Soccer is Ruining America
- Thread starter The Gardener
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Cassin said:
What are the chances of this guy making it big in basketball, baseball or armpit-ball?
Lionel Messi, arguably the best football player in the world at the moment. He's about 5'6" (169 cm) and weighs 67 kg. But just take a look what he does with the ball:
[youtube:3laqwyle]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLW4DKoncvM[/youtube:3laqwyle]
ali777
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ghg said:
He had some sort of growth hormone deficiency as a kid. He was going to end up being extremely short. That's when Barcelona decided to pay his medical bills, and his family moved to Spain...
It's a great success story. The kid is very humble as well... I hope he stays that way.
The traditional number 10 player in soccer has always been a short-ish guy. They have very low centre of gravity and body balance that others don't have.
The Gardener
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He could easily make it big in baseball. Not sure how baseball got dragged into this thread, but baseball is definetly NOT full of people with huge ripped body types. Sure, there are a few, some lumbering outfielders... but a guy with Messi's athleticism and range would probably have the skillset and talent to become a great shortstop or middle infielder in baseball.ghg said:
All body types are equally welcome in baseball. In fact, last night I went to the semifinal game of the WBC between the US and Japan, and saw in person, one of the greatest shortstops in baseball right now, Derek Jeter:
Facing off against a Japanese team with a leadoff hitter who is arguably the best contact hitter in the game, Ichiro:
Those who are saying that baseball players are all huge and pumped up are so wrong. There is a pretty equal distribution of ALL body types that humans come in playing baseball, and even some of the more gaunt players are amongst the sport's greatest superstars.
Doug Douglas
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I'm saying the best players, the ones making and breaking the records, seem to all be in need of steroids to make themselves even bigger than they were to begin with.
The Gardener
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Maybe the home run record... but that's about it.
Here's your American League batting average leader in 2008, Joe Mauer:
And here's your American League 2008 MVP, Dustin Pedroia, all five foot nine inches of him:
Mind you, the NL side had some larger players vying for these awards (Chipper Jones and Albert Pujols), but of them, only Pujols would I describe as "ripped".
Here's Chipper Jones, NL batting averate leader... sure, he stands six foot, but not exactly a "huge" physique as is being implied:
I will yield to your point on Pujols, though... Pujols is 6'3" and ripped. He's a physical specimen, a monster:
Here's your American League batting average leader in 2008, Joe Mauer:
And here's your American League 2008 MVP, Dustin Pedroia, all five foot nine inches of him:
Mind you, the NL side had some larger players vying for these awards (Chipper Jones and Albert Pujols), but of them, only Pujols would I describe as "ripped".
Here's Chipper Jones, NL batting averate leader... sure, he stands six foot, but not exactly a "huge" physique as is being implied:
I will yield to your point on Pujols, though... Pujols is 6'3" and ripped. He's a physical specimen, a monster:
The Gardener
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I need to fish up an old article that I read back during the time of the Mitchell Report, but actually quite a few baseball players were using banned substances.... but, they weren't using them to get ripped or enhance strength, they were using them to assist in recovery from the knocks and bruises of a long MLB season.
This article was written by a relief pitcher... in it, he describes how after every outing where he pitched live game outs, the next day his arm would be really sore, stiff, and tight. The relief pitchers called it the "pitching hangover". Starting pitchers didn't have to worry about it so much because they had three or four days rest before they were scheduled to pitch again, but amongst relief pitchers, it was a common annoyance... after pitching, it took them hours of stretching and warming up the next day in order to get the muscles loose and ready to be ready for a potential game appearance. This pitcher claimed that he was introduced to some substance, I forget which one, that he would take in the evenings after he would pitch. He claimed that the first time he tried it, when he woke up the next morning, he was SHOCKED that his arm felt completely normal! No soreness or stiffness, no "hangover"... which of course made his life a lot easier because he didn't need the hours of stretching and treatment in order to get back into game shape for that day's action.
