On second thought … thanks anyway Rocket
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Dec 18, 2007 
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Talk about irony. Roger Clemens was scheduled to speak to the Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association next month. The topic? His workout regimen.
Now the president of the association, Jim Long, is having second thoughts in the wake of the Mitchell Report. There will be a meeting on Tuesday to decide whether Clemens should attend.
“A dark cloud has been put over Roger’s head and 99.9 percent of the media says he’s guilty even though he says he’s innocent,” Long told the Associated Press. “That presents a problem for our association. It has to come first over a player or coach.”
The same should happen to Pettitte.JUst collect your money and walk in shame and not talk to up and coming pitchers.
The chickens are coming home to roost. Rocket disgraced himself and disgraced the game. He is a cheater and a liar. Forget the Hall of Fame.
Honestly, the best thing Clemens can do is admit it.
My dad’s not a baseball fan, but he has an interesting insight:
fans, many of the casual ones, anyway, don’t care so much about the steroids (if you destroy your body it’s your problem) as they do about the cover up.
People find it a lot easier to forgive when others admit their mistakes and show remorse.
For him to admit it after denying it would be quite interesting, not gonna happen.
I would like to see Clemens come out and say “not only am I completely innocent, this whole sordid business has reminded me how much I love the sacred purity of the game. That is why I intend to be a Yankee next season for the minumum salary.”
Then we can go see him pitch in Staten Island all summer long!
I’m getting sick of the topic as well as many, but Murray Chass, one of the longtime baseball recorders just came out pretty hard against the Mitchell Report in the NY Times. These are the first comments I’ve seen by Chass on the report. He’s a pretty well respected reporter and commentator and has been around forever.
here’s the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12.....ref=sports
Nothing has been proven against Clemens. As unlikely as it may be the Feds believing Roger Clemens was guilty would force Mcnamee to point the finger at Roger whether he did it or not. To start treating him as though he’s been convicted is obscene. The mass media (not Pete, not everyone) has used this Mitchell report to engage in a lot of Yellow Journalism. They’re pigs at the trough – remember how often these media members disingenuously blamed themselves for not covering the Ped’s in Baseball but took no hit for it meanwhile they are still not covering them in Football. Now these people are suddenly Joesph McCarthy running the House Committee on Un-American Activities where accusations are proof.
While Roger may be guilty, or innocent, I want to know where the evidence is?
I don’t know what to think.
I’m one of those “innocent until proven guilty” types and there is no direct evidence other than one man’s testimony against Clemens.
I know it looks bad, especially after the Pettitte admission, but there was nowhere in the testimony from McNamee that linked Pettitte wanting HGH because Clemens recommended it.
It looks like he’s guilty, but it’s possible he didn’t do it and McNamee used him to get himself off the rather big hook he was on.
McNamee had a gun to his head and I wonder how much Mitchell pushed for Clemens info. None of us were in the room. No one knows how the questions were asked nor what kind of promises were made contingent on him naming Clemens and citing specifics.
All we’re privy to is what they give us and on paper, it’s flimsy, at least to me. It’s a lot of hearsay.
I feel bad for Roger. I’m not one of the haters out there. I feel sportswriters who love to expose athletes as phonies are frothing over the fact that they can deny Clemens the Hall of Fame.
That said, if he did it, he should admit it. He needs to clear his conscience if this is all true.
If it’s not true, he needs to take some of that 28 million prorated from last season and use it to fight this to the end.
He really only has 2 choices. Fight it or admit it. At this point, wishing and hoping people don’t believe it because he said it wasn’t true isn’t going to change anyone’s perceptions.
G Love-
Whatz Roger going to sue for? You ever see “The People vs Larry Flynt” ?
The supreme court ruled unanimously in favor of a disgusting pornographer who said a preacher had carnal knowledge of his own mother. It’s virtually impossible for a public person to win a defamation case.
Beating a dead horse.
Yeah, ’cause no young pitcher could ever learn anything from someone who made a mistake and owned up to it.
Good thinking.
I was never a huge Roger Fan/Hater, and didn’t like getting rid of Wells for him. Regardless of the weakness of the Radomski/Mnamee …er Mitchell report, These numbers speak for themselves. I grabbed these from baseball-reference.com and since pettite corroborated Mcnamee’s claims regarding his own use, plus the timing of the alleged injections (98) these numbers would seem to carry some weight, although you could argue Clemens got hot and Mcnamee fabricated it by looking for statistical annomilies in Clemens career to lend credence to his claims
1998
1st Half
GS W L CG SHO IP ERA H R ER HR BB SO WHIP
18 9 6 2 0 119 3.55 96 54 47 7 56 120 1.277
2nd Half
GS W L CG SHO IP ERA H R ER HR BB SO WHIP
15 11 0 3 3 115.2 1.71 73 24 22 4 32 151 .911
1st Half – 6.61 Innings/Start and 9.07 K/9
2nd Half – 7.68 Innings/Start and 11.79 K/9
Greg-
The yankees were nearly 10 games under .500 at the May and ended 2006 nearly 30 games over .500 – they had a great second half, including Andy, who was 6-0 in August and performed remarkably in Game two at Cleveland. Using your stat argument, one could say the entire team, including Andy, downed PEDs at the end of May.
Good article by Chass – thanks for the link, Ethan. Maybe Mike Lupica should read it – much more insightful than anything that little twit has written on the subject – imagine, it actually contains facts, not just opinions!
I doubt that anyone will sue anybody over the Mitchell Report. It’s been said here before that doing so would only open up the plaintiff to greater scrutiny and possible embarrassment instead of vindication. In Roger’s case, I certainly have to agree.
Short of winning a defamation lawsuit, however, MLB is in a no-win situation. If Selig doesn’t discipline anyone, what does that say about his private feelings about the report and his tough guy stance? It would be an indication to me that even Selig knows the report is very flawed and that he has unclean hands in this fiasco and just needs to move on. IMO a failure to discipline anyone based on a $60 mil report is a partial vindication for MLBPA.
