the ignorance in baseball ownership/ mgmt these days, i thought it was more of the peds these guys put in in their bodies that was causing the body to break down, now i'm startin to think even more its the pre- season games, too many too soon, and for what, the mighty buck! just dumb, these guys are gettin off planes, some coming from cold states and a week or 2 later have to be in game shape?
And I know this is going to sound ridiculous but can you be in to good of shape. Hammy's tight, Muscles ripped but maybe not fluid. Hell, Babe Ruth was never hurt and he had some training regiment.
Gee I don't know, but I manage to stay in shape year round, so do many of you. I know a lot of folks that do tri's, don't see them getting hurt. I'm not very impressed with MLB conditioning. Now being in SoCal, I see a lot of MiLB kids working in the gym over the winter. Somehow they are losing this discipline in the show.
don't you think there's a difference when you have to perform in front of an audience? back when i played yea, you were supposed to come into spring training in shape, but, i was coming from NY, jan feb, where was i gonna face live pitching out doors, what kind of elements did i encounter b4 getting to fla, ariz, , these guys are coming off planes and in 2 weeks are on TV lettin it all out, adenaline flowin, thats a recipe for a hammy, quad tear, oblique, shoulder issue...
Good point, I was Upstate and there was only so much work you could do inside. In the 70's hitting tennis balls off a pitching machine seemed big, then you met your fellow teammates who just finished playing 50 games in the south over the winter.
Not buying it, total cop out. You be professional and you train and condition accordingly. If weather is your foe, at their salaries they can go workout somewhere warmer.
totus, i agree with you, but, most athlete's work ethic is not up to par... i told this story in the past, minor leaguers and big leaguers are kept seperated in their repective cities for a reason, and work ethic was the biggest.. when i was in the cub org, the big boys facility was having work done to it, they had to use one of our fields, let me get to point, they were so adamant about NOT letting us see what they were doing to get n shape for the season that they lined up every coach in org. down in a line to block what they were doing, if we got caught looking over we were, pending on who it was , either put on a plane next day,, wind sprints or some other form of torture just for lookin, and you know what the big boys were doin? makin commercials, being intereviewed, running if THEY wanted to, while we were going through BOOT camp!
...these players make a ton of money so it behooves them to take care of their bodies without the supervision of guidance of their teams. if a player does not stay in reasonable shape on his own during the off season it's his own fault and 3 weeks of ST is not going to overcome 5 months of total slothness...if he doesn't take his craft serious enough he likely won't get a fat contract next time around. ...players in all sports get injured regardless of their physical conditioning regimen...but many injuries can be avoided by simple stretching and warming up before the game. ...I just don't see the problem.
Its amazing when I think of players 40-50+ years ago that needed to work other jobs during the off season just to make ends meet & still came back in proper shape for the start of the baseball season.
I know, everyone on this board would give anything to have the chance he has, and he seems to just not get it. It doesn't matter now, but you wonder that internally if the Yankees knew this about him?
They've already said that in all likelihood he won't play this year. When you think of all the young guys who would give there left nut to get the chance he got & he throws it away. I'm sure even his family is going "HEY ASSHOLE! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?"
the players make a ton of money, yes, and if they are in that good a shape because it behooves them to do so then why did they jeopardize their careers by takin peds?
...because they were greedy...and regardless of how much of an athlete they already were, they still wanted an extra edge and so they turned to PEDS which gave them an advantage that they would not have had otherwise. ...it's not like Bonds, Mac, Sosa, ARod, Braun, and the endless list of others, were not already in great shape before taking PEDS.
There is a psychological basis too, beyond greed. In my mind greed is too simple, I'd add to that, vanity. I also think there is a big distinction between the guys that were just taking the orally active testosterone and androgenic compounds, vs. the guys that dialed this up to include injectibles and formulations designed to beat testing. I'm pretty sure that Sosa and Mac were the poster child's for popping pro-test andro supplements. The line got crossed by Barry, Roger, Canseco, etc. I have a hard time crucifying guys that took growth hormone alone because there is a fine line there between medical justification and abuse. Keep in mind, back in the 90s and early 00s....even 'natural' body building competitions didn't view the OTC supplements as PEDs, they were allowed. Everyone in the gym back in those days was a pharmacologist, among the bb crowd anyway. Anyway, my point here is that vanity was the main cultural driver for supplement use/abuse. That professional athletes could leverage their resources and use their vanity to increase wealth was secondary to feeding the raging ego (of which greed was a component).
