Growth Hormones and Barry Bonds

**Dr5115** · 02.27.07, 01:39 PM

Interesting article about BB and his doping habits.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...x.html?cnn=yes

**Down In Flames** · 02.27.07, 02:06 PM

Moving this to the Play Ball forum.

**bsbll4** · 02.27.07, 02:30 PM

What I find amazing is that people still cheer this guy in San Fran. Unbelievable. Even here in St. Louis, on the last game in Busch Stadium, the ultimate feel good moment in most of our baseball lives, there were boos for Mark McGwire.

What I find hilarious are all of the Bonds defenders who act like he did nothing wrong. They always say something retarded like: "Oh, well steroids/human growth hormone don't have any effect on how you hit the ball, just how far it goes." Their reasoning is yes, he did steroids/HGH, but his AVG shows how much talent he really has, because somehow it has no effect on that. This makes about as much sense as Eddie saying Mike was in two bands.

The fact is, steroids or HGH allow the batter to swing his heavier bat faster, which means he can start his swing later. This means Bonds is able to wait an extra tenth of a second to mentally calculate where the ball is going before he starts to swing, which allows him to make more solid contact. On top of that, the extra strength ables Bonds to swing a heavier bat which means there is more force behind the ball. Now those ground balls find holes a little faster, fly balls plug the gaps a little quicker, and some of those fly balls even fall over the fence instead of ending at the track. This equates into the inflated AVG he has had over the latter part of his career when most players fade. Basically, this is a lot more than just home runs, but people rarely see that.

Bonds is a cheat, a liar, and a pathetic excuse for a human being. He has no integrity, no respect for the game of baseball, and zero respect for his peers. He is probably one the worst, if not the worst, people to play the game. At some point, one would think his conscious would step in and force him to come clean. Unfortunately, he is too selfish to admit to what he has done or is still doing because of his self indulgent pursuit of the home run record.

Never has such a large person been such a small man.

I wish baseball would grow a pair and stop this guy from playing, or, if he continues to play and breaks the record only to be indicted later for his steroid/HGH use, then his records would be abolished. Unfortunately, people try to act like the game of baseball is the judicial system. They reason that if you punish Barry, you have to punish everyone that ever did steroids.

No, you don't.

Baseball just needs to abolish the records of everyone who has been shown to use steroids beyond a reasonable doubt. Unfortunately for Barry, that is only him, Jose Conseco, Rafael Palmiero, and a few pitchers. If they revoked McGwire's records too, I wouldn't mind. This is baseball after all. They can make their own decisions when it comes to their records. For the integrity of the game, they should have stopped this years ago. Instead, they need to repair the damage that has been done and play revisionist history.

Either way, is the a more pathetic organization in professional sports than the San Francisco Giants? They look the other way for years, then in the face of everyone telling them the guy is a cheat, they continue to not only play Barry, but resign him in the process. All they want is the draw to the ballpark when Barry gets close to Aaron. Selfish until the end, I guess. Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants deserve a horrible punishment. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a Ruthian course or a Chicago Cubs-esque streak. Then when the fair weather fans in San Fran get tired of their horrible team, broken legacy, and gimmicky stadium, the team will be contracted or moved.

That's my hope anyway. Chances are he'll break the record before baseball does anything, he won't get indicted, and everyone will turn a blind eye until after he inducted into the hall of fame.

All right, my rant is over

**darthadv** · 02.27.07, 02:33 PM

the book's a really good read for those of you who may not have read it... bonds is just one of many athletes it covers (although it covers him the most)... they seized computers from his "trainer's" home pc that had calendars spelling out what drugs to use on what days, all elaborately planned out by the supplier conti, who was no scientist, to be able to trick any drug testing by masking one drug with another... there is so much hanging over bonds' head that i can't see him getting out of this in the clear... to have him still playing is a travesty... he's cheating or has cheated just as much as pete rose ever did by betting on games he managed... bonds' should be banned from baseball... he was a really good player who decided to take a shortcut and make a mockery of the historical stats

**ZeoBandit** · 02.27.07, 02:35 PM

I just finished reading the article. It is a great read.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Bonds is a disckhead, and a cheater. Fuck him.

**BottomzUp** · 02.27.07, 02:54 PM

Yeah and the funny part is that Bonds is STILL taking growth hormones. They ALL can until they start drawing blood.

**edwardv** · 02.27.07, 03:58 PM

I wish the king..Hank Aron would come out and say Bonds,Mcguire and all the rest of these cheaters should have their records stricken from baseball,,,Frank
Robinson has already said as much.

