A-Rod - Should he be banned?

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Not sure myself. Waiting on the evidence to be released publicly. I do think that anyone who is doing PEDS after the last CBA was signed should be kicked out. I personally think that baseball owners created the atmosphere that currently resides in baseball today. Going back in time, I think there was a lot of grey areas concerning "rules" or unsaid rules that were out there. But since the signing of the last CBA, everyone knew that PEDS were not going to be tolerated. PEDS are doing one thing for A-Rod. Helping him to stay in the game where he can a) break records and b) most importantly, keep making the huge money.

So, in conclusion, I can only say one thing to A-Hole Rod...HA!

 

I just posted my opinion here

 

I tend to agree with you Splunge. If professional athletes want to shrink their testicles to hit other balls better who am I to say it's wrong.

 

I feel that if he was caught breaking the rules, he needs to be punished according to the rules. He needs to pay the penalty. If PEDs are illegal, than he needs to be busted. It seems pretty obvious from that perspective. I felt the same way about my soldiers when I was a commander--you know you are going to get seriously punished if you drink and drive (in fact, the punishment that was given down for serious alcohol-related offenses was mandated by my commander so that really my hands were tied--in fact, in many ways his hands were tied by previous punishments handed out for previous infractions)--so: it's an established fact that the service will crush you, I told you in public forum literally every Friday to not do it and that if you did it I would have no option but to support crushing you, there are known examples happening all over the place every year, then you go out and do it anyway--what do you expect?

On the other hand, how widespread is this stuff? There is a compelling argument to be made that it is rife, not only in pro baseball, but in many if not all sports. Are these guys just the latest scapegoats? Another thing that strikes me, is that A-Rod has never actually came up hot in a drug test. (At least according to what I read yesterday; I honestly don't really follow baseball). He has instead been continually implicated in outside investigations/scandals. I can't blame him for wanting to fight this, because that element seems...unfair somehow. What if you worked for a company who said you couldn't do this one thing, and as far as they knew, you didn't, but then some outside dude gave an interview to a newspaper and said, no, actually, you did do this? What is the burden of proof?

Edit: I am sick of hearing A-Rod talk about this. "This year has been very hard, I'm fighting for my life here." That dude is the highest-paid player in the history of pro sports. Don't tell me how hard you have it, A-Rod. That doesn't hold water with me. I've seen people who have had it a lot harder, and they found ways to make better decisions than he has.

 

A few things:

- No one pops positive on a new PED. They are designed to bypass detection and it takes years to get the new protocol to tighten the testing. There are specific PEDs banned in MLB and new ones can only be added by unanimous approval of the health policy advisory committee (which the player's union has 50% membership) or by law.

- PED use is huge. Not only in professional sports but in every venue leading to professional sports (high school, college, lower leagues, etc.). With million dollar salaries being waved under everyone's noses the incentive to 'be the best you can be' is overwhelming to a lot of people.

- PEDs, in general are not illegal. Before this year testing could only be done if evidence of PED use was trurned over to the HPAC and a majority vote was required to mandate testing -- that meant at least one member of the player's union needed to agree (kind of like getting one drunk to police others in a bar to make sure they don't drive). Starting this year random sampling was approved -- I'm not sure if it's been implemented yet.

- Baseball has a culture of cheating. "A rule is only a rule if it's enforced" is the main mantra; which means if you can't get caught you're not breaking any rules. this is a culture where bending the rules is expected and a young player will be sent to the minors for 'not using every advantage'.

- No one can pitch a 90 mph ball for every batter and not do some damage. Likewise no one can swing a bat with force and not cause small tears in muscle. But these things are expected by the fans and so the player juice up.

- Basically PED's brought MLB back to life and gave players huge salaries. This is not going away any time soon.

 

Yes, how can A-Rod possibly survive with only a billion dollars in the bank?

AFAIK A-Rod's not facing any criminal prosecution if this sticks (or did he lie to congress too? I'm not sure), so the worst case scenario for him is that his baseball career is over and that he stops making 80 million a year or whatever. With all those 80 million dollar years behind him (and a few more coming from the Yankees regardless, as I understand it), it's hard to feel real sorry.

A-Rod's an egomaniac though, so "fighting for my life" for him probably means fighting for his chance at Cooperstown, the legitimacy of his stats (I doubt anyone follows a major leaguer's stats more closely than A-Rod follows his own), potential to break home run records, get another World Series ring, be elected MVP for this or that, etc., etc. In other words, all stuff that harms A-Rod's view of himself as The Ultimate Supreme Being, not anything that will actually jeopardize his fundamental well-being or that of anyone even remotely near his immediate family.

 

As a Red Sox fan, I couldn't be happier

 

I think MLB, especially Selig, wanted to ban A-Rod. But, banning him would help the Yankees with the loss of salary owed, they could use that cash for a better, much younger superstar. An that is something that none of the other owners wanted. So, they gave him the biggest suspension in Sports history outside of banning someone.

How many have posted here are big fans of MLB? I am and love the game, it being by far my favorite Pro sport.

 

Who is MLB? Did he get suspended too?

 

I'm generally a fan of MLB - keep track of my team and whatnot* - but I'm not a "big" fan. I just can't get overly excited about the fate of grown men playing a game for millions of dollars.

I like MLB more than other sports because it seems slightly less about running around with a ball.

* if you're a true American, it's your duty to do so.

 

Only if you are in your seventies. Everyone knows that the NFL is the big dog in America. Heck Basketball may actually be number 2.

 

Yeah, T2bruno, DMC, I talked to some retired military guys today at work and they indicated that PED use is pretty high in the military, too. Extremely high in some types of units. (I am in the military but I'm assuming that since I'm an active-duty officer, unsurprisingly, active-duty service members don't talk about those kinds of things to me). There are regs against some stuff but it's extremely expensive to test for it--and that's assuming it's fairly common stuff like D-bol or something.

 

Blashpemy! Heretic! Baseball is America's sport!

Seriously though, you're probably right. I have been keeping the boxscore of every MLB game I have went to in my life. My Father and Grandfather(and his twin!) have done the same. Family pasttime I guess. There are 4 that I have kept. 2 were Carlton/Ryan matchups. One of those had 24 Ks in the game. Another was Gooden/Mike Scott. Another was Carlton/Valenzeula. Great Stuff.

I have been to a lot of Professional sporting events and for some reason the games that still standout to me are all Baseball games. the only football game that was memorable to me was Randall Cunningham leaping over Carl Banks then firing a laser to Jimmy Giles in the corner of the endzone for the win. That was sweet stuff. Long live the Buddy Ryan teams of Philly.

 

NFL is tops in revenue, MLB is #2. For attendance, MLB is tops and NBA is second.

I try to make a couple of MLB games every year ... never been to an NFL game.

 

Call me crazy, but I'm thinking that may have something to do with the fact that a ticket to an NFL game is typically 3 times as expensive. I've never been to an NFL game, either, and I'm proud to report that I was in attendance when the Orioles broke the Major League Baseball record for consecutive losses. It ...was the only game I attended that year. My little piece of history...