BuzzerBeater Forums

Im one of those-'Babe was awesome, probably saved the game, but his game wouldnt have hed up in today's game' kind of guy. Think Adam Dunn only........not that healthy.

John Goodman is awesome as the Babe in that movie. Great American Character.

Its very hard to compare players from different eras. Ruth was clearly the best player of his time and he changed baseball and ended the dead ball era and style of play.

If you put Babe Ruth in a time machine and transported him to today, I agree, he might not do particularly well against the modern athlete.

But if he was a 25 year old growing up with all the advantages of the modern time period, would he be competitive? A star? An MVP? Really hard to say...

Agreed. However in the case of Ruth, who was an extremely compulsive person who didnt listen to anyone or do what he was told unless he wanted to, the whole 'if he had grown up now' doesnt seem to apply. I am sure that many great atheletes from then could have been able to do it now with modern training etc. In Ruth's case though, I think he had his best shot then and wouldnt have made it now, not with his antics and ...........freewill.

btw, MLB has banned HGH but they don't run blood tests for it due to objections from the players union (for other reasons)

Why would the players union object I wonder? Big bucks always trumps right and wrong.

Regular blood testing would be a fairly unprecedented invasion of privacy

Drug testing as a condition of employment is not unheard of. Adherence to league rules and policies is a condition in every major league contract.

Players are already drug tested. Blood testinog, however, is abnormal as a condition of employment, and it raises a great deal of legitimate privacy questions.

Yeah that's a nice thought experiment and all but in the end it would obviously benefit nobody. (also it'd be illegal due to drug laws)

The better approach would be for MLB to end its hypocrisy regarding PEDs, as its current position is "whatever's profitable is OK" because they either have to take a moral stance or take no stance at all. imo, the line should be drawn at supplements which cause harm to a player's body. (with necessary considerations for legality, of course.)

Steroids have more to do with injury recovery and playing into advanced age than they have to do with sheer performance, anyways. The media has sensationalized it because the media is for idiots. Barry Bonds was huge when he did roids because he worked out like a maniac - the roids just allowed him to pull it off in his late 30s. He hit homers not because of steroids, but because he was Barry Bonds, one of the greatest hitters to ever grace the planet. Steroids just let him keep being Bonds when he should have been declining.*

The question is, does MLB want players risking long-term health for short-term gains in injury recovery and old-age fitness? Honestly, the jury's out. Anabolic steroids, like anything, have positives and negatives, but the health risks are pretty well documented** and that's enough to ban them imo. That's MLB's call, though. The league has sponsorship deals with corporations involved with cigarettes, alcohol, fast food, sugary/carbonated drinks, the Internet, cars, and a lot of things with gigantic health risks, so I'm not counting on it to put down a great foot of morality on this one, but rather to meekly appease the fans and fatten their pockets.


*whoa, I now have an entirely different outlook on BB's "career extension" trainers

**I know there's dissenting opinion on this - if anyone disagrees, I seriously really want to hear your argument, I want to learn more about this but I haven't had the chance, and especially as someone who gets frightened by high school bio concepts much less academic hard science, it can be hard to get past the sensationalism and pseudoscience

Last edited by RiseandFire at 11/6/2011 10:45:53 AM