MonkeyF0cker
Mean People Suck
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Brewers futures haven't really moved either.
Still 27/1 @ Pinny.
Still 27/1 @ Pinny.
MrMonkey
USA! USA!! USA!!!
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Heard all night it was only cause of a technicality! Worker never FedEx sample that night and took it home with him and put in his fridge! So in court of public opinion still might look bad for Braun! Will be talking to reporters they said tomorrow so Braun better explained why the levels were so high to help his image!
rjt721
hello
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Stop yelling at me!
Archie
SP Nation and I Ruin things
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I think people realize they are still not very good, even with Braun.
Braun won't approach his typical totals, without Fielder in the lineup to protect him and give him more good pitches, and he'll be forced to be clean.
Braun won't approach his typical totals, without Fielder in the lineup to protect him and give him more good pitches, and he'll be forced to be clean.
FairWarning
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If they suspected problems with the sample, why didn't MLB make take another? They better find who leaked that story.
Saulty
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When you can afford good lawyers you can get away with everything. Regardless of the decision the player will always be remembered as a steroid user. Stats don't lie. But I have no problem with steroids as long as they improve the quality of the game.
FairWarning
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Saulty
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I will never take steroids myself because I know they are not safe. But if professional players want to take them risking their own lives then it's their problem not mine. But I like to see the game improve and if steroids is the way to do it it's fine with me. No one wants to go to the ballgame on a daily basis watching 20 strikeouts and players walking back and forth from the dugout.
FairWarning
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The two things steroids has proven is more injuries and earlier deaths.
choo
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can a baseball player take injectable growth hormone if they have an HGH deficiency?
Archie
SP Nation and I Ruin things
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I think if more pitchers had taken steroids early on we would have seen an increase in dominant pitching performances and extended careers (ala Roger Clemens) as well as Bonds and Mcgwire like HR records.
I think Pitchers were late to the game with steroids and amphetamines. but they also had more to lose with using them, as their arms are already doing repeated actions that is un-natural for their tendons and ligaments, and steroids weaken those things rather than stregthen them.
FairWarning
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I thought they could but they have to go thru team Doctors.
Archie
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I believe so, same thing goes for amphetamines (Adderall ect) for those with diagnoses ADHD, which is a super easy thing to get diagnosed with if you want to. I know Laroche and Lowe took were cleared to take Adderall in pavy's neck of the woods a few years back... I've seen some shocking numbers before about how many MLB players take adderall...like 25%
FairWarning
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Joe Sheehan newsletter today:
The process worked.
That has to be the takeaway from the news that Ryan Braun, who tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone during the 2011 postseason, won his appeal and will not serve a 50-game suspension. In a 2-1 panel decision, with independent arbitrator Shyam Das serving as the deciding vote, Braun's argument that the chain of custody wasn't unbroken, thereby invalidating the test result, carried the day. There are specific, detailed instructions -- more than 20 pages of them --* that cover how a player's sample must be handled, and in Braun's case, they do not appear to have been followed.
Let's be very clear: this result is a good one. If the penalty for violating the Joint Drug Agreement is a 50-game suspension, is millions of dollars in lost salary, is the apparent loss of the ability to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, is the painting of a target on your back by a media that holds this crime to be worse than any other…the process has to be pristine. Players have to be protected from anything that could potentially queer a test result, and the burden has to be upon the testers to follow procedures to the letter. The stakes are far too high to allow anything less. Ryan Braun's positive result may not have been caused by the delay in getting his sample to the lab, but that delay serves to invalidate his entire test. It is, to some extent, the flip side of MLB's standard that the player is completely responsible for what he puts into his body. MLB, by extension, is completely responsible for what comes out of it. In this case, MLB failed to protect the process.
The focus on process, in this case, is interesting. A running theme in my work is that the process is what's important, rather than the result, because the process is what you control. The process is what can be affected by decisions, whereas the result usually includes a big hunk of chance. That comes up primarily in discussing on-field work -- a manager who can't get out of his own way, a player who insists on swinging at the first pitch -- and the actions of front offices. Usually, it's hard to get people to look at process rather than outcomes, because no one wants to talk about the loss-maximizing pitching change in the eighth when the guy who made it is drenched in cheap champagne. In the Braun case, though, the process is all anyone has wanted to talk about.
