The HGH excuses aren’t valid
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Dec 15, 2007 
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This directly from the Mitchell Report:
Human growth hormone is a prescription medication. It is illegal to issue a prescription for human growth hormone except for very limited purposes. Human growth hormone never has been approved for cosmetic or anti-aging uses, or to improve athletic performance. Issuing a prescription for human growth hormone for any of these unauthorized purposes is a violation of federal law.
Many have asserted that steroids and other performance enhancing substances were not banned in Major League Baseball before the 2002 Basic Agreement. This is not accurate. Beginning in 1971 and continuing today, Major League Baseball’s drug policy has prohibited the use of any prescription medication without a valid prescription.
————
The “it’s only HGH” defense is one we’re going to hear a lot in the coming days. Players will say they used HGH only to recover from an injuries so they could help out the club. It’s not steroids! Doctors prescribe it!
That all may be true. I’m no chemist or doctor, I have no idea what human growth hormone does.
But these players got their HGH from a guy who spent his days folding towels and picking up dirty socks. Kirk Radomski was just a regular guy who got a gig with the Mets and figured out how to make a lot of money on the side selling drugs to players.
If HGH wasn’t banned by baseball and is only used to heal injuries, then why did the players have to get it on the sly from some clubbie in Queens? If HGH is so innocent, why is Kirk Radomski headed to jail?
I’d be interested if somebody told me a certain drug would make me a better sportswriter. But if I had to get that drug from some guy working out of his garage instead of my doctor, I’d pass. According to some research I reviewed, an estimated 45 perfect of black-market HGH is fake.
Going 66 is speeding. If you’re 20 years and 364 days old, you can’t drink legally. These guys aren’t criminals, but what they did was wrong and no moralizing can change that.
The best thing baseball can do is wipe the slate clean and warn everybody: Do it again and you sit for 50 games. Then we can all get back to baseball.
Thank you Pete. I think there’s way too much rationalization in Yankeeland these days.
If you’re married and you kiss your co-worker, you’re still cheating on your wife. Are there more serious forms of cheating? Sure. But it’s still cheating.
If Andy’s conscience was clear, he wouldn’t have asked McNamee what to do if anyone asked him about the HGH.
I’ll always root for Andy as a Yankee. But I lost a lot of respect for him today.
Since the great 2007 witch hunt has begun, let’s go after those who weren’t named in that silly report.
Spoken like someone who kissed a co-worker recently. Totally telling on you.
Actually Pete, technically Pettitte got his HGH from McNamee, his personal trainer, whom he knew and most likely trusted.
There’s no evidence in the report to suggest he knew it originally came from Radomski, or even that he knew who Radomski was.
How about this one…what does Clemens do now that Pettite has come forward? If Pettite did it, you gotta believe Clemens did it too. Yet he has come out vehemently against it. As did Justice.
Second question- if Knobby used steroids or HGH or whatever it is that he is implicated of….where in the world did it show?
I’m not going to judge someone harshly for going 66. And if I get caught, I’m not apologizing for it, because I did nothing immoral. Neither did Pettitte.
weird. tomorrow night is my 21th birthday so tonight I’m 20 with 364 days old. LOL pete.
Good post, Pete. Why doesn’t baseball offer an amnesty period? I mean everyone was at fault for the steroid era, players, owners, media and even fans. Whoever comes clean, no suspension, nothing. Chaulk it off as the steroid era and let baseball move on. Instead of amnesty, we get this slow skinning of the cat with leaks here and there, players with excuses and stupid statements, accusations, etc etc etc. I think fans are sooo numb. We just want baseball back.
Going 66 is speeding in a 65. How pissed would you be if a cop gave you a ticket for going 66?
Making mountains out of molehills. I guess that’s what you guys are trained to do in journalism school, right?
If perjury is so bad, why wasn’t Rafael Palmeiro prosecuted for lying under oath?
Sometimes the only place to get the best drugs is on the street.
Geez, rudy giuliani embezzled public funds on behalf of his mistress and he may end up being President.
Pettitte is a cheater, and now he’s a liar too. What a sleezebag. Yanks should invalidate his contract and tell him to hit the road.
pages 9-11 of the Mitchell Report, which is the section that lays out the supposed adverse effects of HGH, does not lay out a single reason for HGH usage to be banned. pages 9-10 clearly state there is no performance-enhancing benefit to HGH:
“A number of studies have shown that use of human growth hormone does not increase muscle strength in healthy subjects or well-trained athletes.31 Athletes who have tried human growth hormone as a training aid have reached the same conclusion. The author of one book targeted at steroid abusers observed that “[t]he most curious aspect of the whole situation is that I’ve never encountered any athlete using HGH to benefit from it, and all the athletes who admit to having used it will usually agree: it didn’t/doesn’t work for them”
The section also severely misepresents basic facts about the history of HGH, forsaking truth for scare-mongering. for example,there’s an ominous-sounding section regarding HGH being derived from cadavers as applying to risks of HGH usage. I’ll let you look up the truth on that, i don’t feel like typing it up. I wish journalists would do more reporting on that type of factual information, and less pontificating.
Thank you, Joey Buttafuoco!!
p.s. How’s Amy doing? I usually prefer to “cheat” with blondes, they know how to keep a secret.
I would have preferred that Andy go to Mitchell when players were asked to come forward, but I still think that Andy did the right thing by acknowledging guilt and apologizing.
Everyone’s human and everyone makes mistakes. It’s not like he killed anyone.
Sure makes Clemens look bad, but I think it’s safe to say that the only one who really cares about Roger is Roger.
Next topic. Can we get Santana without giving up Hughes. LOL.
Ghost: McNamee was indentified by the feds as a “sub-distributor” under Radomski. Both are from Long Island and ran in the same circles.
EJ: Obviously there are degrees of wrong. But there’s right and wrong. At what point is speeding OK? If 66 is OK with you, is 76 OK? Then if 76 is OK, 77 must be. Then why not 78?
There has to be a line somewhere. HGH is illegal to have unless you’re getting from a doctor and a pharmacy. Period, end of story.
If it’s a molehill, than the Yankees would hand the stuff out and Derek Jeter would do commercials for Kirk Radomski Drugs, Inc. instead of Ford.
It’s cool you’re a fan of the team. But if your kid came home and said “Hey, I met a weightlifter and he gave me some drugs to use to make be a better player” you’d be OK with that?
If not, than how can you blindly defend Andy?
I think Andy made a mistake and shouldn’t get punished. But he still made the mistake.
C’mon, George, it’s banned by the fed govt. That’s it. There may be debate about it but at the moment it’s a controlled substance. These guys were looking for an edge out of a needle, plain and simple.
Mel-
I really wonder if Cashman can get Johan w/o Hughes, it would be an amazing deal if he could.
In another life, many years ago, I got prescriptions for drugs that some people might think were illegal. So I’m not sure that having a “script” is the sine qua non of propriety.
“Going 66 is speeding. If you’re 20 years and 364 days old, you can’t drink legally. These guys aren’t criminals, but what they did was wrong and no moralizing can change that.”
Come on – surely you can come up with better examples? No, neither of those is wrong, nor immoral.
Just because it’s against the law doesn’t make it immoral. Get off the high horse.
Pete is right. Andy’s apology is very weak, and he looks bad for trying to parse the facts rather than just apologize completely. I actually think Bud should consider suspending him and all the other active players named in the Mitchell report. MLB has been far too soft on the drug issue, and look at the mess it has created. Time to get tough.
I think I’m going to buy an Andy Pettitte jersey, maybe two.
Peter, I also believe he made a mistake and should not be punished, as you do.
I also believe it’s kind of easy for you to go parsing his statement, word by word, but a little specious to do so. It is a bit of public writing and some of it is intended for MLB as much as the fans. Can we give the guy a break at this point?
It is so heinous that these 80-something guys, with varying levels of culpability, are taking all the heat when hundreds of others get to sit back smugly even though they were guilty.
Can we see some parsing of Selig’s and Mitchell’s pomposity, perhaps, instead of continuing to feed the witchhunt?
I am sorry Pete but I think you are way off on this. The use of PEDs may enhance muscle growth and overall strength (which HGH does not do as a poster pointed out), but in the end you have to hit the ball or place the pitch where it needs to go. Without the natural ability, it will do nothing for you.
Getting upset or losing respect over what Andy Pettitte did is absolutely ridiculous. Taking HGH 2 times to speed up his recovery from an injured elbow so that he could help his time. I actually gained a lot of respect for him for doing this. You should have actually put that as an option in your poll. He is one of the few classy guys in the game that puts it all on the table for his team.
Let’s not forget that even though it is “illegal”, we are talking in BASEBALL terms and we are wondering about records and stats. Did two injections of HGH help Andy Pettitte’s stats?
No. Not significantly at least. Did constant injection of steroids and HGH help Clemens stats? No. Did it allow him to pitch longer than he would have been able to? Yes.
And that, my friends, is the difference. Clemens was wrong because it gave him a lot of extra time in the game. I am outraged that this report was released without any significant investigation. Instead of looking at all of baseball, Mitchell focused on the New York teams and New York trainers, completely ignoring the other cities, as if they don’t exist. This report did NOTHING GOOD for baseball and is pathetic.
Andy’s come clean and is attempting to move on. Perhaps we should do the same?
I want to make an important point.
Out of the 80+ players listed…
How many of them were actually good? Does that not speak for itself on whether or not it changes players? Chuck Knoblauch used PEDs? And that is why he’s got Hall of Fame stats. And man, let me tell you, Grimsley is going into the hall along with Mo Vaughn and that stud Denny Neagle.
Seriously. This is so ridiculous.
Pete, first of all, let’s apply some common sense. If there’s no performance-enhancing benefit, then it’s absurd to associate HGH w/steroids. And if there’s no performance-enhancing benefit, and if it only perhaps enhances healing, then why exactly am i supposed to support a taxpayer-funder witch hunt against healing? it seems Kafkaesque.
It just seems un-American for the federal gov’t to intrude on private medical decisions. the federal gov’t also spends my tax money busting people with cancer who smoke pot to deal w/their situation; so the fact that the federal gov’t does it doesn’t provide any moral basis to the discussion – unless I guess you think it’s moral to have the DEA attack cancer patients!
I’m confident I am on a solid basis for this – there is nothing in the U.S. Constution that gives the federal government the right to regulate one’s right to choose a form of healing. If it’s a privelege granted to the gov’t by the Constitution, then as per the much-neglected 10th Amendment, it ain’t the federal government’s business. Here’s the 10th Amendnent:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Peter,
I don’t have a big problem with what you are saying, but can’t that be said for any drug? Greenies have been rampant in baseball for the past 30 years. Ballplayers were passing them around and sharing them for years. If I’m not mistaken, they are a schedule II drug only to be prescribed by doctors. Do you really think all these players who have used them obtained them legally? Are we going to kill every ballplayer who ever got any aid illegally? It’s a slippery slope. Technically, baseball just banned greenies, but the way athletes got them was likely illegal for years. Why is it acceptable for amphetamines but not HGH?
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn.....type=story
What about Viagra !? Oops. Wrong performance enhancing drug.
Red Bull
The fact that you are grouping human growth hormone with androgenic anabolic steroids is insane. Two completely different drugs that do completely different things via completely different pathways and mechanisms.
Do your research before you spew facts that HGH is this evil drug.
redbull is banned in the NCAA, and i believe in most high school leagues as well
And by the way, HGH is easily bought on the internet and through anti-aging clincs. EASILY.
Well I guess if Redbull is banned, then they should ban coffee as well.
