Give McGwire the benefit of the doubt...lulz

Jose "Pissed that a team wouldn't give him another chance to hit 500 HR's" Canseco famously wrote a book that sent shockwaves through the sportswriters and fans. All of the sudden the bulging biceps didn't make sense anymore. I think we didn't notice because we loved every second of it. The increase in homerun production wasn't because of "juiced baseballs" it was because of juiced man balls.


I remember playing baseball video games as a kid and thinking that guys who had 15 homeruns had some power. Lol!!! In the steroid era, 15 homeruns got you sent back to the minors (unless you were Kenny Lofton who went from 1 homerun to 12, in less games between 93-94...oh ya and he gained 15 lbs.)


In that vein I'd like to extend a congratulations to Mark Mcgwire for becoming the St. Louis Cardinals new hitting coach. In honor of his new job, I will poke some fun at the controversy that surrounded his career.



One look at the picture above (and noticing that his forearms w/the Cardinals are bigger than his biceps w/ the A 's) you know that Mcgwire used steroids. Judging by the picture alone, he must have gained 40-50 lbs of pure lean muscle, while dropping major body fat.

Believe it or not, Mcgwire hit 49 HR's as that skinny guy on the left! Of course he hit 52, 58, 70 and 65 as the guy on the right.

There are people who think we need to give Mark Mcgwire the benefit of the doubt on whether or not he used steroids. When you make a "smoking gun" argument in favor of Mcgwire you aren't doing him any favors. First of all, it is all too easy to take a look at him and know that he took something. Because of this, he already is guilty in everyone's mind and that's before the dreadful testimony to congress. in Mark's defense re: congress, everybody there that day had their own angle on how they would approach their testimony and appear steroid free. Palmerio forcefully denied with his famous finger point ( then tested positive shortly after) and Sammy Sosa forgot how to speak and understand English. Turns out Mcgwire was actually the most honest of the bunch that day, but that's because he went with the "Doc in the DeLorean " approach.... only wanting to talk about the future.


Jay Mcgwire (Mark's younger brother) came out and said he introduced Mark to steroids. You see, Jay has recently found god and wants his older brother to repent and come clean. And the only way Jay could think of doing this is by pitching a tell-all book (I think god told him he needed to cash in).



What Jay seems to forget, praising god has never been an issue for Mark. Mark pointed to the heavens (or outer space for you realists) after every home run and award.

Mark Mcgwire apologists need to realize that there is a more sensible approach than to pretend Mark might not have used steroids because there is no "smoking gun". The guy did steroids. Instead I recommend they argue that each baseball era and that era's player's stats should be considered and approached as separate from previous era's and player's stats and voted on accordingly. The question then simply becomes, "Was he one of the best/elite players of his time?"

In this sense I don 't think there is any doubt about it. Mcgwire was arguably the most thrilling hitter to watch of all-time, let alone his era (Bonds an acceptable answer). We sat in awe of his 584 foot homerun off 99mph gas thrower Randy Johnson. We put Mark on the cover of all the magazines as an american hero! Sports Illustrated went as far as making him co-Sportmen of the Year with Sammy Sosa.

So how can the public and the sportswriters turn on somebody so fast and so venomously? I've always wondered about this phenomenon and I think it's simply our human desire for apologies. I really do believe that if Mark Mcgwire came out publicly and admitted steroid use and said he was sorry for using them, the public would have accepted the apology and he just might have been in the hall of fame by now.

On the other side of the token, the public misconception that steroids automatically guarantees extra muscle is ridiculous. I had a roommate who took two cycles of steroids and only gained 3 lbs of pure fat. Why you ask? Because he never worked out and was lazy.



Due to the fact that public perception on steroids is that it equals (=) cheating, athletes feel the desire to deny any allegations in hopes to hold on to the credit they feel they rightly deserve. Bonds didn't deny steroid use because he didn't use steroids; He denied it because people would have taken all of his accomplishments that he worked so hard to obtain, and flush them down the proverbial toilet. Mcgwire didn't admit he "cheated" to congress because all of the love and praise we gave him would all be taken away and his ridiculously sick season of 70 HR's would be given 0 credit. As humans, we have a strong desire to get credit for things we worked hard at. could you imagine if you spent all of your free time trying to make yourself better in the weight room and batting cages, have it pay off only to be told that you would not get any credit for that hard work?

What the writers and fans did to Mcgwire was unfair. First we gave him credit for saving baseball. We gave him sportsman of the year awards, put him on every magazine cover you could think of and even gave him a cameo on Saturday Night Live. All of this affirming to Mcgwire that he was doing the right things, making the right choices and mixing the right steroid-cocktails.

