Wiki says he got it as a rookie due to his physique.
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Wiki says he got it as a rookie due to his physique.
What can I say, it made for a good punchline...
http://jonahkeri.com/2010/01/06/on-t...es-and-fandom/
Quote:
The media long ago took hold of the idea that Raines was nicknamed Rock because he supposedly kept a vial of rock cocaine in his back pocket while playing, to the point that he would always slide head first while trying to steal. But that wasn’t the original impetus behind the nickname. Just so you know.
You can't compare snorting cocaine to using PEDs. I snorted coke during college, but not heavily and on rare occasions. It was very common during that period. I did so for a couple years, until Lenny Bias died of a cocaine overdose in 1986. I loved him and never did drugs again after his passing. But my point is, while I was a gifted baseball, football and basketball player on the high school level, there's no way cocaine could have in any way improved my performance on the field, court, etc. Steroids and PEDs, on the other hand, obviously do.
Understood. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that coke gives you a temporary sense of invincibility. That might be why players like Raines liked to snort it during games. Not that it would actually help them physically, but that it would make them feel like they could do anything and everything on the field. If confidence is part of performance (and I think most would agree that it is) than you'd have to say that cocaine could "enhance" a player's performance in some way, right? Not like steroids, obviously, but in some manner?
Temporary is right. I was pretty good playing ping pong back then, and when I was snorting coke I couldn't be touched. But the more challenging sports I excelled at pre-college, like baseball, football and basketball, I can't even imagine playing above the intramural level after snorting coke.
http://c10566323.r23.cf2.rackcdn.com...t_original.jpg
Even the Pirate Parrot was doing and dealing the nose candy.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/...irates-261613/
That 1986 Mets team was "loaded" in more ways than one. Hernandez, Gooden, Strawberry, Dykstra, Mitchell, Wally Backman, etc...
I went down a wikipedia rabbit hole that involved the following items:
A decapitated cat, starting riots in Tampa, lots of Kirk Radomski references, choosing prison over probation, everything about Lenny Dykstra, police women posing as ladies of the night, etc...
The book was pretty good, I read it when it came out.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1569762880
Drug use cost Gooden and Strawberry HOF careers. Just a real shame for them. May have cost Dave Parker too. I don't remember much about all of that now. I think I just kinda shut off that part when it was happening and didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it. No Internet back then and ESPN was as influential either.
I still insist the Cocaine Era started on December 9, 1965 with the trading of Frank Robinson to the Orioles. What other explanation can there possibly be?