Joyner's testimony does tell you HOW.
How = Players recover faster, thats HOW they affect stats.
How = Players are Stronger, are you not up on the definition of what Stronger means? This means more power. In turn means the ability to hit the Ball Farther.
Farther Balls mean more Homeruns.
I learned this stuff in elementary school.
You will NEVER get the 100% accurate percentage of what steroids do.
WHY, aside from the experts versus experts, Drugs and Hormones affect the human physiology different for each individual.
What Steroids does for one player may not be the same thing it does for another player. And unless the FDA starts to allow Human trials on unwilling participants like Barry Bonds then you wont get the data you are after.
All you will ever have is circumstancial evidence to go by IMO.
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*sigh*
Stronger does not necessarily equal more home runs. There's more to hitting home runs than strength. In addition, Joyner's testimony does not say how they affect the statistics of players. FIne, they recover faster, so they play in more games, whatever. That's not something to use against steroids, as there are many things that hlep you recover faster. Fine, they make you stronger. This is not evidence of increased home run output. "You're stronger" does not show to what extent home run output increases due to steroids. Also, there's more to baseball than home runs. Joyner's "testimony" does not show what else steroids do to statistics. In order to actually be able to discoutn home runs or whatever, we need to know what percentage of home runs were due to steroid usage, and Joyner's "testimony" does not even come close to doing that. IT DOES NOT SHOW TO WHAT EXTENT STEROIDS AFFECT STATS.
You can find out when players that have tested positive starting using drugs, and compare their numbers pre-drug and post-drug.What Steroids does for one player may not be the same thing it does for another player. And unless the FDA starts to allow Human trials on unwilling participants like Barry Bonds then you wont get the data you are after.
All you will ever have is circumstancial evidence to go by IMO.
*sigh* So being stronger doesnt mean you can hit the ball farther? Swing the Bat with more Force and Speed?
When someone refuses to accept that BASIC premise then all debate is futile.
You will never know when players like Bonds started using, it will just be his word. Only he knows for certain. And given the fact that he is a cheater, I dont think he is a credible source.
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It really depends. If your muscles grow too much, you might lose some flexibility and mobility in your wrists, causing your bat speed to decrease. There's more to swinging forcefully and at a high speed than JUST strength. I'm sure there are many guys stronger than some good home run hitters that hit less home runs, simply because if strength was the only thing required to hit home runs, we'd be seeing 300 lb linebackers making the switch to being power hitting DHs.
In order to prove that steroids affect numbers, you need to..um..use numbers.
There has yet to be 100% proof that he cheated. I'm going to bold the key words in my sentence:You will never know when players like Bonds started using, it will just be his word. Only he knows for certain. And given the fact that he is a cheater, I dont think he is a credible source.
You can find out when players that have tested positive starting using drugs, and compare their numbers pre-drug and post-drug.
According to this article, Joyner started taking steroids in 1998. Hm...he did the same thing that year that he did in 1997, except slightly worse...and then completely fell off a cliff and was out of baseball in 3 years.
Steroids sure helped him a lot.
Brilliant study HGM. Again, you either didn't read the whole piece or you're just creating a false arguement. Try sentence two out You know, right at the beginning of the article..... Here I'll help a littleJoyner later discarded them after taking three pills in 10 days.
Here's the thing. We know what the physical effect of steroids is on the human body. In the short term, it helps your muscles recover from injury faster and it builds muscle mass. Basically, again in the short term, it mimics the effects of weight training. We don't need Wally Joyner's testimony for that.
What we don't know, and what HGM has been trying to get across, is exactly what the effect of additional muscle mass is on a player's stats. Obviously, more muscle mass makes you stronger, and that's a good thing for any athlete. However, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Historically, baseball people were overwhelmingly dead set against weight training for baseball players. The feeling was that weight training would cause players to build too much muscle mass and get muscle-bound, which would cause them to lose the flexibility that they needed for their throwing and batting motions. Eventually, most people in baseball came to realize that weight training didn't mean that you had to lift the heavy weights that power-lifters and bodybuilders use and end up with that type of physic, but that instead you could work out with lighter weights and tone and strengthen your muscles without building up the large mass that could lead to becoming muscle-bound. This type of weight training, working with lighter weights to tone and strengthen without building up huge bulk, is now widely accepted in baseball.