But what if Selig does discipline someone? MLBPA then files a grievance, claiming the information in the report is unfair, biased, incomplete, incorrect and distorted and thus an improper basis for taking disciplinary action.
In the hearing that follows, my guess is that MLB would have to produce Radomski to testify. While some hearsay (out of court statements offered for the truth of the statements contained therein) is admissible in these hearings, I don’t think under these circumstances the hearing officer or panel would allow MLB to get away with just offering the report as the basis for discipline. Radomski would be the worst possible witness. He’s a convicted drug dealer, he got a sweetheart deal to rat people out, and he will likely present a less than stellar profile, since, no disrespect to clubbies in general, they are not exactly priests and rabbis.
Pettitte may seem an easy high profile target because he admitted the use and thus corroborated McNamee. But it happened in 2002, and MLB has two problems, I think. First MLB might be time-barred under the CBA from bringing discipline against Pettitte for a 5 year old event of any kind. I think it is also fair to say that in 2002 MLB and MLBPA had yet to agree on what kind of discipline was available for HGH and that may be a problem for MLB as well.
So, Selig has a big decision to make and until that shoe drops, I think MLBPA will hold their fire. Meanwhile, they are getting ready for the big fight.
The press seems to have fallen into the trap of calling this the steroid era. I have a question for those great scholars who claim to know everything.
How do you know that Nolan Ryan or Hank Aaron did not use drugs? those things have been around for qq
The press seems to have fallen into the trap of calling this the steroid era. I have a question.
How do you know that Nolan Ryan or Hank Aaron did not use drugs?
These drugs have been around for quite a while. They could have used them.
DID THEY??????
The longer Roger avoids making a statement the worse it looks for him. He has the same agents (the Hendricks brothers) as Andy does. By now he should have had a well prepared statement with acceptance or denial.
Roger made a statement yesterday when he told reporters waiting outside his sons school that he was feeling great, he wasn’t talking to them about the Mitchell Report and he would handle this how he wants to.
He made statement through his lawyer denying his use of HGH,steroids,and/or Ped’s.
There have been some who have questioned why it took $20 million to do this study.
To my mind the answer is simple.
The author of this study is George Mitchell. A person we are told (even though it is not true)of great honesty.
Baseball did not want thorough study. They wanted a white wash. Who better to do it that a so-called respected politician, who had a vested interest in protecting the players on the club he was associated with.
The money did not go to investigators. They did not investigation. Some money went to interviewers, but we are told only a few people cooperated. they didn’t even interview the Balco people.
The answer is that it takes a lot of money to get a guy of “reputation”, to write a cover up report and make it sound good.
Some might call the money spent as a “bribe” but I would not want to use this word. I will just let the facts speak for themselves.
And true to form, not one Boston player of note got mentioned.
I think it’s safe to say that the Daily News has sunk to the level of NY Post reporting. That paper has completely lost perspective on this steroid/hgh situation. And somehow they’re feeling completely justified in hanging around outside of Andy Pettitte’s home and church, and Roger Clemens’ son’s elementary school. Wow. Nobody cares *that* much, Daily News…
mary ellen
December 18th, 2007 at 7:28 am
Good article by Chass – thanks for the link, Ethan. Maybe Mike Lupica should read it – much more insightful than anything that little twit has written on the subject – imagine, it actually contains facts, not just opinions!
_________________________________________________________
You can forget Lupica ever writing an objective story unless it involves the Mets/Red Sox. He’s a malignant dwarf without a shred of writing ability or an original thought.
IN all fairnes to Mitchell ,he was not given any power to make people talk. No one would talk unless thelaw demanded it which is why most the names came from Mcnamee and Rad. They were the only two guys forced by law to give up names(not really forced but pressured by prison time). This investigation was a joke. More names would be on the list if Mitchell was given more power and authority which legally prob wasn’t possible. Would Red Sox names be on the list if he had the authority he needed to make people talk, we’ll never know.
Say It Ain’t So…they not only hung around outside the church , but, was inside taking notes on the message of the sermon. He may have been better just listening and thinking about it instead of writing notes.
BG7:
“malignant dwarf ”
I just laugh-snorted coffee through my nose.
Make that “GB7″ sorry, still recovering….
Make that “GB7″ sorry, still recovering.
More names might have been on the list had Mitchell and gumshoes had gotten out of NYC a couple of times.
Murph, my apologies to your nose, you and your computer. I’ll be more diligent in my usage of words.
GB7 – I also agree with you on that. For that long of time you would have thought they could have found more. Maybe he got Clemens’ name and called it a day who knows.
GreenBeret7, I’m surprised the reporter didn’t just walk right up to where Andy was sitting and push his kids aside so that they could sit down next to him and put some cameras in his face.
Unbelievable, although I guess this shouldn’t be much of a surprise to me, these are the same two papers who literally stalked A-Rod and his family for an entire season. It’s just that they’re acting as though it was just discovered that Pettitte and Clemens eat babies or something.
hey, Peter, first timer.
by the time Clemens is eligible to HOF ballot, you’re eligible to vote right? Will you give Clemens a vote?
thanks
The Texas High School Baseball Coaches Association should set an example for all upstanding Americans, that it won’t be swayed by the “court” of public opinion, in that it will honor their commitment to him until such time as he’s implicated on more than hearsay. The ironic part is, basing their decision on gossip is truly a high school game.
In an earlier post, I suggested that some of us who are parents have different opinions about the ‘steroid issue’ than the rest of the bloggers here. There are hundreds of thousands of children using illegal drugs and steroids in hopes of getting pro contracts and $$$$ like their idols.
The Mitchell Report is mild considering what is really out there. Baseball fans are now 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.
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.