This pitcher, and of course this is just hearsay, implied that it was only a really select handful of players who were juicing in the manner that Bonds was, in an attempt to get huge and bulk up the muscle. But, there were a much larger number of players who were doing low level stuff to ease the muscle pains, stiffness, and soreness... and improve their recovery after periods of exertion. From what I remember, he painted this in the context of a baseball player's life... unlike other sports, baseball players play almost every day, with usually only one day off every week and a half or so. Add to this the constant travel, time constraints on how much maintaning exercise they could get in, etc... and these substances just made their lives a lot more bearable and less painful.
He also went on to say that PEDs weren't the only "lifestyle enhancing" stuff they were doing... he said there are low level amphetamines that are commonly used by players to overcome jet lag, lack of sleep the previous night, etc. Actually, this particular claim might not have been from the pitcher's piece, it may have been from the Mitchell Report itself... I can't remember right now.
It was really an interesting piece, it painted a very interesting context on the demands of being a baseball player.
And, in my recollection of some of the more candid passages from the Mitchell Report, the first thing that came to MY mind was that such stuff definetly can't be just limited to baseball. I firmly believe that there are PEDs of one sort or another being used in ALL professional sports.
Including golf... and most certainly soccer.
This article was written by a relief pitcher... in it, he describes how after every outing where he pitched live game outs, the next day his arm would be really sore, stiff, and tight. The relief pitchers called it the "pitching hangover". Starting pitchers didn't have to worry about it so much because they had three or four days rest before they were scheduled to pitch again, but amongst relief pitchers, it was a common annoyance... after pitching, it took them hours of stretching and warming up the next day in order to get the muscles loose and ready to be ready for a potential game appearance. This pitcher claimed that he was introduced to some substance, I forget which one, that he would take in the evenings after he would pitch. He claimed that the first time he tried it, when he woke up the next morning, he was SHOCKED that his arm felt completely normal! No soreness or stiffness, no "hangover"... which of course made his life a lot easier because he didn't need the hours of stretching and treatment in order to get back into game shape for that day's action.
This pitcher, and of course this is just hearsay, implied that it was only a really select handful of players who were juicing in the manner that Bonds was, in an attempt to get huge and bulk up the muscle. But, there were a much larger number of players who were doing low level stuff to ease the muscle pains, stiffness, and soreness... and improve their recovery after periods of exertion. From what I remember, he painted this in the context of a baseball player's life... unlike other sports, baseball players play almost every day, with usually only one day off every week and a half or so. Add to this the constant travel, time constraints on how much maintaning exercise they could get in, etc... and these substances just made their lives a lot more bearable and less painful.
He also went on to say that PEDs weren't the only "lifestyle enhancing" stuff they were doing... he said there are low level amphetamines that are commonly used by players to overcome jet lag, lack of sleep the previous night, etc. Actually, this particular claim might not have been from the pitcher's piece, it may have been from the Mitchell Report itself... I can't remember right now.
It was really an interesting piece, it painted a very interesting context on the demands of being a baseball player.
And, in my recollection of some of the more candid passages from the Mitchell Report, the first thing that came to MY mind was that such stuff definetly can't be just limited to baseball. I firmly believe that there are PEDs of one sort or another being used in ALL professional sports.
Including golf... and most certainly soccer.
ali777
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The Gardener said:
I used to live next door to a semi-professional athlete, he took me to the gym a few times and his "hangover" drug was the bog standard painkiller.
But I can imagine and understand that there is something more potent out there.
The Gardener said:
Of course they do.... Although there has never been a high profile doping scandal in soccer, there have been a few smaller scandals. There was an investigation in Italy, and lots of players admitted taking PEDs that were not on the banned substances list. I think the allegation was that they were taking a bit more than that, but it was never proven.
We have to be realistic. No one can convience me that Gerrard runs like a horse for 90 mins and he doesn't take something dodgy.
Doug Douglas
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Admittedly, I know next to nothing about baseball. The whole roids thing helped my argument. I'll defer to you guys on this one.
