Is Bill James off of his rocker?
SeatedCoin
Posts: 1,040
in Sports Talk
1,000 years old?
Cooperstown and the 'Roids by Bill James
"If we look into the future, then, we can reliably foresee a time in which everybody is going to be using steroids or their pharmaceutical descendants. We will learn to control the health risks of these drugs, or we will develop alternatives to them. Once that happens, people will start living to age 200 or 300 or 1,000, and doctors will begin routinely prescribing drugs to help you live to be 200 or 300 or 1,000. If you look into the future 40 or 50 years, I think it is quite likely that every citizen will routinely take anti-aging pills every day.
How, then, are those people of the future who are taking steroids every day going to look back on baseball players who used steroids? They're going to look back on them as pioneers. They're going to look back at it and say "So what?" The argument for discriminating against PED"
Cooperstown and the 'Roids by Bill James
"If we look into the future, then, we can reliably foresee a time in which everybody is going to be using steroids or their pharmaceutical descendants. We will learn to control the health risks of these drugs, or we will develop alternatives to them. Once that happens, people will start living to age 200 or 300 or 1,000, and doctors will begin routinely prescribing drugs to help you live to be 200 or 300 or 1,000. If you look into the future 40 or 50 years, I think it is quite likely that every citizen will routinely take anti-aging pills every day.
How, then, are those people of the future who are taking steroids every day going to look back on baseball players who used steroids? They're going to look back on them as pioneers. They're going to look back at it and say "So what?" The argument for discriminating against PED"
"The answer was in the Patriots eyes. Gone were the swagger and c0ck sure smirks, replaced by downcast eyes and heads in hands. For his poise and leadership Eli Manning was named the game's MVP. The 2007 Giants were never perfect nor meant to be. They were fighters, scrappers....now they could be called something else, World Champions."
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So what? Let's start with some players are as clean as whistle and are competing against players who have an advantage and breaking the rules.
I just lost all respect for Bill James. Isn't James a consultant for the Red Sox? Maybe James had prior knowledge what was about to be released about Big Poopy and maybe he wrote the article to soften the blow.
"The answer was in the Patriots eyes. Gone were the swagger and c0ck sure smirks, replaced by downcast eyes and heads in hands. For his poise and leadership Eli Manning was named the game's MVP. The 2007 Giants were never perfect nor meant to be. They were fighters, scrappers....now they could be called something else, World Champions."
Other than that, it is sort of intriguing looking to the future and how advancements can be made to prolong human life. 1,000 years old seems extremely off the track. If people live to be 1,000 years old, how on 'earth' would there be room for everybody. Seems life would find a way to trim the heard some way or another to prevent that from happening.
The anti aging drugs are picking up steam now. It may very well be the norm. Heck, it is cool that stuff like Viagra is out so that 80 year old man can be porn stars in the bedroom still.
I could see living to 125 years with advanced drugs, maybe even 150, but 200 thru 1.000...come on now!!!! Besides limited room for everyone to live what about issues like Social Security and Medical Care which already has problems of its own. Maybe James is counting on some of us living on the Moon and Mars.
"The answer was in the Patriots eyes. Gone were the swagger and c0ck sure smirks, replaced by downcast eyes and heads in hands. For his poise and leadership Eli Manning was named the game's MVP. The 2007 Giants were never perfect nor meant to be. They were fighters, scrappers....now they could be called something else, World Champions."
I don't see where steroids will allow these systems to function much longer then they do now. I don't see steroids curing cancer or any other disease that is actually killing us right now.
In actuality they might allow for people to feel better in old age but as far as making our cells last longer I don't see it.
Although my 1980's commons might be worth something if I made it that long!
I doubt PED's will be the issue.
Player: "I have never knowingly had cybernetic implants installed in my body."
WTB: 2001 Leaf Rookies & Stars Longevity: Ryan Jensen #/25
See chart here
Advancements in science are growing exponentially. There will certainly be anti-aging drugs one can take to increase life-span, however morally compromising that may be.
<< <i>I agree with James. I've long considered PEDs in sport to be just another manifestation of our collective embrace of Better Living Through Chemistry. >>
true if every player were doing it.....when only a few do it behind closed doors, its cheating (to get a better contract)
<< <i>I don't think James has any training on biology or how the mitochondria's of our cells actually work.
I don't see where steroids will allow these systems to function much longer then they do now. I don't see steroids curing cancer or any other disease that is actually killing us right now.
In actuality they might allow for people to feel better in old age but as far as making our cells last longer I don't see it. >>
aging and cancer are in the DNA....if you can change or control DNA code, you can alter the aging process...sam with cancer: if you can stop the mutation of the DNA (cancer) you stop the disease.....
we are on the cusp of being able to manipulate and control DNA...good stuff...