**Bob_R** · 02.27.07, 07:45 PM

Read this article earlier today. Interesting read indeed.

**darthadv** · 02.27.07, 10:47 PM

Originally Posted by edwardv

I wish the king..Hank Aron would come out and say Bonds,Mcguire and all the rest of these cheaters should have their records stricken from baseball,,,Frank
Robinson has already said as much.

well, at least the writers who vote on hall of fame inductions passed on mcguire, whose hr totals would've been a sure bet for anyone to get in on a first ballot... i just wish they would take bonds down now, before he passes aaron and we have stats with asterisks again...

**BREW CREW** · 02.27.07, 10:51 PM

Ban Bonds and reinstate Rose!

**lovemachine97(Version 2)** · 02.27.07, 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by bsbll4

What I find amazing is that people still cheer this guy in San Fran. Unbelievable. Even here in St. Louis, on the last game in Busch Stadium, the ultimate feel good moment in most of our baseball lives, there were boos for Mark McGwire.

What I find hilarious are all of the Bonds defenders who act like he did nothing wrong. They always say something retarded like: "Oh, well steroids/human growth hormone don't have any effect on how you hit the ball, just how far it goes." Their reasoning is yes, he did steroids/HGH, but his AVG shows how much talent he really has, because somehow it has no effect on that. This makes about as much sense as Eddie saying Mike was in two bands.

The fact is, steroids or HGH allow the batter to swing his heavier bat faster, which means he can start his swing later. This means Bonds is able to wait an extra tenth of a second to mentally calculate where the ball is going before he starts to swing, which allows him to make more solid contact. On top of that, the extra strength ables Bonds to swing a heavier bat which means there is more force behind the ball. Now those ground balls find holes a little faster, fly balls plug the gaps a little quicker, and some of those fly balls even fall over the fence instead of ending at the track. This equates into the inflated AVG he has had over the latter part of his career when most players fade. Basically, this is a lot more than just home runs, but people rarely see that.

Bonds is a cheat, a liar, and a pathetic excuse for a human being. He has no integrity, no respect for the game of baseball, and zero respect for his peers. He is probably one the worst, if not the worst, people to play the game. At some point, one would think his conscious would step in and force him to come clean. Unfortunately, he is too selfish to admit to what he has done or is still doing because of his self indulgent pursuit of the home run record.

Never has such a large person been such a small man.

I wish baseball would grow a pair and stop this guy from playing, or, if he continues to play and breaks the record only to be indicted later for his steroid/HGH use, then his records would be abolished. Unfortunately, people try to act like the game of baseball is the judicial system. They reason that if you punish Barry, you have to punish everyone that ever did steroids.

No, you don't.

Baseball just needs to abolish the records of everyone who has been shown to use steroids beyond a reasonable doubt. Unfortunately for Barry, that is only him, Jose Conseco, Rafael Palmiero, and a few pitchers. If they revoked McGwire's records too, I wouldn't mind. This is baseball after all. They can make their own decisions when it comes to their records. For the integrity of the game, they should have stopped this years ago. Instead, they need to repair the damage that has been done and play revisionist history.

Either way, is the a more pathetic organization in professional sports than the San Francisco Giants? They look the other way for years, then in the face of everyone telling them the guy is a cheat, they continue to not only play Barry, but resign him in the process. All they want is the draw to the ballpark when Barry gets close to Aaron. Selfish until the end, I guess. Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants deserve a horrible punishment. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a Ruthian course or a Chicago Cubs-esque streak. Then when the fair weather fans in San Fran get tired of their horrible team, broken legacy, and gimmicky stadium, the team will be contracted or moved.

That's my hope anyway. Chances are he'll break the record before baseball does anything, he won't get indicted, and everyone will turn a blind eye until after he inducted into the hall of fame.

All right, my rant is over

I will preface this by saying that I am NOT a Bonds fan in the slightest. Unfortunately though, I think that if some random dude were doing all these drugs, and he still sucked--no one would care. In fact, if this weren't about the most revered record in all of sports, I don't think this would be an issue either.

And I am sure there is some guy out there who is doing all of these drugs, and it's not making him the 'next Barry Bonds'. So in some sense, there HAS to be a certain skill and ability level in the first place--which there was with Bonds.

As for the Bonds is a 'cheat' idea--I think that argument is murky at best. The reality is that baseball had no plan in place to ban these drugs, so until Bonds gets popped for doing these drugs while baseball has them banned, I am not sure what else you can do except get him under the national drug laws and send him to jail or whatever the hell they wanna do. But as long as he isn't caught by baseball while they are banned--then as far as records go, it doesn't matter.