NO HYPE-
Right On!!
I sprinkle HGH on my latte – it allows me to drive my car without having to turning it on.
Well your latte contains one of the world’s most addictive substances. HGH occurs naturally in your body and is completely safe. Andy would honestly have to be on HGH for a few months to see any appreciable recovery from a bad elbow injury. He was better off getting cortisone injections which just so happen to be legal in the MLB.
HGH is easily bought on the internet and through anti-aging clincs. EASILY.
Thank God for the internet. I hated going out on a freezing night to pick up my porn and junk.
I think there is truth to it coming down to right and wrong. So, what I want to know, is if Peter ever took a pen or pencil home from work and kept it? If you did then guess what, you stole, its wrong.
Thing is, no one is perfect, and I sincerely doubt that you can catagorically state that you have never gone 1 mile over the speed limit. The speedometers on your cars are not that accurate in any event, so you really don’t know.
With the manner of how accepted use of HGH and steroids have been in MLB and all other sports till it saw the light of day, then I don’t see the utter condemnation of Pettitte for this.
Until every single player who used PEDs is outed, then there will not be satisfaction. Where is the investigative reporting on Ortiz and Manny and Veritek? In fact, why not condemn every player because they were involved in a sport where steroids have been used. After all, there is right and wrong, and this “honorable” hatchet job by the number 5 man in the RS organization created a huge wrong.
Mitchell knew it was wrong in a legal sense to use such weak evidence that he had to ruin careers, yet he felt “justified” because in HIS opinion it was fine to relax his standards. Yeah. Mainly because it hammered the main competition that his team, which he gets $$$$$$$$ from, will benefit. Is that right? Is it right to have done the “investigation” when it started with a cloud over it?
But, yeah, condemn and vilify Pettitte. Then lets also see a big blog entry on the lack of ethics that Mitchell showed. After all, there is right and wrong.
I wonder what drugs you have taken in your lifetime Frosty? Ever take any perscription drugs? Well I will tell you right now that those perscription drugs are much more powerful than the amount of HGH Andy was taking.
another reason why i can’t take this moralizing seriously: doesn’t the way Mitchell has profited from Big Tobacco undercut his report’s pontifications about his supposed concerns of the health impact on our nation’s youth. For an article describing Saint Mitchell’s Tobacco dough, see:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f.....A96E958260
or
http://www.slate.com/id/2281/
now i realize all of this is unimportant morally, when compared to Bad Andy Pettitte wanting to get back on the field in 2002. We are fortunate that Mr. Tobacco Mitchell is around to set out moral compass straight on health issues.
I think Andy should have to wear a scarlet HGH
mattjew: if you’re still here, is Red Bull really banned? That’s crazy. It doesn’t have any affect on me at all….
NO HYPE,
maybe we should start putting HGH in the water, like fluoridation.
Buddy,
Think about it. Cashman and others in the Yankee organization were strongly against trading Hughes. So they got out. Now they’re back in. Who’s leading the charge? Who’s negotiating? I think it’s safe to say it’s the GM and not the owner. Although if Bill Smith was really smart he’d call Hank and deal with him. He’d get a great deal just like Alex did.
Cashman didn’t sign an extension yet. I wonder if he’s holding the Yankees over the barrel a little bit? Let me do my job kind of thing. That would lead me to believe that Cashman thinks he can something done without dealing Hughes. Or maybe Cashman’s just trying to drive up the price for Boston, who I believe would never pay Santana 7yr/$140M.
I think it would be cruel of Hank to change his mind (which he has every right to) because he basically told the world that we’re going to battle with the kids.
Actually, I wish Hank would shut his trap. He’ll lose credibility if he keeps going back on his word. And if we get fleeced for Santana, then he shouldn’t wonder why it always happens to the Yankees. Like father, like son.
Holy Cow brings up a good point. I don’t believe this was a witch hunt, I just think Mitchell found New York leaks and thus Yankees were named.
However, Pete, it has to be unethical for someone who was and will again be on the board of directors of one MLB team to be conducting an investigation of the entire sport. There’s a clear conflict of interest there and Mitchell used poor judgment accepting this assignment.
I’m not saying that he ran his investigation in a bad manner, but the fact is the credibility of the entire Mitchell report is in jeopardy because of his ties to the Red Sox and the lack of power he had to force compliance.
Well you know where flouride comes from… the byproduct of making aluminum. I would rather have HGH in my water thank you very much.
NO HYPE
How long have you been using HGH and how did help/affect you system/body?
umm, NO HYPE, aluminum isn’t made. It’s an element (Al, atomic #13).
HGH should be banned from the blog. It’s obvious that it’s given NO HYPE an blogging advantage, so it should be considered a PED.
No drugs here. Ever.
I am a biomedical engineer and a bodybuilder, so I like to study AAS and other performance enhancers. HGH, at the doses these baseball player were taking them at, is very safe and has very mild effects. They probably took no more than 1 iu per injection. For any muscle building gains, you would need at least 4-5 iu and also be taking AAS or insulin. HGH is a very mild drug and is made out to be very evil.
ellen,
aluminum alloys. my bad
LAURA : Andy, is it true?
ANDY : Don’t ask me about my business, Laura …
LAURA : Is it true?
ANDY : Don’t ask me about my business…
LAURA : No.
ANDY (as he slams his hand on the desk): Enough! (then) Alright. This one time [Andy Pettitte points his finger] — this one time I’ll let you ask me about my affairs…
LAURA (whispering): Is it true? — Is it?
ANDY (quietly, shaking his head): No.
LAURA (after a sigh of relief and Andy Pettitte kisses and hugs her): I guess we both need a drink, huh?
[Laura Pettitte leaves the room to fix Andy Pettitte a drink. At the same time, Rocco, Clemens,
and Neri enter the office. Clemens shakes Andy Pettitte's hand. Laura Pettitte turns her head to watch
them. They embrace Andy Pettitte, then kiss his hand.]
CLEMENS (kissing Andy Pettitte’s hand): Don Pettitte…
***
If only he had denied…
Man are you missing the point on this Pete. Until 2005, when baseball labeled HGH as a PED, it was no different than any other drug that requires a perscription. If Andy used his wife’s painkillers or horded an anti-biotic, would you label him a cheater? Also, if legality defines cheating, then every prohibtion era player was a cheater. The fact of the matter is that in 2002, MLB didn’t not consider HGH a performance enhancer (and to this day, there is little if any evidence to warrant that classification). So, if you want to say Andy was wrong for possessing something our government said he shouldn’t (i.e., HGH, pot, cuban cigars, etc.), so be it. You can’t call him a cheater though…the rules of baseball don’t allow you to.
“What they did was wrong and no moralizing can change that.”
CORRECTION: What they did may have been illegal but in the case of HGH is what not necessarily wrong. I equate using HGH for healing purposes to using stem cells for the same reasons. The holier than thou crowd may have problems with it, but how can one blame someone for using anything available to heal themselves. Blindly following laws, or any other “rules” without first applying some logic is always a mistake.
Pete I DISAGREE about the 50 day ban for CHEATERS.Look at what the IOC(olympics)does. 2yr ban the 1st time caught,and life ban the 2nd offense. The IOC also wipes you from their records book and demands their medals back. You are ERASED PERIOD~YOU NEVER EXISTED!
MLB needs to MANUP and do the same.If the risk of losing EVERYTHING is there it won’t look so appealing.A HEFTY fine and any of the years in question REQUIRES paying back half of the salary you earned as compensation to the team you were on.THIS WELL GET THEIR ATTN
These are millionaires MONEY talks BIG MONEY hit them where it counts in the wallet.There should be a lot to lose if you fail a drug test~After all they did it for MONEY and GLORY!!!
williamnyy,
You make some nice points. We shouldn’t judge because we haven’t been in these guys’ shoes. I can understand that the media needs to be the standard bearers for all things ethical, but there are definitely degrees of guilt.
Americans champion around many athletes who have made mistakes and have been humbled. The fans who love Andy will love him even more. Logical? No. But we don’t live in a world of black and white.
If this happened to Curt Schilling, I wouldn’t think any less of him even though he’s a Red Sock. Now if it’s long-term steroid or PED abuse, that’s a different story.
Isn’t it funny, many people instantly condemn Clemens and all the other players who were named in Mitchell’s report, yet there is almost universal support for Mitchell and his honesty even though there are financial and ethical reasons why he could have used this as a double edged sword to get baseball cleaned up (via gestapo like tactics) and hurt the chief rival of his team.
Is that another case of right and wrong?
THat is “Your”.
Wait one minute about painting the media as such angels of ethics. Who are the ones going 24/7 about the guilt of every one of these players even though none of them have been convicted of these and in most cases there are no positive tests or even enough true evidence to produce a reasonable doubt.
Sorry. What’s right is right, no?
The MLB didn’t start testing for HGH or steroids until this decade. So they didn’t know who was doing what and where.
Holy Cow,
How about posting lists of names without confirmation?
How about a San Francisco Chronicle reporter using SECRET grand jury testimony to write a book for profit?
Criminal!
MLB may not have known who was or who wsn’t but, THE CHEATERS KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING ALL ALONG WAS WRONG~
NO HYPE, I don’t get it. why not use HGH when you, yourself, consider it a mild substance??
MLB is just as much to blame because they chose to ignore the problem. They loved the dollars all the juicing brought in though. So, sharp shooter, if the players get a lifetime ban then the organizations should also get banned. You have to clean your own house. While they are at it, why not shut down baseball all together, that way it will insure that all the cheaters get banned.
Great points Mel.
Very good points Mel.
If this happened to Curt Schilling, I wouldn’t think any less of him
Mel, you’re blowing my mind. You’re saying it’s possible to take a dimmer view of Curt Schilling???
Holy Cow- Chicks dig the long ball!!
Whats the problem if Andy Pettitte wasn’t on that report we wouldn’t have known and he wouldn’t have said anything.
Frosty,
Yes, if he did HGH twice to help him heal, then if I chose to condemn Curt on a piece of paper and that piece of paper most likely would be able to fit beneath my opinion of him. lol. But like I said, I’m not excusing Andy cause he’s a Yankee, in fact it’s most disappointing. But if he did it twice, that’s far easier to accept than if was a steroid freak or HGH junkie.
I prefer that the players don’t cheat, but really it’s going to become a thing of how guilty you are not whether or not you’re guilty. Oh, yeah. It helps if you’re a good guy.
Whatever it takes to stop these players from killing themselves for MONEY and EGO.MLB was silent but are NOW trying to clean up baseball.
It has been said that the only way evil can prevail is when good people stand by and do NOTHING.AS a yankees fan I want a better MINDSET and standard fro the players.
Please just read pages 215-224 of the report it kicks you in the gut.Pg225 starts with Knoublauch Villone Justice Stanton….
Unlike the Giants fans(who like lies) as a diehard Yankees fan I won’t bury my head in the sand a pretend this doesn’t make the Yankees look cheap!
o.k. for all the HGH experts here, what you’re saying is that it is not possible for your head size to grow because of it? Many reporters said that it was HGH that caused Bonds to get so big, because it was not detectable.
Frosty,
Cause it ain’t cheap
HGH is undectable because your body produces it naturally. They can tell you are taking it because your levels are 5x normal. Bonds took AAS; HGH did not make him get from skinny to bulky. These guys were taking very powerful HPTA AAS (deca) as well as HGH and testosterone.
Just for though, who is to say that Hank Aaron didn’t set the HR record while on steroids. They were readily available back then.
Sharpshooter,
If Bonds was on the Yankees for the last 10 years and he was going for the record, there wouldn’t be one person in the Stadium booing him.
