The Hands on Runs statistic determines how much weight an individual player carries in his line-up. Which players were most valuable to their team now that the 2008 season is over?
There will definitely be no A-Rod World Series opt out announcement and it is unlikely that a near $100M deal will be hashed out at a fast food restaurant, but the free agent class for 2009 contains a whole host of current All-Stars, former All-Stars, salvage cases and at least one future Hall of Famer.
The Red Sox didn't have the best regular season record in 2008, but using our metrics for overall quality, they were the best team in baseball, followed by the Cubs. How did the other 28 teams do?
RealGM Search
By James Morisette
This article about what are performance enhancing drugs and what aren't first appeared on RealGM back on May 28th, 2006. Because of what learned in the Mitchell Report, we thought it would be an appropriate time to revisit the piece.
Sports newspaper columnists, television anchormen, and radio show hosts at all levels seem to be succeeding in their mission of applying kerosene to the already smoldering fire that is the Major League Baseball steroid controversy through the abuse of two of the most cherished First Amendment freedoms our Nation’s Constitution has to offer – Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.
Since speculative news broke forth to the nation that Barry Bonds and Company have possibly used steroids, these three aforementioned entities have diligently worked around the Greenwich clock to inflame the will of readers, viewers and listeners alike through the usage of scandalous and manipulative comments like, “what kind of selfish people use steroids when they know the type of damage they do to their bodies,” and “what kind of example are these pompous athletes sending to our children by abusing steroids,” and even better, “what kind of message will we the people be sending to our children who play sports if we do not take a stand against steroid abuse.”
The most previously written quote is by far the most humorous of the three mentioned. “What about the children” seems to be the most commonly packaged scam delivered to the eyes of ears of mothers and fathers throughout this nation with children involved with athletics or with anything else involving politics for that matter.
And it is a sheer and utter shame.
So is the fact that same mothers and fathers whom consistently petition the mainstream media hotline to the U.S. Congress to conquer steroid abuse in professional baseball “because of the message it is sending to children;” whom petition Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to place asterisks next to Barry Bonds’ name when he breaks Babe Ruth’s homerun record; and whom petition baseball owners to resist retiring the names of any baseball player who abused steroids; are the same individuals whom hypocritically encourage their own children to embrace the sheer toughness, determination, and excellency possessed by modern professional sporting icons like Curt Schilling, Brett Favre, Steve Yzerman, and Dwyane Wade; all of which take performance enhancing drugs.
That is right.
While men and women serving on Congressional panels fight to prevent steroids from poisoning “one of America’s purest pastimes;” while Bud Selig assures Congress that he will launch a thorough investigation into steroid abuse; while league drug testing personnel examine athlete donated samples in laboratories throughout the nation; and while mainstream media members hammer away at computer keyboards and spit lyrics into microphones glorifying athletes similar to the ones just mentioned; the athletes similar to the ones just mentioned are currently or have in the past, injected or ingested one of the most widely distributed and abused performance enhancing drugs on the market into their own bodies.
These drugs, which are just as dangerous and much more widely abused than steroids, are called painkillers.
And they are destroying sports.
For those who do not know, two tiers of painkillers exist on the market.
First tier (non-prescribed) painkillers are used for minor aches, pains, colds, headaches, and muscular pain. These painkillers include Anacin, Advil, Aleve, Bayer, Bufferin, Excedrin, Motrin, and Tylenol amongst others.
Second tier (prescribed) painkillers are the drugs generating the most heated debate within medical communities, International and Federal Governments, and within professional athletics with regards to potency, to whom and how much to properly prescribe, and how to best control illegal distribution. Prescribed painkillers include Demerol, Vicodin, Lorcet Plus, Percocet, Percodan Oxycontin, Dilaudid, etc.
Prescribed drugs are also the drugs being most widely abused throughout the professional athletic community. The seriousness of this problem is indicated in an article filed by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). Paragraph two of this article states that the “abuse of certain prescription drugs and controlled substances such as painkillers and steroids, has become an increasingly widespread problem in the USA, leading to dangerous abuse, addiction, and sometimes fatalities.”
The article proceeds to say that “according to data collected by the Drug Abuse Warning Network (WARN), since 1995 the number of drug abuse related emergency room visits involving pain relievers such as Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin and Darvon have increased 153 percent (from 42, 857 to 108, 320).”
