Some of the more interesting quotes about my latest piece include a forum writer who commended me for my endless defense of Barry Bonds; “Say what you will about Perricone, the guy’s been defending Bonds for going on five years now.”
Thanks, I guess.
In truth, I think I’ve been more interested in defending Bonds’ rights. The right to be treated fairly, to be held as innocent until proven guilty, the right to self-determination, and, of course, the right to be an asshole. I think I’ve also been criticizing the ham-handed, sanctimonious outrage and piety being displayed by so many of the members of the mainstream media, who are falling all over themselves in their efforts to prove that they will save the children, the heroes of the past, and, of course, by extension, us.
To them, I say, thanks but no thanks. I’m comfortable with controversy, I’m OK with sports stars who may not be perfect. I do, in fact, want our athletes to do amazing things, and I don’t really care how they go about doing it. It has always been obvious to me that to perform at the highest levels in athletic competition, extreme measures have always been taken.
I have some context, that perhaps a writer like Lupica doesn’t. I’ve worked in construction for most of the last 25 years, and I know what it’s like to work through pain. I’ve shot myself in the leg with a nail gun and wrapped duct tape around it and kept going. I’ve had to drill a hole in my thumb nail to release the blood blister under it, and kept going. I’ve worked on a roof in three feet of snow, with a 20 mile an hour wind making the wind chill factor below zero, all day long, for days on end.
When I wasn’t out in the field building houses, I worked in a mirror factory, I worked in a restaurant, I’ve worked with my body since I was 14 years old. In that time, I’ve taken every pill, literally, everything I could get my hands on, to make sure I could go to work every day. Until you do, maybe you can’t understand. But I know that my readers who come from a similar background understand.
And when I read Bill Gilbert’s account of the different players who do the same, I wonder, no, in fact, I know, the only difference between what Bob Gibson did and what I did was directly related to access.
If I would have had access to a physician whose sole purpose was to ensure that I got up and worked to the best of my ability, well, I mean, come on. Anybody would have made the same choice, and to suggest otherwise is more than disingenuous, it’s flat out lying. Reading Bill Gilbert’s followup piece makes that crystal clear:
…. ” ‘Where’s the Dexamyl, Doc?’ I yelled at the trainer rooting about in his leather valise,” pitcher-author Jim Brosnan quoted himself as saying in his celebrated baseball book, Pennant Race. ” ‘There’s nothing in here but phenobarbital and that kind of stuff.’
” ‘I don’t have any more,’ said Doc Rohde. ‘Gave out the last one yesterday. Get more when we get home.’
” ‘Been a rough road trip, huh, Doc? How’m I goin’ to get through the day then? Order some more, Doc. It looks like a long season.’
” ‘Try one of these,’ he said.
” ‘Geez, that’s got opium in it. Whaddya think I am, an addict or something?’ ”
…. On good evidence—which includes voluntary admissions by physicians, trainers, coaches, athletes, testimony given in court or before athletic regulatory bodies, and autopsy reports—amphetamines have been used in auto racing, basketball, baseball (at all levels down to children’s leagues), boxing, canoeing, cycling, football, golf, mountain climbing, Roller Derby, rodeo, Rugby, skating, skiing, soccer, squash, swimming, tennis (both lawn and table), track and field, weight lifting and wrestling.
The amphetamines, of which Benzedrine, Dexedrine, Dexamyl (which has a barbiturate added) and methamphetamine (the notorious “speed” or “Meth”), are among the best-known, affect the central nervous system and produce what might be called a triple threat.
They act indirectly to suppress hunger spasms, and for this reason are used as appetite-killing pills by jockeys, boxers, wrestlers and anybody else who has to make a weight.
The drug is a metabolic stimulant, speeding up the respiratory and circulatory systems and enabling users to remain hyperactive when they would ordinarily slow down because of fatigue.
Finally, the amphetamines act directly on the brain, inducing a sense of excitement and euphoria, a sort of I-can-lick-the-world high.
Let’s not forget, this article was published June 30th, 1969, forty years ago. Bill Gilbert is saying that it was commonly known forty years ago that amphetamines, illegal or otherwise, were used in virtually every sport there was.
