Damn! Roberto Alomar has AIDS?

[El Kabong]

OK. But I don't follow your steroid remark. I didn't read the entire thread, but are you saying there was some steroid suspicions on Alomar?

It has been said that Toronto was a steroid hub, much like Oakland. Also in the era of the late 1980's up to present day I guess....EVERYONE'S numbers will be questioned, I think until baseball finds a sympathetic figure (maybe A-Rod) that has used steroids to forgive then I think it's going to be difficult for most HoF calibre players to get in. I still have my doubts about Rickey Henderson being 100% natural...I like the guy but I have a suspision about him because he played on the same team as McGwire and Canseco and nobody was faster and he could hit HR's like nobody's business.

At LEAST the Hirschbeck incident pushes Robbie enshrinement back a year or more because the voters are a fickle group.

[CGM]

OK. But I don't follow your steroid remark. I didn't read the entire thread, but are you saying there was some steroid suspicions on Alomar?

It has been said that Toronto was a steroid hub, much like Oakland. Also in the era of the late 1980's up to present day I guess....EVERYONE'S numbers will be questioned, I think until baseball finds a sympathetic figure (maybe A-Rod) that has used steroids to forgive then I think it's going to be difficult for most HoF calibre players to get in. I still have my doubts about Rickey Henderson being 100% natural...I like the guy but I have a suspision about him because he played on the same team as McGwire and Canseco and nobody was faster and he could hit HR's like nobody's business.

At LEAST the Hirschbeck incident pushes Robbie enshrinement back a year or more because the voters are a fickle group.

hmmm, didn't know about any Toronto = Steroid Club remarks. They had one or two implicated users that I am aware of, like many teams did, but I don't know that they were worse than anyone else. But if you have evidence to the contrary, then lets see it.

[El Kabong]

I believe Brian MacNamee worked in Toronto which is where he and Clemens met. I could be wrong about that though. Joe Torre also wrote about Toronto in his new book.

In Torre book, trainer says some Jays used drugs


But my main point was just on the era as a whole...everyone now basically has to prove they WEREN'T juicing and even then people will question the numbers....don't you?

BTW George Bell was one of my favorite players growing up as was Tony Fernandez

[CGM]

Yeah, Bell was tough, great bat but not the best fielder we ever had. Fernandez was so smooth. And a very good hitter. He had some serious injuries, notably a broken elbow on his throwing arm because of some shitty artificial turf at the old stadium. Fred McGriff was another guy I liked, He could really crush a baseball. Dave Stieb putting down 26 in a row against the Yankees was something to remember. Saw that game on TV. Damn Roberto Kelly!

I tell you I have never seen anything like the party that hit Toronto after the second World Series in '93. So many people poured into downtown after the win at home, it had to be seen to be believed. Wall to wall people all the way down Yonge Street.

[El Kabong]

Of course I am a lifelong Red Sox fan but I appreciated a lot of the Blue Jays players.....most noteably the guys who came around to help the Red Sox: David Cone, Mike Timlin, etc....but I ALWAYS wanted Tony Fernandez to play SS and turn the double play with Marty Barrett and later Jody Reed.

[CGM]

General Manager Pat Gillick was the true brains behind the Jays. They had a damn good run of +.500 seasons, culminating in several division championships the last two being of course the world series victories. He left the team after the 2nd series, and things were never the same.

Yeah Lyle, I do remember Toronto doing a number on the Red Sox, seems to me for a while, I forget exactly when, there was a very long streak where Boston couldn't buy a win against the Jays, including games where the Jays would come back from a huge deficits to win in the ninth.

You know who was absolutely awesome for the Jays for a couple years was Roger Clemens, right after he left Boston. Consecutive 20+ win seasons, ERA down below 2.0, two Cy Youngs, Off the top of my head I'm not sure what his strikeout stats were, but I'm sure they were good. Then he left the team halfway through his contract, cause he didn't think we could win a series.