Thursday, February 5, 2004

Gagne & Vitamin-S

Will Carroll's sidekick TwinsFanDan and Baseball Crank have both picked up on Tom Verducci's article this Tuesday:
Now that steroid testing with penalties (albeit soft ones) is here, be prepared to hear more than a few spring training stories about players who "took yoga," "lost weight," "changed diets," "cut back on weightlifting," "came in lighter," "wanted to be more flexible," and other code words for cutting down on steroids and other illegal supplements. Some such anecdotal evidence existed last year, when the testing was anonymous and for survey purposes only, but now the incidence of slimmed-down players probably will grow. One star NL pitcher, for instance, shrunk so noticeably this winter that another player remarked, "I swear to you when I saw him I didn't even recognize him."
There's apparently some speculation that Eric Gagne is the NL pitcher who has shrunk so noticeably, but the Crank isn't buying it (see his comment below mine).

Let's take a look at this picture of Gagne (he's on the right). He doesn't look quite like he's got "muscles on top of muscles," but he does look like a pretty big dude.

I think we're all curious about how this one's going to play out.

1 comment:

  1. Let's not forget. Last year was the first year since '94 where both the NL and AL home run leaders finished with less than 50 home runs. Did I fail to mention last year was the first year they started testing for steriods. Coincidence? I think not.

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