…. “I dope myself. Everyone [that is, everyone who is a competitive cyclist] dopes himself. Those who claim they don’t are liars,” Jacques Anquetil, a five-time winner of the Tour de France and a French sports figure of the stature of a Jean-Claude Killy or a Michel Jazy, has said. “For 50 years bike racers have been taking stimulants Obviously, we can do without them in a race, but then we will pedal 15 miles an hour [instead of 25]. Since we are constantly asked to go faster and to make even greater efforts, we are obliged to take stimulants.”
Anquetil’s remark was made in the summer of 1967 in the midst of what to date has been sports’ messiest public drug scandal. Anquetil himself was much involved, both as a commentator and competitor. In May 1966, after winning a race in Belgium by nearly five minutes, he forfeited his victory and his check rather than provide a urine sample, which was to be analyzed for amphetamines or other banned drugs. In September 1967 a world speed record set by Anquetil in Milan was disallowed for the same reason. In between these two incidents there were two cycling deaths attributed to amphetamines, a number of suspensions at the Amsterdam world championships and a slowdown strike by cyclists protesting the fact that they were being forced to compete without the aid of their accustomed drugs.
Next time you read another slam-job article on Lance Armstrong –by one of these uninformed hacks– keep that in mind. One of the men whose record was broken by Armstrong was speaking openly of doping FORTY YEARS AGO!!!! Cycling almost fell apart because everyone was using speed, and nobody wanted to stop.
How about the major sports?
…. Among major American sports, amphetamine usage may be highest in football, or again it may only be easier to verify in this sport. Among professional clubs, players, physicians and trainers of the Steelers, Chargers, Cardinals, Lions and Redskins have indicated that chemical pep is or has been used. At least one professional football team made the taking of pep pills part of its pregame routine.
“It usually seems to be the older players and boys who think they need an extra lift to make it through a game that want them,” says Joe Kuczo, the Redskin trainer. “I personally am not convinced that they do much good, but it’s a mental thing with some of them. They’ve been used to the pills. In the quantities they get here, at least, I doubt if they do much harm.”
You might notice the Steelers in there. The same Steelers who, in the last couple of seasons, have seen several of their championship teams of the 70’s implicated in steroid use rumors.
And then there’s pain:
…. In addition to exhaustion and tension, all athletes are at some time in some degree challenged by a third physiological phenomenon—pain. The relationship between pain and sports is ancient and close. For some, pain is the prohibitive price that makes games not worth playing; for others it is the secret but ultimate opponent. For most it is a necessary vocational byproduct.
Does knowing that there are reasons players use drugs mean it’s OK to use them? Of course not. I’m not saying it’s OK, but I’m also not saying it’s not. I’m saying it’s none of my business. You don’t get to tell me I can’t take a Percoset so my elbow pain goes away, allowing me to get back to work. Why should I be able to tell Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire what they can or can’t do in order to be the best at their job? How is that even remotely acceptable?
The players and coaches and owners are there, in the game. The sportswriters cover the game. Since when did the sportswriters become the guardians of anything? Since when did they become the judge and jury? How did we get here? You wanna write about what these athletes do, go ahead. Stop telling me what’s right and wrong. I don’t need you to help me figure that out. Really. I’m a grownup, and I can handle saving my children by myself, thanks.
UPDATE: Is this even possible? Did Peter Gammons just link to my last post, and not only link to it, but cut and paste most of it? I am flabbergasted, to say the least:
…. We are blasted with the stun guns of moral outrage. Bud Selig claimed he knew nothing of the PED world until he read about Mark McGwire’s andro in 1998; now he says he pushed the union for steroid testing in 1995. The incomplete Mitchell report never addressed where so many of the drugs came from, sticking with a couple of East Coast leaks and ignoring the underground steroids world of Latin America.
We now know that there are baseball players from the 1950s who had vision and other problems because of “red juice.” We read “Ball Four.”
John Perricone’s superb “Only Baseball Matters” blog this week recalled a 40-year-old piece by Bill Gilbert in Sports Illustrated.
…. At the least, Perricone should make us all think. Alex Rodriguez’s admission doesn’t bring baseball to an end; it should help those who love the sport edge closer to the truth, and allow players who want level playing fields to force the union into finally allowing one.
I don’t know the whole truth, no one does. That list of the 103 other players who tested positive in 2003 is out there and could become public, and there will be more stories and revelations. But this is more complex than simple good and evil, just as there has been a lot of good in what Presinal has provided young athletes in a poor country.