Don’t look down on the Giants fans, they’re just supporting their guy.
I understand that even mildly criticizing Pettitte will upset some of you. But a few facts to keep in mind:
I’ve been critical of Mitchell, his ties to Boston and this entire process for months. Read the blog on Thursday.
I wrote Pettitte SHOULD NOT be suspended. I never said he was immoral or a criminal. I said he broke a rule. He did, whether you like it or not. There was rules and laws, it’s black and white. He knew full well he was wrong. He asked McNamee what lie to say if he were asked what he took.
If he did nothing wrong, why did he apologize?
If this was Roy Halladay or Josh Beckett, you’d all be ripping him. Pettitte screwed up, he injected his body with a controlled substance he got illegally from a workout guru. Justify it all you want, he broke the law and the rules of baseball. In 1971, baseball banned any prescription drug without a prescription. That’s not hard to understand.
We’ve all done things that were illegal. Doesn’t mean we were right. If you lost your promotion to a guy who was stealing documents, you’d be OK with that? Andy did something to get an edge. I’m sure plenty of other guys did who didn’t get caught. But he did, his buddy ratted him out. Now he pays, he moves on.
You can justify it any way you want. In the end, he was wrong. I don’t much like security lines at airports but I want to get on the plane. You don’t want to get in trouble for taking PEDs, don’t take ‘em. We all have rules to follow.
NO HYPE,
You’re getting very technical. Are you sure you’re not Victor Conti? Lots of famous people check in here. lol.
Hank AAron didn’t look like Bonds when he broke the record.
AAron had a belly and looked aged.Bonds has a huge head and looks buff at about the same age as AAron.AAron was an old school classic ball player.DON”T EVEN…GO THERE
N.H.
save us some homework. What are the different affects and hazards of HGH, T, and AAS. As a lay person, I naturally wondered why they were using all three in concert and at different times.
I can easily go there because steroids have been around in the USA since the 50s. Any of those guys could have been juicing. I’m sure in the 80s most baseball players were using steroids or amphetamines or a combination of both.
Mel,
I wish I was Vic Conte. He was the bassist for my favorite band (Tower of Power) and now has a multi-million dollar sports consulting firm. He’s one sharp guy
I agree with Peter on this one.
I think this also makes it a lot harder for anybody to believe Clemens when he denies that he ever took steroids and HGH.
Mel I’m NOT looking down on the Giant fans. I’m saying that they turned a ~BLIND EYE ~to what was apparent to the rest of baseball.As Yankees fan I won’t be that easy to fool.
No Hype,
Did I get the wrong Conte? I know that there was a (Giants?) trainer of no relation.
Pete,
You better watch out. The BBWAA might give you a random drug test. What are you taking to keep you going at this hour?
So, 45% OF HGH fake, huh? If you took fake HGH thinking that it was real HGH are you still a cheater? If it was baking soda mixed in water it’s not actually illegal, right? Is it the intent or the actual fact that makes it wrong?
So, Saint Peter, are you saying that you never had a drink before you were 20 years, 365 days old? Let’s get real, that is a ludicrous point. I would be willing to bet that everyone of us on this post had at least a sip of alcohol before we were 21.
HGH- Naturally occuring hormone in our bodies that is at it’s peak when we are young and progressivly lowers as we age. It’s primary purpose is to repair damaged tissues in our body. For therapeutic or performance enhancement, it is useful in that it creates more muscle sites. HGH does NOT build bigger muscles. If you took HGH without working out, without steroids, you would see no gains in muscle mass.
Androgenic Anabolic Steroids (AAS) – These are drugs that BUILD muscle. Some examples are deca-durabolin (deca), trenbolone (tren), dianbol, and winstrol. These drugs are very good at building muscle mass and do not naturally occur in our bodies.
Testosterone (Test) – This is another naturally occuring hormone that works the same way AAS does; increasing muscle mass. Testosterone is combined with an ester and injected intravenously; you do not inject pure testosterone. That is why it is detectable.
Why all three are taken together? HGH builds more muscle sites, thus making the AAS more effective. Testosterone is the foundation of any drug regimen due to its positive effects on libido, cholesterol, cortisol control (stress hormone) and many other factors.
There is no reason to take HGH by itself besides to help promote better recovery. AAS and test can be taken solo and work very well.
This is all Bill Lee’s fault. He started by sprinkling â€mary jane†on his pancakes.
Mel,
I believe Vic’s name is Conte, not Conti.
LOL!
I’m watching â€Kingpin†on Encore cable, and Clemens just came on the screen. He had a cameo as a trucker.
It figures. The Farrelly Brothers are Red Sox fans and made the movie â€Fever Pitchâ€
LOL!
I’m watching â€Kingpin†on Encore cable, and Clemens just came on the screen. He had a cameo as a trucker.
It figures, the Farrelly Brothers are Red Sox fans and produced the Red Sox fantasy movie “Fever Pitch”
The Espn ombudsmen ended her last article with the comment that a book she was reading about the old world of Sicily applied to the media of today.
“Nowhere has truth so short a life as in Sicily; a fact has scarcely happened five minutes before its genuine kernel has vanished, been camouflaged, embellished, disfigured, squashed, annihilated by imagination and self-interest; shame, fear, generosity, malice, opportunism, charity, all the passions, good as well as evil, fling themselves onto the fact and tear it to pieces; very soon it has vanished altogether.” — from “The Leopard,” by Giuseppe di Lampedusa
O.K. got it:
Victor Conte=BALCO founder
Victor Conti=Von Dutch motorcycle dude
Stan Conte= former Giants trainer
jeezus mary,dis whole Andy thing breaks my heart, and Rawjah, who would have thunk it, this whole time I thought he got that strength of his by sticking his arm in a barrel of corn or what not.
Good analogies, Pete. Using HGH without a prescription is at the same level of “wrongness” as drinking an alcoholic beverage when you are 20 or driving 70 mph in a 55 mph zone.
And by the way, although there is a 1971 memo sited by Mitchell in the report, the prohibition on the use of prescription drugs without a prescription is not present in the CBA. While MLB may claim that it remains part of the drug policy, I am pretty sure the MLBPA would disagree with the assertion that the 36 year old memo is part of the drug policy.
Rockindabronx
Your name says it all,~Da Bronx~ has been ROCKED to it’s foundation!
Rockindabronx-
yup. it’s almost as bad as spygate.
Who cares about Pettitte…Santana is now or Ace.
sandman…nothing likea a healthy dose of loyalty!
google “buy HGH” and see how easy it is. I thought it was illegal to purchase?
I’m confused.
Try “buy Viagra.” Viagra is also illegal to buy without a prescription in the United States.
Being available on the internet does not make something legal.
But Pettitte did not violate any enforceable baseball rules by using HGH because the “policy” cited by Pete in his blog post is not part of the collective bargaining agreement (at least as far as can be told). In fact, the memo predates baseball free agency!
Pettitte’s HGH use was more like driving without your seat belt on a few times. It might be illegal but wearing it doesn’t make you a better or safer driver. It didn’t warrant his inclusion in the definitive PED report.
The more you look at it, the more it looks like Mitchell stretched the MLB drug policy so he can snare another yankee — a yankee in the current rotation.
Can we say “appearance of conflict” again? Mitchell should have recused himself or brought in other team reps before issuing the report. He messed up…
Randy-
Yeah Andy Pettitte showed loyalty signing a $16 million contract 2 days before he knew a report will be out about him.Then waited two days to think what to say and would have never said anything unless showed with Clemens as HGH users.Then says anything about him by people is nonsense but the guy wasn’t speaking nonsense when he injected him.
I’m not mad but dissapointed but if he can go out there and pitch like nothing gonna happen and make $16 million then I want Santana who I wanted before.
Sandman,
Pettitte did not know the report would name him. MacNamee’s cooperation was far more hidden from sight than the Met’s towel boy’s cooperation. Pettitte may have known it was possible, but he didn’t know for sure.
And HGH was not against baseball rules in 2002 (see my recent posts refuting Pete’s argument).
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/.....id=3156636
Wow, Espn and Gammons at it again….DEFENDING, guess who? Donnelly.
Not federally legal, blah blah blah….I take a lot more stock in what someone’s intentions are than what is deemed federally legal. It seems Pettitte’s main purpose was to recover to help his team, a very noble selfless desire. If it turns out that he had any other intentions beyond this, then he should probably suffer the consequences, but right now, is it honestly really that bad? He took something for two days to help himself heal so he could go back out and do battle for his team. Whether or not the U.S. government deems something legal or not is really not an issue people should consider when judging someone’s character. Look at this country’s history…there has been a lot of flipflopping on a lot of different issues of morality so to rain judgement down on someone for something that is theoretically hurting only themselves is just ridiculous. Come on now.
why are yankee fans so quick to defend pettitte when he is obviously at fault here. i love rooting for him and all, but the guy cheated the game, even if it was just for 2 days and had minimal impact. and that line about ie being selfless to help the team is garbage. anyone else using hgh to recover faster can say the same exact thing. it’s a load of garbage. pettitte is not noble here. the right thing to do would be to recover naturally. yeah, how about that option?
Yeah I completely agree. If Giambi or Clemens or Bonds or mcGwire said they were doing steroids for multiple seasons so they could help their teams, would that make it any bettter? Hell no. Yankee fans just have a soft spot for Pettitte and are not thinking about this one very rationally. He cheated and it was the wrong thing to do. Now let’s look forward to him pitching well in 2008.
waaaaah — because Pettitte did not cheat the game AND he did not break any baseball rule. He used HGH in the same manner that many players use cortisone — to allow them to come back and play quicker. Pettitte should not have done it because HGH has never been proven effective in helping players come back faster OR play better.
Right. “Recover naturally.” Knee surgery is not natural. Tommy John Surgery is not natural. Cortisone shots are not natural. Hell, even ibuprofen is not natural. It is all about drawing the line and the line has been drawn… somewhat arbitrarily by a Red Sox director.
waaaaah.
carefully, sanctimony is a toxic substance.
Pettite’s elbow injury in 2002 was not anything that required knee surgery or tommy john surgery or any other kind of surgery so those don’t even apply here. he used hgh. he’s a cheater.
waaah — how did Pettitte cheat? HGH was not against baseball rules in 2002 when he used it. Mitchell tries to blur the line by citing a memo from 30+ years ago.
But, if you think anything unnatural is cheating then all of the other things I mentioned are also cheating.
And you studying before taking a test in school was also cheating. You should have relied on your natural intelligence.
karma…so is denial!
“And you studying before taking a test in school was also cheating. You should have relied on your natural intelligence.”
Ok that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. I suppose there’s no getting through to you.
There is no denial here. Pettitte used a controlled substance without a prescription. That was “wrong.” It was not “cheating.”
Similarly, when you exceed the speed limit, you are doing something “wrong.” You are not a criminal.
HGH may have sped up Pettitte’s recovery — it probably did not. Athletes apparently believe HGH does alot more than science has proved. For sure, two injections of HGH did not make Pettitte stronger or pitch better. (Assuming Pettitte is telling the whole truth, of course.)
No Waaaah. I am pointing out how utterly silly and misconceived your arguments are (even though you apparently think you spout common sense — you do not)
When was the first Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiated between the players & owners?
The players negotiated their first-ever Collective Bargaining Agreement in 1968, giving the players the right to have an independent arbitrator from outside Major League Baseball decide their grievances with the owners.
Randy, you bedda sell your ivory tower, the nor-east real estate is about to crash.
