Today in The Journal News
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Feb 18, 2009 
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Alex Rodriguez added more supposed details about his PED use during a press conference yesterday.
Still left unanswered: Who is his drug mule cousin (if such a person does indeed exist) and what about the testosterone Sports Illustrated reported he took? Was that part of the “boli” they obtained? But there are fewer loose ends than before.
Journal News columnist Sam Borden writes that A-Rod does not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame.
Andy Pettitte, meanwhile, was called to speak to federal prosecutors pondering charges against Roger Clemens. This story also has news of A-Rod’s new charitable endeavor.
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You know what I can’t figure out? The 2003 survey tests were supposed to be anonymous, a way for baseball to determine whether it had a PED problem. Yet somewhere in the process, the samples were labeled with the name of the player who provided it.
If I was a member of the MLBPA, I’d be furious about that. How is that an anonymous test? It doesn’t excuse what A-Rod did. But he certainly was not served by his union in this case.
I do think this fades away in time — provided there is not another set of positive tests out there or compelling evidence of something else he did.
The first full-squad workout is today. There’s the annual Big Meeting first, so the players won’t take the field for a while, probably around 10:30 or 11.
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Adam from Blogging The Pinstripes did a little Q&A with me if you’re interested.
what time is the jeter presser?
when is opening day ?
Can we start playing baseball yet ?
I’m tired of Arod… i’d like to hear some real baseball news.
Arod is acting like a man that has been caught, not like someone that is contrite. In fact, he never mentions what he is sorry for, except that he took an illegal substance not that he is sorry for taking steroids. He mentions boli but not the full name/steroids. He apparently is so dumb and naive that he has been able to quickly and masterfully engage the media in a fine demonstration of lawyer speak. He is minimizing what he has done using this technique. Quite pathetic.
As the Soup Nazi would say, “No Hall of Fame for Arod”.
alex’s first year of eligibility is probably not for 14 years. for anyone to say they can predict whether he will get in or not, or who will be voting even, is naive.
when bill clinton was in his second term as president, did you see obama being elected president in 14 years? did you see the ecomonmic meltdown coming a year ago? did you predict arod being branded a steroid cheat before new year’s day?
i hate it when people say that albert pujols is a future hall of famer. for me talk about the future hall of famers starts when they have ammassed enough stats to be elected if they didnt ever play another game. until then, its just speculation. people started calling don mattingly a future hall of famer, and what happened. roberto alomar anyone?
the HOF will happen or wont happen, i cant see that far into the future. and niether can you.
Betsy -
I just read the article you linked to that framed Cashman’s “asset” quote in context. All I can say is, what a difference reading the entirety of what he had to say makes! I would suggest everyone read the article that Betsy linked to last night. Cashman looks a lot less “cold” than originally assumed.
Everywhere I turn-it’s all about Alex.
Sam did a nice job filling in but does tend to get on his soapbox. Moving forward (something the media hates), if A Rod has 3 or 4 more MVP type seasons he’s still a Hall of Famer. If not, no one else of his generation is either.
The article Betsy linked to last night:
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/articl.....8;c_id=mlb
S.A. -
I have no desire to listen to anyone else or watching anyone else talk about Alex. I guess I’m not putting the TV on today! All it does is sadden and aggravate me.
I hear ya Doreen!
That Yankee-hating man avoids jail(if he behaves)
http://news.bostonherald.com/n.....ition=also
Pete,
The tests could have been anonymous under the agreement. My understanding is that the Union put the names to the tests so they could go back and research what individual players ingested to determine if there were false positives.
The Union did a horrible job all the way around. They should have realized that testing was going to happen eventually no matter what. The nation was not going to allow this to continue, so their goal should have been to give players as much confidentiality as possible at that time. Instead they attached names and held onto the tests so they could research and get below the 5% threshold.
this ichiro thing is still smoldering from last year. jj putz dropped some bombs on him upon his arrival with the mets, current teammate adrian beltre threw him under the bus upon arrival and camp and now his former manager jim riggleman is saying he tried to get ichiro to help the team more but was rebuffed.
add that to ichiro’s terrible performance at YS last year and his star has really fallen.
great way to start a new season for the M’s.
doreen, i have a favorties folder of other team’s blogs and when the yankees news isnt doing it for me, im mining the depths of other team’s blogs for information that may help my fantasy teams. you find all kinds of stuff you dont find in the national coverage of the team that way. today every blog has like one piece on arod and the rest about what is happening at ST or the wbc or soemthing.
its a great way to stay ahead on baseball news and gets you out of yankeeland for a little while.
Good points all around. Pete’s right – the Union pretty much dropped the brick ball on the baby this time and Ham’s right in that no one will know whether or not Arod gets into the HOF. He could seriously injure himself in the next year or two and definitely be out. Or he could help the Yankees win the next 5 world series’ in a row – winning MVP’s along the way… then what do you say?
The M’s. just another example of the older you get the more childish you become. LOL
the guy that does the CHONE projections also has an angels blog and here’s his analysis of the al east for this year:
Yankees 97-65
Red Sox 96-66
Rays 89-73
Blue Jays 76-86
Orioles 74-88
The Yankees just absolutely dominated the offseason and it might just be enough to get them back into the position of being favorites. Of course to do this they will probably spend more money next year than the Rays and Red Sox combined. The Red Sox still have an excellent team, second in this division equals second best in baseball. Last year a prediction of 89 wins was a bold one for the Rays. This year, 89 wins and third place will be a bit of a disappointment. The Blue Jays, and even the Orioles, are not terrible teams.
The AL East is so tough that just playing half your games in this unbalanced schedule will knock a few games off your win total. And the AL is 5-10 games better than the NL. The Orioles and Jays are probably as good as projected 2nd and 3rd place teams Oakland and Minnesota, and any of those teams would be contenders in the National league.
If I ranked the teams in this division among all MLB teams, and everyone played the same schedule, here is the overall rank of the AL East teams:
1. Yankees
2. Red Sox
3. Rays
12. Blue Jays
15. Orioles
Most writers will not want to vote for Arod for MVP, but what if he has a 2007-type year, and nobody else is close? He would almost have to be the MVP. Following that, if he does win at least one more MVP during his career, those votes are setting the stage for him to be voted into HOF eventually.
I disagree with Borden. Enjoyed his work as a pinch-hitter here, but he’s wrong on this.
It’s time for Selig to show his leadership by absolving all of past PED use and moving forward. That means Canseco, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens, A-Rod, and yes…Bonds. All of them. The quicker he makes this “old news”, the better. C’mon, Bud. A blanket absolution to all past evil doers…including Rose, and Shoeless Joe. That would REALLY change the subject, and fast.
What I hate even more is the feeding frenzy of writers, all in competition to ask the ultimate “gotcha” question. Ugh.
The A-Rod stuff will all go away if the media would let it. For crying out loud what hypocrites MLB network is…like the entire MLB had nothing to do with this problem.
I know that I could care less…the Post had some 7-8 new articles posted, which I didn’t bother to read, because not one of them was about anything but Alex!
Fans in other parks will do anything to raze a guy…get in his head, that’s what some fans think going to the park is supposed to be about. The media, they will report it as, see…people want to still talk about this.
As for A-Rod and the HOF for anyone to say he should be allowed in…hello, he won’t be eligible for some 14 years!
How do you know that something new won’t come out about all of baseball or that he will go on to do some really crazy things like win 3-4 world series…I mean Kirby Pucket is in the Hall for one WS homerun.
With that being said I don’t want to hear anything else about A-Rod unless it is about a game winning hit or great play in the field. However, in the crazy society we live in today were the murderer gets top of the fold…while the hero is on the bottom…I pretty sure that it won’t happen.
Disclaimer: I think that A-Rod is a liar at times and fake, but I know that I have done some wrong things in life and can be a little fake too…I mean name isn’t really Vader.
Keep in mind with MLB.com that those guys are paid to put a positive spin on everything.
As for the HoF, I personally think it’s far too early to debate that. He may not be eligible under 2023 or something like that.
heres an interesting concept. the cubs blog ‘bleed cubbie blue’ is doing a community projections. he set up a spreadsheet where readers can go and enter thier projections for cubs players and they will average them out and come up with a ‘community projection’ for each player.
that would be sick to do with the traffic on this site!
