Are Steriods Completely Bad for Baseball?

I went to the Red Sox game last night and had a great time, even though they lost. As always I got so lost in the experience of the game that I completely forgot all my school problems, to do list for tomorrow, and all my other worries outside the safe heaven of Fenway Park. The only thing that was bothering me this night was that David Ortiz, he doesn't deserve the name Big Papi right now, had strucken out three times when he should have been creating the offensive spark the team so needed so badly being down the entire game. I looked at him as he walked back to the dugout after he went for the last "k" that night. He looked tired, not as bulky, not even really like a baseball player. He probably took the roids, I thought to myself. This doesn't mean I'm positive that he did but if I had to guess, him with about 70% of the league has taken steroids at one point. And now look at all the supposedly great power hitters who are hitting around .200 and on a pace to hit 10 home runs the entire season like David Ortiz, Jason Giambi, and Adrian Beltran. So I made up a little scenario if David Ortiz had taken steroids the past few years.

2004 is when he first made a big name for himself in baseball. He carried the Red Sox on his shoulders most of the playoffs and developed the name "Big Papi". Then between and including the years of 2004 and 2006 he amassed 143 home runs. In 2006, a year the Sox didn't even make the playoffs, he was the one of the man reasons that Fenway was sold out every night, so that people could witness his historic run to breaking the Red Sox franchise record for most home runs. " Big Papi" didn't just make baseball interesting for Red Sox fans, but all of baseball loved him. He hit tons of walk off homeruns and RBI's with his powerful bat and huge smile. He made the MLB better, improved it. But say that this year or next year someone finds out that he took steroids. The very same steroids that allowed him to win over Boston, New England, and eventually the Nation. Does this mean that him making baseball more exciting, more entertaining, and him making more money for the MLB was bad because he took performance enhancers?

THE WAY I SEE IT- This is just one scenario, the same type of questions could be asked about Manny, A-Rod, Barry Bonds, the list goes on. And to tell you the truth I don't 100% know the answer. One thing that has been ingrained in my head from, I guess the media, is that any type of steroids are bad. And I do agree that they take away from the sport, but does this mean that everything associated with these drugs makes baseball worse? I don't know but you could argue they allow players to take baseball to new levels of ability and excitement. I'm not sure and no one else is who I’ve asked, so I guess only time will tell.

Joe Torre

Last night I was searching around ESPN.com, looking at the baseball headlines, and I came across ESPN's "20 years of baseball" allstar team. I took the ballot and submitted it to the website. After I had done so the voting percentages came up and I scrolled down the list. Albert Pujols 70% for first base, yup I voted for him too, a tight race for third between A-Rod, Wade Boggs, and Chipper Jones, don't know about that one it's definitely a toss up, and after looking at few other results I finally I came to the Managers. And some how Joe Torre had gotten the top spot by, at least for me, a stunning 13%. This made me wonder how a man with such high caliber of talent every year, maybe not as much with the Dodgers but definitely with the Yankees, could not win a championship for the last eight seasons, and still be the top manager in the past 20 years. Now before I go any further I just want to point out why an idea like this would pop into my head. First, he hasn't won a championship since I was four when I didn't care about baseball, and second he was a Yankee, a team I despised my entire life (yes I can tell that in the future I'll hate them too). But then I started looking back and realized it wasn't everybody else who was voting who was wrong it was me.
The guy had won four World Series Championships in the period of five years, had .605 wining percentage, and top it off had won almost every award in baseball. That includes a gold glove, nine all star appearances, two managers of the year, the Hutch Award (honestly I don't know what it is either), and finally a NL MVP.
THE WAY I SEE IT- My half an hour of research has lead me to believe that Joe Torre is not only a fantastic Manager but also a great baseball player. His work is still showing this very day with his Dodgers sitting first in the MLB with 25 wins. He'll be a sure Hall of Famer and might even add a fifth championship ring to his already impressive resume.

