Results tagged ‘ ped’s ’
Baseball, PEDs and a level of hypocrisy that knows no bounds
Craig Calcaterra @ Hardball Talk comes through again (seriously, he and I tend to line up on this kind of stuff nearly 100% of the time) on the whole PED front:
Dan LeBatard offers the most intelligent and mature take on PEDs in sports I’ve seen in ages. He asks us to take a step back and ask ourselves why it is we are so hung up on a certain, narrow kind of performance enhancement in sports when we never question it — indeed, we openly praise it — when athletes do insane things to their bodies, all in the name of staying on the field? Often things that could cause massive harm.
Stuff like Ronnie Lott cutting his finger off. Lomas Brown playing with a catheter. Players having ligaments taken from cadavers and inserted into their own bodies. Drug therapies and medical procedures that are wholly unnecessary for a normal quality of life but are accepted in the name of athletic performance. We are totally fine with these. We are not totally fine with others:
We are OK with Kirk Gibson hitting one of the most famous home runs ever on one steroid (cortisone), but we slam the Hall of Fame door on the face of everybody else who might have used the anabolic kind. Granted, cortisone is not a banned performance enhancer, but it certainly enhanced Gibson’s performance, which wouldn’t have been possible without it. Lost in the shouting of “Cheater!” and “Fraud!” from a pill-popping America is how often athletes have to go through the pharmacy for the healing properties of hormones — not just to hit home runs but because what they do for a daily living really hurts.
Great points indeed.
For the life of me I cannot see why HGH is banned in professional sports.
These are highly paid athletes who amount to substantial investments for their teams. It makes little sense to me to deprive them of certain medical regimens while allowing others.
Anabolic steroids have a certain “healing property” but more in the sense that it allows you to regen faster for additional workouts so I tend to feel they should still be banned, however HGH should be “A-OK” to me.
If it is actually required to come back from an injury and a doctor is prescribing, administering it then have at it fellas.
As much as we like to play the role of raging hypocrite as we look down our nose at PED users our “positions” on them are just one giant clusterf*** of contradictions when it comes down to it.
The Ryan Braun Rules are in effect!
Over at Hardball Talk, Craig Calcaterra lays out some of the changes made to the MLB CBA governing drug testing.
They’re all listed below.
The ones that seem notable or major are in bold. Many of them are designed to specifically address the Ryan Braun fiasco from this spring, and we all know where I sit on that one:
- Adding hGH blood testing during Spring Training, during the off-season, and for reasonable cause. The parties also agreed to study expanding hGH testing to the regular season.
- Increasing the number of random tests during the season and off-season.
- Modifying the Collection Procedures of the Program to clarify when collectors must deliver specimens to the courier, and how specimens should be stored prior to delivery to the courier.
- Modifying the Appeals procedures of the Program, including the circumstances under which procedural deviations will result in the invalidation of test results.
- ***Creating an Expert Panel of recognized ADD/ADHD experts to advise the Independent Program Administrator (“IPA”) on Therapeutic Use Exemption (“TUE”) applications for ADD/ADHD medications, and another expert panel of medical professionals to advise the IPA on TUE applications for other medications.***
- Strengthening the protocols for addressing use by players of drugs of abuse.
- Permitting public announcement of the specific substance that resulted in a player’s positive test result or discipline.
- Making players who are suspended for violating the Program prior to the All-Star Break (including during Spring Training and the preceding off-season) ineligible to be elected or selected for the All-Star Game.
- Establishing a protocol for evaluating and treating players who may suffer from an alcohol use problem or who have engaged in off-field violent conduct.
- Clarifying the rules for violations for use or possession of prohibited substances based on evidence other than positive test results (“non-analytical positives.”)
- Increasing the penalties for criminal convictions for possession or use of drugs of abuse (including stimulants).
Now, I went ahead and tagged the part I found most interesting in bold red.
Years back I wrote a piece titled “Adderall’s on First, Ritalin’s on Second: The Ongoing Saga of PEDs in Baseball” chronicling how players were somewhat shocked when MLB first included testing for amphetamines in the first version of a CBA that had some “teeth” to it (2004).
Amphetamines, often called “greenies”, have been a big part of the game since Lord only knows when. As I wrote then:
The use of uppers is neither new nor surprising in the baseball world, going back as far as the days of Willie Mays (at least) players have been using some form or another to endure the grueling demands of the 162-game season.
While steroids, and their artificial augmentation of baseball’s favorite play, the longball, have received most of the mainstream media coverage, anyone who really knows two shits about baseball recognizes that “greenies” have always been a much more pervasive part of the game.
Countless stories of large Ronald Reagan-esque like jars filled with amphetamines (as opposed to Ronnie’s trademark jellybeans) and pots of coffee labeled “extra-caffeinated” could be found without much effort at all.
A baseball season is a long & grueling one, after all. 162 games, packed into about 180 days, taking players, coaches and fans through a hot and humid summer can wear down even the best of men. So for decades players have turned to “artificial means” to carry them through the dog days of summer.
I told more than one friend that it would be interesting to see who “faded down the stretch” and chuckled at the sudden emergence of energy drinks as sponsors for the big league clubs.
But I never could have imagined the thing that would catch my eye exactly one year later…and every year since.
When the league banned these drugs, an amazing thing happened. The number of players claiming and obtaining “therapeutic use” exemptions for stimulants nearly quadrupled from 28 to 103.
That number has not gone down. In fact, it has moved up a tick.
Now, it appears Major League Baseball has finally had enough of that nonsense.
Yet Another Juror Falls Asleep During Clemens Trial
By Matt Snyder @ CBSSports.com
I haven’t been paying overly close attention to the Roger Clemens trial.
I’m not sure if it’s because I’m so sick and tired of hearing about the steroid era’s taint or if it’s because there’s no way I could take a side — seriously, a person with the morality of Roger Clemens vs. a government wasting a colossal amount of time and money … as usual?
What’s the right choice there?
Anyway, something has finally caught my eye: According to the Associated Press story from Tuesday, a second juror has been kicked off the jury for falling asleep.
I don’t know how to react to that, other than to laugh. I mean, we’ve all been there before — whether it’s a college philosophy lecture, an insurance seminar or a simple boardroom meeting.
You know the feeling. Your eyes just keep falling shut and you can’t shake it. Maybe your pen falls to the ground and the sound startles you awake, or maybe someone close to you coughs or sneezes loudly, jarring you awake. But those are only temporary. As long as you’re caught in that seat for a prolonged period of time with that nodding off feeling, there’s no fighting the heavy eyes.
And two jurors on the Clemens trial have succumbed to it.
Boy, the testimony must be riveting — maybe I should watch more Court TV than baseball. In the meantime, might I suggest some Homer Simpson glasses pictured above to the remaining jurors?
