My opinion of the hof is simple....if your the best at what you do then your a hofer.  Dh is a part of baseball, like it or not, if you one of the best dh in the history of the game you are a hofer.  There is to much hypocrisy in PED arguement.  My opinion is overlook it and allow those players in if their numbers are worthy.

By hypocrisy i ment it was fine when it benifited the leagues pocketbook.  It isnt like it wasnt known that it was wide spread.  It is fine for gooden to pitch on amphetamines or stoned.  Chris david was a ped user when he tested positive for them.  Now he has a script, like an unusually high amount of mlb players, and is fine.  Now that ped have come to light  they are evil when for so long they were tolerated because the game needed  momentum  have the strike.  That is hypocrisy to me.

Last edited by APIAD (11/19/2015 4:28 pm)

alz wrote:

APIAD wrote:

By hypocrisy i ment it was fine when it benifited the leagues pocketbook. It isnt like it wasnt known that it was wide spread. It is fine for gooden to pitch on amphetamines or stoned. Chris david was a ped user when he tested positive for them. Now he has a script, like an unusually high amount of mlb players, and is fine. Now that ped have come to light they are evil when for so long they were tolerated because the game needed moment have the strike. That is hypocrisy to me.

I got you, although you're holding the BBWAA to the terms and ethics laid out by MLB, and they really aren't the same group. 

True enough

My biggest issue with the way the PED Era has been handled is there are players with no direct ties to PEDs who are being left out based on suspicions.  I'm not a Mike Piazza fan, but the guy was the best offensive catcher to ever play the game.  There's no information that he ever failed a test, and he's never been directly linked to PEDs, but some writers don't vote for him because he "looks like a PED guy."  That's dumb.

Switching to David Ortiz, in my opinion he doesn't deserve to get in the HoF.  Ortiz was a mediocre player who was non-tendered by the Twins after the 2002 season because he was mediocre.  Ortiz signs with Boston and has a miracle jump in production (I can't call it a resurgence because that would suggest he had been any good previously) starting in 2003 which coincidentally, was the year in which he tested positive for PEDs.  Personally, I discount anything Ortiz did with the Red Sox because it's all tainted.

Last edited by forsberg_us (11/20/2015 12:37 pm)

Another thing about Ortiz that's hard to know if you're not hearing or reading about him every day is the way his numbers would fluctuate. He'd get off to a slow start or he'd have a bad month, and there would be whispers that he was done, and then all of a sudden he'd have a week when he'd hit .700 with six homers and 20 RBI.
I doubt his reputation as a clutch hitter in the post-season wasn't somehow burnished by proper timing with pharmaceuticals.

alz wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

Coke and amphetamines didn't make you hit the ball farther, so I think there's a bit of a distinction. The he-looks-like-a-steroid-guy mantra is troubling. Did Jason Grimsley look like a steroid guy?

I wanna argue this a little. Bear in mind I've never done coke or amphetamines so this is all "from what I thought" which is highly suspect at times.

Doesn't coke and amphetamines make you wide awake. It doesn't add power, but I thought it made you sharper, you wouldn't get lazy. You wouldn't be tired, you could play through something that might otherwise dull you down. 

If that's true, I'd consider them performance enhancing. Something keeping you on the tips of your toes for the 162 game grind of a season that baseball goes through has to help you on the stats yes? 

Again, I could be wrong.

In very simple terms, amphetamines are absolutely performance enhancing for exactly the reason you stated.  There was a reason teams had bowls of "greenies" sitting out in the clubhouse for players to ingest.  Over the course of 162 games played in roughly 180 days, there are absolutely days your body doesn't want to respond.  The ability to ingest a pill that gives the player the energy to respond when called upon certainly enhances performance.

I suppose the same argument could be made about cocaine, but without being able to compare the side effects of the two drugs, I'm not sure I'd consider cocaine to be performance enhancing.  It seems to me that any drug that is so addicting a player (was it Tim Raines???) actually kept a vial of it in his pocket during games might have as many detrimental effects as positive ones.  But that's just one man's uneducated opinion.

artie_fufkin wrote:

Coke and amphetamines didn't make you hit the ball farther, so I think there's a bit of a distinction. The he-looks-like-a-steroid-guy mantra is troubling. Did Jason Grimsley look like a steroid guy?