My stance on the matter is that Andy’s name still belongs in the report even though he technically wasn’t cheating. George Mitchell’s task was to mainly investigate the drug culture in baseball, and so HGH use is a part of that investigation regardless of whether baseball outlawed it or not. I also think the idea that George Mitchell was biased is incorrect.
See, I don’t understand where the outrage is coming from.
We all knew this was going on. We also saw the before and after pitcher of McGwire, we all knew 70 homers was ridiculous, yet everyone cheered.
You had to be a fool to think Big Mac’s record was completely koshier, we didn’t need a smoking gun to add things up, yet, at the time, I didn’t hear a single dissenting voice.
So I don’t want to hear any crying now if you didn’t object to what was staring you in the face back in the day.
Besides, there’s no crying in baseball.
what’s your deal man? we still like pettite according to the poll so take it easy. your little breakdown of the statement was real cute but honestly shut the f**k up we’re all yankee fans and we’re gonna support our players.
PlumpChum, every human is biased. Lifetime appointments doesn’t prevent the Supreme Court from being as divided as the Grand Canyon.
Plump: Andy’s name only belongs in a comprehensive report. Mitchell’s report is an anecdotal report. Whether by luck or design, the anecdotes were obtained from New York based dealers. As a director of the Red Sox, he could have demanded that the Red Sox non-player personnel tell all. Even if none of the Red Sox stars were users or abusers, he should have had far more details on the team he had the most access to. The absence of details is also telling.
Regardless of whether you think Mitchell was biased, there is an appearance of conflict. Mitchell knows what that means and he knows how to avoid or dilute that appearance. He did nothing to avoid or dilute the appearance of conflict. He just went on his merry way (and made $20 million for his law firm at the same time).
Show me a person who hasn’t sped or had a drink while underage. I’m sure there aren’t many.
Let me start by saying that what Andy Pettitte did was wrong. No if’s ands or buts. He has apologized and each of us need to look at what he has said and make our own determinations.
However something I have been thinking about that makes me ponder. Are we all looking at this use of HGH through 2007 eyes?
I am certainly no expert on HGH and only know what has been written about it recently but what would those eyes have read in 2002 when Andy took it. Was as much known about it then as we do now. Did players know as much about it as we do now? Was it that all Andy knew was that it helped him heal quicker and did not have all the effects that we know it has now?
BY no means am I excusing what he has done but when Marc McGuire had Andro in his locker back in the day a single reporter wrote about it but nothing happened to him with regard to baseball as it was not on thev list of banned substances as at that time no one knew it was a steroid. Now that we know it is McGuire gets racked over the coals (as he should be)but there just wasnt the informtion that is available now.
Could the samne be said for HGH in 2002 when Andy injected it. I do not know the asnwer i just think we need to look at this from 2002 eyes and what might have been in Andy’s mindset rather than all of the information we have about this now.
Sorry Pete I really think you’re pushing it here. I’m not going to judge someone for speeding as I wouldn’t expect someone to do to me. My back went out one day at work – it was agonizing & one of my associates gave me a percoset for the pain – my associate wasn’t a doctor & the prescription pain medication wasn’t prescribed to me or for my condition. I felt a lot better so ask me if I give a crap – NOT. I’ve been reading a lot of sanctimonious bs in many of the posts the past several days. Take a look in the mirror people & get over it already.
Dear Andy :
Please above all things, be selective with the media types you discuss things with and in particular, Lupica and the agenda and personal vendetta he’s held against the Yankees for years.
http://enough-Lupica.com/index.htm
Sincerely,
Endless moralizing by people with petty little self righteous natures.
If a stand up guy like Petitte succumbed to temptation, it is time to put this issue in context. The circumstance of availability, no rules, no enforcement, little guidance and huge temptation is a recipe for disaster that can, and did ensnare a generation of atheletes.No human society can exist without governance.
If we left society to self regulation, chaos would ensue.
Therefore it is cheap to single out individuals when, others, just as guilty, go untouched.
Lets be serious. Andy Pettitte broke a federal law. He needs a lawyer, now.
Great penalty (50 days), Pete, but how does MLB prove it? They could have proven nothing on Andy; rather, he told his fans what he died after Mitchell’s wild-eyed accusation.
If baseball wants to move forward, the testing also must become serious and the sport must rid itself of the stench of George Mitchell.
When my mother passed, we all went to my aunts house. I recall my aunt passing around tranquilizers. I’m glad Pete wasn’t there to lecture us on taking a pill not prescribed for us.
And if Pete gets a severe headache and a friend offers a pain pill, I presume Pete would turn it down. He would rather suffer than take a pill not under doctors orders.
Andy Pettitte was wrong in what he did. His apology, even though it was mealy-mouthed, is still miles ahead of St Joe telling us he was insulted by a 1 year $5 million contract ($500,000 more than he asked for in the spring) or telling Letterman there was nothing to the Dodger job rumors. Is Grady Little counting down the days to pitchers and catchers? If Pettitte needed HGH to heal he should have asked a legitimate doctor. Or found a second opinion. I don’t usually go dewy-eyed over athletes but I thought Pettitte might be an exception (he didn’t use the Red Sox card in 2003 to get a better deal). But there should be an amnesty and players like Pettitte and other clean Yankees (Jeter, Rivera, Damon, etc) should put pressure on Fehr and other players to get a first class testing program with a heavy emphasis on prevention and using legitimate items like creatine.
Andy made a mistake, he apologized and we should all move on. It seems like the media cares more about disecting his apology than putting this all behind us.
1
Forget the moralizing over Pettitte. He was wrong to use HGH without a prescription. It violated rules outside of baseball and, arguably, inside of baseball. Nobody can say the rules Pettitte broke were immoral or inherently wrong. Pettitte doesn’t have the moral high ground that an abolitionist had before the Civil War, that Rosa Parks had when she wouldn’t give up her seat, that Jackie Robinson had when he signed with Brooklyn or that Curt Flood had when he challenged the Reserve Clause and lost.
The only legitimate argument is over what to do about Pettitte. The argument over what to do is where any discussion of the mitigating and aggravating factors belong. But forget whether it is too late now to start discipline for something that happened 5 years ago. Forget whether MLB has ever seriously and diligently prosecuted violations of the anti-prescription drug bans and whether to do so now against Pettitte would be arbitrary and vindictive.
MLB could theoretically use the catch-all “integrity of the game” powers and ban all of these guys like they banned Pete Rose for gambling. But is the PED issue the same as gambling? In some ways yes. Gambling was baseball’s second original sin, after the Gentleman’s Agreement to ban African Americans. Gambling affected the integrity of the game because it raised the real possibility that players would see monetary gain by cheating and allow criminals outside the game to benefit also. See: The Black Sox. The parallels are obvious.
But the PED issue is different from gambling in some ways. There is a concept in equity known as “unclean hands.” It is a defense to being sued. It basically says you cannot ask a court to help you get relief against someone else if you have been as bad or worse than the party you are complaining about. There is also a notion that trying to punish someone in whose criminal act you were complicit by acts of omission is naked hypocrisy and self-serving behavior on stilts.
The Mitchell Report lays blame all around, castigating players, management and owners, but names only the offending players, I suppose because only they ingested the drugs and played the game. But with PEDs, the level of willful blindness at the Commissioner’s office, in the Owners’ booth and at MLBPA is as much the story and the issue as anything the players did. So, let’s do what Mitchell had no nerve to do and provide a dishonor roll of Commissioners. Throw Giamatti under the bus, Vincent too, and don’t forget dear Selig. How can these men have pretended not to know what was going on for the last twenty years and MLB still claim the right to punish players under the catch-all integrity of the game clause?
If we are going to start moralizing about players, we have to do it about Commissioners too. Thus, any talk of punishment, bans and fines is a forfeit game, because baseball management had knowledge and did nothing and then moved with glacial speed despite mounting pressure. The “judge” in this case is just as wrong as the players. Wipe the slate clean, start over.
Based on the fact that the names cited represent the results of interviews/investigations of basically just two “suppliers” in a HUGE universe of them, it is obvious that those names are merely a small % of those who in fact used. It would be reprehensible & unfair to single these few out for punishment while the vast majority skate with their reputations unblemished. If punishment is the goal, then do a wide-ranging & thorough investigation, & PUNISH the owners, GMs, & BASEBALL EXECUTIVES, including the Commisioner, as well, who giddily & knowingly allowed the STEROID ERA to exist while reaping the rewards of the resurgence
that MLB enjoyed in good measure as a direct result.
CYCLING has a bad name because they have a SERIOUS testing program that involves BLOOD COLLECTION, and also save samples for future testing of previously undetectable substances. Testing by the NFL & MLB is a joke compared to Cycling & track & field, so unless they get SERIOUS, just stop making believe & pretending they really care.
even if we lived in a rigid world where every law was strictly enforced, it would still be wrong to selectively enforce a law against a few targeted people. if a law is going to be enforced, it needs to be applied equally to everyone. mitchell looked into a small percentage of the baseball player population.
that small group happened to be new york based. how convenient for a boston based investigator.
mitchell profited immensely from lobbying for big tobacco. he is not above screwing people for money. he can not take the high moral ground when he lobbied for big tobacco and against the health of young people in this country. he was paid tens of millions for this sleazy effort.
how many millions was he paid by big baseball to selectively focus his investigation on two teams who coincidently happen to be rivals of the team he works for?
LOL, are there any Yankees rumors besides Johan Santana?
The only way HGH should be administered is via a practicing physician.
It’s all just a shame and it hurts the credibility of the game and it also makes it harder to be a fan of the game.
Makes one think that where there is money or scholarships on the line…outstanding power players are all suspect…unless tested and verified to be clean by an outside lab.
In fact 3 things should result of this investigation:
1. Selig should resign…it happened under his watch and he actually encouraged by by applauding the HR races.
2. Olympic drug testing program should be instituted from the college level to the professionals.
3. Anybody proven to be a user of PED’s should not be eligible for their sport’s HOF.
Also…Mitchell should be questioned why McGwire, Sosa and others were not in the report.
Coakley, the sociologist, noted that his research had convinced him that athletes would go to extraordinary lengths to improve performance.
“We’ve all seen how they will sacrifice their bodies, their long-term health, play through great pain and make all kinds of other sacrifices,†Coakley said. “Taking drugs to be a better player is a minor thing in comparison. In that environment, it’s not seen as deviant, that’s for sure.â€
Why is it that all these moralists that come down so hard on HGH and anabolic steroids glorify athletes that play with pain, take local injections, and do other harmful things so they can play?
Cheat ? Yeah…. I cheated.
Hasn’t every poster on this board cheated at one time or another ? Not in the slightest ? Just a tiny bit ? Ever ? Never ?
Mirror mirror on the wall ………..
I wonder if another analogy besides speeding or drinking might make clear things up here — or muddy the waters even more. Clearly its cheating to deliberately throw at a batter. Definitely against the rules. Yet every pitcher does it even though its way more dangerous than HGH. Are they doing something immoral? We hate them for it when they’re on another team; we’re all for it, most of the time, when they’re Yankees. People say its part of the game. Unfortunately, taking drugs has been part of the game for years and years. Its clearly time to make it absolutely clear that taking these drugs will no longer be tolerated. But I don’t see how you can retroactively punish people for this, any more than you can go back and suspend pitchers who weren’t suspended for throwing at batters.
randy:
I initially invested a lot of time and energy on the investigation, the report and its methodology, owing to my 20 years in the business. But that ship has sailed. I’ll give the devil his due and credit the Mitchell report “for what it’s worth” despite all its serious flaws. Obviously, a partial list of names seems unfair because of its lack of completeness. But does Pettitte or any of the rest of them really look better if we see that many more of his peers were doing the same dubious things? Or is it merely that Andy’s face is a little less noticeable in a bigger crowd of naughty boys?
