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Originally Posted by PowerManDL
The thing of it is, as has been mentioned so often, it's really hard to say where the line is drawn.
Steroids increase muscle mass, they increase recovery ability, and some of them can increase motor output (aka strength, power).
As a general rule using steroids to improve sports like baseball, tennis, anything with a fine skill requirement, is the equivalent of trying to get better handling out of your drifting Nissan Skyline by sticking a V-12 in it.
A brute-force solution to a problem that requires elegance, in other words.
There's no doubt that being stronger has contributed to his success, from a simple physics standpoint. Being able to apply more force to the ball, and to do so consistently over entire seasons, will no doubt play a role.
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I do think that there are more factors besides just plain force though.
Bonds' had a hell of a batting eye before he started to get huge; some of the OBPs that he posted while with the Pirates are disgusting. However, as he got older, those OBPs got sicker. (thanks in large part also to the amount of intentional walks that he received.)
I tend to think that you're underestimating the ability that the amount of force produced influences the game. If you can increase your bat speed, you can wait longer on the pitch. Waiting longer on the pitch allows you to obviously see where it's going to go a little bit more, and you have time to make your decision. If you know that your bat speed is faster, you don't have to rush your swing, and you can stay on balance more efficiently.
Bonds, or any other hitter for that matter (I really do hate picking on Bonds because there were infinitely more players that have juiced) can sit back and wait, and you make better contact when you're behind the ball. Better contact+better batspeed=harder and longer batted balls.
And if steroids do improve your hand-eye coordination, then Bonds could have made better contact, and better contact coupled with the above factors is going to equal more homers.
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But by the same token, you can't just take any guy off the street, give him the same drug regimen, and get the same results. Joe Average probably won't have the coordination, the general athletic skill, the responses to AAS, and so on.
It's hard to quantify what kind of gains and athletic carryover would actually result from pharmaceutical assistance. In bodybuilding and powerlifting it's easy. More muscle is good for everybody, and more aggression/central stimulation yields more strength. But it doesn't affect fine motor skills that way.
The real benefit for these guys: recovery is strongly enhanced. Volumes of work that would slaughter a mortal are suddenly quite tolerable. That's the real magic that steroids work on this kind of sport. In a sense it'd be a better analogy to say that steroids simply boost the qualities that are already present.
In that sense, I think we're in agreement.
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Yes, we definitely are.
Bonds was going to break down, and has somewhat. But like I said, at what point can we cap Bonds' natural limitations and say "well, he would have hit 650 homers without the juice"
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That's a really hard question to answer. Unfortunately we just don't have that kind of data so any guess would be a very wild speculation (i.e., pulled from my ass).
The real question to me, though: how much does that distinction matter?
Are people really watching sports for some measure of sanctity? Or are they watching for the end result? I'll get back on topic before this spirals into a rant on the role of sports in our society.
For example, what differentiates improvement of the athlete from improvement of equipment?
Or hell, let's go even further: what differentiates improved training methods, improved nutrition, improved recovery/restoration methods, improved supplements, ad infinitum, from AAS usage?
In other words, why are we drawing the line in the sand with AAS considering the amount of money, time and research spent maximizing every other aspect of the athlete? It seems somewhat out of place.
Thoughts?
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Oh, we're watching it for the end result. Just like those "chicks dig the longball" things. I'd much rather watch a bunch of talented players half ass it than a bunch of "gamers" with no talent go at it.
In regards to equipment, I really think that it's a fair question to ask. However, I think that in regards to equipment evolution, that everyone is on the same playing field. Obviously, everyone has access to steroids, just like they would to the newest carbon fiber driver or whatever.
It's obviously not nearly as simple as that and I have no idea how much I want to go on about it. But I do think that we get into the whole thing about being against an arbitrary set of rules. Steroid use is illegal (whether we like it or not) and against the rules in almost all competitive sports, it's just that some didn't test. I think the ethical slope is where people start to dismiss the records as being flawed. (in regards to the equipment thing, what cracks me up is that first in baseball the balls were juiced, then it was Bonds' maple bats. There was never any suggestion that these guys were getting help.
I hope I'm clear in regards to the last paragraph. I'd love to get into this more if you want. The whole thing about steroids is fascinating to me. (I need to read the pieces in last week's Sports Illustrated)