The Ramble: Michelle Wie, Cowboy Gets Shot, The Mitchell Investigation, Barry Bonds And Other Random Musings
Published July 16, 2006
Once again most of the interesting stuff that happened in the world of sports this week happened off the field of play.
Michelle Wie.The whole thing with her qualifying for a men’s event has gotten really old. Someone needs to speak with her parents and tell them to lighten up. They also need to be told that the name of the game is winning tournaments. Since when has just making the cut mattered? Nancy Lopez, Betsy King, Juli Inkster, Beth Daniels, Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb can attest to that fact. Rather than worry about being as good as men, these women went out and won tournaments. And quite frankly, Wie isn’t a very appealing kid. If her “people” aren’t careful, they might wind up with a Rick Ankiel on their hands.
Cowboy Shot. Here’s the weekly “Pro Athlete is Stabbed/Shot Update.” Safety Keith Davis was shot while driving home from a family vacation 5 a.m. Sunday morning. This is the second time Davis has been the innocent victim of a shooting as in 2003 he was shot when he picked up “a friend” in front of a strip bar. A Cowboy spokesman said that the shooting wasn’t the “residual effect of any criminal activity.” No other details of the shooting have been released, so we don’t know if the Davis family was coming back from a vacation at a strip bar. At press time Ray Lewis wasn’t a suspect.
The George Mitchell Show Hits St. Louis. Major League Baseball’s investigation into the steroid mess, headed by Senator George Mitchell, rolls into St. Louis this week. The origins of the steroids in baseball mess can be traced back to the Tony LaRussa/Mark McGwire/Jose Canseco era Oakland A’s and on to the Tony LaRussa/Mark McGwire era St. Louis Cardinals. In Oakland you had not only the aforementioned triumvirate, but you also had coach Dave McKay and front office guy Walt Jocketty, both of whom joined LaRussa in St. Louis.
Most interesting is that coach Dave McKay was Canseco’s co-author for a weight training book back when both were with the A’s. McKay was involved with the A’s strength training program which, according to Canseco, was juice-fueled and super-competitive. In Juiced, Canseco doesn’t mention that McKay was involved with steroids, but suspicious minds wonder how a guy could be the strength coach for a team that has guys using, could write a book with the game’s most notorious steroid user about weight lifting and not know what was going on.
Sandy Alderson is another guy who was involved with the A’s that should be asked the same questions posed to LaRussa and friends. Alderson was the general manager and president of the LaRussa A’s through all these suspicious years, and actually brought Canseco back to Oakland in 1997 when everyone "knew" Canseco was using. Alderson spent many years in MLB’s front office and is now with the Padres, but he should be included in this investigation.
Sal Marinello is a National Strength and Conditioning Association Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and Certified Personal Trainer, a U.S.A. Weightlifting Certified Coach, a full-time, private Professional Strength and Conditioning Coach, an assistant football coach and a Head Strength Coach for a suburban New Jersey High School. He writes a lot and has no free time. 
- The Ramble: Michelle Wie, Cowboy Gets Shot, The Mitchell Investigation, Barry Bonds And Other Random Musings
- Published: July 16, 2006
- Type: News
- Section: Sports
- Filed Under: Sports: Baseball, Sports: Football (American), Sports: Football (English), Sports: Other
- Part of a feature: The Ramble
- Writer: Sal Marinello
- Sal Marinello's BC Writer page
- Sal Marinello's personal site
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mch:
you bring up an interesting issue.
however, if you look at mantle's numbers baseballprospectus.com you might be surprised to see that mantle didn't miss as much time as you might think, and as the legend goes, but his production definitely suffered from the age of 30 til the end of his career.
for his first 10 full-time and injury free years he averaged about 40 homeruns per season, but for his last 7 he averaged only about half that.
so by a crude estimation you could make the reasonable assertion that he could have wound up as at least the number 2 homer guy with about 675 if he still quit at age 36, and would have likely been number 1 if he was able to play beyond that age.
however, i don't think that mantle would have gained anything by being able to take advantage of what passes for today's baseball training philosophy. if mantle had avoided the big knee injury, that would have been enough to keep him productive for the final 7 or 8 years of his career.
sal;
I agree with your assessment on Mantle's number of homers, ie, at least 675 with 17 healthy seasons, and a possibility of 750 or more had he played longer in good health.
The big knee injury is usually what comes to mind first, but he also suffered from chronic bone infections after getting kicked in the shins during a high school football game, several shoulder separations and pulled hamstrings, and a broken ankle.
And although he didn't miss a lot of games that first decade, he was consistently playing with a hangover.
That being said, I still think Aaron and Mays were both better...but not by much.
i know that he had some other injury issues, but the biggest problem was the knee injury and the fact that he went to a quack doctor at first and - like you said - that he was hung over most of the time.
if mantle had been consistantly productive throughout he'd be regarded as the best ever along with aaron and mays.
and just as an interesting comparison, look at how many games mcgwire missed compared to mantle, and mcgwire had all the benefits of modern medical and conditioning technology baseballprospectus.com .
Yes, and McGwire's 10.6 homers-per-at bat ratio is no. 1 all-time, well ahead of Ruth's 9.15. But do you think his numbers are stained due to the Andro usage?
Hey sal, did you Tiger's British Open victory yesterday? Pretty cool.
mch:
andro only works if you are using steroids...no matter what you may have read in the sports pages and heard from major league baseball, andro by itself doesn't do anything. so don't make the mistake of thinking that mcguire's only sin was using an over-the-counter supplement.
and i did catch the british open...good for tiger.
McGwire averaged more than 10 homers in every at bat? Wow, he really was on the roids.
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For some reason the Barry Bonds topic reminded me of a couple more "What ifs?" concerning the great Mickey Mantle.
We all know that injuries and booze cost Mantle unknown numbers as far as stats go, ie, games played, homers, hits, batting average, etc.
But I also thought of a couple more equations regarding Mantle. What if Mantle, in additon to having a relatively injury-free career and sobriety, had trained better, including weights?
Here's a guy who hit a 565-foot homer naturally. I mean, you take a look at that upper back and shoulders, and you know he could've been a great body-builder.
And then, just for fun, throw in the equation of not swinging for the fences every at bat. Casey Stengel left Mantle of his all-time Yankee team for the sole reason that Mickey never cut back on his swing. In Mantle's own words, "There'd be somebody in scoring position, and I'd strikeout trying to hit another 500-foot homer." He was so strong, he didn't have to take a full cut to go yard.
We'll never know for sure, but I'm convinced that had Mantle stayed healthy, laid off the booze, trained better and tried to make better contact, his career homers, hits, RBIs and average could've been comparable to Aarons.
And one more aside, if you don't mind. How many bases would a healthy Mantle have stolen had he chosen too? (3.1 seconds from home-to-first)