Like has been stated already, coke maybe not over long term use but amphetamines definitely makes a player better over the course of a 8 month season.  A player hyped up instead of dragging is surely more likely to hit the ball further, pitch sharper and what not.  Not only that but what good does steroids do the scrappier type players.  Amphetamines may be abetter drug of course.  I guess if david eckstien would have juiced he could have hit the ball 275ft instead of 240ft.

A quick search indicates mlb players have a 5% increase over the regular population for drugs like adderall.  So 10% of mlb players are legally doping.  What would everyones feelings be is 10% of mlb players had a prescription for hgh or the cream?  This is chris davis argument.   That when he had a script for adderall he was fine, when he didnt and kept using them he is a cheater.  Which bring to question, if they are not helpful for performance enhancement then why do players use illegally and why have so many steriod users also used amphetamines?   The true number of players using is likely far higher then 10% as amphetamines only stay in the system for a couple of days.

So unless the bbwaa puts on a champaign to kick willy mays out of the HOF the conversation about steriods/ped and HOF voting is always going to be a hypocrisy.   


 

artie_fufkin wrote:

I wasn't suggesting amphetamines aren't performance-enhancing. I was suggesting there's a distinction between amphetamines and steroids because amphetamines don't make you stronger or heal from injury quicker.
I've never taken speed, so I don't know how it impacts you, but I can't imagine playing baseball on cocaine. You'd be climbing the walls of the dugout. As much as coke might enhance your ability to stay alert, you wouldn't be able to concentrate the way you need to on a baseball field.

 

So cocaine aside,  do you agree it is a hypocrisy to allow one form of PED using players in to the hall of fame and keep another out?  Baseball/media/fans have even gone as far as vilifying roiders and endorsing greenie users as playing the game the right way or back in the good old pure day attitude.   Im not out to get the players that used amphetamines.  Im just say the way people think and particularly argue the hof voting is laughable.

artie_fufkin wrote:

There are so many inconsistencies in the Hall of Fame voting process it's hard to know where to begin. I don't want this to morph into a Pete Rose debate, but to keep him out and dedicate an exhibit to Ty Cobb is first-order hypocrisy.
There's at least anecdotal evidence Babe Ruth was a pedophile, and he's celebrated almost universally the greatest baseball player who ever lived.
I've said time and again the football hall of fame may not be right, but at least it's consistent. They have drug addicts, sex fiends, gamblers and even a double murderer in there, and it doesn't matter. The only thing that counts is your play on the field.

Is there any baseball players not in the hof just because of sex crimes, murders or being an overall asshole?  I dont see off the field conduct as a hypocrisy in hof voting. It is the ped, which is on the field, that i see as a hypocrisy.

This thread has got off topic.  My point is hof voters have deemed one form of PED acceptable in the past.  Now it isnt seen as acceptable.  Nor is any other PED.  Further more, pretty much everyone wants to over look that amphetamines were as widely used as steroids.

artie_fufkin wrote:

APIAD wrote:

This thread has got off topic. My point is hof voters have deemed one form of PED acceptable in the past. Now it isnt seen as acceptable. Nor is any other PED. Further more, pretty much everyone wants to over look that amphetamines were as widely used as steroids.

That was the point I was trying to make earlier. There are drugs that make you stay alert longer, and then there are drugs that help make you stronger so you can break or threaten sacred home run records. It's sort of like getting caught by your wife watching the the 1 a.m. movie on Cinemax, or watching hardcore pornography. One you can kind of get away with. The other you have to explain a bit.
If you really want to drift off-topic, let's debate the notion that over the counter medications like Advil and Tylenol are performance-enhancing drugs.
 

So your opinion is as long as those who cheat dont use the best method possible it is acceptable?

Then we are talking past eachother becausemy pount is that there is no rationale to the hof Voting.