This is why I love Oswalt. He goes out there and throws himself on the line for this team and tells it like it is. I'm sure we'll start hearing more players say similar things in the coming weeks leading to spring training. http://houston.astros.mlb.com/news/...t_id=3816176&vkey=news_hou&fext=.jsp&c_id=hou Quotes from the article by Alyson Footer "A-Rod's numbers shouldn't count for anything," Oswalt said in a phone interview with MLB.com. "I feel like he cheated me out of the game." "It does bother me," Oswalt said. "Especially for the guys that went out there and did it on talent. We're always going to have a cloud on us, and that's not fair at all. "The ones that have come out and admitted it, and are proven guilty, [their numbers] should not count. I've been cheated out of the game," Oswalt continued. "This is my ninth year, and I've done nothing to enhance my performance, other than work my butt off to get guys out. These guys [who took PEDs] have all the talent in the world. All-Star talent. And they put times two on it. "I'm going out there with the ability God gave me. They have that ability, too, and they're putting something on top of it." "The few times we played them, when he got hits, it could have cost me a game," Oswalt said. "It could have cost me money in my contract. He cheated me out of the game and I take it personally, because I've never done [PEDs], haven't done it, and they're cheating me out of the game."
meh right or wrong if you were to take his attitude on it: 1. your punishing the guys who are doing the responsible thing now, intentions aside and "they never shoulda done it in the first place" aside, which just encourages more lying 2. you are talking about an entire era of baseball that would just have to be erased
(begin very unpopular take) I normally have a lot of respect for Roy, but WAAAAAAAA Holy crap, Roy. Cheating's been a part of the game since at *least* the 50s. No, since the deadball era. And he knows it. Just whining. He *should* have said, "My numbers should count double, because I got A-Roid's juiced-up ass out with nothing but talent and sweat. I got Bonds and Giambi out, too. I don't care what they put in their bodies; I'll sit all their asses down." That would have been more Roy-like. More brash, more badass. (/end unpopular take) *ducks for cover*
Its not like if he didnt say it then people would all the sudden come out and admit using steroids. No one is going to be more likely to lie about drug use just because Roy Oswalt came out and said their stats shouldn't count.
Maybe so, but if you're clean, the last thing you'd want are people to consider you as "one of them."
so responsible is admitting things only AFTER he was caught... sounds more like spin control, than responsibility... also as far as an entire era of baseball being erased, the problem is that the steroid era has erased many records from previous "more legitimate" (for lack of better phrase) eras...
I mean he does have a point.....baseball is a job to these guys and Roy O works his butt off and we all know that to be the best he can be without roid help....I would be pissed as well especially if you played the game the right way...there is gonna be more Oswalt/Berkman like players to speak their minds baseball has no choice but to start steroid testing at its fullest now...the only way to clear the innocents name.....
While I agree with Roy to an extent, this causes me to wonder a few other things... 1) How does Roy feel about defensive errors behind him? Does he feel like his teammates are hurting his potential income? 2) How about weak offensive output? Does he think guys are costing him money when they leave runners on base? I generally don't like statements like this from pro sports players, even when they are possibly justified. Stuff like this shouldn't be in the media.
Oswalt is right. When one person cheats, he is potentially jeopardizing the careers of other players whom they play against.
100% correct in every way. A-rod with his pumped up self and others probably put the bar somewhere that non doping guys couldn't reach and that trickles down everywhere.
OK--but can we take these maxims and apply them equally throughout MLB history, or are we only going to arbitrarily apply it to this era? How much damage did Gaylord Perry do to the careers of other players? Mike Scott? George Brett? How about guys hopped up on uppers in the 50s and 60s (like Mickey Mantle)? How about the guys who take OTC pseudoephedrine to get "up" (which is a violation of federal law according to the label on the bottle)? And finally, how about all the steroid users that were in the game *before* this era? Seriously, let's not fool ourselves. The technological advances may have convinced a lot more guys to do it, it certainly reached epidemic proportions, but surely no one naively believes that baseball never had a steroid user before 1994 or 1989?
Guys, guys. You're missing the big picture. AROD lowered Roy's value and saved us a ton of money when we extended his contract. Thank you, AROD. Without your help, we may have lost Roy to free agency.
Before anyone has to say it--no, I don't mean to equate these guys to current 'roiders. But cheating is cheating, and there is no doubt they got a competitive advantage. As such, are we going to righteously apply our indignation, our maxims, and our asterisks to all the known cheaters, or only to those of our own generation? [/clarification]
He's probably going to apply his indignation to the people and situations that most affect him. I suspect we all do that in life. You're going to get a lot more angry if someone you know gets murdered than you are if it happens to someone in Haiti that who you don't know. Take the flipside of your argument - should we simply not care at all about cheating? Since we can't fix every mistake made in the history of baseball, should we fix none instead?
Once again, I applaud him for speaking out. However, what if it comes to light that a certain player on a lot of his teams happened to juice and put up bit hr/rbi numbers?
Yours should have been his quote, it is way cooler, and I think he could spin it at least a little better to Clemens and Tejada.