Steve
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<< <i>I agree with James. I've long considered PEDs in sport to be just another manifestation of our collective embrace of Better Living Through Chemistry. >>
true if every player were doing it.....when only a few do it behind closed doors, its cheating (to get a better contract) >>
I certainly understand people's distaste for rule breakers, but I guess I just think more philosophically about the use of PEDs in sport. James' example of extreme longevity is a bit, well, extreme, but his larger point seems to be that the number of performance- and health-enhancing medical interventions is only going to increase over time. The boundary between appropriate and inappropriate use of such procedures and chemicals will become increasingly blurry.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>I agree with James. I've long considered PEDs in sport to be just another manifestation of our collective embrace of Better Living Through Chemistry. >>
true if every player were doing it.....when only a few do it behind closed doors, its cheating (to get a better contract) >>
I certainly understand people's distaste for rule breakers, but I guess I just think more philosophically about the use of PEDs in sport. James' example of extreme longevity is a bit, well, extreme, but his larger point seems to be that the number of performance- and health-enhancing medical interventions is only going to increase over time. The boundary between appropriate and inappropriate use of such procedures and chemicals will become increasingly blurry. >>
that may be true, but in this case it is crystal clear...they arent supposed to be using them
<< <i>that may be true, but in this case it is crystal clear...they arent supposed to be using them >>
If you read the article you'll see that in this case (that is, in Bill James' argument/case) that before 2003 it was most certainly not crystal clear that they weren't supposed to be using them.
The MLB collective agreement doesn't say anything about owning tanks,hand grenades or forbides dog fighting but I also would assume most people would think it would be wrong because its against the law to do so.
<< <i>Yeah but weren't they always controlled substances that were illegal to have and use unless prescribed by a doctor, not some dude in a bathroom stall.
The MLB collective agreement doesn't say anything about owning tanks,hand grenades or forbides dog fighting but I also would assume most people would think it would be wrong because its against the law to do so. >>
No, a lot of the things that players cannot take now are legal substances and be purchased over the counter legally at GNC without a prescription.
As far as tanks, hand grenades and dog fights, there are laws against those things . . . laws that get enforced by the police or the government. James' point is that the PED "rules" were not being enforced. To quote him:
"It seems to me that, at some point, this becomes an impossible argument to sustain—that all of these players were “cheating”, in a climate in which most everybody was doing the same things, and in which there was either no rule against doing these things or zero enforcement of those rules. If one player is using a corked bat, like Babe Ruth, clearly, he’s cheating. But if 80% of the players are using corked bats and no one is enforcing any rules against it, are they all cheating?
One better: if 80% of the players are using corked bats and it is unclear whether there are or are not any rules against it, is that cheating? And…was there really a rule against the use of Performance Enhancing Drugs? At best, it is a debatable point. The Commissioner issued edicts banning the use of Performance
Enhancing Drugs. People who were raised on the image of an all-powerful commissioner whose every word was law are thus inclined to believe that there was
a rule against it.
But “rules”, in civilized society, have certain characteristics. They are agreed to by a process in which all of the interested parties participate. They are included in the rule book. There is a process for enforcing them. Someone is assigned to enforce the rule, and that authority is given the powers necessary to enforce the rule. There are specified and reasonable punishments for violation of the rules.
The “rule” against Performance Enhancing Drugs, if there was such a rule before 2002, by-passed all of these gates. It was never agreed to by the players, who clearly and absolutely have a right to participate in the process of changing any and all rules to which they are subject. It was not included in any of the various rule books that define the conduct of the game from various perspectives. There was no process for enforcing such a rule. The punishments were draconian in theory and non-existent in fact.
It seems to me that, with the passage of time, more people will come to understand that the commissioner’s periodic spasms of self-righteousness do not constitute baseball law. It seems to me that the argument that it is cheating must ultimately collapse under the weight of carrying this great contradiction—that 80% of the players are cheating against the other 20% by violating some “rule” to which they never consented, which was never included in the rule books, and which for which there was no enforcement procedure. History is simply not going to see it that way."
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<< <i>I agree with James. I've long considered PEDs in sport to be just another manifestation of our collective embrace of Better Living Through Chemistry. >>
true if every player were doing it..... >>
For 40 years every player was allowed to use them, according to the rules of baseball
If you really believe it was the andro or any other "precursor" found in supplements and not higher end designer steroids that these guys were taking then you are fooling yourself.
With no testing in place why would an athlete take something that works 10X less effective then the real thing? Doesn't make any sense to say that it was the over the counter supplements doing all this when in reality it was chemists and doctors backdooring the real stuff to these guys for huge money.
Yeah the supplements got banned too but they were not the real cause of this issue just window dressing.