That's surprising, because the problem of focusing on results rather than process has been particularly acute in the area of so-called performance-enhancing drugs. The processes by which the baseball industry -- really, the baseball media -- has concluded that particular actions have particular effects doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The processes that led to the current testing regime were egregiously flawed. They are the products of a labor war; a grandstanding, ill-informed group of legislators; a baseball administration determined to cover up its complicity; and that same media that has failed at every point to understand science, nuance and the game's checkered past.*
If we're going to care about process, though, we can't pick and choose. It is right -- it is essential -- to evaluate the process by which a player's urine is handled. It is also right to evaluate the process by which grand jury testimony becomes the basis of news stories, and then a book, about one man. Barry Bonds could have used this kind of focus on process when his life was turned upside down after he did nothing but testify. The sanctity of grand-jury testimony isn't there for the protection of witnesses, but Bonds' words should never have shown up in public. That was a diseased process that violated the rules of our judicial system, and in the obsessive pursuit, any sense of fairness. The end result, a felony conviction for rambling too long before getting to a point, is a $30 million testament to abuse of power. In Bonds' case, though, there has been very little talk of process, and what little there has been has generally been shouted down by discussion of his cap size, and the number 73, and the words he'll live with the rest of his life, "convicted felon." Bonds could have used the same focus on the process that Braun benefitted from, both within the system and outside of it, and a day like today invites the question of why one got it and the other didn't.
A focus on process would have helped Alex Rodriguez. In 2003, in the wake of that first negotiation about testing, it was determined that every player in baseball would be tested once, and guaranteed anonymity. These tests would be used to determine the extent of the PED problem in baseball; if 5% or more of players tested positive, a regime would be put into place in 2004 for ongoing random testing with penalties attached. The key element for the players was the anonymity. MLB needed to know the true extent of the problem (as it turned out, about 7% of players tested positive) and players needed assurances that if they participated in the survey testing for the good of the game, their results would not be used against them.
In 2004, the hit squad responsible for the BALCO investigation raided the lab where the samples from the survey testing were being kept. There was sufficient identifying information discovered in the raid for a list to be created that matched players to positive tests. Three years ago, just before spring training in 2009, Selena Roberts reported for Sports Illustrated that Alex Rodriguez was one of the players who tested positive. Rodriguez subsequently admitted to using that year, a confession that has significantly damaged public perception of the player and may impact his eventual Hall of Fame chances. As with Bonds, Rodriguez was a victim of a breakdown in process by which private information -- in his case, purportedly anonymous information -- was made public by a combination of government and media. Unlike the Braun case, however, there was no examination of the process to determine whether the result was legitimate. There was only scorn directed at the cheating player, with no discussion of the violations of privacy, of negotiation, of justice by which that cheating came to light.
Braun's bodily fluids sitting in a courier's home is the same as Bonds' grand-jury testimony is the same as Rodriguez's contribution to anonymous survey testing. Only one of those players, however, got to appeal that he and his case were mishandled, got to put the process on trial in front of not just an independent arbiter, but a media willing to report upon the process rather than just the result. While I'd like to think that represents an evolution in the thinking on these issues, the more likely reason is that Braun is who he is, and Bonds and Rodriguez are who they are.
That's not good enough. The lesson of the Braun case is that a diseased process produces diseased results, and if Shyam Das can't sit in judgment of Jeff Novitzky or Mark Fainaru-Wada, we can certainly use the same approach Das did in the Braun case to evaluate what we know, how we came to know it, and how we've chosen to use that information for all players whose rights have been violated to no good end over the past 15 years. Process matters, and it's time to place ours under the microscope.
The process worked.
That has to be the takeaway from the news that Ryan Braun, who tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone during the 2011 postseason, won his appeal and will not serve a 50-game suspension. In a 2-1 panel decision, with independent arbitrator Shyam Das serving as the deciding vote, Braun's argument that the chain of custody wasn't unbroken, thereby invalidating the test result, carried the day. There are specific, detailed instructions -- more than 20 pages of them --* that cover how a player's sample must be handled, and in Braun's case, they do not appear to have been followed.
Let's be very clear: this result is a good one. If the penalty for violating the Joint Drug Agreement is a 50-game suspension, is millions of dollars in lost salary, is the apparent loss of the ability to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, is the painting of a target on your back by a media that holds this crime to be worse than any other…the process has to be pristine. Players have to be protected from anything that could potentially queer a test result, and the burden has to be upon the testers to follow procedures to the letter. The stakes are far too high to allow anything less. Ryan Braun's positive result may not have been caused by the delay in getting his sample to the lab, but that delay serves to invalidate his entire test. It is, to some extent, the flip side of MLB's standard that the player is completely responsible for what he puts into his body. MLB, by extension, is completely responsible for what comes out of it. In this case, MLB failed to protect the process.
