If Montero Used ... I'd Be Pretty Surprised
Drugs, maybe. Performance, okay. Enhancement? Of what?

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Q.  If Montero was using, how come we didn't see any 440-footers in 2012?

A.  I was kind of surprised to see that he actually did hit some home runs pretty hard.  I remembered his season, visually, as being like Kendry Morales' ... a big guy who really spent most of his time lining the ball around the park like Johnny Damon.

But Montero did average 104.7 MPH on his HR's and smack three or four pretty good ones.  As the GM of the Twins said one time about Scott Erickson in arbitration, "I guess some guys had a lot better seasons than I remember him having."

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Q.  You don't think he used?

A.  I would assume that he didn't use, certainly, and that despite the allegations.  Am wide open to being proven wrong.

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Q.  Why not?  Montero fan much?

A.  About 10%, 20% of the audience will draw a heavy sigh on this one, but probably the other 80%, 90% aren't yet familiar with the problemos, so here goes....

If you were to suddenly decide to go all Greg Valentino on your triceps next week -- if you picked up the latest copy of Muscular Development, read a Warren and Jackson interview, bought some whey protein and rocked your first real lifting session on Monday, guess what would happen next?

On Tuesday, you'd be wondering whether you'd ripped some of your muscles in half.  If you did your workout right, first time, you'd be seriously wondering whether you had injured yourself, and badly.

On Wednesday you wouldn't be feeling a lot better...

You go through the process several times and you get a feel for when you're going to be ready to rip the same muscle again.  Maybe five days out.  Some guys go 4-day cycles, some 7-day cycles.  I used to use four, like Bill Phillips, but now use 7-day cycles, per Tony Horton's prescription.

Second thing you might notice, is that at about two weeks, you're too wired to sleep right.  You're laying there in bed for two hours, WIIIIDE awake.

Third thing you might notice, is that it's monstrously hard to eat right.  You're way too hungry, and that keeps you up too, but if you eat enough, you can't cut.  You can figure it out, but it ain't easy.

Much to your surprise, you might also notice that your libido is DOWN; some people's go up, but for many people the "chi" is just going into the muscles and the rest.  As the cherry on top, you are pretty likely to catch a bunch of colds and flus.

Guess how you fix all those problems?   ... (1) by slow trial and error, and patience, and tuning, or (2) with performance enhancers.  If you're a beast in the gym, we said IF .... 

IF you're a beast in the gym, then PED's are there to cut the time between workouts.  That's the basic benefit.  You use PED's along with your monster workouts, you're eating right, you're lifting right, you're sleeping right.  That's all.  PED's don't blow you up.  They just let you recover.  Basic idea.

Or that's what I've been told.  Personally have never used anything stronger than creatine, andro (in the 90's), DHEA, ephedra, over the counter stuff. 

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Q.  Your point being?

A.  Does that sound like Jesus Montero to you?  

A beast in the gym who needs help getting back a day earlier?  What's next, hearing that Tom Arnold has a roid dealer in Acapulco?

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Q.  ... um.

A.  Montero has a rep for having the softest body in the clubhouse, him and Felix maybe ... haven't been in there myself but that's the word.

What is THIS guy doing with PED's anywhere near his locker?  What would he use them for?

Anyway.  I don't say that proves anything.  But he'd probably be the softest PED user in the major leagues.  Which brings us back to square one:  I'd be kind of surprised.  More likely, he was on a referral list.

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Q.  If he was?

A.  I care exactly as much as I do that Nolan Ryan stepped a foot in front of the rubber with two strikes.  Do you care that Edgar wiped out the batter's box before he hit?  Do you care that Willie Mays liked to peek back in for the signs?

What do you think is going on out there, a K-12 volleyball game in gym class, overseen by a feminist health teacher?  "We don't want to see people get too competitive today, class...." This is professional men's baseball.  The fact that it's hardcore is what makes it worthwhile.

This is a PERSONAL.  OPINION. ... There is an argument against PED's, of course, but when the tone of the tsk-tsk'ing becomes sanctimonious, it loses me.   The morality of "cheating" as such?  Call me when you're ready to throw Nolan Ryan out of the Hall.  And Babe Ruth, for using corked bats.  And everybody else who ever stole a sign.

Sure, the Warts Spiders love a good Dirty Laundry airing and they're not out of contact.  But we're back to that volleyball game in gym class...

"Cheating."  Bah humbug.  You hear the other players on a crusade against "cheating"?  You'll have to dig hard to find a quote here and there, LrKrBoi29, and they'll be halfhearted.  