And the biggest problem I see here is that if you abolish these records, there is a domino effect that would unravel baseball. If you take away Bary's HR's, then how many of those games did they win or not win because of his bat? Are those now retroactive losses? What about a pitchers ERA? ARe those changed? And on and on and on until the entire thing is under question......you just can't do it.

So baseball just has to implement the rules, and enforce them. But there is nothing they can do about the so-called 'steroid era'. Nothing.

**billy007** · 02.28.07, 07:07 AM

I know it's popular to blame the owners and Major League Baseball, but a large part of the onus needs to be placed on Donald Fehr and the players. They have stonewalled the toughest measures aimed to keep their membership clean, and it literally took the government to get them to finally agree to testing. But again, there's better tests that could be conducted and again, the players resist. What do they have to hide?

**bsbll4** · 02.28.07, 08:14 AM

Originally Posted by lovemachine97(Version 2)

I will preface this by saying that I am NOT a Bonds fan in the slightest. Unfortunately though, I think that if some random dude were doing all these drugs, and he still sucked--no one would care. In fact, if this weren't about the most revered record in all of sports, I don't think this would be an issue either.

And I am sure there is some guy out there who is doing all of these drugs, and it's not making him the 'next Barry Bonds'. So in some sense, there HAS to be a certain skill and ability level in the first place--which there was with Bonds.

As for the Bonds is a 'cheat' idea--I think that argument is murky at best. The reality is that baseball had no plan in place to ban these drugs, so until Bonds gets popped for doing these drugs while baseball has them banned, I am not sure what else you can do except get him under the national drug laws and send him to jail or whatever the hell they wanna do. But as long as he isn't caught by baseball while they are banned--then as far as records go, it doesn't matter.

And the biggest problem I see here is that if you abolish these records, there is a domino effect that would unravel baseball. If you take away Bary's HR's, then how many of those games did they win or not win because of his bat? Are those now retroactive losses? What about a pitchers ERA? ARe those changed? And on and on and on until the entire thing is under question......you just can't do it.

So baseball just has to implement the rules, and enforce them. But there is nothing they can do about the so-called 'steroid era'. Nothing.

The fact that BASEBALL had no policy doesn't change the fact they were ILLEGAL. So if a baseball doesn't have a policy against drunk driving, does that make it ok? He IS a cheat and he is even less of a human being for not admitting it in the face of the facts.

As for taking away the records, there is no domino effect. You don't HAVE to do anything. This is baseball, they make their own decisions. They can eliminate just the records of people who have been proven to use steroids or human growth hormone-pitchers and players. Obviously you can't change the history, but you can attempt to reinstate the integrity back into those records.

Also, I'm not arguing Bonds has talent. He played well early in his career without the drugs. However, his numbers ballooned later in his career. He certainly would not be that player he is today without the drugs. The drugs are performance enhancers--meaning that your performance is enhanced only from your base ability. It certainly can't make some guy barely making it into Babe Ruth, but it CAN turn a regular all star into Babe Ruth.

No matter how you slice it, the guy is scum, is a cheat, and should be banned from playing baseball.

Thank the heavens we have guys with integrity like Albert Pujols who respect the game and make you realize why you waste so much time worrying about baseball.

**Dr5115** · 02.28.07, 09:42 AM

"However, his numbers ballooned later in his career. He certainly would not be that player he is today without the drugs. "

He hit more home runs, longer distances in his 30's than in his 20's?

Amazing

I agree, he is a known cheat. He should be taken off of the record books. Period.

**Guitar Shark** · 03.02.07, 04:22 PM

Originally Posted by Dr5115

Interesting article about BB and his doping habits.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...x.html?cnn=yes

Fascinating article, thanks for posting. I found this quote the most interesting:

You hear all that noise from the Bonds camp and yet most conspicuous is the silence on challenging the facts of the case. Shadows succeeded because it couched nothing and stood unchallenged. My favorite fact: the authors detail in their afterword the freakish growth of Bonds' body parts in his years with the Giants: from size 42 to a size 52 jersey; from size 10 1/2 to size 13 cleats; and from a size 7 1/8 to size 7 1/4 cap, even though he had taken to shaving his head.

"The changes in his foot and head size," they write, "were of special interest: medical experts said overuse of human growth hormone could cause an adult's extremities to begin growing, aping the symptoms of the glandular disorder acromegaly."

Simply amazing.