soccer10k

The Art of Making an Strong and Accurate Throw to Home Plate cowritten by Jacque Jones and Juan Pierre. How to Throw the Ball to First Base by Ronny Cedeno Getting the Opponent Out by Glendon Rusch How to Close a Ballgame by Ryan Dempster Throwing Strikes by the whole pitching staff Winning Ballgames by Angel Guzman Don't suck in spring training or you'll be exiled to AAA by Michael Wuertz

Has anyone ever run any quantitative studies that actually document steroids improve performance? I'm not saying they don't, but I'm also not willing to just accept that they can make a great player superhuman (or a good player great). They certainly didn't turn Alex Sanchez into anybody's definition of "great". btw - I understand the theory of making the athlete stronger, quicker, yada, yada, yada. But the mainstream is just as convinced a corked bat will make the ball go further and that just isn't the case when they test it. Steroids alone aren't just going to improve a players performance on the field because the player still has to work at getting better. If you just take steroids and don't work out at all, they aren't going to build muscle mass because you still have to go and lift weights. A baseball player still has to work out to get bigger and stronger. Somebody else mentioned that steroids help a player heal faster and recover from the daily duty of playing a baseball game. Look at a player like Mark McGwire. Nobody will deny that he had home run power - as evidenced by his 49 HR's as a 23 year old rookie in 1987. But he was also known just as much for his inability to stay healthy. He had 4 great years in 1996-1999 in which he hit 42% of his career home runs (245/583). Steroids likely helped McGwire stay healthy. And there have been studies to prove that steroids do help people heal quicker. This also allows athletes to play a baseball game and then go have a hardcore workout in the gym after the game. The other way steroids help is the bat speed. In defense of potential steroid users I always hear "steroids don't help you recognize/hit a curveball or a 95 mph fastball." This is true. But since steroids help make a player stronger, they also help a player swing a bat faster. If you can get your bat through the zone a split second quicker, you have an extra split second to recognize what the pitch is. That split second is the difference between no contact and contact as well as between bad contact and good contact. That makes all the difference in the world. For a player like Barry Bonds, who has the ability to recognize pitches extremely well, that extra split second will allow him to make better contact on the ball more often than he used to and the extra muscle mass from steroids will help him hit the ball harder and subsequently, with the right swing, farther than he used to. I don't know how much Alex Sanchez worked at being a better baseball player. I also can't comment on the workout habits of other players like Brady Anderson and Luis Gonzalez. But I do know that Barry Bonds worked extremely hard at being a better hitter and worked out hard in the gym as well because the Giants (along with the A's) are the home team out here that the newspapers cover. They detail his offseason regimens and talk about how he gets up early to work out. "Game of Shadows" also talks about how Bonds would frequent a gym with Greg Anderson. That's how he became one of the best players in the game and won 3 MVP awards. It's wasn't the steroids. As myself and rawaction said, Bonds would have been a HOFer and likely would have been a first ballot HOFer even if he didn't, allegedly, take steroids. Bonds was a great player anyway and was likely to go down as one of the best to play the game. But because of the steroids he enters into the discussion of being the best hitter the game has ever seen (i.e. superhuman) and did things nobody has ever done before. To quote my original statement: "steroids can make an average player good and a good player great, but what affect will steroids have on a great player?" The key word is "can". Steroids can make an average player good and a good player great. They won't do that every time if the player doesn't continue to work to make himself a better player. And I do firmly believe that Bonds is the example of what could happen if a great player takes steroids. Steroids are almost akin to natural talent. You can have all the natural talent in the world, but if you don't practice and apply yourself, you are never going to reach your potential. Sure, steroids can help you, but if you don't work at what you do, in this case playing baseball, you aren't going to reach the heights you could reach.

That is partly due to the NFL having a salary cap and the ability for a football team to cut a player and not owe them the rest of the salary.

Thanks for the lineups Bruce. It's good to see Scott Moore in the lineup. Blanco batting 6th? At this rate he'll be batting cleanup by the weekend.

The Chargers and Ravens?? :lol: :lol: I crack myself up. The Chargers I will give you with Tennessee and Oakland. Baltimore also played Oakland but I don't think Tampa Bay is that bad of a team.

I agree, but they weren't scoring points like this last year even against the same bad teams. I'm scared of them right now. Yeah, we'll see what happens the next two weeks at Minnesota and against Seattle.

I guess the question would be, is this just a bad season for Hudson or is it going to become a trend?

You simply can't put that type of comparison on a player who has only been this productive in such a short amount of time. This is just as bad as being overly judgemental of Hill's small sample of poor major league outings. perhaps, but you also cant overlook what he's done and relagate him to a utility role either imo. I'm not overlooking anything, I'm looking at the whole picture. I see no reason why he can't compete for a starting job, but any competent GM should have him penciled in as utility next year (if anything, his small sample of great numbers shows he won't get embarrassed in the bigs) with a much more likely producer as the starter. There's no reason to settle on him at 2B right now. Yeah, I think it depends on what the Cubs do in the offseason and what signings/trades they make. If they sign Soriano to play 2B, then obviously Theriot is out of luck. But if they get power somewhere else, whether that means in LF and or CF, then let Theriot compete for a starting job. But I definitely think the Cubs should try to improve on Theriot at 2B if they have the opportunity to.

Has anybody had a weaker schedule than the Bears so far?

I love it. Thank you.