From ESPN
This quote comes from Dr. Don Catlin, the anti-doping sleuth who broke the code on the seemingly undetectable drugs in the BALCO drug case
“If you are in the Dominican Republic and buy Primobolan, there may well be testosterone in it. And vice versa.”
“The Orioles and Jays are probably as good as projected 2nd and 3rd place teams Oakland and Minnesota, and any of those teams would be contenders in the National league.”
Not buying the Jays and O’s as much as others this year.
Jays will go into this season minus three starters who were in their rotation to start ’08, in Burnett, Marcum and McGowan. McGowan is due back at some point, but they’ll be relying on guys like Litsch and a couple youngsters for large chunks of the season. Good pen though. Like their outfield, but no reason to think the offensive production from the infield will be much more than putrid. One positive to look at for them is Travis Snider, who stands a great shot at being the ROY, especially if Matt Wieters is kept in the minors for a couple months.
The O’s??? Where’s the starting pitching? How are the comparable to the Twins, who have three at least three starting pitchers better than the best the O’s have to offer. Decent bulllpen, especially if Ray is healthy. Offense? I wonder about Mora and Huff duplicating ’08 efforts but think that Markakis and Jones improves on theirs’. SS is an offensive black hole and next thing Felix Pie proves at the big league level will be the first. To me, they’re a 75 win team…if things go very well.
It’s never enough for the media. Why the hell is his cousin’s name relevant? He has already revealed far more about his steroid use than any other person ever has.
All doubts can be erased. The cousin of Alex has been found and as suspected by many, it’s Alfred E. Neuman and he’s not worried.
John those are some really good ideas…imagine if the talk could get away from all of he wrong doings.
What if we could talk about Pete Rose as one of the greatest ballplayers of all time and not the gambling degenerate that he is.
Bye the way there is this place in Nevada where you can bet on just about anything and some people lose their life savings…but that’s ok.
Whenever they do find out his cousin’s name, and you know they will, I’m sure they will do what they do best, and dig up every single piece of dirt on the guy.
ARod doesn’t need another MVP to make it into the HOF.
First off, MVPs are not a barometer for HOF worthiness. Jeter never won an MVP (although he was robbed twice), but will be a first-ballot HOFer.
Second, ARod won two MVPs during a period when there is zero evidence to show he was juicing.
Third, forgetting about MVPs entirely, HOF voters cannot start weeding out juicers from non-juicers for HOF eligibility because they will never know who took what drugs, and to what extent those drugs helped or harmed them. It’s unfair to say that ARod, who would be a first-ballot HOFer if those supposedly anonymous and confidential test results remain anonymous and confidential, SHOULD NEVER GET IN because the results were leaked and ARod copped to using PEDs.
Borden’s analogy to the test-taker is also flawed, because ARod was obviously a great player before 2001 and after 2003. After all, the Rangers gave him a $252 million contract based on his performance through 2000, and ARod’s 2005 and 2007 were superior to any of his years in Texas.
ARod is under contract for nine more years. Even taking the extreme (and, IMO, unsupportable) position that ARod’s stats from 2001-2003 should simply be ignored, he will still be a HOFer. Easily. Anyone who does not vote for him had better be consistent and refuse to vote for anyone who ever used PEDs of any kind and is above suspicion of PED use. ARod’s weasily personality is not a ground for keeping him from the HOF.
if anything arod said about the cousin is true, that guy could be in huge trouble. we dont know if he’s even an american citizen and he’s been bringing illegal drugs into the u.s.
arod shouldnt give the guy up at all, he could do prison time or at the very least be deported (assuming he’s not a citizen) arod shouldnt give his name to anybody and shouldnt cooperate in getting the guy sent to jail or deported. i have no problem with him covering up there.
assuming he even has a cousin…
Enough A-Rod.
My Friday plan came through!!! I am in Section 422 of the grandstand (halfway up the third base line), three rows from the top of the upper deck. Last year I was in Section 8 Tier Reserve, so basically I’m in the same general area, but there’s less upper deck above me. I’m ecstatic. First game is the 4/17 day game vs. CLE.
Why do you media people think that you have a right to know the name of his cousin? I was surprised this question was even asked yesterday. It is NOBODY’s business. You can’t ask anyone to “incriminate” a family member.
Even the most public people like A-Rod deserve privacy and a private family life, although it is hard to keep things private as we have seen.
Just stop asking irrelevant questions and be done with it. There’s not gonna be some great revelation at this point, he took steroids (and I don’t think 1-3 times a month is enough for any effects, but I might be wrong) for three years, he apologized, and we should all leave this behind us and concentrate on baseball now. It doesn’t matter if it was his cousin or his friend, if he bought it in the DR or somewhere else, if he was injected in the butt or in the arm, what he thought, etc. IT DOESN’T MATTER, it’s not gonna change anything. He doesn’t have to be understood and he doesn’t have to be forgiven. It is what it is…
Exactly what Ham said. This guy could face a lot of trouble for what he did.
Jeremy,
I wasn’t saying he needs an MVP to get in the hall. What I was saying is that the same people vote for both, so an MVP award would be tacit admission by the voters that it is all behind him. I am not sure if that will happen, though.
However, even if he doesn’t get the votes for MVP, his HOF voting will be from 14-29 years in the future. There will be many changes in who votes for the HOF by that time, and he will probably get in, even w/o another MVP.
“He has already revealed far more about his steroid use than any other person ever has”
Problem with that, Mike, is that he went into yesterday’s PC with zero credibility and compounded it with that moronic story. Doesn’t matter a great deal how much you say when so much of it is scripted crappola. Young and stupid??? Well, he was half right.
He was outed and he copped to it. He’s not to be commended for that, but it was the right thing to do. I only wish the people he’s undoubtedly paying handsome sums of money to for crafting these tales for him were A)consistent in their fabrications and B)good enough at their jobs not to leave more questions unanswered than answered. The press feast on stories with holes in ‘em and that’s what they were left with yesterday. Sadly, in the end, I don’t think we’re at the end at all.
“Keep in mind with MLB.com that those guys are paid to put a positive spin on everything.”
At least that article has Cashman’s comments in context unlike what I read here and in the NYT article.
If it were up to the media, they would get a hand-drawn diagram from A-Rod of his ass, indicating the exact positioning of each injection, and the angle at which each needle went in.
“At least that article has Cashman’s comments in context unlike what I read here and in the NYT article.”
Wherever you read it, if anyone came away with the notion that Cashman considered this thing to be anything other than a high octane pain in the posterior then they aren’t paying attention. Pete’s caption on the last entry merely says “Cashman is not real happy”. You know what? Cashman is not real happy and his statements read exactly that way.
BTW, can anyone show us where Brian Cashman has ever referred to Derek Jeter or Mo or Posada as an “asset” or “investment”?
Doreen, exactly. The NY Times posted some pretty lousy articles on their site yesterday – the Cash one where they chose the most provocative quotes and the Jack Curry piece where he analyzed why the Yankees players showed up at the PC yesterday. He basically said that players like Aceves, Robertson, etc…., who don’t know A-Rod, showed up because everyone else does……and then went on to state how emotionless Jeter was and how he and the others didn’t give Alex a thumbs up when he was talking about his teammates. Seriously, a thumbs-up? Talk about cheesy and inappropriate. It’s this kind of thing that makes me have zero respect for the media – and they aren’t on the same page as the fans, not even close. The fans recognize that yesterday was an important day for the Yankees as a TEAM…
I think I know what the truth is and why we didn’t hear it yesterday.
IMO Arod participated with Canseco and all the rest of that group in Texas in the use of PEDs obtaining it from the the same supplier.
That’s why Canseco knew of Arod’s involvement years ago, why the “cousin story” is just that.
If Arod had been truthful in admitting that he participated with Canseco and others, it opens the door for the Feds to investigate their source or supplier, it opens the door for an investigation by MLB and it also implicates other still unnamed players who were involved. It would be a much bigger story.
Canseco saying last week that there would be much more to come, sounds very ominous to me, for Arod and for another big scandal about to break.
