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Murray Chass on Piazza's backne

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Van Lingle Mungo, Mar 4, 2009.

  1. shockey

    shockey Active Member

    i'd be interested to learn how many hof voters will be swayed if more and more folks report about piazza's "backne" during the steroid years. people, that right there's a smokin' gun. not sayin' reporter closed their eyes to it at the time, but knowing what we know now, seems to me i'd be swayed by this evidence.

    sorry, mike. ginger, agree or diagree?
     
  2. gingerbread

    gingerbread Well-Known Member

    Acne is not enough evidence. It's not just that more people will report it; we all used to talk about it in the press box, because Mike was one of those players who didn't mind doing interviews with his shirt off. He always had on shorts or a towel, but often was shirtless.
    He was a catcher, he wore a lot of equipment and sweat a lot. I don't remember if and when his back cleared up. I'm not saying I don't have suspicions because I always have, but thus far there is nothing but pimples and guessing.
     
  3. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    I'm not ginger, but completely disagree.

    Back acne is one symptom of steroid use, but hardly a "smokin' gun". A LOT of people continue to have acne problems throughout their lives, not just as teenagers. Not to throw him under the bus, but take a look at Julian Tavarez. If it's not treated well when you're young, or your skin is oily or continues to blemish, there's not much you can do about it.

    EDIT: And gingerbread makes a great point about catchers' equipment. That shit gets mangy.
     
  4. Smasher_Sloan

    Smasher_Sloan Active Member

    So we've gone from saying nothing in print about steroids to reporting that someone has acne on their back to suggest that they're using steroids?

    There has to be some sane middle ground.
     
  5. I love how Chass takes his 10,000th shot at sabermetrics in the "About" section of his BLOG!!!, but in his biography, he strains his shoulder patting himself on the back for breaking ground in the 1970s reporting about contract negotiations. I wonder how many old fuddy duddies in the mid-1970s were saying, "That whipper snapper Murray Chass should realize that the game isn't played by dollars and cents, it's played by human beings!"
     
  6. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Kind of like how Joe Morgan was one of the few players of his generation to truly understand the value of getting on base and run production over the traditional Triple Crown stats, but now as a broadcaster takes genuine pride in his ignorance of anything he can't see with his own eyes -- even though he confesses to not watching half the teams in the league at any given time.

    (And what he ironically fails to comprehend is that it's precisely because of the newfangled measuring tools he despises that Morgan himself has been elevated to be regarded as arguably the most complete second baseman in the history of the game.)

    People like Chass and Morgan puzzle me. Just seems like it takes more energy to hold on to that ignorance than it does to accept something "new". I dunno, maybe I'm too young to understand that feeling.
     
  7. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    i think you're being a little overly dramatic when you say "few."
     
  8. Small Town Guy

    Small Town Guy Well-Known Member

    Can't wait until the first column where someone reports on a player whose testicles shrunk between 1992 and 1999.

    "I didn't want to report it back then, and it might not mean anything, but..."
     
  9. Tom Petty

    Tom Petty Guest

    oh, ballplayers can be dumb as hell, but i think of brock, lopes, rose, rivers and the like and don't think joe was so cutting edge.
     
  10. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    That's an outstanding point, I'd bet that any catcher would sweat probably 10 times as much as someone who didn't have to wear all that gear.
     
  11. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    Never mind that just about every player who was using in the late 1990s just had to stick a bottle of Andro in their locker and we just sat there like sheep and thought, "Duh, this is all he's taking..."
     
  12. Smasher_Sloan

    Smasher_Sloan Active Member

    We did?
     
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