Say It Ain’t So…can you imagine a reporter doing that in the north. That area of Texas takes three things very seriously…family, religion and football….especially high school football. Had that been up north, the reporters would have been forcably removed from the church. Down there, everybody is welcomed, regardless of religion or connections. The people may not talk about other people, but, they are friendly. It’s a lot like the ’30s Bible Belt. Church picnics are a big deal and being rude to strangers is really frowned on.
You know what the Yankees need to do. They need to pull the press credentials on any paper that is harassing Andy.
Lupica and Gammons studied Objectivity 101 and flunked several times. Since then, they’ve taken their journalistic abilities to new levels …..all low.
Youngtimer, I’m not sure Clemens would do it if it made people uncomfortable. He’s a lot of things, but, that’s an area that he has devoted a lot of time and money to. At this,time, it would only end up in a question and answer session. I doubt it would be a great situation for anybody involved.
I know Gammons has come out in defense of Donnely. Does anyone know what he has said about Andy?
The best thing that could happen right now for the Yankees starting about January 1st, 2008 is a year long newspaper strike.
Jennifer, so far, not a word. He was indignant about Donnelly and Roberts.
While Clemens will have a difficult time in court with this, thanks to the terrible laws that people LIKE Mitchell have legislated to protect those who want to slander or libel public figures.
Mitchell knew very well what he was doing. He was a US attorney, a judge, a Senator. He is well versed in the law and also knows that the lawyers of the players have little recourse.
Clemens might be able to bring him down though. If Clemens and McNamara had a falling out, for instance, where their relationship soured, tied with Mitchells financial gains with the Red Sox, it might very well be enough to prove malice.
This report was a display of ego from Mitchell.
It is insane that he was able to put out a report slandering peoples names, without any evidence, other than the word of a rapist. The guy lied about the rape!! He is also threatened to be charged and face a long prison sentence. So of course he will say anything to save his own ass.
Funny how Brian Roberts just admits to using steroids and it’s nowhere to be seen on ESPN. When Andy admitted using HGH it was nonstop coverage and ridicule.
And good for Brian Roberts, he could have so easily lied and said he never used anything. It would’ve been extremely easy to believe him, there was basically no evidence in Mitchell’s report, it was like Mitchell threw some extra names into the list out of frustration from lack of cooperation from the players.
Roberts admitted it? I hadn’t heard anything, which I guess proves your point. Do you have a link.
Yup, here’s one:
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7579276
ESPN reporting that Brian Roberts admits to using steroids once in 2003. Setting aside for a minute the question of whether his use was limited to one time, I think this is a further vindication of the Mitchell report. Brian Roberts was the guy that Mitchell’s critics held up as an example of Mitchell’s unfairness and overreach because he had little evidence beyond someone saying he had heard that Roberts used, or something like that. Now it turns out to be true and I really think that as time passes we’ll see that Mitchell basically got the names right.
murphydog-
so you think the mlbpa will wait until they can fight on their own turf in a grievance hearing. makes sense. this is an odd chess game that’s being played between mlb and the mlbpa. it’s like a game is being played that isn’t the game we think is being played.
selig has a move. the mlbpa has a counter move. congress has a move. it’s interesting to watch it play out, but it’s not about baseball;it’s about the business of baseball.
the odd thing is that the very public fight makes everyone look bad in the fans’ eyes. the goal should be to clean up the game to keep fan interest and revenue high, and not to clean up the game and decrease interest in it.
the players are not just labor. they are also the product. going out of their way to discredit clemens , pettitte, and other players in the publics’ eye seems to make little sense unless there is a motive that isn’t apparent yet.
This is one of the things that led to Faye Vincent getting fired by the owners. That memo in 1991 about drug use along with the Dowd report made owners realize that they couldn’t control Vincent and he couldn’t be bought. Vincent did go after Rose hard because he the Rose incident for Bart Giamatti’s death, which fair or unfair, led Vincent to digging furher than the owners wanted. The worse decision the owners ever made, and, that includes the joint decision to collude against the players. A commissioner like Landis is what’s going to be needed…only in the scope that he was hired and could not be fired by anyone. He had complete control. That’s the thing that baseball needs to clean up the mess that everybody had an equal part in, including writers and fans for condoning it. Writers knew it, but, the players are the pipelines to their stories. Asses like Lupica don’t worry about players because he doesn’t interview them. He just comments on other peoples work and stories.
Roberts admission. Guess Clemens is…um… guilty? haha Doesn’t look good.
http://mlbfleecefactor.com/200.....eroid-use/
So, let me get this straight, because Mitchell was right in some cases, now he is like the Christ and is perfect? Wow. Who knew.
SAndMan, you are the kind of mindless, lock-step idiot who back in the 1950′s would have mouthed phrases such as, “my country, right or wrong”, thought Joe McCarthy was a great american and anything bad that happened in America was either a jewish or catholic conspiracy. For me to tell you that there is no proof Clemens took illegal substances would be a waste of time, serving only to confuse you and solicit further assinine remarks.
Southron
No one said he is “like Christ and is perfect”, and we’ll probably never know the full extent of how correct or incorrect he was in his list, but with each guy who comes out and admits to using HGH or steroids, the report looks more accurate. If we get more and more players admitting to this, then the “concerns” about the source of Mitchell’s info (ie. Radomski and McNamee) start to lessen. Maybe these guys, with all their faults, were telling the truth.
erikp…It’s not just a question of accuracy..it’s about Mitchell’s failure to be fairhanded in this so-called investigation. It looks like the only names he has were those given to him from three sources and that’s where he stopped. He got his three stars and that’s what he wanted. He got Clemens, Pettitte and Tejada. As long as nothing came out on the Red Sox and Brewers, he and Selig were happier than pigs in sh*t, not that he looked for any.
Everybody feels so bad for Andy. Everybody wants to see Roger squirm. The truth is they both used the same supplier. So what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. If Roger came out 1st and said he used it to heel. Would he get the same support Andy is getting from the fans. The truth is Roger was a Red Sox and many Yankee fans can’t forget that. And lets not forget how many Yankees were juicers.