In lying, Arod is trying to protect the others involved.
Alex’s story is so stupid it has to be true. We all know that Alex isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, so when he says he was young and stupid it is likely true. Also the people he is hiring would really have to be morons to allow him to use that excuse unless it is true.
Buster said that Jorge is a pretty straight up guy. He found it interesting that he left the presser early. Said he could have really had a reason, or he could have been ticked about what Alex was saying. He said Jorge wouldn’t care how it looked.
To the point about Alex’s cousin. Michael Kay who has been roasting Alex for the past 2 weeks, said that Alex does indeed have a cousin. Or at least someone who Alex has called his cousin to Michael. So the man does exist. To those bellyaching that he didn’t give a name. He is stupid, but not that stupid. What is cousin did is illegal. It is drug trafficking. Why serve him up on a silver platter?
Also interesting note that the ‘boli’ could have contained testosterone.
Pete, I like your writing and all, but I’m rather disappointed at how much you’ve jumped on the A-rod bashing wagon. Sure he does a lot of stupid things, even some really stupid things, but he’s human like we all are. Don’t be surprised if some of our favorite players and some of the nicest guys in the world are among the other 103 names. Then what? You bash them too? Seems shallow and childish to me. Sure A-rod’s got to earn back our trust and respect, but just because I don’t trust or respect a guy doesn’t mean I’m an ass about it. At least try looking for a positive once in a while when it comes to A-rod. The positives are there, just you and everyone else prefer to overlook them.
Shocking news to hear that Alex actually has a cousin.
If I ranked the teams in this division among all MLB teams, and everyone played the same schedule, here is the overall rank of the AL East teams:
1. Yankees
2. Red Sox
3. Rays
12. Blue Jays
15. Orioles
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Rays will finish second. You have to factor in that Boston is looking at an entire season without Manny batting cleanup. They got rid of him in August of last year, if memory serves me correctly. For a full season, this is an incomparable loss.
Besty- Do they not realize they played together last season? They know him. They went because they were supporting another teammate. I mean if they didn’t go would anyone be going where are Robertson and Aceves? no.
Why do we need the name of A-rod’s cousin? The only people who should be curious about that are the authorities.
A-rod has been treated very unfairly by the media and fans throughout this whole situation. We expect him to explain every single detail of his steroid use yet we give a pass to others who never did such a thing.
Pettitte said he took HGH once, then admitted he took it twice. He wasn’t given NEARLY the same treatment as A-rod who has been a lot more honest in my opinion. Giambi apologized for whatever it is he did. Did he ever even admit to steroid use? In a roundabout way he did but did he ever say the words “I took an illegal substance” ?
Both of these guys are given a pass because they are nice guys or whatever. A-rod has been a lot more truthful than both of them and he gets blasted left and right. Now I hear on ESPN some reporters killing A-rod for taking ripped fuel. As randy explained last night ripped fuel is essentially Sudafed and caffeine. This is ridiculous.
A-rod just can’t win in the eyes of some people.
“if anything arod said about the cousin is true, that guy could be in huge trouble. we dont know if he’s even an american citizen and he’s been bringing illegal drugs into the u.s.”
This would seem true, Ham. Maybe some of the lawyers on the blog can answer this. Was Arod engaging in an illegal act by accepting these drugs illegally brought in to the US?
Moreover, after not copping to anything illegal in the Gammons interview and possibly copping to something illegal yesterday, is there anyway he opened himself up to a second look from Congress?
As someone who works in the legal field, the testing procedure was absolutely ludicrous. The testing procedure should have been done as such: As Alex Rodriguez enters the stall for a urine sample, his sample is labeled as number 1. Derek Jeter enters the stall, his sample his #2, Petite’s sample Etc. etc. There would be no recording of a name. All that would be on the list would be player 1, player 2, player 3, etc. It should have been conducted that way in order to retain anonymity. Furthermore, its should have been conducted team by team as such. With the numbers just adding up. All the way from player 1 to player 700something. It is absurd that names got connected faces. Seriously, what’s easier, having two lists of decoding names and numbers, or just one list of anonymous numbers with no names? What Union did is what they do in law school, anonymous numbers with a decoding list after exams. It’s absurd. That entire union should be fired.
Patrick- I remember constantly hearing and seeing commercials for Rip Fuel. I’d bet if you polled anonymously
players whether or not they took it 90% would say they did.
Hey AROD.
Want an edge that won’t get you in trouble?
Try ginseng. It stimulates both physical and mental activity. It is also good for inflamation and helps heal injuries quicker. It is a natural substance but you don’t want to abuse it. It could/would give you heart palpatation, anxiety, headache.
Also, I know several advanced Yogic breathing exercises that would give an athlete a significant advantage. They saturate the body with oxygen. Clear the mind. Vision gets very clear. They balance and boost energy. I have been doing this stuff everyday for 30 years.
Sam — Do us all a favor and get off the high horse. Cooperstown is a museum of baseball not the Vatican. And your analogy of a kid cheating on a test is moronic at best. Do oyu not know performance ENHANCEMENT means? You want to strike the increased productivity over those three years I have no argument with that, but deleting everything is absurd.
John in Ohio is 100 percent right. The only way this recurring nightmare will ever go away is if “Commissioner for Life” Baby Doc Selig accepts the responsibility for the steroid era on behalf of everyone associated in the game from 1995-2004. That would include players, owners, trainers, managers, the Commisioner himself and of course Hall of Famevoters who gleefully looked the other way. How can he expect anyone else to accept responsibility when he himself fails to do so?
“Both of these guys are given a pass because they are nice guys or whatever. A-rod has been a lot more truthful than both of them and he gets blasted left and right.”
Patrick, I’d amend this to say he’s “said a lot more” rather than “been a lot more truthful”.
86w183
Bud will never take responsibility. He is too busy pointing fingers at other people. It is everyone’s fault but his. Funny how the media buys it hook line and sinker.
oh, yes, arod could be in huge trouble too, he conspired to bring illegal drugs into the u.s. according to his statement. i think the obama administration doesnt want to pursue this, but any u.s. attorney who wants to stick his nose into the situation could really hammer arod and the cousin.
however, if he just sticks to the truth (and im going way out on a limb here and accepting his statement as ‘truth’ or at least ‘truthiness) i think he’ll be okay even if hes called to testify or charged with conspiracy.
this is deep doo doo so if hes not telling the truth, and possibly even if he is, this may not be over.
btw, iv always assumed arod is an american citizen, am i correct there?
“John in Ohio is 100 percent right. The only way this recurring nightmare will ever go away is if “Commissioner for Life” Baby Doc Selig accepts the responsibility for the steroid era on behalf of everyone associated in the game from 1995-2004.”
Why should Selig assume that responsibility when Fehr and Orza and their lemmings are more reponsible for it than he?
We hear a lot about the credibility of all these PED users, and how their body of work cannot be considered legit. Certainly, this viewpoint holds some merit.
But, as I hear writer after writer after writer get their own names out there by appearing on talk radio, or ESPN, or whatever by espousing the most extreme viewpoints, I can’t help but question their credibility, too. Is the non-stop sensationalism ever going to stop?
I realize that the “just the facts” kind of objectivity which is pounded into the heads of Journalism students is modified somewhat when one becomes a “columnist”. But why must these viewpoints always be so extremely provocative, and borderline unfair? At what point do we call this simple self-promotion?
Report the news. Let us decide. Don’t try to make (or be) the news.
tank, my understanding is that there were no names on the bottles, only #’s and that then the info connecting the #’s and names were kept in 2 different labs to prevent anybody from knowing.
the list was compiled after the tests were finished. i dont know if that was prerranged but it seems like the tests were set up correctly but the union started trying to find false positives and thats when protocol was blown.
i may be wrong but that was my understanding.
I mentioned this last night, but I mention it again.
Last night on Countdown w/Keith Olbermann, sports writer Richard Justice said something that made me jump:
“Keith, you and I both know there were GMs who looked down on players who did not use steroids”
Why is this information not being reported about?
86w183
I totally agree.
Ham
I think he was born in the Bronx.
i like richard justice alot, hes alwasy good on pti and i read his blog alot. i dont always agree but he seems pretty level headed.