The next and probably far more important thing for the game itself is how MLB responds. If they punish only those few named offenders harshly (or even at all) they risk a real backlash from the public and MLBPA. MLB helped create this problem by following the Commissioner’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding PEDs while raking in the revenues PEDs helped generate. Everybody will see the sheer hypocrisy of Selig now punishing anyone for a situation he helped create and from which he benefited immensely.
MLB should fix the testing program and install an MLB Department of Investigations for all purposes, not just PEDs, independent of the Commissioner’s Office. There will always be some problem in the game which will need exposure from people without a monetary incentive to remain blind. One of the biggest reverberations of PEDs and Mitchell is that Baseball cannot police itself.
there are times that peter a. gets on the wrong side of an issue because he’s not a yankee fan. the mitchell report is an attack on the yankees. we get it .peter a. doesn’t.
sometimes not being a yankee fan helps because he’s more objective, but in this case he simply doesn’t feel the indignation that yankee fans feel. his brain will eventually catch up to what our gut tells us right now.
peter a. couldn’t be more wrong about over enforcement of laws. for example on a much more serious level, there is a whole generation of african americans in prison because of over enforcement of drug laws.
does peter a. also advocate making criminals of as many people as possible?
one way to do that is make as many laws as possible and enforce them as strictly as possible.
has peter a. drunk one too many jack daniels and driven a car? has he ever gone on someone else’s wifi without permission? has he ever rolled through a stop sign? has he ever taken on his cell phone in connecticut while driving his cell phone?
bad peter. real bad.
Great post Pete.
The homers killing you for it is expected.
You really, REALLY need to stop with the holier than thou BS. You would pass. Yeah, ok. Life is just so simple, isn’t it. It must be nice to be such an all-knowing saint.
Again, pompous ass is right on target.
FORMER Senator Mitchell, being a former politician and lawyer is well aware of the conflict of Interest rules. Here is its definition:
“conflict of interest is a situation in which someone in a position of trust, such as a lawyer, insurance adjuster, a politician, executive or director of a corporation or a medical research scientist or physician, has competing professional or personal interests. Such competing interests can make it difficult to fulfill his or her duties impartially. A conflict of interest exists even if no unethical or improper act results from it. A conflict of interest can create an appearance of impropriety that can undermine confidence in the person, profession, or court system. A conflict can be mitigated by third party verification or third party evaluation noted below—but it still exists.”
Shame on Selig and his cronies, including Mitchell, for allowing this arbitrary, incomplete, and utterly ridiculous Report to be published with a smattering of names exposed to the General Public for their scrutiny and criticism.
“Great post Pete.
The homers killing you for it is expected.”
:snort:
1289 to 47 says the fans don’t care. Peter, this whole thing is a media driven story because it sells papers and gets hits on websites. I think I speak for most Yankee fans when I say can you just focus this blog on baseball. Thanks, Jeff NJ
from Randy L.
“…if a law is going to be enforced, it needs to be applied equally to everyone. mitchell looked into a small percentage of the baseball player population.
that small group happened to be new york based. how convenient for a boston based investigator…”
This point is SO CRITICAL of this entire escapade !!!
Why the Yankees & Mets ???
Every watercooler conversation should be required to also discuss this pro-Boston bias that can never be ‘undone’ !!!
The method & biased results were reprehensible.
Agree ?
(never let anyone forget this ‘in-your-face-bias !!!)
I am still a Pettitte fan, but don’t be fooled. He is not sorry for doing this. He is sorry he got caught. Did he forget about 2002 last winter when his name came up in the Jason Grimsley investigation? Here is his quote at that time.
“I’ve never used any drugs to enhance my performance in baseball. I don’t know what to say except that it’s embarrassing that my name would be out there.â€
The vast majority of these players were just average players. Maybe 3 or 4 who could be considered great. what difference does it make to the average guy who is out of baseball. They made thier money and are awaiting thier pensions from baseball. Why didn’t the Mitchell Report people call im all clubhouse attendants and personal trainers in MLB. Did they question any clubhouse people from other teams. If you drew a line and put all the players named behind that line and then said if you used it for medical reasons. I bet every player would step forward. To save baseball after the strike year the league juiced up the baseball to bring the fans back. Then they sat back and watched the players juice up. The Sosa/Mcguire race was enjoyed by everybody. People had to know back then something was up. They played it for what it was worth. MLB uses anybody they can. Now this story is on the front page and we are in the middle of the NFL and the early stages of NCAA, NHL, NBA and the Bowl season. We are making martyrs of the guys and next year attendance records will soar. In reality who really cares about most of these guys. It still goes back to Barry Bonds. And he hasn’t failed an official drug test. And everybody is making excuses for thier guys. I think we need an * or two next to the Mitchell Report, Mr. Selig
“One of the biggest reverberations of PEDs and Mitchell is that Baseball cannot police itself.”
murpheydog-
i rarely disagree with your legal analysis, and i don’t here. this issue is clearly bigger than just peds.
one of the biggest problems of the mitchell report is all the confusion about it being a quasi legal proceeding. i would feel better if the investigations were being done by a grand jury or other court ordered investigation because then people accused would have legal rights to protect them from false accusations.
baseball is a legal monopoly so it does a lot of strange things. if, for instance, there was another baseball league, players could simply leave a league that had someone like mitchell investigate them . when mlb does something players don’t like , where are they supposed to go?
baseball should be broken up into separate leagues just like the att was broken up into the baby bells. too much power is put in one place. this leads to all kinds of abuses of power. i realize this isn’t going to happen so some sort of independent investigation mechanism like you suggest is needed.
the player’s association is the counter balance to the owners excess of power so any real solutions will have to come from them . at some point, the player’s association is going to be heard. then it’s going to get even more interesting.
maybe you should send in your resume to the player’s association.
Dwight Gooden or Darryl Strawberry didn’t cheat. They just simply derailed their careers at various points in time.
Not the same ?
Pete,
You are right about buying stuff from people who work out of their garage. A few years back I bought a computer from a little fat bald guy who sold them from a garage. I never received my computer from the guy. I ended up buying a laptop instead.
The Reserve Clause was challenged in the ’70′s and the game forever changed. Once the salaries skyrocketed with free agency, the urgency to perform in meeting the contract expectations surged forward. Bug Selig couldn’t and wouldn’t recognize the facts and consequently a flimsy report will forever be questioned.
“C’mon, George, it’s banned by the fed govt. That’s it. There may be debate about it but at the moment it’s a controlled substance. These guys were looking for an edge out of a needle, plain and simple.”
Peter,
You are being part of this senseless witch hunt.
I agree Pettitte did a mistake from a legal presepctive, no question about it.
Look at this damn thing from a baseball perspective, not from a legal perspective.
From, a baseball perspective, Pettite did not violate the rules of the game. HGH was not a banned substance in 2002.
Now, from a legal perspective it was wrong as he used a controlled substance without prescription. Now tell me how many players were on the wrong side of the law for various reasons and as crucified as Pettitte or others for that matter? Drunken driving is against the law, how many violated that and as crucified? Now, don’t come back and say they are different, as they are not – both against the law. In fact, drunken driving is more dangerous to the soceity as those culrpits could kill others. Think before you draw these crazy conclusions.
Pocono Chris
Pettitte-”I’ve never used any drugs to enhance my performance in baseball.” If this was his quote last winter, it makes sense. In his mind he felt that he was trying to rehab an injury so he could get back to work to justify what the Yankees were paying him to perform. Let’s face it, Andy is not a leader, he’s a follower. He idolizes Clemens who took him under his wing to prepare him for the rigors of a successful career in baseball. Un fortunately for Clemens, he’s the one who will have a hard time proving his innocence.
randy:
At the end of the day, I see Congress having fun with the idea that MLB cannot police itself. Congress has used its considerable powers over businesses operating in Interstate Commerce powers to change a lot of things in the past, including opening up the doors to women and minorities.
Using that power, Congress could essentially force MLB to install some kind of independent monitor, instead of a Department of Investigation within the Commissioner’s Office, and have more of an independent Commission of Investigation, with one MLB Commissioner, one MLBPA Commissioner and one Neutral Commissioner. The Commissioners appoint an executive director (a Judge Landis without the racist tendency) who would run the day to day business and take direction from the Commission and/or open investigations on his or her own initiative. There should be a regular staff of investigators and auditors with baseball industry knowledge. MLBPA and MLB would have to agree that all players, owners, and anyone connected with MLB must fully cooperate with any Commission inquiry or face discipline for not cooperating, separate from any punishment for the wrongdoing under investigation. Public reports with findings and recommendations would be made to the Commissioner’s Office and referrals could be made to law enforcement confidentially, without MLB’s permission. This way, MLB will always be on its toes, including the Commissioner’s office.
It would have been nice for sportswriters, players and others to have had such an agency to complain to twenty years ago about steroids and PEDs. Maybe an independent commission would have forced the issue much sooner than what we saw when it was left to MLB and MLBPA to do their usual dance.
Sorry, Pete, but you seem FAR too emotionally involved in needing to simply point out “Andy broke the rules”. I don’t know why, but same as Lombardi over at WasWatching needs to move on from his obsession with Brian Cashman, seems like you need to move on from this.
“I’d be interested if somebody told me a certain drug would make me a better sportswriter”
No such drug exists.
mmk:
It’s called red bull ; )
Holy cow – I’m astounded at the rationalization going on here. It’s one thing to say you don’t care, or that other people do worse things. Absolutely. But to say that it’s not “wrong” because HGH wasn’t against the rules at the time is ludicrous.
If Andy – who is one of my favorite Yankees – wanted a prescription to help heal his elbow, he could have called one of his physicians. He did not.
He got it from a trainer, without prescription. He knew this was not the correct way to obtain a prescription drug. He is a grown man, whose body is his stock-in-trade. Remember when we laughed at another player’s “flaxseed oil” excuse? Not so funny now.
Then, after two injections, he felt bad about it and stopped. What was there to feel bad about, under the line of thinking that I see on this thread? He felt bad, because he knew taking HGH was not the right thing to do.
This is not sanctimony. No one is saying he’s an ax murderer, or that he’s Barry Bonds. It has nothing to do with whether anyone on this board has ever exceeded the speed limit. He should not be crucified, or suspended, for that matter. But to say that he is absolved of all guilt because we like him is pretty weak.
mmk
December 16th, 2007 at 10:46 am
“I’d be interested if somebody told me a certain drug would make me a better sportswriterâ€
No such drug exists.
_________________________________________________
Ah, but, there is. It’s called books. He could try reading any article by Grantland Rice or Ring Lardner.
Everyone on here has done something illegal, from speeding, to not paying a parking meter, parking illegally, smoking pot, drinking under 21, I could go on. There is no need to crucify Andy for something he did TWICE!! He admitted it, lets move on.
And did anyone read Klapass’s article today. I was so angry reading it.
Why is everyone making such a big deal about this? Yes we were all disappointed in learning that Andy used HGH, but he apologized and we should all move on.
How many football players probably use HGH? Do you think they would ever admit using HGH while still playing football? Absolutely not.
Why is baseball put in a higher standard than football? If any of these players want to ruin their lives by injecting themselves with PEDs, why should we care?
Sports is entertainment for fans. If you don’t like, then don’t watch.
