Reggie Jackson: The Game Has Let Me Down

[HAT]

I guess one had to be there............


:think2:

No doubt Fish.....I thought I had made that clear with the "so fawking random" part.

I'm just under 40 so obviously anything Reggie did on the field is an Angel memory to me and not a Yankee one.

The fact that some random Mexican shouted an incoherent 'slam' about a candy bar having lice is pretty GD funny to me two and a half decades later. I wouldn't expect it to be relevant to anybody but me.

Same as one of your "rivals" (Or: a guy you played a few hands of poker with) blowing his head off in an Indian casino wouldn't be relevant to most of us here.

Do you have a point?

:think2:

 

[barman]

Reggie was one reason why this Dallas Tx kid got caught up in NYY fever during the 1977-1981 stretch when they won three AL flags and two WS

Reggie...one of MLB's few players of my baseball fan lifetime (1968 forward) with 5 rings

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[HarryCaray]

MLB been declining for years now. 1/3rd of the teams operate in the negative.

The youngens like me(people in the 20's) are NBA and NFL fans before MLB fans.

It is no coincidence that the NBA and NFL continue to slope forward while MLB has plateaued.

Speak for yourself. I am 28 and an MLB fan first.

 

[billhill999]

Being sarcastic here.
Make the fences 1000 feet and let the players shoot up whatever the hell they feel like.

 

[FairWarning]

After the strike and canceled world series Sosa and Mac brought back the fans.

Hell MLB knew what was going on.

I don't blame Reggie for feeling let down.

This is why Selig is a colossal failure. He sold out the game for corporate bucks. Bettman tried to in the NHL, but the placement of teams in the south has proven to be a bad move.

 

[gtc08]

Speak for yourself. I am 28 and an MLB fan first.

your one of the few. I dont mind MLB if I have nothing to do, but I will watch NBA and NFL games before I would even think of turning on a MLB game.

Game is to slow. The players are not true athletes. I think its an embarrassment that someone like CC Sabathia is labeled an athlete and put in the same category as lebron as an athlete. The league is held up by the Yankees and Red Sox, like the NHL is held up by the Maple Leafs. There is a huge drop off after the Red Sox and Yankees, just as there is a huge drop off after the Leafs. The only thing MLB has going is history, but people care less and less as the years go by.

I thought the NHL was going to be hit hardest the most by the economic problems, but it looks like MLB will take it, and take it hard.

 

[gtc08]

actually i'll take that back about MLB. NHL got pounded this year. When you have a team filing for bankruptcy and nobody willing to buy it you know your league is dead.

 

[gtc08]

dont waste time arguing for the NHL in the south. they dont belong there. nobody wants them there. Phoenix is basketball and football.

and actually the NBA is doing great right now. looking at team valuations, there doing better then MLB. have better ratings then MLB. have better tv network deals the MLB. have better global exposure then MLB and have more known players then MLB.

dont even try and defend the coyotes. they belong in canada like the rest of the league outside of a team here and there. this is not a global sport like basketball and nobody cares about the coyotes in phoenix.

there team value, attendance are proof of that, and that was years before the recession, starting back in 2002.

if your going to come to the table, at least make it worth my time heh.

 

[Ladeda]

ladeda, any links for something Neyer has written about that?

Steroids were not a schedule III drug until 1990 so I would be very suprised to hear that someone who wanted to try them and had the money couldn't find them

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/sweetspot/0-2-32/MannyLand-takes-50-games-off.html
Here is a link to something regarding the Manny thing from the past week. I've seen mention of the "older players admitting they would have as well" stuff for years now but have no idea how I would go about finding those articles. Here is a paragraph from it:

"As any number of retired players have said, if steroids had been readily available in the 1960s and '70s, they'd have been popular then, too. At the highest levels of competition, athletes will look for whatever edges they can find, and most of them make little distinction between spitballs and corked bats and banned pharmaceuticals. Whether they're right or wrong is, to some degree, your call."


Now I'm not saying a player had no way of getting them back them, cause I'm sure if they tried hard enough they could. By "readily available" I mean that it is all over the place and it is proven to be really effective.
What I'm saying is that these old time players had no supernatural morals that players today are missing. The legendary players who were at the top wouldn't let a bunch of lesser players pass them by and just sit there and do nothing if steriods were all over the locker room. For many reasons, most of all their competitivness and for money.

Bonds is a perfect example. Considered one of the top 3 players in baseball when a skinny twirt, he began getting crushed in the numbers game by roiders, McGwire, Sosa, Juan Gonzalez etc etc etc. So he has two choices. Stay clean, still be a great all around player and hit 30-35 HRs a year. Or he can start doing what the other players are doing and get on the steriods and become top 3 player again.

