June 25th, 2006 → 11:24 am @ Seth Mnookin // No Comments
The Cardinals have lost five straight, Mark Mulder is out of commission until at least the All-Star break–and possibly much longer–with a frayed labrum, and Jim Edmonds has missed three straight starts with a concussion. At least Albert Pujols is back from his oblique strain. How could that not be good news?
Here’s how: in today’s Boston Globe, the always enterprising Gordon Edes–a reporter whose columns are full of interesting scoops and tantalizing nuggets–has a quote in his Baseball Notebook from a Buzz Bissinger interview on XM Radio. Bizzinger, the author of Three Nights in August, about the Cardinals, says the following: “One thing I remember about Pujols is he was…a little bit overweight as a minor leaguer, and he came into camp the following spring looking like a million bucks. Unfortunately, because the owners allowed drugs in the game, you just have to wonder, and it would be an absolute tragedy. I hate to say this…but no one is immune from this stuff, including Albert. It’s an unfortunate aspect of the game, and it may take a generation of baseball, baseball players, a generation of testing to get rid of steroids, HGH, and everything else.” It’s not the first time a journalist has questioned Pujols’ transformation, but it’s the first time someone who had such prolonged access to the Cardinals raised the issue.
I think the players union is more at fault for the current mess, but certainly there’s plenty of blame to go around. Bizzinger’s quote is more evidence that regardless of who is eventually revealed to have been using and what revelations are still to come, there’s going to be a lot of speculation and a lot of finger-pointing until a relaible testing program is put in place.
Post Categories: Albert Pujols & Baseball & Boston Globe & Gordon Edes & Players Union & Steroids
941827
17 years ago
In order to sell his book as the “anti-Moneyball”, Buzz Bissenger included a sour grapes rant about sabremetricians ruining baseball in the introduction. This was a direct attack on Theo Epstein (who’s Sox had just swept the Cards to win the WS), Paul DePodesta and others. He then went on talk show after talk show ranting about sabremetricians. All of this ranting ignored that (1) LaRussa relies upon numbers extensively when making managing decisions and (2) LaRussa is a manager, so comparing his use of numbers with the use of numbers by GMs is just silly. I wrote Bissenger off as a sell-out who was ignoring the facts in order to sell his book, ranted about him on SoSH a bit, and moved on.
In an ironic twist, it now turns out that Bissenger’s beloved Mr. LaRussa was at ground zero of the steroids era. He was the manager for McGwire and Canseco. He’s the manager of Pujols. Yet now, given an opportunity to admit that steroids — not sabremetrics — severely injured the game of baseball, and given the further opportunity to explain how the great Mr. LaRussa, who allegedly is so close with his players, managed to miss the fact that at least two of his players were doing massive amounts of steroids, Bissenger blames “the owners” for letting steroids into the game.
Pathetic.
Nordberg
17 years ago
Here’s what I remember:
When McGwire got hurt and subsequently retired, the Cardinals fretted over who would replace him at first base. They were caught off guard.
Then this kid Pujols comes out of nowhere and has a phenomenal rookie year. I don’t remember LaRussa or Jocketty saying they’d be fine and that they had a rookie who would take the job. I remember them being very worried.
I think even they were surprised at the power Pujols showed.
He was a 13th round pick and spent one year in the minors.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm …