MuthaFunka said:

I think we both agree that to treat Bonds and Clemens differently would be ridiculous.

sextonseven said:

Exactly.

Well i would throw everything out at this point, take the "blacksox" scandal not only were the players thrown out but so were anything they acheived. Theres really no saying when these guys starting using though most feel it was the mid-later 90's, and its really funny how NO ONE ever noticed how these guys pushing 35 at the time were having a new life, considering as everyone who watches sports knows, your skills diminish as you get older they dont get better, so the fact that a guy in his mid to later 30's coming off surgeries and injuries hits 70+ homeruns, and no one really questioned it, though there was rumbling about when Mcgwire did it, no one really cared when Bonds did it a few years later, because at that point at least to Baseball fans everyone was hitting 30 homeruns or more, even little crappy players that never even hit any. But of course the excuse was always, "bad pitching" "a lively ball" "smaller parks" and my favorite "better training". This whole scandal of course puts a cloud over all players and many of them did nothing, take a guy like Mike Piazza who always had power and his skills diminished as he got passed his mid 30's, too bad Mike played in this era, since even his stats will be looked at with "that look" like maybe he did something too, its sad that many of the good will have to pay the price for some bad.

Interesting that since Bonds is not the only one, the tone has changed 100%. Now everyone just wants 2 put this behind them.

Graycap23 said:

That's good for Bonds.

Graycap23 said:

really every sports writer that i have heard said this is going to be the issue all through the season with possible suspensions for any current players named despite not proven. I havent heard anyone saying lets let this slide and go to the next season, Jose Canseco supposedly is naming more names in his next "tell all" book so i dont think this is going away. As for Barry, the way you treat the media and act is everything and he spent most of his time being a prick and the media will get you for it, but Barry shouldnt think he's the first by any means, Roger Maris used to get bottles thrown at him during games in his own home stadium, and lets not forget that * that was placed on Roger Maris and not removed till after he died, and Roger was this quiet guy that never wanted to talk and the media punished him for it, thats how it goes. One of my favorite METS of all time Dave Kingman hit the longest homeruns of any HUMAN being (not on something) and he did it 445 times and yet was denied HOF because he was a prick to the media, including an incident where he sent a reporter a dead rat wrapped in brown paper after a game. So barry join the club.

MuthaFunka said:

Another thought on this, If only Sosa or only Bonds was impicated, it makes those two players look really bad.

Well by now releasing 80 plus names, in makes Bonds and Sosa look much better since everyone was doing it. If MLB/Whites wanted those two vilified, why push for an investigation??? Why leak other names?

lastdecember said:

I remember Dave Kingman blasting a couple of those huge Home Runs for the A's when he played for them. I also remember going to a game where Kingman was hit the next at bat after hitting one of those home runs and the brawl was on! I had seats right behind the A's dug out and saw it all right in front of me.

A philosophical question:

If a juiced-up player hits a homerun off a juiced-up pitcher, is the homerun tainted or not?

Sowhat said:

Because it was too big to try and keep it JUST to Black players. I'm also only speaking on how the "Big Black Bad Guy" (Bonds) was who they REALLY wanted to go after and make an example of.

RodeoSchro said:

Nope, it's called "Even Steven" at that point.

Just to add:

Bob Costas has chimed in, and just what I thought was gonna happen - Bob said this is just "hearsay" with Clemens but with Bonds it's more available evidence.

Boston Globe's Bob Ryan thinks similiarly as well.

HERE WE GO!

MuthaFunka said:

Well Boston would think that since Clemens is their guy and always was, notice how all the talk of Clemens use was with Toronto and New York never with Boston. As for Costas is that all of his quote, because i do remember him a few months ago saying that everyones stats should be thrown out whos implicated. Also lets not forget Henry Aaron and Frank Robinson two players that were clearly not with Barry on this one, all year they were saying everything he has done is under a question mark. And forget writers and what they say, i mean New York city is already destroying clemens and pettite in every paper on every news cast, and had any of the mets named still be playing for them they would be getting the same treatment.

lastdecember said:

That's the gist of what he said. Frank and Hank are old school. Those cats are hardcore for a LOT of reasons, so I can respect them to the fullest.

Sowhat said:

Yeah the irony of Kingman is that he possibly was the most powerful Homerun hitter ever, i mean i laugh sometimes when people say "Wow" that shot went 400 feet, Kingman once hit one well over 500 feet off Sparky Lyle, and also Kingman hit the roof in Houstons astrodome something never done before or again. And Kingman was not "built" he was 6'6' but weighed about 200 pounds so he looked like a skinny tree, but despite his flaws personally he was one of the most overlooked power hits of his time, and just had the "bad" luck of being on some awful Mets teams in the 70's and early 80's, then on some bad Cubs teams in between, he really hit for all these teams, but if no one else on the team could hit then you arent going to get anything good to hit. When he finished in Oakland from 84-86 he was the only player ever to be voted "comeback player" of the year and retire all at once, he went out on top. Also a foot note to Mr. Kingman, he was the only player to EVER play for all 4 divisions (back then there were only 4) in the same season. In 1977 he started with the Mets, got traded to the Padres got traded to the Angels then got traded to the Yankees to finish the year, then the yanks cut him and the Cubs got him the next year.