Personally I'm kind of glad he did because we saw what just average hitters with great power can do on the juice. Then we got to see what an All Timer type player could do juiced up and it was pretty damn amazing. Basically he became the most ridiculously scary offensive hitter ever. Basically would hit .350 and hit 70 hrs/ year if he as pitched too.

 

[gtc08]

i struck a chord at you when i went after the league. fairwarning used to be like that. he'll even tell you the nhl is miles behind the big 3. you are the only one who defends the league.

just admit your sport is dead in this country. you have supposedly the biggest matchup ever with sid vs. ovechkin, and sponge bob square pants gets higher tv ratings. nobody cares about the league.

like i said, dont come to the grown up table if your going to act like a kid. bring some meat to the table, or stick with your NHL in the kiddie corner. understand?

 

[TomGshotput]

What I'm saying is that these old time players had no supernatural morals that players today are missing.

On this I agree completely

But most people in the US see drugs users as immoral, evil cheaters. If we take this position, then those who don't use drugs are automatically better than anyone who did

We could instead take the position that illegal drugs are unhealthy, but a personal choice that can be done without turning the country into a third-world nation. If we take that outlook the most we can do is figure out ways to keep the community safe from those who use them, give credit to those who don't and move on

 

[joebatters]

To me , the key is when Reggie says he is let down by the people running the game or whovever was checking it out. You can't fault the players at all because baseball has a long history of players cheating to get the advantage. From doctoring the baseball, to corked bats, even when dudes tried to trip guys running around the bases when they only had one umpire, players are going to find a way to cheat, there is no doubt about that. You have to start an end with the commissioner, Selig. I'm not sure whoever else was responsible. I'm sure media people knew as we know now, some of these guys weren't even trying to hide it. But the bottom line is that baseball was booming after the strike, which really surprised the hell out of me. People were coming out in record numbers and runs were being piled up at record numbers, nobody could figure out why.
We thought the pitching was bad, the parks were small, and the strike zone was about the size of a quarter. Remember that? Then I think that Selig became under pressure from the owners because so many players were getting outrageuos money for putting up big numbers. He couldn't care less if the players were juicing, just the fact that they were making too much money, while still of course wanting to see the turnstiles moving. And to me, I could be way off here...I am 52 been a baseball fan all my life, I didn't really see the attraction of big power numbers and 15-14 games. In my opinion , those kind of games are ok every once in a while, but I feel like a true baseball fan would appreciate 3-2 , 2-1 games
over those softball-like scores we saw when the steroid era was going full blast. But that is was a ton of fans like I guess, because that is what made the game so popular at the time.

 

[Ladeda]

I think joebatters has a point above. It would make more sense to me if Reggie meant the people running MLB when he is saying the game let him down. That is who is ultimately at fault. Every year they have owners meetings to set rules and protect the game versus probably problems.

The problem was that EVERYBODY loved the results from performance enhancing drugs. The game suffured a major blow with the strike and steriods in large part brought the game back in hyperspeed. Out of nowhere all the top players numbers skyrocketed, records where borken at amazing rates.
* the owners loved it
* the media was all over it
* the fans were amazed and eat it up

All this and it wasn't as if people had never heard of steriods. If it was suggested people blew it off or just didn't really care. It was amazing every April the announcers would talk about how this player bulked up tremendously over the offseason, or how they really hit the weight room. One that sticks out is a season where Harry Kalas kept going on and on about Mickey Morandini and how he bulked up one season, THESE PLAYERS WERE PRAISED FOR BULKING UP LIKE THIS. Or course it didn't do Morandini much good but he was still 95% roiding like so many players at that time.

The problem is after the inital euphoria of all these numbers started wearing off. Everybody started realizing at once that the numbers of this era were going to toally wipe out the record books for all the power numbers. 500 homers became nothing. The were waiting lists for 600 homers every year it seemed. Many of the players joining these clubs were fairly marginal guys who would never have sniffed 400 homers without roids, guys like Palmeiro and Sosa.

So now everybody has a problem with it.


Nobody seems to have a problem with the NFL. This is because although prevelent PEDS aren't causing the record books to be assualted.

 

[TomGshotput]

You have to start an end with the commissioner, Selig.

The players knew about it and did nothing. Management knew about it and did nothing. Media and fans knew about it and did nothing. Commissioners before him should have known about it and did nothing. When any blame is spread around so like that you cannot put much of it on any one person

If Reggie is so hurt and put off by it, why did he wait just as long as everyone else to stand up against it?