Perricone criticized some writers who really care about baseball and their kids and what has become so ugly. But it’s not just Barry Bonds, Bobby Estalella and Alex Rodriguez — it’s societal, and as Bill Gilbert pointed out in the first year of the Nixon presidency, has been for generations.
UPDATE, Part II: I seem to have made the bigs. Rob Neyer also threw me a link. Hoo Wah.
28 Backtalkers
Great piece John. What you and others have been saying all along. Peds and risky behavior go hand in hand and are a health issue. That is the only legitimate discussion concerning Peds. Health and well-being of individual human beings. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not only for those in sports, but as you so rightfully exemplify, in the average ordinary workplace that millions of Americans work in. A place that requires physical skill, exertion and stamina. The use of peds properly used, is a boon to human existence. It is always the abuse and misuse of people, places and things that causes trouble.
Treating both ends of the PEDs spectrum as being nefarious the way the agendists do, continues to be one of the biggest longstanding canards to have been foisted upon the American Public in the last 50 years.
It is one thing to disparge people with true events and facts when they are in context. Disparagement is normaly reserved for political candidates, criminal defendents, and civil litigants. It is called the elective and judicial processes respectively. Writer and journalists are supposed to keep the citizenery informed in a timely way of these true facts and true events and the context in which these facts exist or events take place.
But it is a whole different thing entirely to disparge people with lies, preverications, and out of context evidence and testimony acquired by felonious behavior, questionable police actions, and threatening innocent bystanders in an attempt to sustain the assault on an athlete. This is a way of looking at events and people that used to be reserved for the grocery stand tabloids. But the sewage has percolated to the top in recent years.
We are lucky that one Judge Susan Illston has been one of the few public figures to not loser her head.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?id=3921707
Of course the writer of this so called report is practically begging prosecutors to appeal the Judge’s rulings because it would cause the “trial to be postponed indefinitely” and the way it stands now, it appears the prosecutors in the Bonds kangaroo court trial have little if any case left.
Rather than saving the children, saving the National Pastime, and saving Bud Selig’s ass, the persecution of Bonds, and others to get at Bonds, has resulted in nothing more than a further debasement of a Federal Government that very few trust, and a mainstream media that is trusted only marginally more. The actions of federal prosecutors, law enforcement and the Lupicas, Verduccis, Reilly’s, Fanny Wadas, and all the rest, have caused very real injury to the reputation of those in the Federal Government and Main Stream media who actually are good and honest folks…not agenda driven egomaniacs and spineless sycophants.
John and a few others (Sports On My Mind, Dwil and Modi, Jonathan Littman, come immediately to mind) have been on the right side (yet underpopulated side) of this discussion for years.
Judge Ilston, the presiding judge in all matters Balco-related, was appointed to the federal bench by Bill Clinton in 1995. A graduate of Stanford Law School, her professional career like Bonds and Novitsky, has deep roots in the Penninsula, just a few miles from PacBell. When considering this I cannot help but remember what the late House Speaker, Tip O’Neil wrote in his autobiography so many years ago…”All Politics is Local”. Indeed.
[...] 24 oranges wrote an interesting post today on â¦. Keep it continuousHere’s a quick excerpt…basketball, baseball (at all levels down to children’s leagues), boxing, canoeing, cycling, football, golf, mountain climbing, Roller Derby… [...]
[...] The Big Lead wrote an interesting post today on â¦. Keep it continuousHere’s a quick excerpt…rooting about in his leather valise,” pitcher-author Jim Brosnan quoted himself as saying in his celebrated baseball book, Pennant Race. [...]
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3926544&name=gammons_peter
Well, it took five years, but finally finally vindication for your efforts John. You are my goddamned hero buddy!
That +1 is me. I have no idea how “Search the Web on Snap.com” ended up becoming my default name.
I was beginning to get concerned when your posts were few and far between…but you’ve come back on fire. Your latest string of posts + links, more so than any writing I’ve read about the “steroids scandal”, has really pieced together all the aspects of it – from the writers ridiculous attempt to “protect” all of us, the driving forces behind their writing, the players motives, the lack of accountability from every single person linked to baseball, the evolution of baseball and sports to get to this point, and the factual evidence to back it all up and really make your points. Unbelievable work, I wish I could write my appreciate for what you’ve been doing as well as you’ve been writing about the steroids issue. Keep it up – you’ve even got Peter Gammons thinking about your work these days, apparently.