At some point he had to stop or it could have dragged on for ever. I understand that people believe the fact that the report is incomplete (which Mitchell acknowledged right away in the press conference) makes it unfair to those named when others who took PED’s but who were not named might be seen to get off scot-free. This is unfortunate, but I don’t think the standard for judging the report is whether or not it includes 100% of the offenders. Mitchell wasn’t asked to do that. The players named are probably upset, but if they did what is alleged, then they can’t really complain about the process.
How many Red Sox and Brewers players were not named because of “connections”?
How does one heel? Are the on a leash?
joe b, speaking for myself only, it has nothing to do with wanting to see Roger squirm. The bottom line is, I just don’t have the same attachment for Roger as I do for Andy. And I don’t view Roger as a Red Sox player, I don’t know what team I’m supposed to see him with.
erikp…that’s the best you can come up with? They had to stop somewhere? That’s pathetic. Mitchell never left NYC except to go to Red Sox games. How about he had just gone to the Red Sox clubhouse and got his dirt, and said, “Well, that’s enough…can’t drag this on forever.” Talk about stupid remarks. Sounds like Selig or reporters…Are you sure that you’re not related to Mitchell and Selig?
erikp, When a person who puts together a report is a leading member of one of the clubs, and yet has no access to that club for this investigation, then there is a ethics problem.
Mitchell, by not naming Red Sox players showed he was not playing “fair and balanced”. Where was his trip to the Domminican Republic? Its fairly well known that the winter leagues are plagued with steroid use down there, yet Mitchell doesn’t go there? Oh, that’s right, Ortiz might be caught if he does, so “can’t do that.”
If all clubs were not implicated in this manner, then none should be. Mitchell is probably going to be getting bonuses from the RS organization for doing such an outstanding job of protecting them.
It no doubt played out like this. The pressure was beginning to mount on Selig and he somehow realized it. Enter Mitchell.
With nearly an unlimited budget to do so, Mitchell himself felt pressure to finish his report and luckily Radomski / McNamee fell in his lap and with legal pressure and facing jail time, they named names like parrots.
Add a smattering of players past and present and trump up the report as being the problem’s turnaround and here we are. A first year law student could have done better preparation.
Joe maybe if Mitchell actually did some research he’d also come up with 20 names of current and former soxs. But we all knew from the very begining that he wouldn’t since he has a financial stake in the soxs.
GB7:
You nailed it the 9:42 am post.
Murph, it this was stopped because of time constraints or because their was pressure to turn over an incomplete report, then two things…whoever was putting on the pressure in just as guilty as Selig and Mitchell for assisting in butchering this report…in which case, the names should have been left out,because, it serves absolutely no purpose. Some fans and bloodsuckers like Lupica would bitch but screw them.
so is there any evidence of an ethics problem? Can anyone tell me something that Mitchell did or did not do that was improper? I’m not talking tactics or style here, but since the report came out we’ve had a number of the named players confirm to some extent the findings, and a few denials that I don’t think many people really believe. Did Mitchell’s position with the Sox create the appearance of conflict? Sure. But so far it looks like in spite of that conflict he put together an accurate, credible report (albeit an incomplete one).
This won’t die away as being unfair mainly because it was unfair.
I said Roger was a former Red Sox..He should have spoken to everybody who was a personnel trainer for all MLB teams. Why do you think these guys have thier own trainers. They do not work for the teams, so they only have the player they work for to answer to
anyone else having issues with yankees.com and getting to buy holiday packs
George P. Mitchell will never again be seen in a field level seat in Boston. No sireee. The suite of Peter Gammons has been expanded to full accomodation for Mitchell and neither will ever need to eat a Fenway Frank again. At their beckon call, whatever their taste buds desire courtesy of John Henry who will stop by during games to commend them on such good “home” work.
Mitchell is the number 5 man in the RS organization, and yet he can’t get one of their clubhouse people to talk? Add to that his club gets financial benefits from anything that negatively affects the Yankees, which means so does he. Then you have lack of Red Sox players listed.
Mitchell is a politican who was in congress. That right there means he is less than trustworthy. Sorry, but outside of the USA, Mitchell and the Ireland business is way overblown.
He has a huge ethics problem here. The media is in a frenzy over the names and yet they seem to forget that Mitchell benefits financially from all this both from doing the report and from his club. Follow the money and you will find the dirt.
That is the whole problem in is an incomplete and NY centric report.
I still can’t get access to the site to buy tickets. Its still searching it says.
Does anyone have any real wrongdoing by Mitchell? So far it just sounds like conspiracy theories. I agree there’s a perception problem, but so far I haven’t heard anything beyond mere perception.
I cant not stand how the NY papers bash and embarrass their own players. It really has come to a head. They should be ashamed of themselves and its going to get to the point where no one wants to play in New York/New Jersey area anymore.
Screw the Tabs.
there is another problem. When you go on and name names, you better get all the names and you better get them all correct, the reason why is because all those players that weren’t named, and did cheat, can now say “See, i wasnt in that report, im innocent.” So if by the estimations of Canseco and Camaniti, around 60% of baseball was on drugs, and this reports names less than 1%, that means that around 59% got away with murder. Is that ethical? I dont think it is
erikp
December 18th, 2007 at 10:15 am
so is there any evidence of an ethics problem? Can anyone tell me something that Mitchell did or did not do that was improper? I’m not talking tactics or style here, but since the report came out we’ve had a number of the named players confirm to some extent the findings, and a few denials that I don’t think many people really believe. Did Mitchell’s position with the Sox create the appearance of conflict? Sure. But so far it looks like in spite of that conflict he put together an accurate, credible report (albeit an incomplete one).
___________________________________________________
Are these serious questions? If they are, there’s no sense in carrying it any further. It’s not only incomplete, it’s not even started. I could have gone back and with the exception of maybe 8 names compliled the same list of names in 3 weeks, just using spare time. It’s obvious that you have no problem, since you’re a Red Sox fan. Your objectivity matches Mitchell’s to a TEE.
