Yoda wrote:I heard Brian Roberts was doing roids too! I mean how do you expect 8 HR in April?
ps I also heard he had a third nipple but that could just be a rumor.
Yoda, I respect your right to continue to believe in "innocent until proven guilty."
Unfortunately, MLB, the Commissioner of MLB, AND the Players Union have so clearly abused the non-existent drug policy for so many years that baseball fans have been almost forced to adopt stances of guilt or innocence based purely on opinion.
1 year ago, what would your reaction have been if someone had come on the boards and said: "Giambi, McGwire and Bonds were definitely on roids. Look at their bodies. Look at their heads. No way can they hit that many homers without help." There was no factual evidence that EITHER of these guys did anything illegal. So they were innocent. That didn't stop MILLIONs of baseball fans from saying, "Bullshit. These guys are doing something." We had no evidence, no insider news, but the players had traits that made it very easy to form an opinion that something might not be right.
Slowpitch has done what many other fans have done. Looked at Gagne, seen a similar vault in prolific stats, expansive body type, and unspecified injury happenings that fall in line with what made us form our initial opinions on guys like Mark, Barry, and Giambi that turned out to be true.
I don't want Gagne to be on steroids, I like Gagne, but baseball has put itself in the position of having to have fans like me draw up my own opinions that make me THINK that he might be on steroids.
...and per your example of Brian Roberts: Have you not heard people talking about him? You say that flippantly like, "I bet people think Brian Roberts is on Roid's, too! HA!" Jesus, every fantasy owner that DOESN'T own him is saying he's on steroids. Hell, if he goes 40-40, I will, too. For now, though, I'll reserve the right to brush it off as a hot streak that will cool down to a more believable 15-20 jacks. And as you know from reading the boards the past month, we can go on and on and on about whether that is a realistic homer total for Brian Roberts.