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Should an asterisk be put in the record books for the recent accomplishments made by MLB players? Should Barry Bonds' 73 home runs be removed from the books? Should players who have tested positive for steroids be striken from the record books? Removed from the hall of fame?
posted by Matt Dabney @ 8/04/2005 07:16:00 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Joe - so by your logic, Ben Johnson should have been able to keep his olympic gold medal even though he tested positive for 'roids. His taking steroids was no different than someone being born with genes enabling them to run faster.
I for one think that records should be grouped by era. MLB, NBA, maybe even NFL. Players today definitely have more knowledge about physiology and how to finely tune their bodies to perfom at optimum levels. Not to mention the advanced training techniques.
Daff, by that logic, the people who are trying to set the records (say the hitters, for example) should be as knowledgable and physically tuned to the people trying to prevent them from getting the records (the pitchers in this case). So in the end it should even out with all else being equal.
It *should* be even, but I don't see any pitchers getting caught taking steroids. There are no more pitchers throwing 100+ mph than there were 20 years ago. But there are a ton of guys who can hit it out of the park now.
Of course this leads into questions about pitchers and steroids. Can steroids help increase pitch speed? Or once you reach a certain point, more muscle mass actually hinders the pitching motion, thus negating the advantage of being stronger?
I don't know who I agree with here.
With any sport, comparing all-time records and statistics is such a silly exercise anyway. I mean, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points in a season and averaged 50 in another. Does that make him a "better" scorer (objectively) than Michael Jordan, for instance?
I think that any cross-generational comparison in any sport has to be taken out of its context, with a grain of salt... especially with power numbers in baseball.
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