Yeah Kingman had some issues, but i think thats what the game used to be all about, i mean people like Bob Gibson, if you hung over the plate he threw at your head, now everyone is so afraid of pitching inside, or a brawl, or an injury that the game isnt really that much of a game anymore.

MuthaFunka said:

the thing is that im sure that all these cats did it, i dont really think that there is a speculation, the burden of proof might be more with some than with others, i mean i already heard that they have hand written notes from Paul Loduca and Todd Hundly and Eric Gagne while playing in LA, about getting "the roids" about when to use and when not too, so its going to be a matter of what they have got on who and what will stick, I mean they got Pete Rose on Football betting sheets with scratched out handwriting, though he did do it, that evidence looking at it now, would have been tossed out of court, but they wanted Pete, he was not very well liked in baseball.

I'm so glad Clemens name popped up into this. Watch the media dance on this shit.

Graycap23 said:

Well im not a Clemens fan at all, and NO Mets fan is even allowed to speak of him in kind, especially after throwing a bat at Mike Piazza, and NOT getting kicked out of the game for it. Here in the NY papers they are saying he may have been so "pumped" up with roids thats what caused the reaction to throwing the bat

lastdecember said:

I guess we can now call that "Roid Rage" .

MuthaFunka said:

lol....a-hole rage. I've never liked that cat.

MuthaFunka said:

I don't think you're putting enough emphasis on this. For the majority of baseball writers, Barry Bonds was a major league asshole long before any talk of steroids ever came about.

So now with something tangible like this is on the table, how can you say with certainty that Bonds is being hammered unfairly because of race...?

I can't stand how they treat certain people and how selective they are. They should all be apologizing 2 Canseco right about now.

violator said:

Yeah i think with Baseball shit is even deeper than race, lets take "Babe Ruth" first, he is the BABE to millions from that era so when a guy like "Roger Maris" came along a guy who wasnt friendly didnt talk to the media or even his teammates, he was written about, dogged, bottles thrown at him from the stands of yankee stadium and boston too, it go so bad that Roger started losing his hair from stress, and of course his family received death threats every day. So obviously there it wasnt a race issue, with Henry Aaron it was more race than just the fact it was the BABE again, Henry went through stuff that Barry never came close to experiencing so for Barry to talk of himself in a breath of someone like Henry Aaron, it almost is laughable. Henry was followed around by Klan members and attempts were made on his life and his families, not to mention the constant daily shots from fans, tossing out the n-word at every plate appearance. Barry NEVER experienced that level of treatment, alot of what Barry did was bring this on himself, much like Bobby Bonilla did back in the late 80's early 90's (funny how they were teammates and major pricks), the press hated Barry long before, just like they hated Pete Rose long before,just like they hated Roger Maris and so many others.

Graycap23 said:

True but that guy gets no respect from me, not because he blew the cover off, but because he didnt do anything long before, he waited till his money was made and he was safely out of the game.

lastdecember said:

Exactly. His, was not an admission of conscience, but rather, of convenience.

violator said:

yeah i mean the got rich on steroids broke a couple records himself, and then got richer writing a book about other guys that did steroids. In my eyes he's cheated more than once and still is getting paid for it, if he was at least doing something noble with the $$ hes getting now i would maybe give him some cred.

Graycap23 said:

violator said:

Because America was built on racism. America profits from racism. America thrives from racism. Therefore, every microcosm within America where Whites are the majority and hold most of the power is infected with racism. There's NO way around that and anyone that thinks otherwise is only blind or fooling themself.

Now, having said that:

You take a man - a Black man - that has taken over the sport (The most American sport of all) as its main attraction and within America, there will be those that will "go after" him based on that alone. So what they will hide behind is "He's an asshole" and "He's not a media darling" and attack him that way. For some, it's true. For others, it's because he's Black.

Like I said, they're already spinning Clemens' roid bust as "hearsay" but they've already convicted Bonds with that exact same "hearsay".

lastdecember said:

Then you better hold that exact same contempt for the owners and Bud Selig.

Graycap23 said:

They (Mitchell, et. al.) are not being selective. They only got a couple clubhouse guys to talk, so they can only name the dudes the clubhouse guys threw in the grease.

There's no doubt this list of 85 or so is understated by a factor of probably 20x.

What pisses me off is that NO player would talk to Mitchell. None.

So fuck them if they come out and say the report is a pack of lies. They had their chance to tell their side of the story and they wouldn't do it.

I say that EVERY PLAYER LISTED IN MITCHELL'S REPORT IS A COWARD AND A CHEATER.

Every single one of them.