Just think, if Jim hadn't opened his big mouth, we never would have
known Brady is a father.

--- In dudebradyandersonfansite@yahoogroups.com, giantpanda24@c... wrote:
>
http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-sp.orioles20mar20,0,2106608.stor\
y?coll=bal-sports-headlines
>
> Anderson defends his '96 power trip, says 'it was not a fluke'
> Former Oriole answers Palmer's steroid remarks
> By Roch Kubatko
> Sun Staff
> Originally published March 20, 2004
> FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - One cell phone call to Brady Anderson is
interrupted because he's running with the track athletes at the
University of California-Irvine. Another time, he cuts the
conversation short to lift weights, promising to reserve a few minutes
later in the day. Nighttime hours are spent feeding his 7-month-old
daughter, Brianna, and putting her to bed. And the weekends aren't
always good because he's competing in a flag football league.
>
> Perhaps the Orioles' second-most popular player behind Cal Ripken
during his 14 years in Baltimore, Anderson has been retired from
baseball since the San Diego Padres released him from their Triple-A
affiliate in Portland, Ore., in 2003. But no matter how long he's away
from the game, no matter how many athletic challenges await him - and
he's always looking - the aura of his 50-homer season will continue to
exist. And so will the suspicions.
>
> When Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer suggested earlier this week
that Anderson's achievements in 1996 were open to scrutiny because
they were such an aberration - the implication being that without a
drug-testing program, nobody knows whether he cheated - the former
outfielder's name became linked to steroids. And this time, it wasn't
just the whispers that envelop any player who has an anomalous season.
>
> The story made national headlines and aired on ESPN. Eight years
after Anderson's milestone, he was a hot topic again - and for all the
wrong reasons.
>
> "Because I only hit 50 home runs once, it was, in fact, an
aberration. However, it was not a fluke," he told The Sun yesterday.
"Nothing can be considered a fluke that takes six months to
accomplish. Rather it was a culmination of all my athleticism and
baseball skills and years of training peaking simultaneously. This was
my athletic opus.
>
> "Hitting in front of [Roberto] Alomar, [Rafael] Palmeiro, [Bobby]
Bonilla and [Cal] Ripken didn't hurt, either."
>
> Palmer later explained that his remarks, which aired Monday on 98
ROCK (WIYY-FM), weren't meant to suggest that Anderson used steroids.
Though he hasn't contacted Anderson, Palmer issued a brief apology
through the media.
>
> "I have been alternately amused and perplexed by Palmer's
vacillating comments over the last few days," said Anderson, who is
raising his daughter with her mother, Sonia Vassi. "I did not respond
initially because I sensed he knew he had made a mistake and thought
it fair to let him rectify the matter on his own.
>
> "Perhaps what offended me the most was his comment that he knows how
hard I trained. How could he possibly know that? Pushing myself to
become a better athlete was truly my passion and still is. Many people
don't possess the desire to test the limits of what the body and mind
can accomplish, and others I'm certain possess the desire but lack the
expertise to achieve the desired results."
>
> Anderson never hit more than 21 homers before 1996, and didn't
eclipse 24 after '96.
>
> "I know what I accomplished, am proud of it, and know that it was
done with integrity," he said. "I'll state this once again: It was 26
more home runs than I hit in any other season, but that's just one
more home run per week, just one more good swing. That is the data
that simultaneously comforted me and haunted me, the small difference
between greatness and mediocrity."
>
> Anderson usually kept a container of Creatine in his locker, but the
supplement, which serves as an energy reserve in muscle cells, is legal.
>
> "That's here to stay. It's a legitimate substance. It's found in
food," he said. "Taken properly, it can be very beneficial. But it
doesn't replace skill or training."
>
> Anderson, who was tested for steroids in the minors last year, said
he has received dozens of calls from friends and former teammates
since Palmer's remarks made it into print, many of them outraged or
confused by the implications.
>
> They remember Anderson as a man obsessed with physical fitness,
someone whose training methods were seen as outrageous for a baseball
player. They remember him working out privately on the back fields at
Fort Lauderdale Stadium, where he would squat 200 pounds while
balancing on an exercise ball.
>
> They also observed how his weight never fluctuated much, that his
muscular build was the same four years before he hit 50 homers - as
evidenced by a poster of him, shirtless, that was a popular sell in
Baltimore. They didn't see the violent outbursts common with steroid
abusers.
>
> "There was a part of me that regarded the steroid talk as a
compliment, sort of like when the Brewers came into town in '96 and
were snooping around for my bats to see if they were corked," he said.
"Those things weren't upsetting to me."
>
> Players used to tease Anderson for bringing his own blender into the
clubhouse, unfamiliar with the concoctions he chugged before or after
games.
>
> Said Ripken: "Now protein mixes are an acceptable part of everyone's
diet. Brady always had a much more advanced concept of cross-training
and plyometrics and his diet. He was just ahead of the curve."
>
> His timing on fastballs was impeccable in '96.
>
> "To me, it was all about him being locked in. He had good swings
every at-bat. Bearing witness to it all year, he was a marvel to
watch. I don't remember him ever being in a slump," Ripken said.
>
> "Brady always had a fly-ball swing, which he was criticized for as a
leadoff hitter, but that year he was right on the ball. He was just in
one of those grooves. There were a couple of instances in my career
when I seemed to pick up the next day where I left off. It's hard to
explain. You wish you could do that every year."
>
> Said Anderson: "The thing that stands out about '96 is, it's not my
size, it's my swing. If anyone wants to compare what changed about me,
my swing was so much better that year. I couldn't match it, and I
don't know why. Later in my career, I was trying to imitate myself. I
had a swing that any hitter would have been proud of. The other years,
I used to just battle [hard] and be athletic."
>
> Once reluctant to share the training methods that gave him an edge,
Anderson now offers to work with other athletes at his Los Angeles
home. Mark Quinn, 29, a former teammate in Portland who's in the St.
Louis Cardinals' camp, spent four months with Anderson after the
season and said he has never been faster or better conditioned.
>
> "I gained pounds and lost body fat," he said. "One day, we'd work
out with the track and field coach at UC-Irvine. The next day we were
doing standing long jumps and hurdles, throwing a football around.
We'd lift weights, play basketball. Some days we'd head to Venice
beach and work out on the gymnast rings. We'd run hills and do lunges
- every aspect of cross-training you could imagine.
>
> "Brady just turned 40, and he's in better shape than I'll ever be
in. People who accuse him of steroids obviously never spent as much
time around him as I have. He's a genetic freak. He was born with
three percent body fat and never changed. He's a super athlete, and
that's something you can't get from a syringe."