“Patrick, I’d amend this to say he’s “said a lot more” rather than “been a lot more truthful”.”
I would not make that amendment.
Tarheelyank
He did leave the United States for a period of a few years right?
even though sj44 is too close to alex to give an objective opinion, im looking forward to hearing his perspective especially since he’s been away and had some time to reflect on yesterday.
Tom:
Keith Olbermann??? The battery die in your clicker with you stuck on MSNBC or something?
I think it’s widely accepted that MLB, the MLBPA and organizations turned a blind eye to a lot of this stuff, especially in the mid 1990′s.
“You know what I can’t figure out? The 2003 survey tests were supposed to be anonymous, a way for baseball to determine whether it had a PED problem. Yet somewhere in the process, the samples were labeled with the name of the player who provided it.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05.....38;ei=5087
new york times-may2008:
Because the tests were supposed to remain anonymous, the urine samples were not labeled with the players’ names. Instead, the urine samples were kept at a Las Vegas location for Quest Diagnostics, and a list with players’ names with corresponding code numbers was kept at Comprehensive Drug Testing’s facility in Long Beach, Calif.
According to court documents, when the federal agent Jeff Novitzky and other investigators went to Comprehensive Drug Testing on April 8, 2004, employees there were initially helpful, but after speaking with lawyers they said they would not help the agents.
When Novitzky informed the employees that the government might seize many of Comprehensive Drug Testing’s computers for up to 60 days, one employee contacted a company lawyer “exclaiming that such a seizure would ‘shut the business down,’ ” the court documents said.
Ultimately, the agents discovered a master list of all the players who tested positive during their search of Comprehensive Drug Testing. A search that had been initiated to find results for the 10 Balco players had yielded far more.
Meanwhile, other federal agents at Quest Diagnostics in Las Vegas, armed with the code numbers obtained at Comprehensive Drug Testing, first seized the matching urine samples for the Balco players and, a month later, for all the players who tested positive.
The complete article does indicate that Cashman is not a happy camper, but at least there is a lot more humanity in the full story than the selected quotes.
As far as players not wanting to be there, well, we can’t know for sure what any particular player’s motivation for being there was. It might have been to show support for Alex in particular, or simply to show support for the more generic “a teammate.” Or, quite honestly, there could have been a couple of guys who, when it became evident that most of the other guys were going to show up, figured that not showing up was not a good idea. The important thing is, many players showed up, which at least shows that the team stands as a team.
I think most Yankees fans realize that this thing is not over, and will not be over. But I’m finding it more and more upsetting that Alex alone is being raked over the coals. Story not perfect, by any means. Yes, there are more ‘questions,’ but the largest one has been answered. I’m not all that certain why particulars matter at this point. And I don’t find it difficult to believe that the guy played mindgames with himself. If the cousin or whoever bought the steroid in the DR “over the counter,” well, then technically it was an “over-the-counter” substance. If you want to, you can talk yourself into thinking, well, it can’t be that bad. Not saying I believe this, not saying it’s okay, not making an excuse – just talking about the ability of human beings to justify just about anything. I mean, we had a president who was arguing about the definition of the word “is,” for crying out loud. Self-preservation is what it’s about.
Reporters who think that Alex is lying fail to see the big picture. As others pointed out, he could have just put himself in a very bad position. If someone wants to make a name for themselves they could go after him for accepting illegal drugs.
To that point what is the statute of limitations for accepting illegal drugs.
From Wikipedia
Rodriguez was born in the Washington Heights section of New York City to a Dominican family. When he was four, Rodriguez and his parents moved to their native Dominican Republic, then to Miami, Florida.
“I would not make that amendment.”
Lot of Yankees fans won’t. But I think they’re hearing with their hearts and not their heads.
Since I was traveling yesterday and missed the “fun”, some thoughts.
1. There is no “mystery” cousin. Anybody that knows/follows Alex knows he has 3 people he is closest to, who travel with him almost all the time. His half brother, a boyhood friend from Miami, and his cousin. Those 3 guys would take bullets for Alex.
This isn’t exactly “news” to those who have followed Alex over the years.
IIRC, if you watch his Centerstage interview with Michael Kay from last year, I believe he is ID’ed in that interview.
2. As far as his story? Look, no matter what he said was not going to be enough for some. No player has ever gone into this much detail (while not under oath) on his own steroid use. Is it enough? Probably not. Is it the full, unvarnished truth? Probably not. But, its more than anybody else has given.
Anybody want to show me the comments of “good guys” Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte when they went into detail on their schedules, what they took, etc? You can’t because they don’t exist.
3. As far as purchasing the drug in the DR, that’s what these guys did back in that time period. Most everything was OTC, and it was cheaper than buying the same stuff in the US.
As far as the testosterone positive read on his drug test, my information is, you can get a positive read for testosterone by taking Primo. I’m sure the media will research that to see if its true. If it is, its probably how he tested positive for testosterone.
For the life of the me, I can’t understand why George Mitchell didn’t send investigators to the DR to report on what goes on down there. One would think if you are going to have the “comprehensive report on steroids” with your name on it, you would want to go to Ground Zero for steroid sales. Which in that time, was the DR, not Jose Canseco’s garage.
4. As far as the HOF, JMO but, anybody that has already decided he’s not voting Alex into the HOF should essentially take themselves out of discussing this issue ever again. Those folks have already professionally executed him. So, why bring it up? They bring it up to make themselves look like they are taking the high moral ground on this issue.
What if Alex tests clean for the next 9 years, becomes a leading spokesman for curbing the use of steroids among kids, and has a great finish to his career, both in rings and numbers? That would be 15 years of testing clean, team and individual success and being an outfront role model to stop steroid use.
IF he did those things, would you still not vote for him for the HOF? If you say, “yes”, then you have just de-valued the HOF. Doesn’t make much sense to me.
My point is, instead of predicting what you will do in perhaps 24 years, why not wait until the rest of his career plays out?
Alex said yesterday he, “wants to be judged from this day forward”. Why don’t we (the collective fan and media bases) do that?
If more stuff comes out, and we see he isn’t holding up his end of the bargain, rip away. If we see he is making a real effort to do something more with his life than what he has been doing the past several years, then we can praise him for it.
At some point, somebody has to be the adult and move on. We are talking about a SIX year old drug test. That’s what we are talking about.
While its not “cool” to possibly believe the guy has been clean for the last 6 years (despite over 20 drug tests and soon to be his second blood test for the WBC), what if has been clean for the last 6 years?
If he has, then this is no longer an issue.
From today forward, its all on Alex. If he told the truth, and there isn’t any other evidence of drug use, he will be ok. If he is SINCERE about working with Mr. Hooten? He will be ok.
If he is SINCERE about being a better teammate, he will be ok.
If he hasn’t been SINCERE on these issues? He is toast, plain and simple.
I hope for his sake he means what he said yesterday. If he does, he’s going to be a heckua lot happier and more fulfilled guy than he has been the past 15 months.
i know alot of you folks think im being an idiot here, but count me in with those who think alex’s story (or at least something very close to it) is just stupid enough to be true.
i think alex is just stupid enough to hatch a stupid plot like this. i think his characterization of them being two bumbling idiots is fake, i think he knew what other players were using and found that he could get it over the counter back in the d.r. and i think he hatched a plan to seem clean to other players, trainers and his agents, while getting the same boost the other guys were using.
when you hear the stories of what criminals did and how they got caught, this is just the kind of half-again-too-smart thinking that puts people in prison. and i think alex is just dumb enough and egotistical enough to think he was jobbing everybody here.
i know its weak and i know im giving him a HUGE benefit of the doubt, but there it is, im buying it until and unless hes proven to have lied. if that happens ill hate him forever.
he asked that we judge him from this day forward and im giving him that.
i really hope he’s not making me feel like a jerk again.
Pete–
I am a little confused by something you said that MLB.com people are paid to put a positive spin on things. Does that mean that you consider Bryan Hoch not an objective reporter?? Or for that matter anyone who writes articles for MLB.com.
Does the same go for those employed by MLB Network.
