Sheffield Says Jeter, A-Rod Get Too Much Credit in Press

AOL Sports ^ | 05 August 2005

[Stayingawayfromthedarkside]

What does this have to do with race? Jeter and A-Rod are not white. Bye the way Gary, Jeter has 3 more rings than you. Also, where was your great leadership when the Yankees had that collapse in October.

[Al Simmons]

It has to do with Sheffield being a "BIG TIME" arse-hole.

[raptor29]

Sheffield is a mega-juicehead and Reggie Jackson was not. So before we start any Hall of Fame talk for this bad actor, let's evaluate him and the other cheaters of this era in the proper light.

[Charles Henrickson]

"It happens because you're white and I'm black," Sheffield told the magazine. "My interpretation of things is different. You don't see it the way I see it. You write how you understand it, how you would articulate it, not how I, as a black man, would articulate it."

A talk show host on the SF Giants radio station just got suspended for making a passing reference to "Caribbean" ballplayers. Here Sheffield makes outright racist remarks, and do you think anything will happen to him? Not in Allan "Bud" Selig's PCMLB.

[Charles Henrickson]

A-Rod is a better ballplayer than Sheffield, and Jeter is at least Sheffield's equal--not to mention that Jeter has been a Yankee his whole glorious career, a steady constant leading them to their pennants and WS championships of the past decade. Furthermore, Jeter and A-Rod each are part-black, so there goes Sheffield's theory about racism, unless it's because he's blacker than those guys.

[ken5050]

Gary was drinking, I think...

[raptor29]

'nuance' my ass. First of all, to equate occasionally loading up a spitball or corking a bat once a year with baseball's runaway steroid abuse and its impact over the last decade-plus is comical. Secondly, unprescribed steroid use was/is illegal drug activity and was/is therefore in violation of MLB's and the Uniform Player's Contract rules against illegal substances. That the game had no specific 'steroid' policy doesn't make that go away. Steroids were always 'cheating'. Steroids were also available during Reggie Jackson's day, and he didn't feel compelled to use them. But today, because they are so rampant, many players are forced to counter the steroid advantage of other players in order to compete. So now anyone who wants to play sports at the highest level should have to significantly jeopardize their health in order to do so, and you are OK with that?

[raptor29]

Another thing. The current estimate is that somewhere around 300,000 high school age kids are currently messing with steroids, likely due to the sterling example set by today's athletes. Many of the steroids/HGH used mess up the brain's production of serotonin, and in a young kid, more often than not, the body never fully readjusts after stopping the steroid use. So these people, among other potential problems, are likely candidates for long-term depression. That's if the liver cancer doesn't get them first, I guess.

[Al Simmons]

"Lefty Grove would still be an excellent pitcher in today's game, but he would face much faster, stronger, better-conditioned hitters and his numbers would reflect it."

I think you missed my point. PRECISELY because of the factors you noted, you CANNOT compare the players of yesteryear with today's players (apples v. oranges).

So what to do? What I stated in my last post; Compare each of them with their CONTEMPORARIES, and you will get an idea how they rank head-to-head in the overall scheme of things.

But to address your point, I say this: If Babe Ruth was born in 1985, had had the benefit of the superior training, nutrition, etc., he STILL would be the greatest player of all time because - quite obviously - he had the greatest natural talent any baseball player ever had.

Ditto for Lefty Grove if he had been born in 1985 and was just coming up today. Both of them would have been physically bigger and better developed due to the superior nutrition of the time vs. 100 years ago - which would have simply added onto their natural ability.

One final PS about Grove - We know that Bob Feller was clocked at about 95 MPH by a WW II Navy radar instrument; and Joe Cronin said that Grove threw "much, much harder than Feller".

So, Grove probably had Nolan Ryan-like speed (98-100 MPH) even WITHOUT the training/nutritional advantages of today.

P.S. And ought to know. I played with - and against - Grove for most of his career. *LOL* (See my home page) ;-)

[raptor29]

What shallow, uninformed rhetoric, the type that regularly undermines the credibility of the typical staunch libertarian position. I work in professional sports, in baseball, and you are completely wrong about the numbers of players using steroids and growth hormone. You would be stunned, apparently. Secondly, the numbers of high school age athletes (and then, college age) using this stuff would also surprise the hell out of you. I don't rely on 'social worker/crisis mongers' to tell me this is a problem, I see it up close, every day, and was talking about it well before any of these numbers started coming out, and well before any Congress members started grandstanding the issue. You are also wrong about the legality of anabolic steroids. It is a crime to use them without a presciption, and it always has been and as such, has always been a violation of baseball rules. There is nothing in the baseball rules specifically discussing the legality of spiking your opponent's Gatorade dispenser with a narcotic, but that would be against the rules too.

[raptor29]

"So if a guy work(?) for ConEd, he's a commentator of nuclear policy?"

Wow, you need quite an assumption about my role to justify your position. And you are way off.

Secondly, if you claim that you never said anabolic steroids were legal, but you say it's OK for athletes to use them, then you are saying that illegality by athletes is justifiable, in the pursuit of enhanced performance. You might rethink that one.

Also, you seem to mention that because there are so many ways to 'get around' steroid testing, we shouldn't police the activity, because it's hopeless. So let's just get rid of all the police forces throughout the country, because we continue to have crime and always will. Good thinking, let's do that.

[raptor29]

"Plenty of things are illegal, some things are illegal in some sports and not in others."

Again, using these types of steroids/growth hormones without a prescription is and was illegal, in this country. So it is/was illegal for players to use them.

"I think their illegality is mostly a matter of sentiment, not reason....."

There is no 'reason' to discouraging the use/abuse of anabolic steroids?