Mickey Mantle: Cheater

No word on if he was a pants pisser or pants shitter.

http://deadspin.com/looks-like-mickey-mantle-used-to-cork-his-bat-489467933

 

I'll be curious how much play this story gets.

 

Deadspin's never-ending pro-PEDs campaign notwithstanding, corked bats and PEDs are absolutely not the same.

Corked bats don't force your fellow athletes into a Hobson's choice between their long-term health or their career.

That's the problem with PEDs.

 

You're right, corked bats are worse.

 

Meh. Cheating's cheating. The long term health consequences (much of which is speculative and unproven anyways) doesn't make the two much different to me if the guy voluntarily chose to take that risk.

Besides, if stories like this help dispel the notion that baseball's bygone eras were somehow inherently more pure and clean, fine by me. Players from Mantle's era were looking for any angle to cheat too--whether it be gobbling amphetamines, corking bats, using files and/or spit on balls, whatever--if it gave an advantage, they'd give it a try. And they'd have been gobbling steroids if available too.

 

so when Gibson and Pedro temporarily lost their pinpoint control to brush back and intimidate batters that's within the rules of the game?

 

It's not about their own health. It's about the risk that they force their colleagues into: Take PEDs and risk your health. Or else.

 

They're no "forcing" anybody.

 

Huh? I have no idea how this question is relevant to my prior post.

 

Yes, they are. They are forcing them to make a choice they shouldn't have to make.

 

Yes, exactly. That's why it's a large degree different than corking. There are complications that don't enter into the corking decision. Deadspin, in its pro-PEDs crusade, which is really just another anti-MSM crusade, conveniently just breezes past that.

 

You just altered the wording and, thus, the meaning. Dick's wording suggested that players were being forced to take PEDs, which is bullshit.

You're suggesting that they are being forced to "make a choice", hence acknowledging that they have the free will option of saying no. Big difference there. Being forced to "make a choice" doesn't exactly cause me great concern.

And so what if they "shouldn't have to make" it? We all have to make tough choices every day that "we shouldn't have to make." We all see people who get ahead by cheating and/or law-breaking, and could do the same if we wanted to run the risk. We shouldn't have to make that choice. Players shouldn't have to choose whether to cork bats to keep up either. Not sure why that factor makes one brand of cheating worse than the other.