The focus on process, in this case, is interesting. A running theme in my work is that the process is what's important, rather than the result, because the process is what you control. The process is what can be affected by decisions, whereas the result usually includes a big hunk of chance. That comes up primarily in discussing on-field work -- a manager who can't get out of his own way, a player who insists on swinging at the first pitch -- and the actions of front offices. Usually, it's hard to get people to look at process rather than outcomes, because no one wants to talk about the loss-maximizing pitching change in the eighth when the guy who made it is drenched in cheap champagne. In the Braun case, though, the process is all anyone has wanted to talk about.
That's surprising, because the problem of focusing on results rather than process has been particularly acute in the area of so-called performance-enhancing drugs. The processes by which the baseball industry -- really, the baseball media -- has concluded that particular actions have particular effects doesn't stand up to scrutiny. The processes that led to the current testing regime were egregiously flawed. They are the products of a labor war; a grandstanding, ill-informed group of legislators; a baseball administration determined to cover up its complicity; and that same media that has failed at every point to understand science, nuance and the game's checkered past.*
If we're going to care about process, though, we can't pick and choose. It is right -- it is essential -- to evaluate the process by which a player's urine is handled. It is also right to evaluate the process by which grand jury testimony becomes the basis of news stories, and then a book, about one man. Barry Bonds could have used this kind of focus on process when his life was turned upside down after he did nothing but testify. The sanctity of grand-jury testimony isn't there for the protection of witnesses, but Bonds' words should never have shown up in public. That was a diseased process that violated the rules of our judicial system, and in the obsessive pursuit, any sense of fairness. The end result, a felony conviction for rambling too long before getting to a point, is a $30 million testament to abuse of power. In Bonds' case, though, there has been very little talk of process, and what little there has been has generally been shouted down by discussion of his cap size, and the number 73, and the words he'll live with the rest of his life, "convicted felon." Bonds could have used the same focus on the process that Braun benefitted from, both within the system and outside of it, and a day like today invites the question of why one got it and the other didn't.
A focus on process would have helped Alex Rodriguez. In 2003, in the wake of that first negotiation about testing, it was determined that every player in baseball would be tested once, and guaranteed anonymity. These tests would be used to determine the extent of the PED problem in baseball; if 5% or more of players tested positive, a regime would be put into place in 2004 for ongoing random testing with penalties attached. The key element for the players was the anonymity. MLB needed to know the true extent of the problem (as it turned out, about 7% of players tested positive) and players needed assurances that if they participated in the survey testing for the good of the game, their results would not be used against them.
In 2004, the hit squad responsible for the BALCO investigation raided the lab where the samples from the survey testing were being kept. There was sufficient identifying information discovered in the raid for a list to be created that matched players to positive tests. Three years ago, just before spring training in 2009, Selena Roberts reported for Sports Illustrated that Alex Rodriguez was one of the players who tested positive. Rodriguez subsequently admitted to using that year, a confession that has significantly damaged public perception of the player and may impact his eventual Hall of Fame chances. As with Bonds, Rodriguez was a victim of a breakdown in process by which private information -- in his case, purportedly anonymous information -- was made public by a combination of government and media. Unlike the Braun case, however, there was no examination of the process to determine whether the result was legitimate. There was only scorn directed at the cheating player, with no discussion of the violations of privacy, of negotiation, of justice by which that cheating came to light.
Braun's bodily fluids sitting in a courier's home is the same as Bonds' grand-jury testimony is the same as Rodriguez's contribution to anonymous survey testing. Only one of those players, however, got to appeal that he and his case were mishandled, got to put the process on trial in front of not just an independent arbiter, but a media willing to report upon the process rather than just the result. While I'd like to think that represents an evolution in the thinking on these issues, the more likely reason is that Braun is who he is, and Bonds and Rodriguez are who they are.
That's not good enough. The lesson of the Braun case is that a diseased process produces diseased results, and if Shyam Das can't sit in judgment of Jeff Novitzky or Mark Fainaru-Wada, we can certainly use the same approach Das did in the Braun case to evaluate what we know, how we came to know it, and how we've chosen to use that information for all players whose rights have been violated to no good end over the past 15 years. Process matters, and it's time to place ours under the microscope.
Archie
SP Nation and I Ruin things
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I think David Segui had a "legal" script for HGH during his playing career
PuckOff
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Would you say that baseball is boring without steroids?
Saulty
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I have been to many Braves games. If it wasn't for the beer and the food and the atmosphere I wouldn't have lasted the whole 4 hrs. They do a heck of job entertaining the fans and the players need to get as much help as possible from steroids if it helps their performance or recovery from injuries. After all they have the longest season in all major sports and play the most games.
choo
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i think like anything needing a prescription it depends on the doctor. maybe they all used to just hand it out but they definitely dont anymore.
regardless, an mlb player can easily find a referral to the necessary doctor. i dont get why they all dont i sure as fuck would.