BOTTOM LINE:
Don't give Mark Mcgwire the benefit of the doubt... give him a break.

During Steroid era, Eric Karros was Growing.....(pains)

Eric Karros is not the guy who stared on Growing Pains and then got delusional. Although there is a striking resemblance, Kirk has his head in the clouds while Eric had his hands on the weights. Eric Karros is the guy who started the Dodgers improbable 5 straight rookie of the year awards and showed great promise after gaining 20 lbs pure muscle and drastically increasing his homerun production.

..........did Kirk shoot up? you decide...

One sunny day at Wilson Park (located in Torrance, Ca.), the Dodgers were kind enough to send some of their rookies to talk to eager kids at the park. Once I found out the names of who was attending (Pedro Martinez, Eric Karros, Tom Candiotti....wasn't Candiotti's rookie year so he must have drew the short straw) I grabbed all of their cards out of my collection and eagerly went to get their autograph.

One gem that came out of that is an autographed rookie card by potential HOFer Pedro Martinez. What was more important to me at the time was the rookie of the year autograph from Eric Karros!

I was thrilled to have it and I remember asking the owner at a card store how much he thought the card would be worth. He offered me 35 dollars. Whoa, I could almost get a new video game with that money! I turned him down as I anticipated it being worth way more and went ahead and spent 20 dollars to buy a Darryl Strawberry rookie card (a no-brainer).

As history would have it, both investments turned out to be a flop. Although Karros gave me some hope when he got dramatically better in 1995, Strawberry never panned out (to say the least).

In 1994, the baseball player union went on strike. During this season, Eric Karros was on pace to hit 19 HR's. The following season, Eric Karros (now a solid 15-20 lbs heavier) hit 32 HR's and drove in 105 runs.

The extra weight that Karros added certainly helped him quite a bit, and started to make me feel like my decision to turn down the 35$ for his autographed rookie card was a good idea. He then hit 34 HR's, 31 HR's, 23 (injury shortened season, was on pace for 28) then hit 34 in 1999 (his all around best season) and then another 31 in 2000. Karros had started to look like he was a guaranteed 30 HR 100 rbi guy, and a serious threat at 400 career homeruns if he could keep the pace up for another 5 or so years.

Unfortunately, Karros started getting the injury bug. That injury bug sure happened to a lot of performance enhancer users. He finished his career hitting 15, 13, 12 and 2 homeruns in his last 4 seasons.

So the autograph card isn't worth much anymore, but the nostalgia is still a great memory. I used to get so fired up when Eric Karros and Mike Piazza would come to the plate. One look at Piazza's rookie card and you know he is an obvious user, so I won't waste my time doing an entry on him.

My official prognosis on Karros is that he used a pro-hormone like andro. Most likely he started once the players went on strike. He came back built like a horse, and really was fun to watch the following 5-6 years as a result.

Of course, andro wasn't illegal during that time but lets not forget that those substances would result in a 50 game ban today. Which brings me to the main point in my who would you start...Babe Ruth or Jack Cust? I'd go with Jack post. You can't compare players from different era's to eachother and base a Hall of Fame selection on that. Babe Ruth would be terrible if he played today. At 6'2'' 215 lbs., he would have almost been small, and his goofy swing that worked against slow pitching would simply not work. Eric Karros was not one of the greatest to play the game in his (steroid)era so he should not be a Hall of Famer. At 6'4'' 225 lbs., the legends would have been rediculous if he played during Babe's era. If we went on actual skill, Karros was better than the Babe. But when you look at them through the context of their era.... Babe Ruth was a no-brainer hall of famer and Karros a no-brainer non-HOFer....

Who would you start... Babe Ruth or Jack Cust? I'd go with Jack

If there is one thing that really grinds my gears, it's when a sports announcer talks about how the pitchers these days just don't have the guts and mental toughness to pitch the amount of innings that pitchers of older generations could.

All anybody has to do is watch the 2009 playoffs to understand immediately why pitchers don't throw as many innings as they did in the 80's, 70's, 60's, 50's ,1890's ... etc. Every freaking pitcher throws at least 92 mph, with at least 7-10 pitchers per each team throwing mid to upper 90's.

Cy Young once threw 453 innings in a season, and he was 5th in the NL that year in innings. Bill Hutchison was 1st in the NL with 622 innings and a 36 - 36 record to accompany a 2.76 era. Holy shit! 2.76 era and you lose 36 games!! LULZ! Hutchison also had 314 k's that season, which sounds like a lot until you realize that its only a 4.5 k's per nine inning ratio. Cy Young's K per 9 innings was even worse. He only recorded 168 strikeouts that season for a 3.3 k per 9 innings ratio. Players today that record a 3.3 k per nine inning never get called up to the bigs.