See you later.  I'm going to go look for an MMA show.  Seriously.  This society is altogether too feminized.  I mean it in a good way.

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Q.  Montero could get suspended 50 games or something.

A.  10:1 against that happening, maybe 20:1.  Maybe 100:1.  I wanted to see Zunino anyway.

If Montero's been using PED's he's apparently been wasting his money, but if he has, we can do without him for two months.

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Q.  What about PHXTerry's point about the specific denial of even having met the dealer?

A.  I love, love, love these Mega Denials with all the trimmings.  A man shrugs and offhandedly gives you all the specifics of the case, that's either a contemptible liar or a man telling the truth.  The guy's either innocent or he's fried.  Montero left himself no wiggle room.

I think it's a whale of a point by Terry.  If Montero turns out to be THAT bald-faced of a liar, he's going to ARod himself, in terms of his public likeability factor.  So right now he gets my trust* and if he didn't deserve it he gets my excoriation.  I'm sure he's very anxious about that.

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Q.  If he did, did the Mariners look the other way?

A.  James says that the clubs themselves generally don't know who is guilty, for what that's worth.  

Zduriencik may be the single GM most into character and integrity right now, possibly #1 among 30 GM's as to wanting the Nick Franklin, Kyle Seager personality type.  You might guess that he'd be a little more likely to filter volatile, suspicious types out of his YOUNG player pool, but ... 

Hey, we're all guessing.  I'm just sayin' I doubt it, and if he did I don't much care.

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My $0.02,

Dr D

 

Comments

2

...21 or 22 when he was "using?"
Heck, when you're 21 or 22 you generally think you're of mythic ability anyway. Not saying that some young guys don't give it a go, but this young guy seems to be the wrong young guy. He's a roper, to the fence, not a launcher, to the street.
Maybe he used. Then rack him up for 50 games. Doc, I'm all for testing like you mean it and punishing firmly. You either go after users seriously or you just cover up your eyes. But I would be surprised on this one.
Man, the guy runs like a granny. You would think he might get some lower body benefit, some explosion, from those same PED's.
For his sake, I hope he didn't. For the M's sake, beyond two months, it doesn't make any difference, other than a delayed catching skill progression.
Raul? That might be more likely. More of a template fit there. If so, whack him, too.
But let's play ball.
moe

3

Along with a Vaseline jar on Gaylord Perry's plaque I've always argued against the"cheater"comments. bringing illegal substances to the mound has always been funny, so I'm laughing about this. Even argued that Maris losing a full head of hair the year he hit 61 could be tied to using horse steroids. He was a farm boy...
how does that link compare to Jesus Montero appearing in paperwork not linked to a PED, sale/purchase or anything more concrete? That's why he wasn't in the initial report, because the reporter didn't see his name in the memo being linked to anything. The initial reporter thought there was nothing there to report.
that Jesus Alejandro Montero has a younger brother named Jesus Rafael Montero in the Cardinals farm system makes the situation even muddier. His younger brother looks a bit thinner in the face, but I've not been able to find a full pic of the A baller.

4
wily mo's picture

i would have to google this, but i know there was some controversy around montero right after the yankees signed him when he was 16, 17. they agreed to a bonus, but then something happened and it got reduced. details were vague. there was a lot of age-gating going on at the time, and a lot of people who wrote about him tended to imply that the bonus adjustment was on account of a fishy birthdate. some of the lazier ones even stated it as a fact. but if you tried to track it down it went nowhere. finally - and this was never really aired out completely - but some kind of information came through that was was actually going on was he'd failed some kind of urinalysis for... something.
just a data point

5

Interesting stuff, wily.
I'm sure we will all do the google dance on that. I sure will.

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Thanx Wily.
......................
Baker was complaining pretty strenuously this winter about Montero's fitness, strength, power, with the idea that it just isn't up to MLB standards (as Felix' really wasn't, before last year).  So supposing that Montero IS drinking funny milkshakes, as it were ... where do we go from here?
What's the premise, that he's a 20-year-old  ... downing stay-young-forever- HGH ... and then he's skipping the gym?!
 

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Auto5guy's picture

Doc, I had always been told that roids did have a bulking effect in and of themselves. That's why body builders have such a mental depedence on them. No matter how hard they keep training their muscles deflate to some degree when they come off the juice and that makes them freak out.
Maybe I was told wrong?

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PED's give guys a higher top end.  That's a given, and partly due to the fact that on the climb up, the muscles can recover (unnaturally) despite hitting their natural stress and limit points.
But as to making the climb from (say) 205 lbs. body weight to 225 lbs., by juicing and without lifting, I've never heard that.  Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong.

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