Stealing Greatness
定價：523 元
NT $ 523
- 作者：Cappello，John D.
- 出版社：Baker & Taylor Books
- 出版日期：2010-02-23
- 語言：英文
- ISBN10：1935251694
- ISBN13：9781935251699
- 裝訂：平裝 / 288頁 / 普通級
What do the careers of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro – four major league players heavily linked to steroid use – have in common? Each meets the criteria of a
Career Transformation, a statistical anomaly described by Stealing Greatness as representing the best model of a ballplayer’s performance that’s been augmented by performance enhancing
substances.
The Career Transformation violates the laws of aging for the major league baseball player established over the game’s first 120 years. A transformer’s statistics show how a ballplayer completely redefined his home run hitting ability to a much higher level at a time in his career when just maintaining would have been impressive.
Stealing Greatness uncovers twenty other such transformations, including admitted steroid user Ken Caminiti, which erupted during the baseball’s Steroid Era.
An exhaustive search through history shows that the Career Transformation was almost unknown and unexplained prior to 1990 by environmental influences, such as changes to the game’s rules or a player’s home ballpark. Over the Steroid Era, however, transformations were prevalent, where most of the 22 that occurred over a 21-year period can be directly traced back to weightlifting regimens that very possibly were supplemented with performance enhancing substances.
Experts have leaned on an assortment of non-steroids excuses to explain the game’s home run explosion of the 1990s, such smaller ballparks, weaker pitching, and hotter baseballs. These arguments tend to diffuse the real impact of steroids. Stealing Greatness clarifies these factors and gives baseball fans what positive drug test results don’t – a demonstration of how the abuse of steroids, HGH, and other illicit substances improved home run performances by as much as 50 to 200 percent, completely disrupting the record book in the process.
With the fraudulent performances of this past generation rendering sacrilege on the record book, the game’s state of decency can no longer be taken for granted. But there’s one last stand left for baseball: To uphold the integrity of the Hall of Fame. With several transformers from the Steroid Era up for election over the next several years, Stealing Greatness uses the characteristics of a Career Transformation to suggest how several of these HOF candidates might have performed had they followed a more traditional path of aging in baseball.
The Career Transformation violates the laws of aging for the major league baseball player established over the game’s first 120 years. A transformer’s statistics show how a ballplayer completely redefined his home run hitting ability to a much higher level at a time in his career when just maintaining would have been impressive.
Stealing Greatness uncovers twenty other such transformations, including admitted steroid user Ken Caminiti, which erupted during the baseball’s Steroid Era.
An exhaustive search through history shows that the Career Transformation was almost unknown and unexplained prior to 1990 by environmental influences, such as changes to the game’s rules or a player’s home ballpark. Over the Steroid Era, however, transformations were prevalent, where most of the 22 that occurred over a 21-year period can be directly traced back to weightlifting regimens that very possibly were supplemented with performance enhancing substances.
Experts have leaned on an assortment of non-steroids excuses to explain the game’s home run explosion of the 1990s, such smaller ballparks, weaker pitching, and hotter baseballs. These arguments tend to diffuse the real impact of steroids. Stealing Greatness clarifies these factors and gives baseball fans what positive drug test results don’t – a demonstration of how the abuse of steroids, HGH, and other illicit substances improved home run performances by as much as 50 to 200 percent, completely disrupting the record book in the process.
With the fraudulent performances of this past generation rendering sacrilege on the record book, the game’s state of decency can no longer be taken for granted. But there’s one last stand left for baseball: To uphold the integrity of the Hall of Fame. With several transformers from the Steroid Era up for election over the next several years, Stealing Greatness uses the characteristics of a Career Transformation to suggest how several of these HOF candidates might have performed had they followed a more traditional path of aging in baseball.