Let's compare some of those #'s to todays. Justin Verlander led all of baseball with 240 innings pitched. He had 269 k's in 240 innings for a 10k per 9 inning ratio. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Cy Young and Bill Hutchinson did not throw consistantly 99mph like Verlander. The simple reason for this declaration... the human arm would not be able to handle the stress. Also, players those days and rediculously goofy windups that were more circus than maximizing their body's potential.

Nolan Ryan, who's career high in innings pitched for a season is 332.2 (which would have been good for 20th in just the NL in 1892) His total career innings (5,386) are almost 2,000 innings below Cy Young's career innings pitched. Nolan Ryan is remembered as being an absolute work horse. He sticks in our minds and hearts because he was an absolute rare breed of power and longevity. Key word being "rare". If Nolan Ryan threw more innings than we think is even possible, what does that make Cy Young?

I'll tell you. It makes Cy Young a soft throwing nobody. If Cy Young had any velocity, he simply would not have been able to pitch so many innings. My predictions are that Cy Young threw about 65-70 mph, and relied on a deceptive (and rediculous looking) delivery and the fact that everybody pretty much sucked at baseball back then. To their credit, it was a new sport and people were still learning how to play it more effectively.

However, if Nolan Ryan pitched back then, he would have had a career era of .000000001, with his only run coming from a game in which he walked 4 batters in a row after getting the first two outs on k's and then losing his cool. He would have been the only pitcher in history to never give up a base hit. He would have been looked at as unable to throw a decent amount of innings though. He would have had the reputation of being a pussy. LULZ

So if the pitchers were far less talented back in the hay day of baseball, so were the hitters (and fielders for that matter). Am I the only one who sees Willy Mays' basket catch and feels ripped off that it always gets "best catch ever made"? Jim Edmonds has at least 15 catches better than that one. Also, Jeter's patented catch, spin and throw deep in the hole, did not happen in the early 1900's. Those were base hits. Hitters were hitting off slow pitching, and they themselves had limited skills. Just look at some old video footage of some of the rediculuos batting stances, and hitting approaches. Ty Cobb's hands were spread apart on the bat for instance. There is no way they would have had a sniff of a chance against a 99 mph fastball from Verlander, let alone a 90 mph fastball from low single A prospect, Aaron Jones.

One day Babe Ruth came along and revolutionized baseball. He was pretty much the first player who actually had any force behind his swing. One thing that is never said though, Babe Ruth was facing some brutal pitching. Pitchers still did their goofy devliveries that did not maximize their body's potential, and Babe Ruth was the first player to make them pay for that.

Babe Ruth stands in our minds as a monster sized player. A long running joke in contemporary US culture is when you see a fat kid you call him Babe Ruth. Well hold on, Babe was listed at 6'2'' 215lbs. Hmm, that would be fairly small if you compare to today's stars. Ryan Howard for instance is 6'4'' 260lbs. Could you imagine what the legends would have been of Ryan Howard if he played back in Ruth's day? The story would go... "One time Ryan Howard hit a 645 ft homerun with one hand". Actually Ryan Howard was black and wouldn't have been allowed to play. Another thing to remember, baseball back then was "white people's" best talent. Not the world's best talent like it is today.

Hell, if we took Jack Cust's 6'1'' 240lbs, we realize that Ruth wasn't that fat after all. He was just big for his time. Lucky for Ruth he was also facing shit pitching.

If Babe Ruth were to play today he would be viewed as small, unable to hit high velocity pitching, problem hitting sick curveballs, medium power. So in short, he and Jack Cust would really battle for that last starting spot on the Oakland A's.

I predict that Babe Ruth would eventually lose that spot to Cust, go to the minors, do a few cycles of steroids, come back up and hit 25 homers with a .222 BA and 186 k's during his rookie campaign drawing comparisons to Nick Swisher. After finishing 3rd in the rookie of the year voting, Ruth disapoints with a mediocre sophmore campaign (.232BA 15 HR 55 RBI's 195 k's). After the Pirates take a chance on Ruth on the free agent market, Ruth sets the single season strikeout record with 245K's to go along with .235 BA, 17 Hr's and 62 RBI's. Ruth then gets released and signs with a Japanese team and America would never hear of him again. Lucky for Ruth he played in the era that he did!

Moral of the story: It is rediculous to compare era's. If you did, you will have to accept the fact that athletes are better now than they ever ahve been. In 50 years, they will be better than they are today and so on and so forth.