“Going 66 is speeding. If you’re 20 years and 364 days old, you can’t drink legally. These guys aren’t criminals, but what they did was wrong and no moralizing can change that.”
i know on cape cod ,where i live, in district court, judges throw out all kinds of charges that police file. if someone was charged by an overzealous cop for going 66 in a 65mph zone, i’m absolutely sure the judge would dismiss it.
judges seem to apply common sense to the strict letter of the law. if in this case, the motorist ran into a judge that ruled against him or her for some reason, there would be other levels of the judicial system to appeal to. at some point in the system , it’s highly likely the case would be dismissed.
now with the situation pettitte finds himself in with the mitchell report, mitchell functions as the cop who charged pettitte. where is the judge who gets to show common sense if pettitte wanted to defend himself?
it can’t be selig because he’s the one who sent the “cop “after pettitte. so where does pettitte, if he wanted to, go for an independent hearing of the charges against him? this is where murpheydog’s idea for an independent commission comes in. the judges who make decisions of guilt and innocence and hand out sentences must be independent of the ones who make the charges in the first place.
it’s human nature that until a system screws you, you don’t notice the unfairness of the system. some players are being screwed by the mitchell report. we, as yankee fans, are in a way being screwed by the mitchell report.
there’s a reason so many of us on this blog are taking offense against the mitchell report.
the reason is that it’s indirectly directed at us.
Murphydog and Randy1 …… enjoyed both of your several posts over the last hour (or so). Thoughtful, and insightful (NOT inciteful).
The Yankees were caught in a bad place. The only two witnesses were provided to Mitchell by the Federal Government, and they just happened to have NY backgrounds. Obviously, the report is a limited snapshot in time, and I don’t blame Yankee fans for being defensive.
Let me quickly share my thought on where there should be some retribution, and it is towards those who were/are serial steroid users. I believe that the Clemens/Bonds types deserve castigation, even exile, from serious talk about basenball “greats.” At just the time when they were both due for Mike Mussina-like declines, their hubris and greed drove them both into a decade of artificial success. I am personally convinced that Clemens started to juice in his final (contract) year in Boston, where his athletic mid-life crisis took a 180 degree reversal. (At that point, his 191 wins was NOT sufficient for the HOF).
The marginal players and the infrequent “experimentors,” let them go. But those who have accepted incredible adulation and MONEY as a result of their transgressions, throw the book at them.
P.S. The Yankees wanted to void Giambi’s contract (at least until he started to hit home runs again). If they were of a mind, they should sue Clemens for around $27 million (last year’s salary + luxury tax) using the same legal philosophy …. fraud and breach of co0ntract.
murphydog -
I can definitely see Congress getting into this in a big way, because the report did make apparent that baseball has too much self-interest to take care of itself.
I know that not enough is being made of the blind eye that the Commissioner’s office, the owenrs and management turned toward the use/abuse of steroids/HGH, but in my mind the most reprehensible authority to not push for better drug testing is the Players Association. They’re charged with protecting the players they represent — not just from being taken advantage of by greedy owners, but also from harmful work conditions. Are not steroids harmful? Do they not create an atmosphere at the workplace that is also unhealthy and does it not encourage the players to act illegally? I think the Players Association should be held to the higher standard here, because of the duty they are charged with. To me, the Association has put the very players they represent in peril by not insisting that steroids, HGH, and other illegal drugs be vanquished. Perhaps if the players could go to their own union with complaints about other players who cheat, and feel they would be backed by their own union, more “clean” players, supposedly in the majority, would have felt empowered to clean up their own sport. Instead they have a union that tells them to shut up, because the Commissioner just wants them to take all the heat for steroids.
Again, I’m not giving the other parties in this a pass. Selig, the owners, and the coaches, etc., who hid their heads in the sand and profitted from the players’ new-found strength, all have blood on their hands (overdramatic, I know). But the MLBPA is the one party here whose actual interest here is supposed to be the players.
Andy Pettitte was wrong in using HGH. There is no question about that. And it would have been better had he spoken to Mitchell before the report came out, but I think the outcome would have still been the emphasis on the fact that his name was in there and he used, not that he met with Mitchell. In the end, he still would have issued the same type of apology. Was it a perfect apology? No. But he did accept responsibility for his mistake. More than many will do. So, Pete, that is where I disagree with you. I don’t want to nitpick someone’s statement of guilt.
Most sportswriters seem to have a problem with Pettitte’s first word, “If”. Just read what was said, instead of what you thought it should say. If it’s because of the way it’s written, get off of it. Maybe you writers should read some of the things that you and some of the other “Knights Of The Keyboards: put out as literature. I’ve seen better writings from 11th and 12th grade journalism students than what being pumped out by the “professionals”.
Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent is an honorable man, treated dishonorably by owners who just wanted to line their pockets. Isn’t it obvious by what Selig did as soon as he and his cronies got Vincent out of their way? Speaking of Fay Vincent reminds me of Bart Giamatti who died shortly after he got Pete Roses’ signature on an document keeping him out of the Hall of Fame until after his death because of violating the rule that is on the wall of every MLB clubhouse: “NO BETTING ON BASEBALL”. Pete Rose is out of baseball by his own hand. Neither Giamatti or Vincent would have looked the other way about steroids as Selig and Fehr have.
Now, we are faced with the fact that MLB has become a haven for cheats and moneyhungry athletes who are allowed to use/injest questionable substances in their clubhouses. When Jason Giambi was hired by the Yankees – after his steroid use had become public – they redacted the word ‘steroid’ from his contract. He was also given clubhouse access credentials for his entourage which included his ‘trainers’ and other friends and family members.
Because of the Mitchell Report, the Yankee Management has a lot to answer for and we need to hear from Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman and Joe Torre. They need to explain why so many Yankee team members were ‘using’ in the Yankee Clubhouse while they were in charge of the team. We also need to hear from the coaches who spend so much of their time with team members.
For all their glory days in the past, the current Yankee team, fueled by illegal substances has drawn a blank on their beloved post game titles since they decided to look the other way and allow their players to do drugs in their workplace.
That being said, I now have even more admiration for Derek, Jorge, Mariano and Bernie who must have had a lot of pressure put on them not to speak out.
Perhaps it is time for them to speak now.
Our good friend Pete seems to ignore the fact that that trainer fellow represented himself as not only a trainer but a practitioner of Sports Medicine.
It was routine for the trainer to “prescribe” physical therapy, message and dispense medicine to help to prepare the athletes for their days work.
Almost all athletes have some sort of problem and require and get help from the team trainer.
The doctors are called in when their is a problem that the trainer feels he cannot handle.
Peter Abraham
December 16th, 2007 at 12:31 am
C’mon, George, it’s banned by the fed govt. That’s it. There may be debate about it but at the moment it’s a controlled substance. These guys were looking for an edge out of a needle, plain and simple.
Peter, Truth is anabolic steroids are controlled class 3 substances and carry a much greater penalty if someone is using them without a prescription. HGH (somatropin) requires a prescription but is not a controlled substance.
Doreen:
If we look at the history of the MLBPA, IMO they haven’t really been a guild of skilled artisans, promoting standards and best practices for the industry. They have been the little guy versus the moguls until their dramatic victory came in establishing free agency. It was a laudable goal to see to it that people were not treated like chattel. But again, IMO, MLBPA’s been about relative bargaining position and raising the income levels instead of what’s best for the game. There have also been periods of unfair dealings with MLBPA, see, e.g., in the two collusion cases, so they are not about to stop being vigilant. We can always hope for more from MLBPA, but it’s not likely we’ll see them choosing to do other than fight the owners for the foreseeable future.
RE Pettitte’s implications for Clemens:
I don’t understand the common media parception that Andy’s admission bodes ill for Clemens.
Good liars tell the truth most of the time.
This only proves that McNamee told the truth about Andy.
parception = perception
sorry, “parception” should = perception
It’s funny. The media grills them when they deny, grills them when they admit it becaus eit is not worded correctly. Can you blame them for being so jaded?
On D Ball
Good points!!
To my mind, Pettitte didn’t address the two most important series questions the Mitchell Report posed and is therefore still guilty.
1) Is he now or has ever been a member of the Communist Party.
2) Did he consort with the Devil? And/or has he ever practiced withcraft? Did he send his spirit into the night to seduce Mike Lupica or Bob Klapisch’s daughter?
After all, in the court of public opinion, a man is guilty before he proves himself innocent.
murphydog –
And that’s a crying shame.
So, I guess the Federal Government will end up getting involved – unless both parties go against type and hype.
Owners have been colluding forever to keep salaries down.
In 1918, the owners got together and decided that every team would release every player on their rosters that had unguaranteed contracts. They all agreed to not sign another
team’s players. The first CBA in baseball was 1968. It was brought about in large part because of the dual 1966 holdouts by Koufax and Drysdale (the scheme was actually an idea thought up by Don’s wife Ginger).
It would be an injustice to lump Barry Bonds or Jose Canseco into the same group as a guy like Pettitte. Pettitte was apparently using it like a cortisone shot to heal an injury. Unlike to those two, he wasn`t using when he was performing well, which was for the 7-8 years before `02.
Should he have gotten it from a doctor instead of a trainer? Sure. Don`ï½” know why he didn`t. If he had done so (and apparently he could have gotten it for the same reason he got it from the trainer) it would have been perfectly legal. Don`t know why he couldn`t have just gotten cortisone, which (I`m not sure) might need a doctor too.
Again, Pettitte wasn`t using it for the 7-8 years before `02 when he was performing well. He was using it like a cortisone shot to heal an injury which he eventually needed an operation for anyways. And apparently he`s not trying to BS anyone about it.
I`d hope a reckless guy who drives 126 in a 65 zone just for the hell of it gets judged a little differently than a good driver who goes 66 in that same zone for just a moment, for what could have been a totally legit reason under other circumstances.
Still like to see how many unnamed guys in other clubhouses were driving 75, 85, 95 or much much more. You can bet your butt there were several, just about everywhere.
Kill Schill: well said.
thanks, andrea
Is there any way we can get johan without giving up phil hughes?
My Reply:
http://mvn.com/mlb-yankees/200.....molehills/
A standard jury instruction proceeds: “If you believe that a witness has given false testimony with respect to a material fact, you may disregard the testimony of the witness in whole or in part. A witness may have been mistaken or may have lied as to part of the testimony, and yet be accurate and truthful as to other parts.”
At the same time, if a witness is corroborated as to one part of his story, it tends to lend more credibility to the rest. Detail persuades and the more of the informant’s details that check out, the more persuasive he becomes in general. Thus Andy may have helped Roger finally get under the bus.
But the determination of which witnesses to credit, and how much, is up to the trier of fact, usually a jury, not one of the parties. All we have here is one of the parties determining that the witness was credible. That offends our sense of fair play especially when there is a price for the accused to pay without having had his shot at damaging the accuser’s credibility with other facts that tend to discredit him.
What kind of facts would those be? I would need to know what he “earned” from the Feds in exchange for his accusations against Pettitte and Clemens. The better the prize, the greater the motivation to embellish, exaggerate and lie in order to get the reward. In the end the determination rests on which motive won out, “do the right thing” or “get the prize”? In McNamee’s case it doesn’t sound all that clear.
While I understand the legitimate upset at the list, I urge everyone to get past it unless and until MLB takes action based on it. IMO, in that event, MLBPA will go nuclear, and Selig will have gone 2/3 of the way to destroying the game by first underreacting and then overreacting to PEDs.
Actually, in the current version of the Controlled Substances Act, amphetamines are now in the same class as anabolic steroids (both schedule III)
See: http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs/csa/812.htm#c then scroll down to schedule III
Speaking of…
To Pete: Your thoughts on greenies?