Knicks vs New York Cavs of Cleveland tomorrow
…..just incase no one knows
It has been searching for 27 minutes as much as I like the internet it is times like these that I wonder why teams make these things ONLY available via the internet and not via phone as well. I already have Saturday season tickets but would like to go to Old Timers Day (which is not included in the Saturday plan)
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me the fans and the media are taking a much harder line on the steroids issue than the players themselves are. If anything, players not implicated in Mitchell’s report seem to be mildly supportive of players who were implicated. (Example: ARod’s comments on Bonds.)
The fact that players AREN’T jumping ugly on the PED users suggests a number of possibilities, such as:
1. PED use was even more widespread than the report suggests.
2. Players think PED use was sufficiently widespread to justify a player who felt they needed to “juice” in order to keep up with other players who were already juicing.
3. Players stayed away from steroids NOT because they thought it was wrong, but because of genuine concerns over the health risks and/or because they were afraid of being caught.
Personally, I suspect the lack of moralizing on the part of non-implicated players has alot to do with explanation #3.
Anyway, I find it revealing that 99% of the criticism is coming from fans and the media while the players supposedly victimized by the cheating are largely unmoved. Hmmm.
An important legal point:
Several posters have mistakenly upbraided Mitchell for his heavy dependence on so-called “hearsay” evidence. Radomski and McNamee are NOT providing hearsay evidence. Their testimony (if you believe it) constitutes first-hand knowledge of the events in question. The same standard of evidence is sufficient to attain “lethal injection” sentences in those states allowing capital punishment. (i.e. “THAT’s the guy I saw kill him/her.”)
And Radomski and McNamee are NOT malevolent snitches. They are in trouble with the feds because of their involvement in the illegal drug culture. They were pressured to testify, and were subject to further penalties if they perjured themselves during this testimony. They would LOVE to turn the clock back to three years ago.
I realize that many of the fans on this sight are primarily baseball fans. but try to realize that corroborating evidence in cases involving illegal drug use and distribution rarely comes from the Mother Teresas of the world. It’s a dirty business, and the abusers know it.
So I’d ask that many of you would rethink just how “flimsy” the evidence is against Clemens. If anything, I think he had another supplier during his final, “contract” year in Boston that dramatically improved his marketability, after three years of mediocrity. It could well be that McNamee wasn’t Clemens only contact in the drug culture.
But Roger is busy concocting a house-of-cards rendition of the “true” story. Maybe he can deliver that speech instead of his cancelled topic of “How I had a long career because of my workout regimen.” As T.O said, “Bring your popcorn.”
The best thing that Hank Steinbrenner can do is to offer some free ducats to George Mitchell for games at the Stadium when Boston comes in to visit.
Be sure the seats are smack in the middle of the Bleacher Creatures section. He’ll love the roll call.
Brandon, I have an idea that the only one who cares about the Knicks are their families. They get to have a Christmas without fans knocking on their door asking for autographs. Those names would devalue the collection.
The Mitchell report exposed Clemens and Paul LoDuca as frauds.
Just one of them would be worth the $20 million.
Conspiracy????? Was Mitchell in Dallas that day
GB7 you realize knocking for autographs is better than having rocks thrown at your car window
Leave it to Boston fans who see nothing wrong in Mitchell’s investigation. After all, in Boston and the rest of NE, it’s common practice to have the dead vote two and three times. That’s how the same people stay in office for decades. They also see nothing wrong with that, as long as they are getting their share and not inconvenienced
“And lets not forget how many Yankees were juicers.”
Mitchell said all 30 teams had juicers and his statement was meant to signify that steroid use was a problem for all of MLB. One of the biggest problems with publishing the list of names is that it is ripe to be misused to undercut the uniformity implicit in Mitchell’s “all 30 teams” statement; it is just too easy to make it into a ranking of level of offense by team. But notice that Mitchell made no such effort in his findings or conclusions to rank teams in terms of their relative level of wrongdoing. IMO that’s because even he understood the logical weakness in doing so based on the evidence he had.
Had a more complete picture come out and had Mitchell reached into more teams in any depth, the moral judgment inherent in saying that the Yankees had “so many” juicers would likely lose most of its sting as the Yankees were really only one among many. Add in nuances like the timing of the prohibited use, and the fact that players in this day and age change teams about as often as they change socks, and the value of pointing fingers at one team over another becomes no better than hometown rooting in any other context.
Brandon, how bad must those players feel when they go home and their wives and kids boo them?
McNamee was charged with rape! Not exactly a model citizen.
I just read Murray Chass article on the Mitchell Report and it validates exactly what many baseball fans may feel about the whole steroid/hgh issue.
MLB has seen some form of “innovation” since its inception, whether its stealing signs from the scoreboard, doctoring the baseball, sharpening spikes, loading/corking baseball bats, taking amphetamines, steroids/HGH. Whenever money is involved with any undertaking, especially sports, there will always be some form of “innovation” to get an advantage over competitors whether its living within the rules, “bending” the rules or outright cheating.
Many fans have suspected use of amphetamines in the 50s-60s Era and steriod/HGH use since the middle 90s.
How about Brady Anderson suddenly hitting 50 HR, never to approach those numbers again? Or mediocre pitchers who threw 88-89 mph all of a sudden throwing 94-96 mph without TJ surgery? 40- year old Kenny Rogers, looking like Sandy Koufax during the 2006 ALDS, reaching 95 mph?
Mitchell’s “Report” only confirmed what most fans already knew – some MLB players will cheat to make money and out-perform their competition. To what extent? Some say anywhere from 40% to 80%, I tend to believe about 60% have used some form or another to cheat.
If I’m a sportswriter who has a HOF vote, I vote for Bonds and Clemens easily and anyone “suspected” of use but not proven in a court of law. Because without proof how can you dismiss ANY player in that Era as being a “non-cheater”?
