(Just a little late for Friday)
Look, in my house growing up...hell, in my house now, he's the next best thing to a god. I'm taking second place to no one in my Willie Mays fandom. But when the NYT says (in the homepage blurb thingy; haven't read the review yet, or for that matter the book) that "A biography of Willie Mays reminds us of when the only performance-enhancing drug was joy," I have to wonder if kids these days are calling amphetamines "joy."
Just remember: virtually every major league player used the special coffee (or just pills) for decades until it was banned a couple of years ago. The main reason Mays and Aaron and their cohort didn't use steroids (if they didn't; we don't really know that, either) is because baseball people until the 1980s were convinced that ballplayers shouldn't be musclebound, not because they were more ethical than Canseco, McGwire, and Rodriguez. And the outraged sportswriters know all of that. The whole thing is hype and nonsense, and I can't wait until the sportswriters just drop it.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
AMEN! And that goes for all drugs. Every generation had theirs. I have yet to hear a compelling argument backing the notion that PHD use has directly led to the increase home runs over the past 2 decades. I am sure that it has had some effect but the radical change in stadium dimensions and league expansion have had at least an equal impact on the numbers. The real difference made by PHD use has been the ability to stay on the field by recovering from injury quicker, and (for some) to play at a high level for a bit longer than previous generations.
ReplyDelete