Pete – The worst post you have ever made. I guess nobody goes to Mexico for cancer treatment. I guess arresting a 79 year old doctor for growing pot to give to his dying, cancer stricken wife to ease her pain, was fine with you.
I guess working on a newspaper has you seeing in 2 colors. Blank and White.
I guess you feel what Andy did was more damaging to more people then what Selig and Fehr did (or more specifically, didn’t do).
Shame on you Pete for moralizing and taking such a narrow viewpoint.
According to what McNamee has said and others have written, he was all but threatened and coached on what to say, including giving at least 3 statements until he got it to their liking.
Well said, murphydog.
I don’t know if McNamee is a liar or not, or what was his risk/reward for the information provided. I’m just saying that having one (or even a number) of truths verified does not in itself make one credible.
Old Yanks Fan:
With respect, going to Mexico to get treatments not allowed in the USA is not illegal in the USA.
The arrest of a doctor husband who grows pot to give to his dying wife to mitigate her pain is a risk the doctor took out of love for his wife, a risk similar to one many of us might would gladly take to help a dying loved one. Whether the 79 year old doctor would ever see any punishment above and beyond losing his wife is really unlikely. But that is a rhetorical device called “reductio ad absurdum,” distorting the original argument to its most absurd form in order to defeat it.
Andy wasn’t using HGH to save his wife. He used it to get back on the mound.
Yazman:
I agree, I just wanted to present the other side.
Green Beret :
No question that McNamee and Radomski were “easy outs” in the investigation. Mitchell needed what he thought was something of substance and conveniently found them all in one city no less.
Soft touch report if there ever was one.
This report, the force of which is mainly a xerox of Radomski/McNamee’s report, having nothing to do with Northern Ireland, by its nature excluded many teams from scrutiny. This allowed the media to focus on Andy Pettitte and say false things about him 24 hours a day,including saying he took ‘steroids’ which is a lie. If people want accuracy and truth, that would be a place to start. I’ve heard them and read them. No one corrects them. It should not be the case that any Yankee is a sitting duck. The Yankee front office should long ago have established better communications with radio and other media outlets. The Red Sox have done this very well. I’ve never said Pettitte wasn’t guilty of the activity he was accused of while on the DL in 2002, and I think it’s good he confirmed it. But that’s peanuts compared to what the media has said about him after this “publicity stunt” of a report.
Brian (Red Sox Fan)-
i agree there’s a problem with the “serial steroid users”. anyone who has been on a high level athletic field in the past twenty years knows what you mean by “serial steroid user”.
there’s an animal like quality about this kind of person where you have to be careful or they’ll forget it’s against the law to kill you.
this kind of person is usually on some kind of downward spiral that’s easy to see. trouble seems to follow them like a black cloud over their heads. ken camineti fit this profile. bonds does to at times, but not always. he hasn’t had any assault charges or other rage related criminal charges against him. but that he’s surly is a given.
clemens on the other hand has been for years( after the piazza incident) a fairly level headed guy. he doesn’t show the tear your heart out kind of aggressiveness that you see with serious steroid users. he’s tested clean for steroids for years so i don’t think steriods would be his ped of choice.
i think with clemens the issue would be more hgh. i’m fairly well read with supplements for improving performance, and i have no idea what exactly hgh does. i know steroids jacks up the testosterone level of it’s users. i have no idea what hgh does except the vague idea that it promotes healing and supposedly turns back the aging clock. if all it did was this, we’d all be taking it except for the cost. it’s something like 25 thousand a year for a doctor’s treatment.
so while clemens may have used steroids a while ago, i don’t think that’s been the issue during his houston years and his last yankee half year. if it’s an hgh issue now, an appropriate level of outrage is needed. kids aren’t going to be doing it because of the cost so that part of the outrage is not in play.
the biggest issue to me is simply the advantage it gives a player who uses hgh over a player who doesn’t use it. this bothers me, but my reaction is totally different than towards the heavy duty steroid user who’s a danger to society.
it is possible that hgh is good for human beings if given under a doctors care. clemens looks pretty healthy for someone his age. maybe all older people should be taking hgh for all we know. because of how little we know, i’m not going to lump hgh use with steroid use.on the other hand i’m not going to say it’s harmless either.
to put some perspective on how our society treats harmful drugs, tobacco use is responsible for over 1500 people a day dying. there seems to be a disproportionate emphasis put on some drugs and not enough on others.
mitchell was, at the same time clemens allegedly was using steroids, a lobbyist for big tobacco. there’s a reason why after reading the mitchell report that one feels the need for a shower. there are no heroes anywhere in the story.
I believe the Mitchell report is very accurate. The problem is that he wasn’t able to get all the users, though not his fault. All he had was the Balco stuff, Grimsley and the two clubhouse guys. It is unfair that the guys named weren’t the only ones using, but I have no sympathy for them, they got caught. It sucks for us Yankee fans that a Red Sox guy couldn’t get anyone in his organization to come forward but I guess that is just a coincidence.
I applaud Pettitte for his admission and do not consider what he did to be cheating in any way. He used it twice and that was it. ESPN is trying to ruin him, but it won’t stick. Roger, on the other hand, has no choice but to deny, deny, deny. He has too much to lose and there is no positive test. He will always be branded, maybe deservedly so, but if he keeps his mouth shut he will still get into the HOF.
JV,that’zs the major problem. In 2 years and a blank check, Mitchell’s gumshoes never got further north than Albany or further south than Baltimore. For all of his supposed intelligence, you would think that he would have at least made an attempt at hiding the bias. He supposedly had the full cooperation of each team, and, there would have been no problem in getting interviews with the people that know the inner workings of the clubhouse better than anyone. The first thing baseball needs to do is shutdown the freeloaders and these towel boys that come in and work for tips. Full background police checks and identification badges with photos.
Well, since ol’ Pete is determined to paint Andy as a blatant cheater here, no matter what, let’s not forget, and I, heh, hate to bring this up, but when Rodney Harrison, of Pete’s beloved Patriots, was busted and suspended for HGH, he admitted getting and using HGH starting two years ago, as compared to Pettitte’s using it twice. I wonder if Harrison is the only Pat using PEDs? And as long as were on the subject of cheaters, let’s not forget the Pats getting nabbed, reprimanded, and punished ( $500,000 fine for Belichick, $250,000 for the team, and bye bye 1st round pick next year, no wonder Belichick is always grumpy ) for video taping the opposing sideline for who knows how long. Looking to gain an edge perhaps? Talk about cheaters. Care to rationalize these actions Pete?
No need to pick on Pete. I think he’s playing devil’s advocate more than anything else. Pointing out the rules to us so we have something to discuss. This is the LoHud Yankees blog, not the Pats blog.
bkight, that’s all Mitchell had because that’s all he wanted, as shown by the lack of effort to go to other cities.
The joke is on all of us. This topic will be discussed for the next 4 month. George got just what he wanted. Front page news for the Yankees. There is a good chance everybody in baseball is using HGH. It is non detectable in tests. So why stop. Just pay with cash.
GB7:
“Full background police checks and identification badges with photos.”
Fine with me, like press credentials only tougher to get.
But Mitchell’s recommendation that teams tighten up package deliveries at stadiums is a joke. The packages will just go elsewhere. If they get serious about a state of the art testing program, tighten up off season testing, and find a way to reliably identify HGH, who cares how many packages they get?
Hey, EJ, I’m suprised No Fire Joe Torre posts today?
Actually, EJ, Pete has been one of the more judicious journalists on this issue. Compare his commentary to the nauseating sanctimony of Madden, Lupica, Klapisch, et. al.
If you want to get indignant, read their claptrap. It’s much more worthy of scathing rebuttal than Pete’s relatively innocuous cavils.
Randy1 ….. well said. I don’t purport to know all of the pharmacological implications on the possible ramifications of use os a widw spate of PEDs. But I am absolutely convinced that Clemens” chemists found just the right concoction to artificially prolong and embellish his career.
What irritates me most about him is his arrogance in insulting the intelligence of everyone who watched his body metamorphisis and unparalleled late-career success. He assumed that the Carl Everett standard of proof would forever insulate him from scrutiny. That bat-throwing incident? He thought it was the ball!(Carl Everett said that he didn’t think that there had ever been any dinosaurs because he hadn’t seen any.)
Regardless, there’s no heroes in this mess. I expect a tepid response to Selig’s “Call to Arms,” with inevitable congressional intervention. Sad.
Sorry about the typos ….. I have “wintry mix” in my eyes.
It’s pathetic how fickle the media has been in covering this Pettitte situation. These are all the same people that have never had one bad thing to say about Andy, and now that he’s admitted and accepted responsibility of one stupid mistake that he made at a desperate time in his life, he’s somehow a different person. A cheater that deserves no respect, and should be condemned for not having a master’s degree in english or journalism, because then he obviously could’ve written a better statement.
And how he is being called a cheater is beyond me. He was on the DL when he was injected, who exactly was he cheating? Andy doesn’t owe any of us an explanation, except for his family perhaps, and I’m sure that that’s been painful enough for him. He doesn’t need to be treated like he got caught drowning puppies.
Fully agree, Murph, but, limiting access to the clubhouse has to be started. The IDs with photos and holograms is a very effective tool. These people need to be hired like any other normal applicant. Use college kids for summer work, or, whatever, but, the idea of the head clubhouse guy just bringing in strays and relatives to work needs to stop. The same with these ball boys and bat boys that are 18-21 year olds. These are likely targets to become couriers.
get off your pedastal. you drank before you were 21.
excellent post annie, top notch top notch!!!
Peter,
Did you know HGH was illegal under federal law without a prescription back in 2002 or before? Yes Pettitte took an easy road, knowing it wasn’t kosher. He was looking to get healthy.
Did you ever drink when you younger than the legal drinking age? How many times? You knew it was illegal, if you did it, right.
Andrea,
Pete’s a big boy, he can defend his Pats if he chooses to do so. I’m sure he’s watching the Jets-Pats game as we speak and probably doesn’t want to be bothered right now.
And I realize this is a Yankee blog, but since Pete’s making the case against Andy, and is a Pats fan, we’re discussing cheating in sports, and due to the fact Pettitte’s and Harrison’s cases are somewhat similar, I felt the reference to the Patriot’s cheating was relevant here.
Regarding pete’s comments that “If this was Roy Halladay or Josh Beckett, you’d all be ripping him”, i find it insulting to my intelligence. The fact of the matter is this: I feel strongly, on principle, that HGH is none of the federal government’s business. It’s also a fact that the Mitchell report, on pages 9-10, says HGH has absolutely no known performance-enhancing benefits. I’d feel the same way if we were discussing Manny Ramirez, whom I despise because of his ot running out ground balls, etc.
(And while we’re on the topic, I respect Halladay & Beckett as great competitors.)
I also know that i felt the same way when Paul Byrd’s HGH usage was outed in the ALCS. Since Paul Byrd had just knocked off the Yankees, if my only motivation was petty Yankee partisanship, then I would’ve been ripping him.
If we want to devolve into motives on partisanship, I could just say that “Pete is picking on Andy Pettitte because Pettitte pointed out the media’s irresponsible reporting on associating HGH w/steroids, and the media always protects itself first.”
Which may or may not be true; but I think it’s best to avoid that type of comment, as it dumbs down the level of discussions to finger-pointing.
Yankee Trader…
You wrote: “Un fortunately for Clemens, he’s the one who will have a hard time proving his innocence.”
