Its a precursor that gets converted to excess testosterone (which is basically what all anabolic sterioids are based upon). It's banned now since the players were so transparent about it (you could see it in mcgwires locker in 1998). It most certainly is a PED.
Right so just idiotic baseball hall of fame voter logic. Biggio should have been in last year and with 3,000 hits he's a no brainer this go around regardless of who else is on there. I don't really understand how any competent voter could see otherwise. Maddux is probably the only guy clearly more deserving but that doesn't matter either. There's at least 10 guys on the list that should no doubt be in the hall.
Sure... but its up to the voters, who have no standards or rules/regulations to determine what they do. They're the ones who essentially championed the arbitrary "3,000 hit" bench-mark, and now they're choosing to ignore it. Any "club" that has such standards shouldn't be as revered as it is. The idiots that have a HOF vote didn't have to pass any sort of rigorous standards and their behaviors in the voting process are not monitored or judged for responsibility.
Again, it was completely legal and could be purchased at your local mall until 2005. It was not banned by baseball until after these guys took it. Holding it against them now when it was perfectly legal at the time is kind of dumb.
They're holding it against him because he used PED's which gave him an unfair advantage over others not based on legality or breaking any rules.
That isn't to say that he didn't use. Could have used PEDs early. Could have been smart enough to know that not speaking would cause guilt by association. Look how good Palmeiro looked after the Congressional hearing. Was very productive through age 40, despite dealing with several injuries over the last 8 years of his career. Who knows. Witch hunt.
Again, since it was legal, it was not an unfair advantage. Any player could have used it and been well within the rules. It's kind of like saying advil is a PED because it relieves soreness and lets you get back to playing faster. Or a protein shake is a PED because it helps you build muscle mass. If MLB outlawed Advil in 2015, would you say that anybody who took Advil in 2010 should be held out of the HOF?
The only reason it was "legal" was because the FDA and baseball didn't know any better. Several "once legal" drugs like thalidomide or vioxx end up being "illegal" due to their eventual side effects. In this case, andro's end result is that of illegal steroids. Technically, MLB never tested for illegal steriods before recently either... Does that mean that everybody who used before the testing (and may never have tested positive) should get away with it? In the end, it's just as much a PED as anything else out there. Sure, they're technically "innocent", but the guys voting are taking a hard line on anybody who used or admitted to use a PED.
Illegal steroids have been banned in baseball for decades under the provision banning the use of illegal drugs. It just wasn't tested for, so enforcement wasn't possible. You are right that plenty of drugs become illegal later on, or recategorized. That doesn't mean anybody broke the law when the bought, sold, or used the drugs while legal. They are assuming illegal PEDs, not legal ones.
Creatine? Deer Antler Spray? OTC HGH Supplements? Nutrition Supplements? What if they take a prescription level of Ibuprofen without a prescription?
Andro is worse than all of those... its a direct precursor in the steroid/hormone pathway, and it produces the intended effects of illegal anabolic steroids. (see below image... andro is the one in the top right). Again, I have no problem with people trying to take any legal possible junk to make them better... mainly because all that stuff is mostly junk. In this case, Andro should have NEVER been legal... and its short shelf-life was likely due to some major glitch or technicality in the system. It IS a severe PED in every sense of the word... and looking at it any other way is basically semantics.
My own thought is the the true steroid era began about 1986. This is not long after their infiltration into the Olympics. And this seemed to me to be a time when everyone started swinging bats as if they were toothpicks, and was a time when numbers just seemed to spike on the whole. This is exactly the time that Canseco and McGwire Clemens and Bonds seemed showed additional incidences of dominance. I think all of these players probably started juicing about then, and probably innocently, and yet I think when they sat at home they questioned whether what they were doing was right, and that alone puts them under the cloud, and adds guilt. Bagwell came into the league about that time. He spiked at that time. The Astros clearly were connected to Steroids in their history, and i don't think it's coincidence that Pettite and Clemens found a safe haven in Houston later in their careers. So the culture was there for it to be true. Tru that Bagwell used. The Statistics are good indicators. Bagwell swung the bat like it was toothpick. He was the greatest player anyone faced in that era. No doubt. i want to believe he is innocent, but i think the questions are fair. He fits the mold. Right time and right place. Justified or not, think it entirely plausible. And i hate that. but I have to look rationally at the entire picture. Same thing with Cigarettes, same things with Lance armstrong, while no real evidence, sometimes the pieces to the puzzle just fit together. Love bagwell, but I have to be open minded about it and realistic.
To me, it just like the whole "steroids are illegal, and banned, but we won't test for it". Its a dumb argument to say that if a player used Andro (which is a precursor for testosterone), but not pure anabolic steroids (which all elevate and contain testosterone), they didn't "juice" or shouldn't be associated with "juicers" simply because everybody could "legally" do it. Hell, everybody could have also taken steroids/testosterone, and gotten away with it, since it wasn't being tested for. Players aren't being banned because they simply "broke the law" (taking an illegal steroid)... they're being banned because they took a substance that enhanced their abilities in an entirely un-natural/uncontrolled way. And more specifically, andro IS a PED that does exactly what anabolic steroids intend to do (this is not like somebody taking high does ibuprofen). Okaying a player for andro, but banning them for steroids is like telling somebody they can't have caffeine, but tea is ok (tea actually has more caffeine than coffee, but that's a story for another time).
Really good post. You're right, sometimes the puzzle just fits. The one thing that erks me is the fact that; if he did use steroids and his numbers spiked in the early 90s, so did everybody's. Your analogy to Lance Armstrong is a great example and a buddy and I just had a conversation about him. The fact of the matter of Lance and the Tour de France is everyone was using roids. Steroids clearly give you an advantage but is the advantage all that great when the majority uses it? Being on steroids doesn't mean you can take it easy in workouts, it means it's an assist to bust butt even harder. Not saying I condone the use of it, just saying that if the majority of people in my field of work are gaining an advantage, I would in the very least look into and ask questions about it. I need a paycheck too. Going back to the steroids as an assistance to work out and the Tour de France. There was one year, I don't remember which, that Lance was stripped of the title but you know what? So were the next 20 something riders that finished behind him. All that told me was that Lance busted his butt harder in workouts than any of those other users and went on to win 7 freakin titles.
Do I think he used? Absolutely. Very different from a Lance Armstrong where positive tests and witnesses exist.
I agree but that's what the steroid scandal has done - painted EVERYONE who played back then with the broad brush of suspicion. Just wondering if Roger Clemen's association with the team has also hurt Bagwell & Biggio.