Furthermore, according to the California Government Health and Community Services Department, painkillers pose the following health risks:
- Nausea and Vomiting Respiratory Infection
- Stomach Pain Kidney and Liver Problems
- Loss of Balance Decreased Sex Drive
- Labored Breathing Painful or Frequent Urination
- Dizziness Menstrual Irregularities
- Lightheadedness Ulcers
- Loss of Appetite Addiction
- Blurred Vision Abnormal Restlessness
- Impaired Coordination Coma or Death Due to Overdose
From the Federal Governmental Law’s perspective, particularly the Narcotic Control Act, “it is illegal to obtain prescribed painkillers without an authorized prescription.” It is also illegal to “obtain any prescription drug containing narcotic without notifying the physician that you have received a similar prescription within the last 30 days.”
So how does all this intermingle with the sporting world?
Would you believe that the same legendary athletes – household named mortals like Wayne Gretzky, Jerry Rice, Michael Jordan, Randy Johnson, Karl Malone, and Roger Clemens, – frequently injected and/or ingested potent painkillers into their bodies during their playing days to quiet pain created by battlefield injuries?
It is true.
These men, despite knowing full well the dangerous short and long-term potential effects of taking prescription painkillers, still took them.
Why did these men partake in such activity?
“I think that’s the mentality of players,” said retired Buffalo Bill Quarterback Jim Kelly during an interview with New York Times columnist Mike Freeman, “there’s a lot at stake. Big contracts, the pressure of losing your job – a lot of things force some guys to do things that maybe they shouldn’t do. I know I played in a lot of games that I shouldn’t have been playing in, but I did.”
So do many other athletes other than the aforementioned.
In a December 2004 article titled ‘Defending Barry Bonds,’ MLB News Columnist Keith Dobkowski wrote, “we just celebrated Brett Favre’s 200th consecutive start. That streak would not exist if it were not for pain injections and pain killer medications.
Dobkowski proceeded to write that, “when the Red Sox beat the curse after 86 years, it was pain injections and performance enhancers that allowed Curt Schilling to return to the mound with a torn tendon in his ankle.”
While rebuking the argument that asterisks should be placed next to Barry Bonds’ name, Dobkowski also mentioned the fact that Willie Mays and Hank Aaron drank amphetamine juice before games to increase energy and concentration, and that Babe Ruth “was known to use a corked bat.”
Most recently, during game five of this NBA season’s first round playoff match up between the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls, Dwyane Wade, after taking a horrible, deep thigh contusion generating fall to the hardwood floor, was carried off the court and into the training room by two of his teammates where he took a pain relieving injection in his butt before gloriously returning to the court during the most critical of times to help the Heat fend off a surging Bulls team. Without that pain relieving injection, Wade would have most likely not returned to the game and Miami’s chances of winning both game five and the series in general would have deteriorated dramatically.
And these are the controlled prescription painkillers.
When it comes to illegally prescribed painkillers, professional football, of all the major American sports, seems to have the biggest problem.
Despite the fact that, according to Freeman, “the use of strong, unprescribed painkillers and anti-inflammatories is not only against league rules, it is federally illegal;” that “medical staffs say they prescribe fewer drugs and monitor their inventories better” and that “the league tests players for 10-12 substances including painkillers on a random, unannounced basis year round,” players eager enough to obtain illegal painkillers will find ways to get them.
So how do players obtain illegally prescribed painkillers?
“A few [athletes] have obtained drugs from pharmaceutical sales representatives by exchanging tickets to games or by promising access to locker rooms or to parties with NFL players,” says Freeman. “Players can get samples of Vicodin or Percocet in exchange for home or away games.”
Of course these transactions violate the Federal Controlled Substances Act, but DEA officials, during the same interview with Mr. Freeman, stated that “although they are aware such transactions occur, they are difficult to detect and result in few convictions.”
Regardless of whether painkillers are prescribed legally or obtained illegally by athletes, the fact remains that painkillers are just as dangerous to the human body, just as readily available, and just a menace to sporting society as steroids are.
Furthermore, athletes who abuse painkillers set just as bad of an example “for our children” as athletes who abuse steroids.
However, the mainstream media refuses to address this painkiller predicament.
Why?
Because the mainstream media does not give a hootenanny about cracking down on painkillers nor does it care about what type of negative message the allowance of painkiller abuse sends to our children.
There are two things the mainstream media cares about – ratings and revenue these ratings generate.
If this were not the case, ESPN would not have taken the risky chance and launch ‘Bonds on Bonds.’
And quite frankly, all of this is nothing but sheer and utter hypocrisy.
James Morisette writes on multiple topics for RealGM. He can be reached at jamesmorisette@yahoo.com