Obviously You don’t have to admire them for suspected use, but, strangely, it levels the playing field for all if you believe that the majority of players (51% or more) cheated.
Yeah, it stinks to have to explain your PED use to your wife, kids, fans, etc. But that was a risk that these guys knowingly took when they decided to use, and you really can’t be mad at Mitchell for pulling back the curtain.
Jennifer, McNamee’s description of the woman as “road beef” tells all you need to know about character and just what a dispicable person this guy really is.
Brian (Red Sox Fan)-
the problem with your perspective is that you seem to hope clemens has done something wrong. you don’t appear neutral on the issue.
if you focus on clemens in this way, you’ll be missing the bigger issue of the low quality of the mitchell report. anyone who is old enough is reminded of the mc carthy hearings and the warren report though this issue is obviously not on the level of importance as those investigations were.
the mitchell report is going to be a big part of baseball history, but i don’t think it’s going to be looked on well by baseball historians twenty years from now. that’s the bigger story than any one player.
erikp..stick to your own warped ideas of Mitchell’s objectivity. My remarks were about the Knicks players.
ESPN2 First Take speculating that Clemens may be called to appear before Congress with MLB and the MLBPA when they have their hearings in January.
Said Congress never got the oppoortunity to question Bonds and they need a new face for the the Steroids era that they could spin for the positive. They went on to say that they may try to persuade Clemens to heal his legacy by doing community service work by serving as an example of a player who has done steroids and now lectures about others not doing it.
Interesting idea. If Clemens really did do PEDs, this might be his chance to have the opposite of a Mark McGwire moment.
McNamee has his faults but he was never charged with rape.
“I realize that many of the fans on this sight are primarily baseball fans. but try to realize that corroborating evidence in cases involving illegal drug use and distribution rarely comes from the Mother Teresas of the world. It’s a dirty business, and the abusers know it.”
True enough. Hearsay is admissible and direct evidence under the right circumstances (e.g., an admission of a defendant – - which under some jurisdictions’ rules is not even hearsay). Corroboration coming from Roberts and Pettitte and the rest is also important to note.
Even though it is reasonable to assert that sometimes only criminals know and talk about what other criminals are doing, cooperating witnesses (rats) are a weakness in a case, used only when there is no alternative. The prospect of cross-examination in a case relying heavily on a cooperating witness with a reduced jail deal gives a prosecutor a reason to consider a plea bargain unless the defendant on trial is so bad that the prosecutor must proceed at all costs. That said, using plea bargains in a federal criminal case to help out in an internal corporate investigation is still a rather remarkable event.
erikp
I would have no problem with Mitchell pulling back the curtain but that isn’t what happened.
He gave everyone a small peek behind the curtain but the curtain has certainly not been pulled back with the limited number of players he implicated.
it’s so bad I don’t even think they can use practice as an excuse for not being home.
wife: “why are you so late ?”
player: “girl I play basketball for NY”
wife: “yeh right”
Pat I stand corrected than, he was accused.
McNamee was never charged because the woman was afraid that testifying would cost her job. I’m not sure if she was married or not. I doubt the Yankees would have fired him if the incident wasn’t true. He got off on a technicality. It’s still a police report with other witnesses pointing the finger at him and another unnamed Yankee employee.
Brian:
You’re right about the “hearsay” criticism.
However, the fact that the evidence isn’t hearsay doesn’t mean this testimony or any other evidence described in the Mitchell report would hold up under close examination. This is a textbook example of someone (Mitchell) functioning as both prosecutor and judge. If there’s another side to the story, we haven’t heard it and perhaps never will. I for one am not going to call Clemens’ entire career a sham based on this untested evidence.
Reading Mitchell’s report is similar to reading a criminal or civil complaint. Sometimes you come away with the feeling that the plaintiff/prosecutor has a strong case. However, the processes of discovery and trial are ultimately needed in order to get to the truth of the matter. Unfortunately, what Mitchell and MLB have done is to simply put out their untested findings without any mechanism being in place to adjudicate the charges being leveled. This strikes me as irresponsible on a number of levels. The last thing anyone needed was more ambiguity.
On top of this, I don’t understand how anyone can think Mitchell did NOT have a disqualifying conflict of interest in undertaking this assignment. Frankly, I’m more outraged by his flagrant disregard of the conflict principles than I am by many of the violations he claims to have unearthed in his investigation.
So GreenBeret7… what do you think the reality is? Do you think most of the players named had not used PED’s? Do you think Mitchell (owing to his allgiance to the Sox) made a bunch of this up? I agree that there are conflicts and appearance problems, but so far there’s nothing out there that leads me to believe that this is false.
“McNamee has his faults but he was never charged with rape.”
And John Gotti was a good plumber.
The prosecutor/police exercised their discretion to end the rape investigation when it was discovered that the “victim,” who had been given a nearly lethal does of a date rape drug, (what… illegal use and possession of drugs surfacing in connection with McNamee?) didn’t want to testify. She had been at the hotel where the incident occurred to meet not McNamee, but another Yankee employee who was married. I might add that part of the incident was witnessed by a hotel employee whom the woman asked for help in getting away from McNamee. McNamee also lied repeatedly to the police during his interviews in this matter.
“if you focus on clemens in this way, you’ll be missing the bigger issue of the low quality of the mitchell report.”
To me, the issue isn’t one of quality, but of purpose. The report was a CYA job for Selig…get some big names so that he can wave it around and say “Look what we’re doing! We’re getting tough on PED users!”
For that…it’s been great. Of course, many fans (especially outside NY) are treating this as the gospel truth, and so it’s essentially become ammunition for fans outside the big apple. Mitchell says it’s not an exhaustive list, we know it’s not an exhaustive list, but that doesn’t matter. Mitchell also says it’s not an exhaustive list because that wasn’t the point…the point was to explore the culture that led to the PED problem and build a strategy for moving forward. Of course, no names were necessary to do that…but it helps Selig sell the report to have big, shiny names.
murphydog..compare roger and barry rookie cards. both guys were considered work-out junkies. everybody wants to remove all of barry bonds records. he has never failed a sanctioned by MLB drug test. everything about BB is hear say. andy admitted and roger did not. both used the same trainer. maybe they should have used bonds trainer. guess there is no loyalty to roger and andy.