However, steroid abuse, in mimicing the effects of weight training, seems to generally mimic the other type of weight training--the type that builds up large amounts of mass, the type that old-time baseball people thought was bad for players. Now, maybe those old-time baseball people were wrong, and both types of weight training can be beneficial to baseball players. But maybe they were right. I think that Canseco could be used as a good example of how they might have been right. I think that he did get muscle-bound, and that hurt his career. Not only do I think that it hurt his baseball skills, it also lead to some of his injuries.
Okay stronger men will hit a ball harder correct? If you take (if you remember him) Mike Greenwell for an example. He was a very good hitter with "warning track power". Now if he's got an extra twenty pounds of muscle on him do you still think that those long fly outs are going to continue to fall out of the sky at the warning track, or do you think that most of them will continue over the wall? He'll still hit warning track outs, the thing is that those used to be either "Texas league" hits or pop outs played by a middle infielder going back.
Pitchers are another thing. The first thing that would get a boost is the speed of the ball. Again stronger man harder throw. I doubt that it'd help accuracy any, but velocity would very likely increase. Look at Brendan Donnelly. He was a career minor leaguer, suddenly he's a stud reliever. Also, he got caught doing the dirty S word.
It's not always about being the next McGwire, many of these guys just want to hang on to their careers for a little longer and will do anything to see it happen. You can't blame them for that, but it's still not right.
question for you, why is it that you say in one post cheaters are not credible and can't be trusted to tell the truth about how much steroids they did or for how long but here you are seemlingly taking the word of a cheater for exactly those two things, please explain the about face.
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are .
The step I'm having a hard time taking in that analysis is if Mike Greenwell did get bigger and stronger would he continue to make the same contact, thus resulting in his balls travelling further. There have been studies and they've been inconclusive which is why some are just asking. It may turn out you're exactly right that the same player with warning track power who takes steroids suddenly hits 40 home runs a year. It also may turn out the same guy with warning track power taking steroids suddenly finds himself in the minors. Jose Canseco anyone??? There is the world's biggest admitted steroid user and his career trashed, from baseball's bouncing off his head to not even able to make it in the international league.
Again, I'm not arguing you're wrong, I'm simply saying the data isn't as conclusive, at least in my opinion, as you seem to believe. In the end though you'll probably turn out to be more correct, as I have a sad history in such things.
And to throw even more gas on this fire, I wish I would've recorded it, but HBO last year (2006) did a show on steroids and interviewed every government doctor they could and every private doctor that screams about the ill affects of sterods they could, and NOT ONE OF THOSE DOCTORS could point to a study that shows the long term ill effects of steroids on an adult male. Not one. Studies have shown long term usage has harmful affects to females, and to young people, but none yet show any harmful affects to an adult male. They took on this controversy because of all the ads put out in the last few years by the ad council and basically showed how a lot of what they're saying is just propaganda, not backed by science. I will search for the title of that show and and reference here if I can find it, though I'm sure that won't change any minds either. This country just has one reflex when it comes to drugs.
No, not necessarily. There is more to hitting a ball hard than simple strength. I bet Gary Sheffield will hit a baseball harder than Warren Sapp, but I bet Warren Sapp could snap Sheff in half.
This is even harder to believe. Look at some of the fastest pitchers coming up nowadays...Tim Lincecum...Justin Verlander...Lincecum's like 5'9" and weighs like 160 pounds, but can throw the ball a **** of a lot harder than David Wells, who's probably stronger than him. There's more to throwing hard than strength.Again stronger man harder throw.
This list does not mention Donnelly, nor does his Wikipedia page, nor does a ton of google searchs by me. I'm not accusing you of lying, but can you show me where he was caught using 'roids? I couldn't find ANYTHING.I doubt that it'd help accuracy any, but velocity would very likely increase. Look at Brendan Donnelly. He was a career minor leaguer, suddenly he's a stud reliever. Also, he got caught doing the dirty S word.
That's the most I could find regarding any cheating by him.In June 2005, Donnelly was suspended for having pine tar on his glove.
Canseco claims to have used steroids his entire career. Steroids do screw the human body up after prolonged use, which is why his career crashed.Originally Posted by OldFatGuy
Well, I'm gonna use one of your favotire quotes.
Proof?
Sorry, HGM, when HBO did their documentary last year not one doctor/scientist could come up with a scientific study showing long term ill effects to an adult male. Can you point me to such a study??? I know its said about a million times by a million people all over the media, but that doesn't make it so.