You’re on your game when you’re rightly pissed off at the lunacy of “all this.” Keep it up man.
Hey, I think Vernon Wells is still available and baseball’s about back.
(How was I to know that he was to hurt himself…would have had a different result had he been in black and orange.)
Damn, I just went through +mia’s link. I too was greatly impressed with what you wrote there. Most of the comments after the article took him to task for being the baseball reporter that he is. Maybe they’re fair criticisms, they probably are. But hell, he’s bringing a different side of this “scandal” to his official page at ESPN and that’s saying something.
Can you guys believe that? Gammons just linked and cut and pasted me? I am proud, obviously, but more than that, I have a newfound respect for someone who would bring what I have to say to the forefront, and do so while being criticized by me. Wow.
My point exactly.
But hell, he’s bringing a different side of this “scandal” to his official page at ESPN and that’s saying something.
———————————————————
And good for him and good for you to acknowledge that.
Gammons truly does love the game, so I’ve read and heard. Kudos to him for bringing positive and deserved recognition to OBMs body of work. When one has a near death experience and realizes that every day thereafter is a gift, one tends to be a little more open-minded, a little more honest, and a little bit more willing to see the other side of a well reasoned, thought-out, and equally passionate frame of reference.
I believe it is called acceptance. Something that too many in msm are not willing to be.
There’s hope, eh? Congrats, John, that’s quite a coup. This whole PED-thing is a great illustration of “don’t confuse me with the facts.” People like their biases and cling to them with religious fervor. Then again, if Gammons can open his mind, maybe his many readers can as well.
Rob Neyer linked you this morning on ESPN, too.
It’s so simple – if this wasn’t Bonds, if it were you or me, it would be laughed out of court as a complete waste of time and money. In fact, if the local PD or DA had spent more than passing time on the issue, they’d be censured, maybe fired.
And John, great article bringing it to a personal level. Of course, how on earth could anyone fault you? “American work ethic”, right? And to whatever degree, it’s you and 99% of everyone who does what they need to do, starting with coffee in the morning.
I know this is hyperbole, but when placed in the framework of what you wrote, maybe it’s not – shouldn’t these evil athletes be admired for their striving for excellence? We’ll probably never get to that point, but it’s very poignant to how hypocritical this all is.
Marc,
I admire them. I have no problem with A-Rod or Bonds or Clemens doing whatever they need to to extend their careers, win a championship, play every day, endure the grind…. whatever. It’s not for me to tell them they can or can’t.
The Players Association caved to the pressure brought upon them by this media created scandal, and now they have testing, and now they have clear rules what the majority of the players will accept as far as enhanced performance. So now, if someone uses, they are cheating. But, prior to that agreement, not only wasn’t it cheating, it was ignored, and in some ways, almost encouraged.
And baseball, the commissioner, and the owners and GM’s could hardly have given one thought to the health of the players. The GM’s and the men in the baseball side of the teams wanted to keep their jobs and win titles -in that order- and the owners wanted to make money and win championships -also in that order- to suggest otherwise is to live in a fantasy world.
I think that the gov’t is going after Bonds for lying to the grand jury, because they take that sort of thing extremely seriously, especially when they’ve granted immunity for truthful testimony. Anything that undermines the legitimacy of the grand jury process probably makes DAs lose a lot of sleep at night. So anyone who lies under oath, especially when they’re granted immunity, is going to have the gov’t on their back.
I don’t even think that the gov’t is all that concerned about whether or not they actually convict him of perjury. Their case appears to be comically bad, and there’s that little problem of having the testimony, which was supposed to be kept private, leaked to the press. They’re willing to take some pretty ugly lumps just to teach Barry a lesson– don’t mess with the grand jury system or we will mess with you.
Tonus, you should read John Littman over at Yahoo’s articles. One of his newest ones deals with the similarity between Bond’s case and Benito Santiago’s (including their testimony to the grand jury). Bentio’s been left alone while they go after Bond’s…so I disagree with your first point but mostly agree with your second point.
Thanks for the suggestion, a Google search turned up some of his work. I’ll be doing some reading!