Brandon, they’d be better off telling th wife they were with a girlfriend. Wives never believe the truth anyway. “Yah..sure you were with a girl. What woman in their right mind wants to be seen with a KNICK?”
Remember also that Mitchell’s report was limited by the almost universal lack of cooperation by the players. Of course it was their right not to cooperate here (mitchell did not have the power to subpoena players), but if you choose not to cooperate you sort of lose the right to claim the the resulting report is incomplete.
Randy1 …. the Mitchell report is seriously deficient, and and does a disservice to many players. It is imbalanced, flawed, and authored by someone with a conflict of interest. I’m in total agreement with those points.
Re: my lack of objectivity towards Clemens: (1) I saw his last years in Boston, where his decline was not unlike Mussina’s current probllems; (2) I saw him in his first 20 strikeout game, when his physique resembled Jim Palmer; (3) I saw him get Curt Schilling-fat (ineffective), then linebacker solid (epiphany); (4) I saw him remain a power pitcher into his 40s, an age at which I saw Warren Spahn resort to throwing screwballs; (5) his personal trainer has given compelling first-hand testimony an why his epiphany occurred.
I’ve seen, and heard, enough. This is NOT a murder trial (reasonable doubt). The preponderance of evidence standards (51%) is sufficient to award millions in civil suits. I’ve made up my mind on O.J., and I’ve made up my mind on Clemens. It has nothing to do with lack of objectivity …. at this point in the proceedings, Judge Judy would say, “I’ve seen enough.”
I’ve seen enough.
Mr. Vegas:
You are correct, sir!
murphydog
And yet he is the key contributor to the Mitchell report.
Everyone, including many sportswriters, wanted some kind of cloture on this steroid thing. They wanted Moses to hand them tablets telling them that this happened and that, and this would be accepted as holy writ and… commence fingerpointing.
This is laziness. George Mitchell is not a good man, let alone Moses. THe list of names should not have been included, and it most certainly should not be used to exclude an athlete from anything, even our esteem. That would be intellectual laziness.
Jim Bouton wrote that he and Whitey Ford injected bovine hormones into their arms when they didn’t know what the stuff would do. That was baseballs problem, it’s “dark era,” going by the Mitchell criteria, not now when we know what the stuff will do.
Stop the use of steroids if you want. Don’t keep pointing fingers based on what a part-owner of the Boston Red Sox (Mitchell) tells you about anything.
GB7 – there was a girl seen w/ a Knick remember Marbury and the intern…oh wait true she got in the truck
“Do you think Mitchell (owing to his allgiance to the Sox) made a bunch of this up? I agree that there are conflicts and appearance problems, but so far there’s nothing out there that leads me to believe that this is false.”
No, no one thinks Mitchell made anything up. Some of the allegations from Rad-whatever and McNamee may be made up, but I don’t think Mitchell made anything up.
However, in his search for names, he certainly did not go out of his way to uncover any suppliers other than the two he was handed by the feds. Do you _really_ think Radomski only supplied one other dealer? Even Mitchell admits it’d be naive to assume there weren’t Chicago, LA, Boston, Seattle, etc versions of this guy. But he didn’t go look.
Why?
Well, because “that wasn’t the point”. If that wasn’t the point, why name names at all? Either cast a broad net or don’t cast a net at all. Some, perhaps all of these guys cheated. They get smeared for it, fine. But other guys get away with it because…why? These 86 names were deemed enough to slake the public’s thirst for blood? That seems irresponsible to me.
erikp…don’t be ridiculous. I never hinted that Mitchell made it up. Even a New Englander isn’t quite that stupid. His guilt is in stopping in one city, getting the names already on record and never going any further. He compounded this by dragging out the 2-3 emails and said, See..if the Red sox were hiding anything, would I have this? All it showed was a slight moral decision by Epstein to bring in a couple of players who might have a problem. All it shows is that one day, before a game, he stopped by the ballpark picked this up and declared Boston thoroughly investigated. The names he threw out were fringe players who’s names were already publi knowledge.
If I may chime in, I also have a probem with people who are deading showing up in this report with no opportunity to respond…especially when they have young children who will never get to hear their father’s side of the story…seems a little excessive to me.
*dead
“Remember also that Mitchell’s report was limited by the almost universal lack of cooperation by the players. Of course it was their right not to cooperate here (mitchell did not have the power to subpoena players), but if you choose not to cooperate you sort of lose the right to claim the the resulting report is incomplete.”
Grossly unfair on a number of levels.
First, if you want to talk waivers, by its custom and practice of turning a blind eye to the facts, not enforcing its own rules or the criminal law, and bu not acting sooner or more forcefully to get tougher testing rules and penalties in place, hasn’t MLB waived the right to complain, punish, moralize about the players now?
Second, the players were being whipsawed. If they talked to Mitchell, whatever they said could be used against them in a criminal case. Mitchell would not promise confidentiality and the feds would not promise immunity.
Third, while the Feds would not promise immunity to the players, they were more than happy to make a deal with lowlifes like Radomski and McNamee to get their accusations against the players. Remember that these accusations were not going to lead to prosecutions of the players, but were to be used in an internal corporate investigation. So they flushed a couple of legit criminal cases that we taxpayers paid for in order to help Selig.
“but if you choose not to cooperate you sort of lose the right to claim the the resulting report is incomplete.”
BS.
Did Mitchell get the two sources from players? No. You think he didn’t have reason to start investigating other trainers, clubbies, etc? Of course he did. But he wasn’t interested in doing that.
Again, not this this is illegal…but it’s irresponsible, if you’re going to name names.
