Jed19

True. I just watched a MLB Channel piece where John Smoltz and Pedro Martinez both said, without a doubt, Bonds was the best hitter they ever faced. And both of those guys are in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

rms13

You can't really determine what baseball player did or did not use anything until 2013 when the testing policy was amended to add HGH. Even now, we all know there are new designer PED every day that come out to beat the existing tests (in all pro sports, cycling, olympics etc). Baseball players were using amphetamines back to the 60's and steroids became common in the 1980's and everything players took was a performance enhancer of some kind. I can't prove Griffey or Jeter didn't use anything just because they didn't get caught. Just because they didn't all look like the Hulk doesn't mean anything....did Lance look like the Hulk? Everyone has chosen to condemn Jeff Bagwell as part of the PED era of baseball even though there has never been proof so why do people pick and choose to accuse one player and not the other? PED, supplements, whatever you want to call them are part of sports and always have been and always will be. Hate Bonds because he's a jerk but not because he did the same thing as every other athlete that gets paid millions of dollars

Campag4life

Joe...my point back is Bond's contributing to women's cycling is like Donald Trump building a muni 9 hole golf course.
Sorry, I am not a fan of the guy with all the wonderful sports celebrities that give back. A very long list. He is at the bottom.

Campag4life

rms,
You seem knowledgeable about baseball and performance enhancing drugs.
What is your opinion on Bonds?

corrado33

Jeeze he freaking looks huge on that bike. It's weird to see someone with such big arms on a bike like that.

DrIsotope

Well now that's awfully presumptuous. You don't know what kind of power I hit for! Sure, I'm more of a contact hitter, but I'm easily an 8-10 dingers-a-year guy, so I wouldn't even need a long career to hit that 76.

D1andonlyDman

The fact that you even suggest that Jeter and Griffey may have used PEDs is emblematic of the harm that folks like Bonds and ARod and Clemens did to baseball.

Most people who's eyes were open realized that Lance was doping. A more salient question in cycling at that time was, was there anyone who was a legitimate threat to win the major endurance races who WASN'T doping?

bikepro

It's time for Al again . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

bruce19

Is Dr. Ferrari his trainer?

seymour1910

I would say this is accurate. I'm sure some situations may or may not be different, but my experience is the same. I was into body building before cycling so I was pretty big when I got started. Finding jersey's was a pain. I actually used a couple sleeveless jersey's because the others were uncomfortable. I didn't make it a point to see who the groups were made up of, but I often noticed I was the only black cyclist in all the group rides I did.

I acutually showed up for a early saturday morning ride once, when I rolled up everyone just stopped what they were doing. I introduced myself and asked if it was okay to ride with them. The ride leader said yes, then instructed me on the route and how they do things. All was good then right before we started the ride one guy leaned in and said "we don't usually see any of you guy's out here". He apologized after he said it, but I didn't take offense at all. I think he was just being honest.

Nachoman

He wears nice jerseys.

gregf83 

You think the high profile guys that got caught were the only ones using steroids? Seems a little naive. If you're really disgusted by anyone taking illegal performance enhancing drugs you'd have a hard time finding many players to watch in professional sports.

milkbaby

I certainly disapprove of Bonds use of PEDs and lying about it. I don't know much about his personal life, but it seems like he's no angel. However, women's pro cycling is a sport that gets little to no financial support, such that many riders don't even get paid a salary.

Kudos to him for helping support a team out of enthusiasm for the sport of cycling, and good for him that he is supporting a women's team especially considering how low on the totem pole women's cycling is. When a team like Specialized Lululemon was a top team in women's cycling but folds like a house of cards (and just how deep at Specialized and Lululemon's pockets?), that shows how much women's cycling needs support.

You could count me in as a "Lance-hater" as I agree with his lifetime ban from cycling. I believe he totally screwed people over on personal vendettas and ruined careers to prop up his career of lies. But if there were a way he could be allowed to do the same as Bonds, I would still give him props for doing it. It doesn't forgive all the crimes of his past, nor does it even count as penance, it's just doing something positive for other people. I'm sure there are teams that would refuse support from LA, but there are others that would. I only bring him up as a comparison between two tainted athletes and my personal opinions as to how I feel with respect to the story at hand.

