In article  , Grizzlie
Antagonist   wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 11:29:52 -0500, "Deborah Terreson"
>  wrote:
>
>>Hey, Bob and I were talking about baseball ands he is kind of pissed off
>>with the government's inquiry into steroid use -
>
>
> Really?  Does he have a laissez-faire attitude towards the issue of
> steroids?
>
> I'm not sure what I think about the issue myself, being of several
> minds.

*LOL!* ..and NONE of them is your right mind... Is that it? ;)
>
>
>
>>This has come up before in
>>the past, has it not?
>
>
>
> Steroids?  I don't think so.  Not as a high-profile congressional
> issue.
>
>
>
>>He was standing at the coffee shop, looking at
>>newspaper headlines today and got all pissy about it.
>
>
> Do you know what I'm pissy at right now?
>
> Five Red Sox players appearing on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy".
> This is more of an embarrassment to the game than steroids.

That's what you get for being suckered into paying to watch commercial
teevee.

Shame on you for even having cable. You got entirely what you PAID for.

Blecch.
>
>
>>He said when they had the 'reserve clause' in baseball, congress just washed
>>it's hands of the whole steroid use affair.
>
>
>
> The reserve clause was effectively eliminated in 1976 (I think).  I'm
> not intimately acquainted with the BUSINESS history of the game, but
> it had something to do with some arbitrator finding a loophole in the
> clause and allowing pitcher Andy Messersmith getting to leave the
> Dodgers and go to the Braves.  I'm open to correction or clarification
> on that point.
>
> I don't think that steroids were an issue or anywhere near baseball's
> radar until the last four years or so.
>
> They WERE an issue in professional wrestling in the mid-1990's.  That
> sounds funny, but there were a large number of kids who took seriously
> Hulk Hogan's cartoonish wrestling persona (which was a combination of
> carny boss huckster and All-American good-guy) and who might
> CONCEIVABLY gotten the wrong message from the revelation that the
> "Hulkster" was taking steroids.
>
> But I don't think that this was enough to pique Congress's interest
> very much.  Baseball, on the other hand, is more mainstream than pro
> wrestling.

Shit! Bob just left to go to work, but I think there was an issue of
steroids in the past. I'll ask him tonight when he gets home and see what he
comes up with.
>
>
>
>>Why the Big Beef now? Is it
>>because there is more money in the game or what?
>
>
> Perhaps.  And the consumers paying through the nose for tickets might
> be entitled to wonder whether the competition is fair or whether some
> athletes are taking the easy way out.
>
> By the same token, baseball is a game that requires more than brute
> strength, so I'm not sure that steroids will have as huge an impact on
> baseball performance as on performance in other sports.
>
> Then again, this is a made-to-order political whipping boy.  There are
> no "good guys" in this drama - not the owners who looked the other way
> while home runs were filling the seats and not the players who abused
> themselves for short-term money and glory and resisted all efforts to
> test them for steroids.
>
> So it's easy for the politicians to wax virtuous in front of the
> press.
>
> Then too, there are apparently legitimate health issues.  At least one
> ballplayer, Ken Caminitti, probably died from a steroid overdose, and
> there are reportedly young amateur athletes who have taken same and
> suffered consequences - presumably believing that if the pros were
> taking them, it was OK.

Oh no, there are definite health problems from steroid usage. IIRC from my
school days, it was kidney and liver problems that got alot of steroid users
in the long run, and in the short term, there were/are the immediate real
problems of fertility and gonad problems: From my collecting gay male nudes
on the playgirl NG, I've seen several models who've gone from slim
twink-sized young men a few years ago to huge overmuscled beefcake, 'big
boys in boots' and quite literally, their testicles have all but
disappeared. It's somewhat disturbing, really. Eww.
>
>
>>I'm a bit fuzzy on this, and Bob mentioned Curt Flood (whom I'm searching
>>online for right now) and went off about how he was traded without his
>>knowledge and left the sport entirely.
>
>
> Flood was a pretty good baseball player, but all that he's known for
> today is his Supreme Court case.
>
> He challenged the legality of baseball's reserve clause as being a
> violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and the Supreme Court sided
> against him, ruling that Congress had not chosen to make baseball
> subject to this Act.
>
> In fact, I think that was the third Supreme Court decision to make
> that finding.  Whether that really was Congress's intent is a matter
> of conjecture.
>
> I'm not sure of the details (again, I am not an expert on the business
> history of the game), but somehow in 1976, Andy Messersmith was able
> to successfully do indirectly what Curt Flood had failed to accomplish
> directly at an earlier date.
>
> I don't remember if that caused Flood to leave the sport entirely or
> not - wait a minute, that's easily enough checked -
>
> http://www.baseball-reference.com/f/floodcu01.shtml
>
> Well, it looks like he played his last series of games in 1971 before
> retiring at the age of 33 - a time when he presumably still had a few
> years of baseball left in his body - so yes, I imagine that his legal
> challenge made him persona non grata among baseball's establishment.
>
> Flood is supposed to be a hero, but I'm not sure that the reserve
> clause wasn't a necessary evil.  It kept ticket prices down and it
> kept players from bouncing around from team to team, willy-nilly, in
> search of the most money.
>
> Many people tell me today that they don't follow baseball as much as
> they used to because they can't keep track of all of the player
> movements, and I feel the same way myself, really.
>
> It's significant TODAY because baseball is still not subject to the
> Anti-Trust Act - which, I assume benefits them in ways other than
> those provided by the old reserve clause - and every time Congress
> wants baseball to act, they flex their muscles and talk about
> SPECIFICALLY making baseball subject to the Act (so as to leave no
> doubt when the courts are again called upon to interpret the Act) - so
> this is likely to lead to a showdown between MLB and Congress over the
> steroids issue.
>
At the very least, I think that steroid taking players who break records
should have an asterisk notating that they were using performance enhancing
substances to do so. I agree with Bob on this, that Ruth, who set records on
hot dogs, whores and bourbon had more vigor than today's pampered,
chemically induced crop of players. They're lightweights in comparison.

Deb.
>
>>I'm going to read up on this some, but am interested in your take on what's
>>happening now and why.
>>
>>Deb.
>>
>>P.S. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
>
>
> Begorrah!  I thank ye, lass!
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> grizzlieantagonist{at}yahoo.com
>
> "Ladies and gentlemen - let's have a round of applause for tonight's player
> of the game - FRAN-CIS-CO SAN-N-N-N-TOS!
>     - Brian Anthony (P.A. announcer at Grizzlie Stadium), June 11, 2004
>
>
> "Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their
> disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as
> their love of justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their
> soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and
> presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the
> counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.
> Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be
> placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must
> be without.  It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men
> of intemperate minds cannot be free.  Their passions forge their fetters."
>
>      - Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)



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