Doug Gottlieb Tweets Outrageous Take After Beltre hits 3,000th
On Sunday Night Adrian Beltre did what only 30 other men in MLB history have ever done. He hit his 3000th hit. Adrian Beltre is 38 years old and has been playing baseball in the Majors since he debuted for the LA Dodgers when he was 19.
Instead of taking a moment to bask in the achievements of others, Doug Gottlieb accused Adrian Beltre of taking steroids:
Obviously Gottlieb is just going for the shock value here trying to link Adrian Beltre back to the 90's era Rangers who were admittedly on steroids, but Beltre joined the Rangers in 2011.
His only "evidence" is that he's still good as a 38 year old and he's dominican.
Here's a clip from his show where he tries to substantiate his claims after he got some heat on twitter.
Lot's of twitter users had a comment on the original Gottlieb tweet including Red Raider alum and Texas Ranger reporter Emily Jones along with reliever Jake Diekman.
The best response came from Michael Young though, who labeled Gottlieb's tweet as a, "lazy ass take".
Gottlieb didn't respond to many on twitter but he did respond to Michael Young, by doubling down on it's not just because some guys in the 90's took steroids as Texas Rangers but it's because lot's of guys from the Dominican Republic have been popped for steroid usage.
Gottlieb couldn't stop at Beltre and had to pile on by dragging Pudge Rodriguez, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame this weekend. Pudge Rodriguez has been plauged by the steroid accusations for years but has maintained his innocence and has never tested positive, but was named in a book by Jose Canseco as a steroid user in an unsubstantiated claim.
The fact is Doug Gottlieb's job is to get clicks and pageviews, and he was definitely successful yesterday, but a steroid claim is a heavy accusation and one that shouldn't be made lightly.
Just glancing at Beltre's career stats the morning after he hits his 3,000th hit and noticing he has a slugging percentage as a 38 year old than as a rookie is ridiculous and as Michael Young said, "a lazy ass take." He's also cut his K rate by a huge margin since then what does that mean?
Gottlieb's baseless accusations also bring back the question of whether or not the MLB will ever get past the steroid ERA. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemons, all the Texas Rangers Gottlieb was trying to mention, all of those guys tarnished the game in such a way that no success in the MLB will be looked at in the same light. The power hitters today like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton will always have to carry the doubt of if their power is clean or not.
I'll wait until a positive test before I make any accusations though.