It certainy could be the case but I certainly want to know if the things I am reading by a “reporter” are onbectie or not or if I am just getting the company line so to speak.
I have often been surprised that certain negative things end up on the Yankees.com website so i somewhat suprises me that you say that are paid to put a positive spin on things and to me that mean they are not real reporters.
First off, Alex and his cousin aren’t in legal trouble re: the drugs.
The Statute of Limitations is 5 years for this type of crime.
Also, despite a confession, without evidence, no US Attorney is going to bring charges against anybody.
Its a non-issue.
As far as Cashman being upset, DUH, ‘ya think???
He and the organization should be FURIOUS with him.
Let’s say, everything he said is true.
That means, he used as a Texas Ranger. You is getting all the heat? The New York Yankees.
Couple that with Alex not giving the organization a heads up that this was going to come out, and everything that has happened since, Cashman (as well as everybody else) should be furious with him.
Its an embarrassment, a distraction, whatever negative word you want to attach to this, it is.
Now, they have to make sure it doesn’t infect the entire season.
Oh by the way, its only the FIRST FULL DAY of workouts.
I have no problem with Cashman, or anybody associated with the Yankees, being upset with Alex.
If they weren’t, I’d be questioning his sanity.
sj- Thanks. I wasn’t sure what the statute was.
“Lot of Yankees fans won’t. But I think they’re hearing with their hearts and not their heads.”
And most non-Yankee fans hate the Yankees and A-rod so they’ll be thinking with their anger and not their heads. Tell me, what exactly was A-rod untruthful about? He might have kept some things hidden but not nearly as much as Pettitte or Giambi.
Last night channel 4 had some stupid psychologist on. She said she didn’t find him truthful cause he read from a piece of paper. HUH? When have you ever seen anyone get up in front of a crowd and not read from something? Than she says well he didn’t look at the camera when he answer questions. Again what? There were probably 12 camera’s there, and he was looking in the direction of the person asking the question. The lady was obviously a flake.
Did anyone else see this?
Always great to hear your thoughts, SJ…
Doreen, I totally agree with you. I’m not a big A-Rod fan but he’s a Yankee and the Yankees’ doing well is what matters to me at this point. How many “mea culpas” do we need from A-Rod? How much more do we need to know? I, too, cannot believe that the name of his cousin or whoever supplied the drugs makes one bit of difference at this point. However, I would like to know the other names on that 104-man list. Knowing the names wouldn’t absolve A-Rod because what he did was wrong, but since ole Selena was able to “find” A-Rod’s name, how come no one else has been able to “find” the names of the others? Why should A-Rod take all the heat for something that is/was endemic to baseball?
For the life of the me, I can’t understand why George Mitchell didn’t send investigators to the DR to report on what goes on down there. One would think if you are going to have the “comprehensive report on steroids” with your name on it, you would want to go to Ground Zero for steroid sales. Which in that time, was the DR, not Jose Canseco’s garage.
——–
Really you are shocked Mitchell wasn’t more thorough?
It almost seems like his investigation never left NY/Baltimore and Bonds.
$20M and a long wait to hear about 5% of the truth.
They had to use names on the test bottles for the Yankee players because, with all of the retired numbers, they ran out of numbers!
“She said she didn’t find him truthful cause he read from a piece of paper.”
Haha that’s pretty funny. Does that mean that everyone who ever read from a teleprompter is lying?
Last night channel 4 had some stupid psychologist on. She said she didn’t find him truthful cause he read from a piece of paper. HUH? When have you ever seen anyone get up in front of a crowd and not read from something? Than she says well he didn’t look at the camera when he answer questions. Again what? There were probably 12 camera’s there, and he was looking in the direction of the person asking the question. The lady was obviously a flake.
_____
Apparently anyone who ever gave a speech anywhere was lying.
___
Absolutely ridiculous who people let ‘analyze’ situations now.
Anyone else miss John Sterling . . i wonder what his home run call is going to be for Tex .
If the DEA has a 5 year statute of limitation, I vote we do to.
Sterling on Tex:
“He just TEXed that ball ito a fan in the outfield”
????
“Want an edge that won’t get you in trouble?
Try ginseng. It stimulates both physical and mental activity”
I am not sure how sensitive the MLB tests are, but from what I hear, ginseng and even green tea can trigger positives in the IOC tests. Let’s hope Joe Torre isn’t the manager of the next Olympic baseball team!
Patrick,
That’s what I don’t understand about the reaction from some people.
NO PLAYER, not even the scrubs who got caught using, have gone into as much detail as Arod did about his own PED use.
No, its not War and Peace. However, it was never going to be.
His entire life has been consumed (too much so, IMO) with his image. His image is completely blown up now. Forever.
He truly is Humpy Dumpy and has to be put back together.
Yet, for some, its not enough.
“WE WANT MORE’!!! say guys like Joel Sherman.
The guy pretty much burned himself at the stake professionally. Yet, for some in the media and fan base, its not enough.
Me? Whether its from his own doing (using) or not (someone illegally leaking his test results), I feel sorry for the guy.
You can’t crash any harder, on any bigger stage, than Alex has. Its impossible.
Its like taking an egg in your hand, raising your arm to its highest point, and then dropping the egg.
SPLAT! That’s what went on yesterday.
He “splat” on his entire career yesterday. He now has to start from scratch.
Self-inflicted or not, that’s a BIG fall.
Its going to be interesting to see if he can overcome it.
Its not going to be easy.
It was something along those lines. I think it was channel 4. At lunch I’ll check their site out and try to link it.
i think one thing the people who say the whole thing is a lie are missing is this: that was a terribly embarrasing story he told. the guy who just got the GUARANTEED biggest contract in sports history decides to send his cousin running for some primo so he can keep his image clean to everybody while taking.
that is a stunningly embarrasing story. how stupid do you have to be to do what he did. if he was going to lie, in 9 days he could have come up with a much more plausible and less provable lie.
it had to be humiliating to have to try to tell that tale when everybody says your future depends on you telling the truth and the truth is so pethetic.
that plus, to me without the aid of a behavioral expert, he seeded like he had a weight lifted off his shoulder. not just about the test but about his personality, his wierdness, his sexuality its all out there on the talble (or about to be) for everybody to rummage through but he had that ‘its finally out there’ demeanor when he talked that i believe him.
i like it Tex !
found this funny.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/spor.....amels.html
What the dopey Met fans and Mets fail to see if Cole was asked numerous times if the Mets were choke artists and he finally said YEAH!! Is it a lie? No!
Count me among the believers of A-Rod. It does sound too odd to be made up and with that many handlers, they could have come up with a better story. I was glad to see so many teamates there as well, I know they didn’t “look” right but the being there is what counted to me!
One more thing about Sam’s article…
When a writer has already proclaimed how they will vote on an issue 14 years down the road, they have exposed their thinking as subjective, as opposed to objective.
It’s no different than Bill Conlin, who left Nolan Ryan off his HOF ballot, or those writers who didn’t vote Ted Williams for MVP in 1942 and 1947, when he WON THE TRIPLE CROWN!
Credibility out the window.
SteveB —
The reason he’s responsible is he’s the Commissioner. I never said he was solely responsible, but when the head of the organization never accepts responsibility, irresponsibility reigns supreme. Albany and Washington DC are two other such examples.
Certainly Fehr and Orza are every bit as much to blame, but Bbay Doc Selig never pushed the issue, never seized on the Andro discovery in 1998 to make PEDs a major public issue. He was too happy that his plan to improve the $$$ of the game was succeeding.
The players themselves are to blame for not making it an issue of competitive fairness between those who did and those who didn’t. They gave in to the worst instincts of MLBPA leadership.
The members of the media who lavished praise on McGuire and Sosa and demonized the guy who asked about the Andro in the locker are also complicit in the era. Had more been made of that issue and investigative reporting been done there would have been testing long before 2003.
Broadcasters who cheered all the sudden power surges and never asked any questions are in it as well and so are the fans who embrtaced their accomplishments.
The only chance the game has to go forward is a mea culpa from the man in charge and his best effort to “pardon” all offenders known and unknown.