By the way the link for that all star voting thing is http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/polling?event_id=3817

Steven Stransburg: The Greatest MLB Prospect Ever

How is it that a kid at SDSU (San Diego State University) can throw 99 mile per hour with accuracy, have a 11-0 season so far, pitch an average of 7.24 innings per game and still have a 1.24 ERA, while having 164 strikeouts. That last number alone seems almost impossible. But some how a 20 year old from SDSU has an astounding 164 strikeouts over 12 appearances, averaging 13 per game. Most baseball fans know that some guy in Caly had 23 strikeouts in one game this year and that he's baseball's number one prospect, but did you also know that he has around a 1/10 walks to strikeout ratio, or that out of the 299 batters that faced him this year only 11 of them got past second base on a single hit, or finally that the end of the year strike out leader last year only had 141 strikeouts while this year Stransburg already, as I said before, has 164 (even though Matusz, the leader last year, had made three more appearances).

THE WAY I SEE IT- So when draft day comes around this year and Steven goes number one, like everyone predicts he will, please don't get too mad, shocked, or what ever else you feel when someone gets a giant paycheck thanks to Scott Boras, simply because this guy deserves it. He's a freak of nature who already looks to be a great, if not that, then definitely a very good pitcher of the upcoming years. So Washington, the place of many mistakes on and off the baseball diamond over the past few year, cough... the white house...cough, please don't make another one by trying to get a cheaper player. Because you guys really need this guy. Steven Stransburg, a name that you'll keep hearing for a very long time.

Manny Ramirez, now and forever a big question mark.

So this evening when I started writing this post, the one thing I had in mind was to not write about Manny Ramirez. The reason being everything I have watched, read, and seen in the past few days has constantly and consistently talked about Manny's secret love affair with "performance enhancers." So I sat and thought for a while and tried to think about some other big story in baseball I could write about. And I just kept on coming back to Manny Ramirez's suspension.
The reason being that Mr. Ramirez, whether you liked him or not, always had a lot of talk about how he was the best there was and even if he wasn't the very best, he was extremely good. Whenever his team needed him to step up and make the play, get that RBI, or get a home run and boost them to a victory, he did. Now don't get me wrong; this doesn't mean he was a team player because obviously he wasn't, but just because of his baseball ability, he made a good team great. I grantee that even the best pitchers were scared to face him with runners on base. That could be why he is 12th in career intentional walks and third among active players.
He created a whole image that he might not be the best teammate and might have a lot of swagger, but he could always make up for it with his performance. But now, after all those years of talking big and living up to it, his cockiness and bad attitude are just empty words and nothing more now with his suspension.
He was a future hall of famer, had hit more than 500 home runs, was a 12 time all star, has a career .315 batting average, and finished in the top ten for MVP voting 8 times in his 17 seasons. Not to shabby, eh? But of course that is all severely diminished now that he has taken steroids. Those four words are almost a death sentence in baseball because they tarnish everything the player did and accomplished even if that player didn't take steroids most of the time. The lingering question of what if is enough for most people.
THE WAY I SEE IT- To me it wouldn't matter if Manny was suspended for a month, like he is, or for the rest of his career simply because he has solely destroyed everything he has done and worked for by having that ever-living asterisk next to his name. His image as a baseball player will never be the same and hopefully neither will his cocky attitude, even though I don't think anyone would buy it anymore. For me, and for most people now, just the thought of him makes the word steroids pop up into my head. So anyone up for a little game for word association? Manny Ramirez - steroids, baseball, dreads, a million dollar smile (actually more like 23 million dollar smile), a great player, but more than anything else a big question mark (or an asterisk if you prefer it).

Hi, I'm Seamus Matlack of Boston, MA and I'm 13 years old. I first started writing for sports review magazine last summer and have continued until now. Being from the Boston area I have of course become a huge fan and borderline obsessed with their sports. I only live a few blocks away from both the Boston Garden and Fenway so really where ever I go around where I live, Boston sports surround me. Thankfully though I have been able to branch out to other teams across the nation and do pay even more attention to overall statistics and standings then to my hometown teams (can't blame me though if I sway towards Boston sports in certain topics because ... um ... they are the best). The sports I will be covering are mostly baseball, and when that ends or is close to ending I'll probably start writing about college football and college basketball. Everyone of my blogs will have an included the way I see it section where when I am done covering a certain topic I'll tell how I see it through the eyes of an obsessed, analytical, funny, Irish (not sure why I put that in), Bostonian, 13 year old sports writer.