Tuesday, August 11, 2009

The Odds on Steroid Use in Baseball

In a recent interview with ESPN, Jose Canseco made another of his now all-to-common steroid declarations:

"I'll tell you this, Major League Baseball is going to have a big, big problem on their hands when they find out they have a Hall of Famer who's used."

As of now, he’s declined to reveal who that individual might be. Since this came shortly after Rickey Henderson was inducted, everyone just assumed that as an ex-teammate of Canseco’s, he was the one whom he was referring to. I even read an article where the author was placing odds on who that Hall of Famer was, with Rickey landing at the top of that list. Not sure how he came up with that figure, but he seemed to have convinced himself of it.



I’m actually surprised that I haven’t seen official odds on who the next baseball star to be found guilty of using steroids will be. Most sites allow you to bet on your typical games such as black jack and bingo, but you can also bet on a lot of other things, such as who will win the World Series of Poker, and who’ll get to Host the 2016 Olympic games. It’s only a matter of times before the “steroid odds” have been created.



The problem, however, is that the initial articles on the interview did not include everything that Canseco said about the matter, as he said specifically that Rickey was not the Hall of Famer that he was referring to:

"I have no knowledge of Rickey using steroids in any manner, shape or form," Canseco said later on in the interview.

So, Rickey has been officially ruled out by Canseco, but it’s only a matter of time before the name of the actual Hall of Famer he was referring is released. The Hall of Fame needs to decide how they are going to deal with these issues and allegations, and they should probably act fairly quickly, before things really get out of hand.

4 comments:

Steve Gierman said...

I did a review of all the Hall of Famers that played during the time that Jose Canseco was in the majors.

http://whitesoxcards.blogspot.com/2009/08/unknown-soldier.html

I found 29 players that fit into that category. I also exonerated Rickey in the post as being the only one that Canseco had cleared. There are a few suspicious players.

I really hate the way this has become a witch hunt, but as long as those names keep leaking, it will have to be this way.

Anonymous said...

The comment Jose made about a HOF causing a problem for MLB was made the day before the statement about Rickey which is why it wasn't included in the reports.

That said, I know someone who asked Canseco about it since then. And while it hasn't been clarified for the media, the statement Canseco made initially was intended to mean that when someone who used inevitably gets in, MLB is going to have a problem. And basically Jose is just not very good at expressing himself verbally. He claims that he does not have first hand knowledge of anyone in the HOF having been a user.

ManOfSteal said...

Thanks for the clarification "anonymous," that really does add another twist two things. I had a feeling that's what happened, but I couldn't find any clear evidence that there were two separate interviews. If you want to e-mail me directly (bnabbott at sbcglobal.net, I'd love to learn more about what you've heard!

Michael said...

Ah my money is on Cal Ripken. the golden boy or poster child of baseball as it were.