Nolan was not "pre-steroids"

Hell, he credits his late success to an admitted roider being his coach.

Jeff Bagwell
Craig Biggio
Tom Glavine
Jeff Kent
Greg Maddux
Mike Piazza+
Frank Thomas

"Lots of players before the advent of PEDs played into their 40s and at a high level"

To be clear, i'm not specifically accusing Biggio or Mussina, but rather lumping them in with a suspicious group. It's unfair to compare any aspect of baseball performance between the first half of the 20th century to the 90's. Strength and conditioning techniques have evolved. Teams use more starting pitchers in their rotation. The game is bigger, faster, and more taxing on the human body. That being said, it still wasn't that common to have high performance in a player's late 30's and 40's. It is impossible to assess when PED usage began or became widespread in baseball. Substances that are illegal today were perfectly legal in other times. The information I have read or seen on television has led me to the conclusion that PED use was the norm throughout the 90's. Consequently, we saw significantly more players have longer than average careers from that time period. Are there players that have played well into their 40's without aid by substance? Yes. Is it extremely rare? I would argue yes.

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To be clear, i'm not specifically accusing Biggio or Mussina, but rather lumping them in with a suspicious group.

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Which, as has been laid out, would be wrong of you. I don't know who you are a fan of, but as an Astros fan, Biggio was just not that good late in his career. Heck, his last two seasons he had OBPs of .306 and .285... Biggio was one of the players of that era that clearly showed a decline as he aged.

George Steinbrenner not elected.

Like him or hate him, he belongs.

no he doesn't, did nothing to benefit the sport, acted like a petulant child and threw money around

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(3) never seen a starting pitcher's success on a given night be due so much to whether or not the umpire was giving the outside corner call.

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A-MF'ing-men

Lorenz,

If having seven consecutive seasons of at least 500 AB's after a major ligament tear in your mid 30's and setting a single season high for home runs at age 39 aren't suspicious to you, I suppose you're also happy that Santa is going to leave you some presents because you've been a good boy. Typically, guys that hit 20 home runs in a season seven times in their career, also achieve that feat before the age of 27.

Something something Crawford boxes being closer than most high school fields.

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George Steinbrenner not elected.

Like him or hate him, he belongs

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Nope, or at the very least Marvin Miller belongs in before Steinbrenner and I'm no fan of Miller but he had a far bigger impact on the Game then George.

I agree. George did nothing to better the game of baseball

good article on ESPN.com by Rick Reilly:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10116177/rick-reilly-torre-larussa-cox

excerpt:

"In all, the three managers being inducted oversaw at least 34 players who've been implicated as PED users and never noticed a thing wrong.

You could build a wing with the admitted and suspected drug cheats they won with: A-Rod, Roger Clemens (Torre), Jason Giambi (Torre and La Russa), McGwire, Jose Canseco (La Russa), Melky Cabrera (Torre and Cox), David Justice (Torre and Cox), Andy Pettite (Torre), Manny Ramirez (Torre with the Dodgers) and Sheffield (Torre and Cox.)

It's just another year in the Hall of Farce, where the codes of conduct shift like beach sand; where the rules for one set of men are ignored for another; where PED poppers can never enter, but the men who turned their backs to the cheating get gleaming, bronze plaques."

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I was wondering when someone was going to state the obvious about the 3 managers recently elected to the Hall.

If you had to pick an epicenter for the 'roids explosion or invasion into baseball...it would no doubt be Oakland in the mid-to-late 80's

Does Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera get in easily, since Lee Smith hasn't gotten in? He was the all time saves leader for years.

Rivera is a MFY. He goes first ballot

Mo gets in without a doubt first ballot with 90+ % of the vote. Part of that is being so dominant, part of that is being a Yankee, part of that is the rings, part of that is that he is generally well liked.

I have no feel for Trevor Hoffman's candidacy.