Was PUD GALVIN The First Doper?

[G1911]

I'm slow and dumb, but I still don't understand how something is cheating if the action committed was not against the rules at the time the action was done.

It's not cheating to throw a spitball in 1905. It is cheating to throw it in 1995, because the rules changed. Being in violation of the rules seems to be a prerequisite to cheating.

What am I missing here?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by G1911

I'm slow and dumb, but I still don't understand how something is cheating if the action committed was not against the rules at the time the action was done.

It's not cheating to throw a spitball in 1905. It is cheating to throw it in 1995, because the rules changed. Being in violation of the rules seems to be a prerequisite to cheating.

What am I missing here?

Do people really object to the cheating, or is the performance enhancing? Nobody is bitching about Gaylord being in the Hall, or Whitey Ford who scuffed baseballs constantly, and so on and so on. And greenies, even if not prohibited by baseball rules, were prescription drugs and surely these guys did not have prescriptions, so taking them was illegal.

[G1911]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Do people really object to the cheating, or is the performance enhancing? Nobody is bitching about Gaylord being in the Hall, or Whitey Ford who scuffed baseballs constantly, and so on and so on. And greenies, even if not prohibited by baseball rules, were prescription drugs and surely these guys did not have prescriptions, so taking them was illegal.

It's neither. Galvin possibly taking some miracle BS is factually not cheating as there was no rule against this and is also factually not performance enhancing; it's an illogical narrative that just suits what people want to find and has been latched onto the last decade because of this. There's nothing to object to if either of those options were the cause of the objection. Both claims are demonstrably false.

Personally I would draw a consistent line at actual cheating, i.e. breaking the actual rules of baseball, requiring specific evidence. Galvin, Ruth, and the fabrication about Aaron did not break the rules. Neither did McGwire's andro at the time he used it. This just seems like the basic common sense, and thus unpopular as it doesn't suit either narrative (as it does not punish the old timers that factually did not cheat but also excuses some of the steroid generation that also did not violate the rules), line. For the cheating to result in severe punishment like a ban or keeping out of the Hall, the cheating should be severe and endemic. I would thus not ban Whitey Ford from the hall for his late career spitters, but if caught he should have been suspended and slapped for it. Gaylord and those around him have made such disparate claims at different times about how much he actually cheated vs. created a mystique is something I'm not versed enough in to judge right now.

[cgjackson222]

Originally Posted by G1911

I'm slow and dumb, but I still don't understand how something is cheating if the action committed was not against the rules at the time the action was done.

It's not cheating to throw a spitball in 1905. It is cheating to throw it in 1995, because the rules changed. Being in violation of the rules seems to be a prerequisite to cheating.

What am I missing here?

Point taken. I should used the phrase "trying to gain a competitive advantage through PEDs that were later deemed illegal" instead of outright cheating.