To Carlos Beltran:
You want people to stop calling you choke artists, stop blowing big division leads in September. Then people will stop calling you choke artists.
one thing about the media. they are just giving you, me and everybody else exactly what we want.
im sure the newspaper sales are through the roof, viewership is off the charts and money is being made off OUR voracious appetite for this stuff.
whichever side you are on, YOU are asking the media for this and they are just giving it to you.
rememeber that in thier zeal to sell you what you want, they will stir things up and take all 5 sides of every issue, so that every shade of fan gets some of thier points in.
believe me when espn has these little face-off analysis things like ‘cold hard facts’ or whatever, they make sure to get in as many or each side’s talking points as possible. the even assign guys to pick one way or another b/c nobody wants to watch 2 guys agree on everything.
the media is just reflecting us back to ourselves. and doing a damn good job of it imo.
As far as people critizing him for not coming forward on his own, how stupid is that. Not one person has done that yet. ARod is supposed to be better than everyone else in pro sports. Talk about a no win situation.
I understand he is a different type of personility, but aren’t we all. I haven’t met anyone yet that is loved by everyone. It is very shallow to pick apart every aspect of his life as if the ones that are grilling him are so perfect. As many have said we all have done things we deeply regret. I would hate to think something I did in my past would be what defined me for the rest of my life. Hopefully he has learned from this and will be a better person for this.
“Wherever you read it, if anyone came away with the notion that Cashman considered this thing to be anything other than a high octane pain in the posterior then they aren’t paying attention.”
There isn’t anybody affliated with the Yankees happy about this situation so I don’t get your point since unhappiness regarding the Arod situation is a granted state of mind.
SJ44-
JMO, but I don’t think people are clamoring for MORE detail.
It’s that, the details he provided make no sense. The stories he has given, from Peter Gammons to now aren’t consistent. That’s a telltale sign of a liar.
When cops pull over two people, they separate them and interrogate them. If the stories aren’t consistent, it’s decided someone is lying.
If you can imagine A-Rod as two different people, one interviewed by Gammons, the other by the media, you’d find a terribly inconsistent story.
It’s not as if he provided details and now we want more. His details need clarification.
“Why would you hide what you were doing if you didn’t know it was wrong?”
“You don’t even know if it gave you an edge, but you continued to do it? You injected yourself 36 times, but never knew what you were putting in your body, how to use it, etc.?”
Thats BS. I wouldn’t inject myself with something I got over the counter from DR, and I have a lot less to lose.
The truth is not a hard thing to explain. Usually when the truth comes out, it makes a lot of sense, easily accepted, and is proven by the facts.
Bottom line is: If ARod was 100% truthful, yesterdays press conference shouldn’t have been hard.
How big of joke would the HOF be without the all-time hit king, one of the top 5 pitchers of all time, the guy with over 500 HRs and the second most ever in a season, the guy currently with the most HRs in the history of the game and the guy who will break that record for most HRs in the history of the game. What’s the point of even having a HOF if all those guys aren’t included? Especially when convicted drug dealers, wife beaters, alcoholics, pill poppers, etc. are already in the Hall.
86w183
The idea makes way too much sense for Buddy Boy to adopt it.
He’d also make a lot of the current HOF oldtimers angry by absolving Rose, but it sure would change the subject in a hurry.
sam’s a little older than me but my wish for all of us is that we live long enough to decide whether or not arod is a hof’er!
SJ:
Do you feel the MLBPA people were at all involved in the crafting of Arod’s statement/answers yesterday? Somehow the “loosey goosey atmosphere in Texas and the game in general” was replaced by “me and my cousin were messin’ around”.
Is he taking a bullet here? For the very group that put him in this spot in the place?
i cant blame anyone who doesnt believe alex. he blew any credibility he had with the gammons interview. everybody should be extremly skeptical at such a sad and patetic tale.
if you dont believe him, you have every reason not to. and im still as mad as anybody else at what arod has done to the yankees.
but i still believe him.
How many players do you think will come forward and admit taking anything after seeing “the best player in baseball” get destroyed the way ARod has? I think the answer is easy. 0
Here’s a question:
How in the H*ll can you hold somebody out of the HOF based on the amorphous “integrity” argument when Ty Cobb is already in it? Aside from being an all around terrible person and vicious racist, many people beleive he actually killed someone. As in intentionally ended the life of another. I mean, are you kidding me people??? We don’t want to ruin the integrity of an organization that counts Ty Cobb as a member?
Gaylord Perry crowed with glee about the fact that he ILLEGALLY doctored the ball throughout his career.
Hank Aaron and Willie Mays have admitted to using juices and pills that had speed like effects and likely could not be bought over the counter and probably were under some form of government regulation. Why did they do it? Because everybody else did.
The Hall of Fame is filled with players who played during an era where the game REFUSED to allow black people to play it.
Does anyone think that there isn’t a single player who has been inducted to the Hall of Fame who used a steroid like PED? *Cough* Rickey Henderson *Cough*
Furthermore, there are an untold number of adulterers, wife beaters, vicious drunks, and otherwise shady characters in the Hall of Fame (Just look at the most vaunted section of the Yankee wing– DiMaggio, Ruth, Mantle. Icons of the game, but if I have a daughter, I hope and pray she never falls in love with anyone like them. Gehrig would be good though).
He may not have given every last freaking detail, but Alex admitted more regarding his steroid use than just about anybody else to date. To say that he is disqualified from the Hall of Fame when other players of similar or lower levels of integrity are in the Hall of Fame is ludicrous on its face. Patently absurd.
Borden’s argument might fly if the Hall of Fame was made up exclusively of choir boys. Well, that ship sailed with its first class of inducties. If Cobb and the rest of them are in, A-Rod can’t be kept out based on integrity grounds.
86:
Agree with your assessment. However, I’m giving the biggest piece of the “blame pie” to the MLBPA. Bud’s the commish, but the MLBPA holds the real power. They’ve been kicking the bleep out MLB and ownership for years. If they wanted something done about it, it would have been done.
“Why do you media people think that you have a right to know the name of his cousin?”
If this came out, it would be a wet dream for the media.
Then they could bash A-Rod for being a rat, and write stories about how he sold his family out.
No matter what Alex does it is the wrong thing. Anything that has Alex’s name on it is guaranteed to sell, so the more stories the better.
I thought the polls that ESPN had were pretty funny yesterday. The results came back almost 50-50 for every question (though they were all slightly tilted in his favor). This tells me that Alex, much like the Yankees, is one of those guys that EVERYONE either loves or hates. There is no middle ground.
Guys like Chase Utley, Pedroia, Pujols, Chipper Jones, and Ryan Howard have it easy. People either love them or just don’t care about them at all.
I think it’s very clear that this is somewhat less about PED’s and more of how hated this player or asset is. I agree, he is has done all he could or even should to make this right, but it will never be enough.
He should just be honest and as open as he’s confortable to be from this point forward.
Johnny made a funny comment when asked what Arod could have done worse then PED’s, answering “murder.” For me it could have been doing street drugs (Josh Hamilton), betting on the game (Pete Rose), not caring for your body (Andruw Jones), actively throwing a game, or not giving good or max effort (Manny, any BMore O since 2000). Don’t even get me started with NFL player misconducts in recent years, many of which have been violent, gun offenses.
Truth is Arod will never be liked by many. But I’d put money on that once again he’ll be one of the leading All Star vote getters, no matter how many times Jason Starks or Buster Olney tell us what to think of him.
Chances are if he was 100 percent truthful he would have opened himself up for criminal investigation or been dragged into some other criminal case involving his “cousin”.
No it wasn’t the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and only an idiot would have offered it up. And only an idiot (or in the case of the media hundreds of idiots) would have expected it.
JoeyA — I thought it was clear he thought it was helping, but looking back at his career he’s not sure it really did.
Statistically he hit ten more HR in Texas then in the two years before and five years since. The actual breakdown is 7.6 more HR at home and 2.4 on the road, so it’s fair to say the PEDs contributed 5 HR a year and the heat and bandbox stadium added the other 5 HR.
Using those numbers it’s fair to say PEDs resulted in about a 12 percent increase in HR. Maybe we should reduce all “power” performances in this ERA (1994-2003) by 12 percent and then evaluate those players.