Mitchell named names — not all the names — to take the heat off the owners for closing their collective eyes to the problem. The public is more interested in who used – regardless of context – that the process or credibility of the Mitchell witnesses. In some cases, Mitchell has check receipts, other paper evidence and supposed eye-witness testimony.
You see the paucity of names,see 5 stars, and ask is that it? What’s the big fuss. We know better.
The lack of context also is disturbing. Pettitte took two injections of HGH and Roberts did steroids once, for examples, yet they are lumped in with Cansaco and other supposed big-time users. It’s out of balance. But we’re talking about them, not how the ownwers counted their money and the union looked at cash cows for their members.. And the records and integrity of the game came tumbling down..
jennifer:
Yes, there is a stink on this whole thing, all around, from the players/MLBPA, to the Commissioner to Mitchell. Nobody has clean hands. It would be the height of hypocrisy to start punishing players now when management and the commissioner would skate.
“he stopped by the ballpark picked this up and declared Boston thoroughly investigated. ”
I don’t think he declared ANYTHING fully investigated. Mitchell is pretty sure there are other guys out there. He’s said so. He just didn’t go look for them.
More BS, erikp. Mitchell was part of the team front office. He could demand cooperation of the team employees (not including players). Failure to cooperate would have been cause for termination of their jobs. If one person turned over, the names would have matched the three teams he focused on. Strange isn’t it that three of the teams that were so prominent in the Balco case had so few players active that were named.
“Yes, there is a stink on this whole thing, all around, from the players/MLBPA, to the Commissioner to Mitchell. ”
*snap snap*
Frankly, I think it would have been FAR more interesting to investigate this side of things. A pattern of tacit approval from the whole infrastructure — players, management, owners, etc — would have been a lot more damning. But, it would have been a lot less sexy as well. And thus, have had less CYA value.
All I’m saying is that I believe that the thrust of the report is true and that most, if not all, of the players named in it did in fact use PED’s. All this talk about appearance problems and conflicts is different from judging the truth or falsity of the report. I agree with the appearance/conflict arguments, but I don’t think it resulted in an inaccurate report.
I really don’t think Mitchell was empowered to demand cooperation from anyone, and it seems to me that if he leveraged his position with the Red Sox to demand cooperation with threat of losing a job as a consequence… now that’s what I call a conflict of interest.
After seeing Roberts admit to it, I’m starting to think that there were no inaccuracies on the report (including Clemens).
I think even Gammons has to have a few second thoughts about his homerism defense of Donnely now.
When the report was first announced I thought no way Pettitte and Roberts did that junk and now a few days later both of them have admitted to using it.
It seems like the latest defense is “I used it for a day or two and I swear on my Mother/kids/dog/turtle that I never used it more than that.”
I have problems with that excuse.
It’s like me saying in my profession that I plagiarized someone after getting caught, but I swore that was the only time I ever did it in my life and went on in my career as a writer.
I know this happens in the world every day, but this is starting to bother me.
It doesn’t look good at all for Clemens and I think his Hall of Fame candidacy is in severe McGwire-esque jeopardy.
I still think this report is a band aid. Only focusing on one area of the country is a joke.
whozat:
If Fehr had the cojones, he’d be doing his own investigation right now. He should dig up anything he can by spending a few million from the war chest, canvassing former front office employees, former managers and coaches, trainers, agents, etc.
A freedom of information act request should be sent to the IRS CID, FBI and US Attorney’s offices for all paperwork pertaining to anything they had to do with the Mitchell report, as participation in a private, corporate investigation would seem to me to be non-privileged against disclosure.
Ah, who knows… maybe getting the whole story out have to wait for writers like the Game of Shadows team to do their thing.
Whozat, it was badly worded, but, all I meant that he did his “due diligence” and proved that he looked into the Sox. When he mentioned his great detective work as proof he was being fair, was about as hoakey as the constant mention of the Irish Peace Talks (which hasn’t stopped much and hasn’t really brought that country together).
erikp:
Accurate is a word with many meanings to many people. Completeness, reliability and fairness are often viewed as necessary ingredients before something is judged accurate.
Was steroid abuse widespread in baseball? probably. But as Chass points out, the report was no help in quantifying it. Furthermore, it was distorted to make the players take the weight, and at that, only certain players when many more probably did it too.
Lack of completeness and fairness when it comes to naming names is a problem with assessing the report as accurate without serious qualifications.
erikp…if the report is incomplete…it’s inaccurate. When you leave out the vast majority of the teams, it’s inaccurate, false, and incomplete. If a police investigation or a military investigation had been handled like this, the investigators would be brought up on charges.
I can tell you right now, regardless of the investigation type, anything handled this poorly would have led to a Court Martial of the investigating officer.
I’ve got the answer. Put an asterisk next to Mitchell’s name.
And what a joke it was for him to say all 30 teams were named. OUCH a fringe player on the soxs. and Gagne and Donnely who probably combined didn’t have a year playing time with the team.
GB7… actually, Mitchell went out of his way to include at least one player from every team.
erikp:
Mitchell didn’t “go out of his way” to name one player from each team. It was literally the least he could do and nowhere near to a complete job.
WoW, erikp…one whole player, huh? And,he had to go out of his way to do this? He should put in for overtime pay. What a company man.
How did Mitchell become the bad guy here? Bearer of bad news I guess.
Mitchell did a bad job, not a bad thing. He didn’t execute well.
The answer is to throw the report aside as garbage and do it over, doing it right this time. This should not be treated as a game of whine and gotcha, which is what Mitchell did.
Poor Poor Roger Clemens. As you enter the Hall of Shame(You are a definite shoe in) keep in mind it could have all turned out different for the better if you were clean. Now, how impressionable are you now on the young kids of today?
Its alright to take steriods just don’t get caught with them.! Do you know what a hippocrite is? Look in the mirror.
You know, my sister and I had some respect for you recently when you went over to Iraq. You were some what of a hero to all the solders out there. And now, you go and do something stupid like this. You are a disgrace now, Roger!