If that's true, I don't see why it would be any harder to call a guy offsides based on being past or being a yard past. Because you don't have a yardstick to tell you exactly what a yard is. The way it is now, either the attacking player is past the defender or he isn't. Making it a yard would bring a lot more judgement into the decision. Well, it doesn't have to a yard, it could be something like "significantly past". I've seen quite a bit of controversy over the current calls with the "he is or he isn't" system, I don't see why it would be anymore with a different system. Oh yeah. Either way because it's a judgement call, there will be controversy surrounding the call no matter how you change the rule. As long as the rule is in place, there is going to be controversy.

to me it goes like this The earliest he could have possibly started using was mid to late 2000. That year he had a .688 the highest of his career to that point, and had a .730+ SLG after the all star break in 00'. From 2000-2004 He used on and off (unknowingly or knowingly i won't get into). After his injuries and the Balco Investigations, he was off them completely, he hasn't used since. Barry Bonds is one of the most if not the most patient hitters of all time, whether or not you think the steroids inflated his power numbers dramatically, he deserves recognition based on that fact alone. 232 walks (.609 OBP) in one season. That's insane. Before he was "using", based on how he would have fared in his roid years, he would have still made enough of an impact to be considered for the hall. I'd place him at about 450-550 HR's. i guess we will never no though. After the 1998 season Barry Bonds had 411 HR's. He also became a member of the 400HR/400SB club during the season. Up to that point he had won 3 MVP awards. Barring a career ending injury, he likely would have hit 500 HR's and still could have stole 500 bases as well. He would likely have been a first ballot HOFer without the roids which is what makes him (likely) doing roids so much more confusing. He didn't need to. I read the book "Juicing the Game" by Howard Bryant and in there he stated something along the lines of "steroids can make an average player good and a good player great, but what affect will steroids have on a great player?" Barry Bonds is the example of that. They make the great player superhuman.

If that's true, I don't see why it would be any harder to call a guy offsides based on being past or being a yard past. Because you don't have a yardstick to tell you exactly what a yard is. The way it is now, either the attacking player is past the defender or he isn't. Making it a yard would bring a lot more judgement into the decision.

What if instead of part of the body or the full body, they gave them a yard? That still prevents cherry picking, and won't force defenders to pack it in tight. Or maybe it would, like I said, I don't really know much about the game. I think that would make it exponentially harder to officiate, since most of the time it's one guy taking off in one direction and the other guy sliding forward in the opposite direction. Yeah, the one yard would make it much tougher because it's hard to tell what one yard is from 50 feet away. Right now either you are past the defender or not, which IMO makes it easier to call. You're right TT in that making it one yard would make offsides way harder to call. Maybe that's a good thing, with the blatant ones getting called and the close ones, that are more about one athlete beating another as opposed to cheating, only getting called sometime. But then again, why can't you just keep a ref back with the deepest players at all time. Sure that's tough in kid's leagues, but at higher levels it shouldn't be a problem, and that's where you'd want more crisp officiating anyway. The linesmen are supposed to be even with the last defender for each teams so they can make the offsides call.

What if instead of part of the body or the full body, they gave them a yard? That still prevents cherry picking, and won't force defenders to pack it in tight. Or maybe it would, like I said, I don't really know much about the game. I think that would make it exponentially harder to officiate, since most of the time it's one guy taking off in one direction and the other guy sliding forward in the opposite direction. Yeah, the one yard would make it much tougher because it's hard to tell what one yard is from 50 feet away. Right now either you are past the defender or not, which IMO makes it easier to call. You're right TT in that making it one yard would make offsides way harder to call.

First of all, anything as drastic as removing offsides isn't going to happen. The sport is wildly popular all over the world and the rules firmly entrenched, and I don't know of any widespread desire to eradicate offsides. Secondly, and most importantly, eliminating offsides would do the opposite of what you intend. Instead of the cat and mouse game of trying to time runs into open space, you'd have defenses that packed way in, and not doing nearly as much on the offensive side of the ball. So what you'd see would be even more conservative than the play you see with offsides. What about relaxing offsides as opposed to minimizing it? I don't understand the rule all that well, but from what I can tell, I agree with your theory of what would happen if it was eliminated. But what if you just gave a little more leeway to the offensive player? I've seen too many would-be exciting plays stopped by the rule, when all it really was was one player beating another. You shouldn't get punished for that. I don't really think there is a way to relax the rule so to speak. Either you are offsides or your aren't. There really isn't a middle ground that you could get rid off. I understand why a lot of people don't fully understand the rule because it is fairly complicated. I was a soccer referee for a few years and did youth leagues for ages from U-10 to U-14 and I routinely had parents that didn't understand the rule shouting at me because they didn't understand it. Offsides is a judgement call right now which is makes it hard to call and therefore creates controversy.

Hopefully not long enough to pass Aaron.

I'll have a drink for them.

But ultimately, he still doesn't have the production of a number of other pitchers. I'm not saying or arguing that Cain should win the Cy Young award. But I just don't agree at all that he shouldn't be in the discussion. If I had a vote, Carpenter would get it. Look at some of the other guys that have been mentioned: Truffle brought up Cain's 3.75 ERA as reason Cain shouldn't be in the discussion. Ok, so then why did you, vance mention Smoltz (3.71) in PRC and Capuano (3.66) in WS. DKWG mentioned Derek Lowe (3.77). KingCubsFan said Cain didn't deserve it but mentioned Brad Penny (4.04). And as I stated earlier, Cain has the second best OPSA in the National League, with Carpenter being the only pitcher better than Cain. Again, I'm not saying Cain should win it but saying he shouldn't even be in the discussion is ludicrous.

Well played.

Cain NL ranks in BAA/OBPA/SLGA/OPSA are 1st/tie 6th/1st/2nd. That's why he merits discussion.

I don't think he will return to the Cubs. He'll probably stay in LA.

Hopefully UC Davis will be able to continue it's I-AA dominance this year against Youngstown State leading up to their game of the year at Cal Poly on October 7.

At Ohio State? I would say that's a safe bet.