“Borden’s argument might fly if the Hall of Fame was made up exclusively of choir boys.”
This is a good point. We’re talking about baseball players here. Almost all of them have done plenty of things that they would be ashamed of it became national news.
Maybe our position is different and hindsight is always 20/20, but…
If you were a player and you had a really good idea u were on that list, wouldn’t you just come out by now.
I mean, a list of 100+ players with positive tests. How long you think that will stay secret?
Nip this thing in the bud, admit your mistakes, and say you want to get on with your career with this monkey off your back.
Much better than waiting til these names gets leaked, one by one, hoping yours doesn’t come out.
And when it does, you have to answer all the questions, including, “why didn’t you say something? Why did you wait for it to come out”
I don’t think the players association had any involvement prepping Alex.
What he said about Orza is pretty much what other players have told me about his appearances in clubhouses during that time.
He didn’t tipoff players re: positive tests. He told players, that there was a list with over 100 players on it and they might be on the list.
In other words, if you are using, you better stop.
One thing that has been incorrectly reported in this entire mess is the role of the Union, vis a vie, the drug tests.
Some members of Selig’s office/team owners, have told the media they, “Can’t understand why the Union didn’t destroy the samples”.
Problem is, they couldn’t.
Once they got wind of search warrants coming down for samples, they had a judgment call to make.
If they destroyed samples, they put themselves in a position to get hit with an Obstruction of Justice charge.
If that took place, they would have been a LOT of pressure to force the Union to de-certify because of the criminal charge.
The owners would have LOVED that, which is why the Union couldn’t take that risk.
When the search warrant was executed, the agents went outside the scope of the warrant to seize the entire list. That’s the current legal issue pending before the CA Supreme Court.
As far as Orza/the Union having the samples retested to make sure there weren’t false positives, that’s just basic business.
At the time, if the provisional testing showed less than 5% tested positive, a testing program would not have taken place.
One could understand why they would want the sample retested, given those circumstances.
The problem became one of timing. Once the Feds came in and siezed everything, that’s when the timeframes went out the window. The Union simply didn’t have the time to destroy the provisional test sample results without risking an obstruction charge.
Steve B —
I can see your argument that the players were more to blame (through the MLBPA), but Baby Doc Selig should have taken to a podium and said, “There will not be any baseball beyond this contract without some form of testing.”
The fact of the matter is the man who presided over a cancelled World Series was not willing to take a stand four or five years later. He was the leader and he failed to lead.
For Bud Selig not to take ANY responsibility for PED use in the game is a joke.
He’s the Commissioner of Baseball. He HAS to be accountable. Its HIS JOB!
This has nothing to do with the Union. The Union has made their own mistakes (plenty of them) in this mess.
However, for the Commissioner of Baseball to say, “Don’t blame me”, is a bigger pile of ##$# than Alex has EVER said on anything in his life.
He is accountable. This isn’t about the “big, bad Union” all on its own.
Funny, Bud has no problem sticking his nose in the Red Sox bidding of the franchise and re-directing the winning bid to the person he wanted to own the team. Despite the fact that the bid rules SPECFICIALLY stated, the high bid wins the team. John Henry’s bid was not the high bid.
He has no problems injecting himself (pardon the pun) in that situation.
Yet, re: PED use in the game, the BIGGEST ISSUE IN HIS CAREER, its, “Don’t blame me”.
He’s a joke. Always has been, always will be.
Personally, I don’t think Alex knows how important yesterday was.
If he did, he would realize that reading off some paper wasn’t going to win him points or gain him sympathy.
He should have spoken from the heart. What was on his mind, he should have said. With all that’s going on, I doubt a written statement is necessary. And even if it is, you can memorize it, or just bullet some points on a paper.
And the lack of follow-up questioning is BS. I get that they didn’t want people to take up a lot of time. But:
A. this is his career. it shouldn’t matter to him how long it takes or how hard the questions are to answer. If his legacy is as important to him as he makes it out to be, he shouldn’t mind. People do a lot worse things and don;t get press conferences the clear their names on the matter.
B. When you answer questions with, “thats a good question”, “I was stupid and naiive” and “well i talked about that in my statement” and whatever other garbage he served up, follow-ups are necessary. What’s the point of a PC if you can dodge every first question and not have to deal with a followup.
And finally, what shines brightest in all of this is to learn he never talked to his teammates.
IMO, priority numero UNO is holding a private, closed door meeting with the team.
What he said yesterday was he>the team and the media/public deserved answers before his team did.
Did you see their faces, they were just as intrigued as we were.
But a very well paid joke!
Pete:
I never comment here (too many trolls), and I haven’t read all 118 comments as of this posting, but I wanted to address 2 things you mentioned:
1. I think A-Rod was right to keep his cousin’s name anonymous (if he does exist, as you said), even if he is not a cousin. He has every right to protect that name.
2. The testosterone he tested positive for often is part of a steroid. Testosterone IS an anabolic steroid, itself, and even if it didn’t come with the “boli,” his natural levels could have been raised to an unnatural one by taking a steroid that promoted the same kind of growth (upper body strength, increased energy, etc.). Most steroids promote that same kind of growth.
Thanks for your time.
Pete
I have a question for you. It’s not a critism of you so please don’t take it as such.
When Sosa was hitting 60 plus Hr for 5yrs and McGwire and Bonds hit over 70, didn’t you and other reporters wonder how all of a sudden they were reaching that mark that had stood for so long? There had been alot of good hitters in between that time that didn’t come close.
I would like to know what your perception was of that time period thats all.
“There will not be any baseball beyond this contract without some form of testing.”
Guess he could have done that, 86. I do wonder whether he ever had the power to do that unilaterally. How would the MLBPA react. Certainly striking over a unilaterally imposed drug testing/penalty policy wouldn’t sit well with the masses. Would they fight it legally? That wouldn’t sit well either. One thing we know for sure, is that Fehr and Orza want no part of testing.
Hey guys,
Couple of things:
1. I appreciate everyone’s opinion on the HOF issue and understand my opinion is not necessarily the majority. Such is life, sometimes.
2. One commenter mentioned that my opinion on something so far in the future renders me “subjective” instead of “objective,” and he’s right. But, as a columnist, my job is always to be subjective – I’m supposed to offer opinion. That’s what a columnist does.
3. The “but louts like Ty Cobb are in so what integrity clause is there” argument is certainly reasonable, but I’d counter by saying that I wasn’t a part of those votes. Just because something happened in the past doesn’t mean I – or any voter – is bound to assume it is the standard. My opinion is that integrity matters because it is listed as such on the ballot. So, I would take it into consideration.
4. Lastly, the notion that things could be different in 15 years when A-Rod’s name comes up for vote is also fair, but as I wrote in the column, I’m going off what the voting rules are right now. The way things are going in the journalism business, there is every possibility I won’t still be a sports writer at that time and HOF voting will be done by another group entirely. Who knows? What I do know is that as it stands right now, Rodriguez’s admission of cheating for three seasons is too much for me to think he could ever be HOFer.
Think of it this way: If A-Rod plays 10 more seasons, he’ll retire having played 25 years in the majors. Assuming you believe him and he never used steroids in any other years, that’s 3 out of 25 seasons in which he cheated or 12 percent of all the MLB years he played. To me, cheating 12 percent of the time is a lot. Does it make him a terrible person or villain? Nope. And I’d still think of him as an all-time great. But in my opinion a guy who cheated 12 percent of the time shouldn’t get to be in the HOF.
Feel free to shoot me an email if you want to discuss further.
SJ44
I always thought it was “odd” that the sale of the RS wasn’t questioned. I had heard that it had played out the way you described it. It would make you think the other owners had to be okay with it as well.
Sj44-
What was the time frame from when the test results were acquired from those 2003 tests and the search warrants.
I ask this only because, once the MLB figured they had >5% test positive, you destroy it. How long does it take to destroy urine samples and paper with names? I could put 3 toddlers in that room and that stuff would be ripped/burned/thrown away/spilt/etc within 20 minutes.
I find it hard to believe the MLB was ever going to destroy those test results. If they were, they should have done so ASAP right after acquiring results. Any holding of those results, if even for an extra day, stinks to me.