Well, I understand that prosecutors take the legitimacy of the Grand Jury process seriously. Unfortunately, how can anybody else when the legal system does not prosecute those who suborn felonious disclosure of so called “secret testimony” for which witnesseses are granted so-called immunity. And if DAs are losing sleep at night over the testimony of baseball players concerning something that at its root, is basically none of the federal government’s business, then they should not be making mountains out of anthills. Frankly I hope the lot of them, realize how petty, small, and mean they appear to the rest of us. Nothing they are doing here is enhancing their public image except for the vengeance bent. Right now, I rank federal prosecutors and special agents as little more than gang-bangers in suits.
Of course the government does not care if they actually convict Bonds of perjury. Novitsky and the rest of the out of control law enforcement and judicial prosecutors have already ruined his reputation, his career, and for many of us, any remaining respect we had for an out of control federal government that wastes trillions and an equally out control mainstream media that slanders at will. And. The the lesson is well-learned. Of course the grand jury system will mess with you. Nothing like an onerous overbearing judiciary to earn respect from the citizenary. Fear is a great tool.
The Grand Jury should be taken seriously, it’s a very important part of our criminal justice system; it should be taken with equal seriousness when someone leaks Grand Jury material, eh? That being said, when you have an investigation for (what?) eight (?) years and you spend tens of millions of dollars and all you have is…maybe…perjury?…that’s a “clue” that you don’t have much. I’m sure it’s frustrating for Novitsky and the others “to know” that he was lying, just know it. That being said, there’s a flip side (and one that good law enforcement investigators employ): keep your personal FEELINGS out of it and don’t sell your credibility for anyone or anything. Even if they do get a conviction, count me in as part of the Pyrrhic victory camp.
Many people have realized the ridiculousness of this faux scandal and the Bonds = Perjury story for some time now. John’s just expressed the lunacy of it all from about Day 1.
Play ball, please ?
+mia: Rail on if you wish, but most of the Special Agents that I know are the people that you’d want in those positions. (The prosecutors? Eh, they’re lawyers; most are okay though.) I’d guess that the USAO in SF is none to happy with this dog of a case, the backlash it’s starting to produce, and especially the money, time and resources that it has (dare I say) squandered. That’s just my opinion. I mean hell, how much time and money were spent to prosecute the Enron or Worldcom folks? You get my point
“guess that the USAO in SF is none to happy with this dog of a case”I
Kent, the USAO certainly didn’t have to indict for perjury. Who was it, Schools(?) did the indictment right before he left for Alabama. I read so many places things like “the feds wouldn’t indict unless they were sure they would get a conviction” and “they wouldnt’ have indicted if Greg Anderson was all they had”, etc.
That was always false. They chose to burn that money for the purposes stated by +mia of ruining Bonds’ reputation and career because they were jealous of him being the best at something. Something they are not. And because they could. It’s not their money. They were ruled by their FEELINGS as you state but it wasn’t at being shown up. It’s just been hatred and jealousy. The whole BALCO case has always been about getting Barry Bonds.
I think I wrote elsewhere that what guys like Novitzky and Rusinello are doing is reflecting poorly on the GOOD FOLKS who actually work for the Federal Government.
I stand by my statement however that the type of agents that are raiding the home of Greg Anderson’s mother in law en masse (20+) in the middle of the night in an effort to coerce testimony against Bonds is thuggery hiding behind a badge. The ridiculously continued excessive show of force with cops dressed up as ninja soldiers and dime store Rambos on unarmed, non resistant civilians is just too silly for words.
You didn’t really think I was going to let a nice guy like you get the last word in, did you?
John, congrats on your work getting the visibility it deserves. It is nice when this happens, which isn’t often enough…
Professor Adams? Is that you? If it is, can you believe this?
After all these years, somebody throws me a bone. You’ve been here from the beginning, so you know that the accolades I’ve just received are for writing the same things I wrote years ago. Well, better late then never.
Thanks everyone.
Yup, it’s me. Indeed it is amazing — and great! — that your arguments are suddenly getting so much attention. This shows the value of perseverance, as it surely would have been easy to give up during times when you felt you were howling into the wind. So enjoy the moment, which is well-deserved! This is one of those rare times when justice has triumphed.
Great to see you back Jim. You are always the gentleman. Believe it or not, your demeanor occasionally has a positive influence on my rather volatile style…though that may be hard to fathom.
Again, good to see you back.
There seems to be a constant stream of cyclists and baseball players getting caught doping. I recently compiled a list of the top ten doping excuses for athletes to help out the next one that gets caught.
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