[sumo] [spoilers]Takanohana and steroid abuse

[Charles Beauchamp]

It is ironic personally to me that Derek Zumsteg would get cited in this list as I have personally been attacked by him in various forums for years..heh.  Derek is among other things a know it all twit that overstates his own self important knowledge of all things baseball and looked rather silly two years ago when he was quoted nationally as the source breaking the big news of Pete Rose' imminent reinstatement.

----- Original Message ----
From: Joshua Maciel <joshua.maciel at gmail.com>
To: Sumo Mailing List <sumo at webtrek.com>
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2007 4:22:25 PM
Subject: Re: [sumo] [spoilers]Takanohana and steroid abuse

To be quite clear, there was NOT discussion of steroid abuse in 1996 when
Brady Anderson hit 50 home runs.

Number of articles citing 'steroids' by year (post
20<http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/oberjuerge_q_a_with_bill_james_baseball_analyst/>
):
1997--0
1998--1
1999--8
2000--8
2001--3
2002--358
2003--135
2004--510
2005--934
2006--387

You are making yourself look ignorant about this issue and spreading
disinformation in the process. I'd also love to see this information about
the 'physics' of doctored balls, as I'd love to know how they controlled for
all factors when they didn't have access, I'd assume, to the actual game
balls used by year (let alone kept under the same conditions).

As we all know from the recent addition of a humidor at Coors Field that the
conditions the balls are kept in change the behavior of the ball quite a
bit.

For more information on this stuff, I recommend 'Cheater's Guide to
Baseball' by Derek Zumsteg (sp?), as well as the Baseball Economist by J.C.
Bradbury (author of sabernomics.com).

What I don't recommend is stating this as if they are true without proof to
back it up.

- Josh

On Dec 11, 2007 1:59 AM, Scott M. Kahn <smk1 at columbia.edu> wrote:

> As for the home run race, there was talk of a "juiced ball"at the
> time, but physics studies showed that not to be the case.  But when
> the likes of Brady Anderson were hitting 50 home runs, there was
> talk of players being juiced.  At that time, steroid abuse was not
> the topic it is today.  But at least baseball is now revisiting
> that era.  Mark McGwire was most likely abusing steroids, this
> might come out in the soon to be released Mitchell report.  He will
> be denied election to the Hall of Fame in his first year of
> eligibility because of the questions.  The public would eventually
> forgive him if he owned up to cheating, they will not forgive him
> if it is shown in other ways that he cheated.  Lying is worse than
> the crime.
>
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