like Pete Rose. The type of fraud on the game and the damage it’s done is similar to that of gambling.
[quote=“Canucklehead”]
However, I did read a newspaper article a couple of months ago (cant remember what paper) that gave the opinion that performance enhancing drugs really do not provide much of an advantage when it comes to swinging a bat. They cannot improve hand~eye coordination, timing, etc…[/quote]
I have been saying this since the uproar around Mark McGwire’s alleged (?) abuse.
It enables them to launch the moonshots sure…but a tater that just knicks the bottom of the foul pole or one that breaches the stadium itself is still a dinger. McGwires recordbreaking shot was the shortest of them all. just clearing the left-field fence.
As far as batting skills, I have no problem leaving the records stand. However, performance is enhanced in defensive situations, like getting an extra jump to turn a Texas-leaguer into a simple pop-out or taking a sure double in the gap away, could be argued as cheating.
I disagree with the use of drugs in sports, but will not accept the argument that drugs can improve a batter. Pot maybe, to relax a hitter that is in a slump, but other than that, let them swing away.
But, let it also be common knowledge that this player uses drugs.
Just my 2 cents.
Bonds gets fingered in steroid probe 
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1101041balco1.html
Smoking Gun article
US$ 18,000,000 per year Barry. How much is enough? Oh and by the way, you are a liar and a cheat! Just like all the other dirty bastards. Lucky for you and everybody else who makes bucks in the sports biz nobody gives a damn.
If only the public who pay these fools would stop being fools. And if only money made people smart.
home runs suck. boring. dispose of the home run. make any ball hit out of park worth one run. three guys on base? still but one run.
bonds wasn’t made an ego maniac by himself. decades of adulation piled up to create the ego maniac we behold today.
ty cobb- the greates player of all-time. also a grade A prick. was caught in a gambling fiasco that was covered up by the commish “for the good of the game”.
pete rose- the all-time hits leader. grade A prick. banned for life for gambling.
mark mcgwire- single season home run record holder prior to bonds. grade A prick. wouldn’t sign autographs for kids and a surly puss (roids rage?) that had acne scars on his neck and creaky joints.
barry bond- the NEW greatest player ever. grade A prick. keeps a lazy-boy in the locker room and gets two lockers. admits to steroid usage.
we, the fans, creat these rat bastards. for every willie mcgee or stan musial there is a keith hernandez or a gary templeton.
ban bonds for life. leave his records but “rose” him. leave out of the curtain calls and opening day ceremonies in which the old-timers get a reminder of who/what they used to be. leave him stew in his hate.
Willie McGee, amen! I’d trade 9 McGwire/Bonds types for 1 Willie McGee. Not only a player who had class, but just a beautiful human being.
Unfortunately, if you purchase a ticket you end up funding the whole f*cked up system. Fans need to switch off. There is no other way to make changes happen. There are better things to do with our bucks.
Ditto skeptic yank.
I am so sick of these muscle-bound jackers and the whole Earl Weaver, 3-run-shot ‘strategy’.
One big problem with the home run is that it wipes too many slates clean. Not only does it wipe the base paths clean, but it also wipes clean the petty bitterness that adds so much spice to the game (yeah, I know: a novel opinion). At 3-4 per game (the modern standard), the home run is a too-cheap soul cleanser, one that baseball as a game is too flimsy to claim. The home run is just too cheap: it should rarer than the double and rarer still than the triple.
I say bring back the the dead ball. Do away with the infield-fly rule, walks on purpose, the DH; limit clubs to one or two relief pitchers at the most, bring back the regulation strike zone, the screwball, the knuckleball. Let it last at least a generation. Let today’s rug rats see real baseball: running, hit & run, suicide squeeze plays, defensive trickery. Let the fans celebrate again the kinds of shenanigans that make fools of base runners and win the close game.
Bonds is a joke. Giambi, too - what a looser. Another obvious juicer: Bagwell.
Agreed. National League baseball is the only baseball.
Barry Bonds may you suffer baseball purgatory like Pete Rose.
[quote]When Barry Bonds jogged to left field in the first inning here, some fans unfurled a huge banner with a message that he could not miss. Simply and cleverly, it said, “Ruth did it on hot dogs & Beer.”
Before Bonds could even get to his position for the San Francisco Giants, the typically unforgiving Philadelphia fans told him what they thought about his pursuit of Babe Ruth’s hallowed 714 homers. . .
If Bonds somehow did not see the white banner with black letters that was almost as long as a row of seats, the fans also chanted, “Just retire.”
. . . On a warm Friday night in what should be a historic chase, Bonds was blanketed with boos. . .[/quote]
nytimes.com/2006/05/06/sport … ref=slogin
I know you’re trying to be faux-poetic with your baseball purism, but at least think some of this through.
The only way to make triples more common than home runs is to expand the fields a whole lot. Outfield walls at 500 feet, perhaps? In other words, it ain’t going to happen.
Why? A shallow pop-up with men on base should only lead to one out, not two or three. Anyhow, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the infield-fly rule invoked.
I know this was a frequent topic of conversation a couple of years ago when Bonds was chasing after the home run record and everyone was pitching around him. The problem with adding an extra penalty for intentional walks (like, say, awarding two bases instead of one) is that when pitchers want to walk someone, instead of going through the whole charade of having the catcher stand-up etc., pitchers will just pitch around the strike zone. And then how do you determine an “intentional” walk from an “accidental” walk?
Besides, there’s nothing better than watching some slugger getting intentionally walked and then the guy behind him getting an RBI hit.
Sure, having a DH is less “pure” but I’d rather see another good hitter than some pitcher impotently swinging the bat.
Only if you want the games to have football-like scores and to go on for 5 hours.
You got to give it to the Philly fans… short, sweet and to the point 
:bravo:
I tip my hat to the fans - that was a brilliant way to express themselves. But ultimately, I don’t buy it. I’m no fan of Barry Bonds, but a home run is a home run - juiced or not.
Would the Babe have taken the Cream and the Clear had it been available? Maybe. And if he was being paid the kind of money and attention that today’s athetes get? Probably.
So, asterisk or no, it’s gonna be a milestone. I admit, I haven’t followed this situation too closely - but do you have to be a diehard fan to look at Bonds’s baseball cards as a Pirate, and his portraits as a Giant, and NOT wonder what he’s putting into his cereal. He wasn’t the only pro doing it, and we were all not minding (or at least we were looking the other way) when it was happening - which tacitly means it was “OK” back then.
It isn’t OK now - why? Because it’s “unfair”? No, because it’s unsafe. If these drugs were safe, I expect not only would every athlete be doing it, but schools, society and the MLB would have created a system that would permit all athletes to take this stuff - just like how little leagues, farm systems, etc, have sprung up.
Bonds is a fool to play with his body this way. But his record will be a record.
[quote=“skeptic yank”]home runs suck. boring. dispose of the home run. make any ball hit out of park worth one run. three guys on base? still but one run.
[/quote]
Once upon a time, it was an out. Perhaps THAT more than century old rule should make a comeback?
[quote=“alidarbac”]I
Why? A shallow pop-up with men on base should only lead to one out, not two or three. Anyhow, I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen the infield-fly rule invoked.
[/quote]
Then you aren’t watching many games. I see it invoked at least twice or three times a week, both in MLB and CPBL.