Campag4life

Its always complicated. I am no lover of Lance either. And yes, he used his cancer foundation as a shield to bolster his status but it still has/had undeniable benefit. What has superstar Bonds done for the public with the countless millions he has made? My point about him. His support of women's cycling is nebulous compared to what he could have accomplished. I would say more of the greats than not give back at some level.
But it is hard to find a hero today and any sort of moral compass coinciding with pure athletic talent is incidental. Lets take Tom Brady. Brady is a 'freak' about ball pressure. Off the chart fanatical. His lies in front of the public about not knowing anything about it are the same lies we have heard from many sports celebrities about performance enhancing drugs...a long list. All top quarterbacks have a preference on ball pressure btw. Some like the ball a bit over pressurized. The superbowl was a blow out and the last half was played with correct ball pressure but it still comes down to cheating and implications for games in the regular season and playoffs. Brady gets a pass forgive the pun because he is a lot nicer guy publically than Bonds ever was and because of his hot wife.

D1andonlyDman

Not at all, I generally buy the estimates that between 40 and 70% of pro athletes were using PEDs during the period from the mid 1990s through, say 2005-1010. But I DO think that there are telltale signs of doping, and also telltale characteristics of guys who DON'T dope. Mainly, it's about changes to body type, recovery from injury, and trajectory of one's career. Guys like Jeter and Griffey were lean, and they never got substantially more muscular over time. When they got bigger late in their careers, they got fatter and their added mass was lower on their bodies than the guys who doped, whereas guys like Bonds, McGwire, and ARod got bigger in terms of upper body muscle mass. Jeter and Griffey also clearly lost bat speed at a stage in their careers that folks like Bonds did not, and their injury recovery time in their late thirties was noticeably slower than some of the known juicers who had similar injuries. There were also some statistical anomalies that were telltale giveaways: Such as: Brady Anderson suddenly going from a 12-20 HR guy to a 50 HR guy in one year. Bonds suddenly going from a 30-40 HR guy to a 73 HR guy.

Similarly, a pitcher like Pedro Martinez did not undergo the same sort of body type changes that Roger Clemens did, and as Pedro got older, the number of pitches per outing that he maintained his effectiveness clearly declined much faster than Clemens did. Pedro was as lean at the end of his career as he was at the start, but he also went from being a dominant 8-9 inning pitcher to a 6 inning pitcher. Clemens went from being largely ineffective for a 3 year stretch as he hit age 30, to becoming totally dominant for the next 8 years. That NEVER happened to power pitchers before PEDs.

And you are right about the fact that the PED era resulted in me becoming much less interested in watching all sorts of professional sports.

When Floyd Landis "won" his Tour, his penultimate stage performance was so off the charts relative to anything he'd ever done before that I KNEW, and commented before the results were in, that he'd obviously exceeded any prior PED regimen he had done, and would fail his post-stage test. The same thing was true with Ben Johnson and his 100 meter olympic final. There are certain telltale anomalies that just can't happen through normal training and biology.

kc0bbq

His foundation seems to operate pretty quietly, but that isn't uncommon (Kevin Garnett's, for example). Shouting about the good you are doing doesn't make it more good in any way.

Lazyass

Yeah, I don't know. There's riches to be had today for those born with the talent. Most never heard of this guy.

Who Was Major Taylor?

TrojanHorse

Excellent - this one is easier to get through:

BlazingPedals

During roids (needs a shave,) after roids:



More and more, I'm not a fan of any professional sports.

eyewannabike

I always get a chuckle out of people complaining about modern baseball players. The PED use wasn't always for batting records. They were and are still commonly used for injuries. It wasn't like Bonds had no game. He likely has the best, most compact swing in the history of baseball.

People do also give a lot of passes to historical figures. Babe Ruth has admitted to it. Hank Aaron's home run percentage started to increase the older he got. That's certainly not normal and suggests that he might have been experimenting.

Does This Prove That Hank Aaron Was Juicing? « CBS Detroit

Then you have other players like Ty Cobb. Aside from being an avid racist, he would sharpen his spikes on use them on anyone trying to stop him from stealing a base. he also kicked the hell out of a guy who had no hands, probably a war vet.

Bonds. He's not so bad when you put things in context.

CNC2204

Maybe Bonds can do for cycling what he's done for baseball.


Mmmm .... what is it that he's done for baseball again ?

Seattle Forrest

This made by people who can't understand sarcasm, to explain their condition to the rest of the world?

TrojanHorse

I'm not sure it was designed to explain sarcasm, although it's certainly dripping with it.

indyfabz

You should get out more.

And did you never hear of Nelson Vails: Nelson Vails - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lazyass

Odd reply.

Yes. And I have heard of Major Taylor as well. I posted it above