I don’t know that it will be as difficult for Rocket to prove his innocence as it would be for the likes of George Mitchell to prove Roger’s guilt.
Judging by some of the posts here, I’m just wondering how many posters here are parents? One of the real problems with the steroids/HGH etc. use by major leaguers is the hundreds of thousands of high school kids who do the same trying to be like their heros and/or get pro or college scholarships.
One of those children was the 17 year old nephew of Burt Hooten a former MLB pitcher, who took steroids to be like his uncle, right up until he committed suicide by hanging himself in his bedroom closet.
Think about that when you suggest that ‘a little bit of cheating is OK’.
Killin-Schillin – Thanks. Yeah, I’ve moved on from the Fire Joe Torre stuff, but I do miss it
If you want to know what I really think about the Mitchell report, I wrote this the day of:
http://mvn.com/thelastpage/200.....l-live-on/
The other Bronx Block writers didn’t agree with me, but I wanted to write absolutely nothing on the Mitchell Report day of, except what I wrote on The Last Page there.
one more comment on the applicability of Federal law to this discussion. a huge irony is that according to all that I’ve ever read, one of the reasons Babe Ruth was so immensely popular is that he flouted violations of the Federal government’s privacy intrusions of that era – Prohibition.
the context is that all the PED noise is supposed to be about the integrity of the game, and there’s been a lot of related sanctimony about the ‘sacred HR records’ (mostly, IMO, by sportswriters who don’t understand statistics & era differences).
Now since Babe Ruth is the benchmark of all of that, and since Babe Ruth was a serial violator of federal Prohibition laws – well, can we agree that violating federal laws does not equate to a baseball sin? because if you don’t, then you have to asterisk all of the Babe’s HRs between 1920 & 1933, which is when Prohibition was in force.
of course booze is not a PED – except maybe for David Wells! but neither, according to pages 9-10 of the Mitchell Report, is HGH. All HGH does according to Mitchell, if anything, is make you heal. My point, in case it is not clear, is that HGH is not a baseball sin – or if you argue that it is because of Federal law, then you have to asterisk/taint Ruth. Which of course would be insane, but that’s where you end up once you extrapolate the logic of all of this.
“That all may be true. I’m no chemist or doctor, I have no idea what human growth hormone does.”
Hey Pete, at least you’re up front about your incompetence. Considering this whole story is about HGH do you think you could take 5 minutes to read up on it. I know you don’t work for the times but have a little pride in your job.
In addition, I think all this hoopla comes from the fact that sportswriters are fat little men who have to spend their whole lives writing about macho morons who slept with more girls in high school than the sportswriters have in their whole lives. That and the fact that they profit from news even when that news has to be manufactured.
In 20 years, HGH could quite possibly be an accepted drug for physical rehabilitation just like cortisone is. You can’t lump HGH with steroids. But hey, you already admitted that you don’t know a thing about HGH.
thx to all the interesting and intelligent posters this am (particular thx to murphydog, myrtlebeachfan, VRSCE, holycow and say it ain’t so for their insightful comments).
i watched a bit of george stephanopolous’s discussion show on tv before turning on the PC and, when they got tired of talking about hillary, obama and huckabee, they turned to baseball (god help us). even george will (baseball purist, right winger and usually very much the moral absolutist) said that pettitte’s use could not be seen as cheating and was not very different from getting a cortisone shot (which, by the way, is a pretty powerful tho “legal” steroid!). on the other hand, all the panelists (including the liberals) said that clemens shouldn’t get into the HOF.
the report, baseball’s response to PEDs, and particularly the US drug laws, are all very much informed by politics and therefore extremely flawed. i agree with all those who say that looking at these questions in a black and white manner (e.g., “he used HGH twice so he is by definition a cheater”) is naive and morally suspect.
pete has the best blog i’ve seen, is a bruce fan and seems to be a great dude (even if he’s not a yankee fan as i found out today) but his “it was a crime” statement definitely rubbed me the wrong way. overall, tho, his reaction to mitchell’s implication of andy and others has been very well considered and fair-minded (and he is our host!) so let’s not throw him under the bus (mitchell and selig deserve it for putting out a “definitive report” that is so blatantly selective and incomplete)!
here’s hoping for some good news on the hot stove soon (johan??) because there is no good solution in the foreseeable future to the PED problem — just a mess that will continue to be debated and politicized and screwed up by baseball (selig is such a loser and will be judged harshly by history) for years to come.
Pete said:
Many have asserted that steroids and other performance enhancing substances were not banned in Major League Baseball before the 2002 Basic Agreement. This is not accurate. Beginning in 1971 and continuing today, Major League Baseball’s drug policy has prohibited the use of any prescription medication without a valid prescription.
I made this point earlier. Based on what I’ve read most athletes have broken this rule to one degree or another. In the 1980′s, it was Gooden, Starwberry, LT and Steve Howe with drugs. None were vilified and LT in fact became a huge hero.
David Wells and others have written about the rampant use of greenies in MLB clubhouses. Clubhouses supposedly had special coffee laced with greenies! They certainly weren’t prescribed. MLB never enforced this rule, so in my mind, suddenly condemning Pettitte because he broke it in 2002 with HGH doesn’t hold water.
Was Pettitte wrong to take HGH, yes. But it is no better or worse than any athlete who downed greenies or snorted coke or used any other controlled drug since 1971. Pete, are you willing to condemn EVERY MLB player who did that? By all accounts, that’s a VERY high percentage. If so, you’re being fair. You simply cannot differentiate between HGH and grenies if you are using your logic. Since the majority of people accepted the use of greenies until they were banned, imo, you have to hold the same standard for HGH.
Great Post Murphy Dog… and Karma,I live under the interstate!
I was prescribed human growth hormone from age 6 to 16. I could still legally take it now, but I choose not to. Why was I prescribed HGH? Why did I need it?
BECAUSE I DIDN’T HAVE ANY OF MY OWN.
I have a disease called growth hormone deficiency where my body doesn’t produce all the growth hormones i need. (My mother has it, and she’s 4’11″.)
I assume when Mitchell says “limited purposes” this is one of those cases. Injecting yourself with EXTRA human growth hormone–more than your a normal body produces–is cheating. There’s just no argument. I love Pettite–I have since I was a kid–but he cheated. Any one else who used HGH is a cheater, also. I have always hated cheating and cheaters. And I don’t mean in baseball or professional sports, I just mean in general. It’s infuriating, because I will never do it and I’ll always “lose” to the people who do.
Can the Yanks just sue Giambi for moral turpitude? After they file suit, they can offer him a buyout of say $13M -half his total 2008 earnings- to clear $13M. If he refuses, they can put him on waivers. If no one claims him, they can offer him and $16M to whoever wants him (they clear $10M and get something for him). If no one wants him or someone does and he refuses to be traded, they can bench him. If he gets hurt, they can bury him on the disabled list. Benching or shelving him severely decreases his value after 2008. Leave him off the postseason roster, let him rot on the bench in September, tell him to go home if he doesn’t like it, then release him the day after the 2008 season ends.
Yes I agree, but with some caveats Pete.
Did he do something wrong? Yes.
Is he guilty? Yes… partially…
Why partially? It’s like the speeding analogy. Going 66 is wrong, but when everyone else is going 66 or faster, when no-one is going to stop you, when those in charge of the law seem not to care — even though they know all about it and can stop you — in such a situation can you really be blamed for a moment of weakness?
The List is my real problem with the Mitchell* Report. They knew it would be what the media would focus on. They knew it would divert attention away from Selig. The Report is fine without the List, and without it we may be all able to move on by now. The List ensures this will rage on for months if not years more.
My opinion is that Selig is as guilty (if not more so) than the players. The buck stopped with him. He had the power to stop this a long, long time ago and yet he did not do so. He made a lot of money during the whole time he knew — from the HR races alone.
I believe it is Selig, not just Andy, who needs to apologize. He then needs to resign immediately. If he isn’t resigning he needs to be removed as Commissioner, as the Report condemns him more than any individual player.
If the Yanks could have successfully sued Giambi for “moral turpitude,” don’t you think they would have done so. He’s the Yanks’ starting first-baseman.. Root for him to do well
OK, anyone else still want to talk about Santana? The Boss is still chatting about him with the media (and apparently, Cashman is still speaking to Minn.).
We’ve covered all this, but I’m trying to look at an objective +/- list for the trade as currently rumoured (Hughes, Melky + a B prospect) for Santana.
Here’s my list. What am I missing?
The Yanks Gain:
-one year of Santana, arguably the best and most dominant pitcher in baseball, at about ½ market price
-a proactive prevent of Santana going to Red Sox now
-the luxury of avoiding facing Santana in the post season, etc.
-Santana’s services for next 6-8 years, throughout his prime (eliminating risk of his going to another team via trade or free agency)
-as true an Ace as there is in baseball to hand the ball to 1-2 times every post season series (reminder: despite a fair post-season ERA, his three post-season games can be categorized respectively as 1 lousy, 1 excellent, 1 legendary)
-not having to gut the farm, keeping 2 of the 3 outstanding young pitchers on the team
-immediately having one of the best starting rotations in baseball (Santana, Wang, Pettitte, Chamberlain, Kennedy/Mussina)
-an outstanding chance to have one of baseball’s best rotations for 5-8 years without any major additions
-the luxury of allowing Joba and Ian to develop with much less pressure in 2008 and 2009
The Yankees Lose:
-in Hughes, one of the best young pitching prospects in baseball, a popular, home-grown talent who some say is the face of the Yankee farm system Renaissance, and who has already shown us a glimpse of major league dominance, and NY and post-season grit
-a sparkplug young center fielder with a great arm and a great attitude who is a proven decent fielder and hitter, with some upside
-an additional decent prospect
-a ton of outfield defense, unless they make another move or the kids progress faster than expected
-5-7 years guaranteed $20-$25 million + for a pitcher (despite the fact that such long-term, lucrative pitching contracts have almost never panned out well for any team), likely resulting in less free agent flexibility in the coming years (by 2013, the Yanks would have well over $40 million tied up in a 34+ year old pitcher and a 37+ year old third baseman).
-the potential opportunity to sign Santana after 2008 without sacrificing Hughes or Cabrera.
1. A good driver on a major interstate is co-opted into driving over the speed limit. It is called moving with the flow of traffic & a well-known defensive driving technique. One becomes expedient & functional, it’s often dangerous not to do so. I’ve also pulled over to let others going way over the limit pass. Getting back in is so much fun. But yes, illegal to speed. I stay off the highways, unless I really need them; when I do, I’m situational, necessity being the mother*****r of prevention.
2. Rightly or wrongly, for a period in the late 90′s, HGH was sold in radio ads. Specifically on the Art Bell Coast to Coast program. What about the blatant betting ads & network sports shows screaming out point spreads for both pro & college ball. betting is as, or even more pernicious & prevalent than using PED. Personally, I don’t use HGH, bet, or listen to C2C ( anymore ).
3. The difference between legal & illegal drug use is taxation & profit raking by bloated white guys sitting in boardrooms smoking Cubans ( illegal ) & drinking Kentucky whiskey ( legal—now, once illegal, hmmm). I never drink or smoke.
In my Utopia, none of those things would exist, along with war, child abuse & Red Sox fans. But, I ain’t in charge. Yet. . ..
Jayson Stark sums it up fairly well:
“Sorry, we’re just tired of the ridiculous oversimplification of a complicated issue. ”
More here: http://proxy.espn.go.com/mlb/c.....id=3157202
Holy Smokes site owner you have got lots of strange bugs on your page about parse error unexpected T String in line 18