Mets are done for the day. Weather much better and they got all their work done. Time to clear out the notebook:
- Jose Reyes is seven pounds heavier after hitting the weights in the offseason. He’s stronger but said he won’t change his game. “No, no, that’s not for me,’’ was his response to a question asked jokingly about the All-Star Game Home Run Derby.
- Reliever Juan Padilla’s rehab after Tommy John surgery is going well, but he has a qualifier. “You never know until you get out there and face somebody,’’ he said.
- Reliever Steve Schmoll cleared waivers and was assigned to Class AAA New Orleans.
- The Mets are on the list for many national writers. Three were in today to talk with Tom Glavine.
- All position players must report tomorrow for physicals.
7 Comments
great work john this is one my favorite sources for mets notes/ opinions keep it up
Thank you very much.
John, you wrote about why reporters ask the questions they do.
Also being a journalist and a journalism professor, I’m concerned about follow-up questions reporters AREN’T asking in Spring Training, pertaining to players’ reported muscle gains in the off-season.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser reported today that the A’s Nick Swisher gained 20 to 25 pounds of muscle by working on a farm in the off-season. You, Newsday’s Ken Davidoff and the Times’s Ben Shpigel all report that Lastings Milledge gained 13 pounds of muscle in the off-season.
Especially in the immediate post-steroids era, these claims strike me as far-fetched at best and suspect at worst.
Why aren’t ANY of these claims being independently confirmed, challenged, additionally attributed, or even investigated? Why are these claims being reported without any hint of skepticism?
I don’t know Swisher or Milledge and have no reason to believe they’re doing anything to violate Major League Baseball’s anabolic steroid policy, but I HAVE worked out for nine years with a personal trainer who also has a certificate in nutrition.
For years he has maintained it’s impossible for a human being to add the muscle mass Swisher and Milledge claim to have over a period of years – let alone four months – without the aid of anabolic steroids. My trainer has also seen the changes in gym rats he has observed and is sure they’ve been on steroids.
Not questioning or challenging players when they matter-of-factly say they’ve put on such massive muscle is a dangerous backslide to the ‘90s when too many reporters either lacked appropriate skepticism or just looked the other way while the game was tainted.
For the sake of the sport and for the collective credibility of sports journalists, I hope this changes.
I am not a doctor, nor a certified trainer, but I have experienced and seen 8 – 12 pound growth by going down to visit relatives and working on their farm. The combination of the hearty meals and the hard work will do wonders for you.
I am not saying that all of the weight gain was muscle gain. But I was certainly heavier and more defined than I was when I first arrived.
It is possible that folks are continuing to use anabolic steriods and/or forms of HGH to get bigger and stronger, but I do not know how you would “independently” confirm these reported muscle gains.
I know that is natural for these athletes to grow into their bodies, but I worry about the speedsters such as Reyes and Milledge gaining this “muscle” at the possible detriment of their running speed.
Greg W: You made a very important distinction in your post -”weight gain” is different from “muscle gain.”
Without consulting experts and simply taking ballplayers’ words at face value, reporters, then, may be being completely inaccurate when writing that athletes gained “pounds of muscle.”
How could claims be independently confirmed?
Individual ones couldn’t, but a trend story certainly could be written where experts are consulted to either confirm or refute the notion of human beings adding lean muscle or muscle mass in such a short priod of time and how that’s accomplished.
And without being doctors or physical trainers, we DO know that anabolic steroids have different effects on different bodies – Guillermo Mota’s vs. Jason Giambi’s, for example. Mota remained lean while Giambi turned into the Incredible Hulk.
Nevertheless, it comes down to reporters questioning. The first thing we learn as reporters is to not automatcically accept everything we hear at face value.
My understanding is that the older you get, the more difficult it is to gain muscle weight naturally.
Additionally, my understanding—based even on first-hand experience—is that 10-12 pounds of muscle weight is possible. In my case, I went up a suit jacket size in my mid-thirties by initiating a weights program. (It was all around the chest and shoulders; my hat size, tellingly, remained the same, though.)
I wouldn’t blink about a 21-yr-old putting on 13 pounds of muscle, like Milledge is claiming. He’s still at a time when his body is filling out. Swisher, on the other hand, is a little bit older, and 25 pounds is a damn-near impossible figure, particularly during one off-season. (The fact that he’s employed in the shadows of BALCO doesn’t help, either.)