But now, they still exist. So, just throw the damn list out there and be done with it. If we have to deal with one name at a time this whole season, its going to be a bad year for baseball.
Lost in all of this: The Patriots DYNASTY may have been juiced up, just like the ’70s Steeler teams, notorious for steroids. NOBODY talks about that ruining football. We aren’t talking one or two or even 10 superstars. We are talking two dominant teams for a good portion of a decade.
Mike
February 18th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Anyone else miss John Sterling . . i wonder what his home run call is going to be for Tex .
—–
A Long Distance Text message from Teixeira
SJ44,
Selig definitely should share in the blame but you can’t say this has nothing to do with the Union. Selig claims he tried to institute steroid testing as early as 1999 and that the Union blocked him. I don’t know if thats true but you have to admit that the MLB player’s union has fought very strongly AGAINST testing for steroids. Some blame for the steroid era should absolutely fall at the feet of the player’s union.
Sam you were making a good argument until you said, “And I’d still think of him as an all-time great.”
The whole point of the Hall of Fame is to remember the all-time greats. If you would still think of him as that then he would deserve to be in the HoF.
I always thought it was “odd” that the sale of the RS wasn’t questioned. I had heard that it had played out the way you described it. It would make you think the other owners had to be okay with it as well.”
I had read that there was no way the owners would approve Mark Cuban when there was noise he’d be bidding on the Cubs. I guess they must have some say.
“Anyone else miss John Sterling . . i wonder what his home run call is going to be for Tex .”
we discussed this a couple of months ago my favorite at the time was
Un bombera from texiera.
I forget who came up with it. Maybe AL
The bad news, it is now clear that ARod will never be enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The good news, ARod is making his case for induction into the Richard M Nixon Memorial Ring of Honor : Recognizing Deceitfulness and Dishonesty in Public Life – The Rosie Ruiz Hall of Athletic Achievement. In my official role as curator of the Ruiz Hall, I have watched, with great interest and admiration Alex’s, uh strike that, Al’s performance the last two weeks. On behalf of the Ruiz Committee, I would like to extend our sincere congatulations to Al, his agents, his media advisors, his personal representatives, his lip gloss, and the Yankee organization for a job well done.
“The way things are going in the journalism business, there is every possibility I won’t still be a sports writer at that time and HOF voting will be done by another group entirely. Who knows?”
sam-
as an aside to steroid issues and the hall of fame, i think this is an interesting subject that would be a good topic to get into at some other time. i personally used to buy about 5 newspapers a day in the summer time and just read about the yankees and red sox. i’d get the nyt, the ny post, daily news, boston globe, and boston herald.
so from spending about $3-$4 a day for newspapers, i now spend zero a day and read the same papers on the web.
we also get info on this blog that isn’t in any newspaper.pete with the iphone on site is sending out photos and info. technology is changing the reporting game.
the ones who go with the new technology will probably be the ones who are still there ten years from now.
anyway, it’s an interesting phenomenon that would be worth exploring as a blog subject sometime.
The Committee would like to specifically commend Al on just a few of his compelling untruths:
1. How could I be truthful with Katie when I wasn’t truthful with myself?
It is rare to see such ability in someone so young, stupid, ignorant, and curious. Note first that the lie is phrased in question form. Note further that the question is rhetorical. The question clearly implicates untruthfulness but who is being untruthful? Al is just asking the question; doesn’t the lie the lie really in the answer? He didn’t answer it, did you? Brilliant. And precocious.
2. The reason I didn’t tell Peter about my cousin, you know, I didn’t remember. But after several conversations with my cousin I did recall.
We the Committee love, above all else, brazenness. We envision the coversation between ARod and the cousin as follows:
ARod: Dude, I am trying to remember the detials of my drug use so that I can make a full and complete disclosure and put this youthful indiscretion behind me. In that regard I remember I got stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass (7), and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass(13)….and stuck in the ass(34), and stuck in the ass, and stuck in the ass. But I can’t remember who stuck me or what it was.
Cousin X: Dude, it was me and it was Boli.
Brazen. Love it.
Agreed about the so-called “anonymous testing”. If it was truly anonymous they’d be urinating in unlabeled jars that are just numbered if anything. Why a players name was ever attached to the specimen is the first failure of the union. Again, it doesn’t excuse A-Rod’s mistakes but at the same time he’s become the scapegoat and the face of 103 others. And those are just the ones who tested positive. You can bet there’s more that were using or that have used at some point in their career. With numbers like that I find it difficult to demonize the one unlucky enough to have been caught. People just need to accept that this entire generation is suspect. I don’t think a player shouldn’t make the hall because he was outed or tested positive at one point. Who’s to say the guy making the hall in his place was just lucky enough to not have been caught? The league needs more stringent testing and a zero-tolerance policy. The problem is no longer about exposing users in the past. It’s a fact a large number of players used. It’s about cleaning up the future. No more witch hunts and stronger policy is what we need.
Marc,
The doors to the Rosie Ruiz Hall of Athletic Achievement swing wide open, we will enshrine those shunned by Cooperstown, provided that they meet our specific criteria. ARod’s candidacy (although still young, stupid, ignorant, curious, and young) looks quite promising. Obviously Bonds and Clemens are first balloters.
Exactly,
The difference between bonds and a-rod is that this isn’t something he turned to in the twilight of his career to keep playing at a high level. Some will argue that thats worse and say he’s always been a fraud. But if he’s being honest about not using since ’03 then it kinda negates that argument.
The bottom line is you either accept everyone with worthy numbers to the hall and just label this generation as juiced. Or you let nobody from this generation in the hall because there’s not a single player who isn’t suspect.
Also Marc the Committee must caution you on the inappropriate “witch hunt” reference. In common reference, “witch hunt” refers to the events in Salem, Mass. in the 1620s, when religous zealots tried and executed scores of women on the charge of witchcraft. There are no witches. And there is, scientifically, no proof tha incantations and spells have any impact on the natural course of human events. So those women were inncoent victims of mass hysteria. In contrast, there are steroids, and there are cheaters. By ARod’s latest account, he is a cheater. Needless to say he has not been wrongly convicted, and the current social mores, for better or worse, prohibit burning at the stake.
I’m sorry, but, as much as I want to be, I’m not really worked up about ARod and his PED issues. I don’t like the guy, have never liked the guy, and think the attention he has garnered over the past decade has never been as warranted as others seemed to think. While extremely talented and will probably will set a few individual records before his career is finished, he lacks the poise and mental toughness of a true champion. The media is having fits over this guy because THEY dubbed him the “heir apparent” and the “savior” of the game from Barry Bonds. Their hope in him (which, in my opinion, was misplaced from day one) was dashed when his name was leaked. He is now a pariah for not living up to the media’s concept of the perfect baseball player. Problem is, the only thing the sports writers can do at this point is blast him daily in the press and posture about their eventually denying him a place in the Hall of Fame. They can’t get him banned or suspended from active play in the league (at least not on the evidence that is currently available). They can’t make him give back the money he was given in Texas or Seattle. They can’t exert their collective wills over MLB to make him the poster child of the “good guy gone bad”. They can’t even make him look worse to the general public, because most fans never bought into their portrayal of him as a “good guy” as it was.
Truth is, ARod is one of the most insecure guys in professional sports. He can’t think for himself, and he is always doing and saying the wrong thing. His emulation and alleged jealousy of Jeter and the whole Madonna/Kabbalah thing are case in points of this. I don’t believe he is being straight with us about the PED issues, but I don’t doubt that his motivation behind taking them was, in a large part, due to his lack of confidence. I heard someone describe him recently as the “stereotypical drop dead gorgeous woman” who just can’t see herself that way—so she constantly changes her hair color and style, is always on some kind of horrible diet, does terrible things to her body (like taking pills and cosmetic surgery)—you see where he was going with this.
Regarding how this was supposed to be anonymous testing: yes, it was supposed to be anonymous in that the public wasn’t supposed to find out. I guess that went down the tubes when the government seized their evidence. But my guess is each sample was labled a certain number and the names to those numbers had to have been filed away somewhere. It couldn’t just be completely anonymous because it wouldn’t have been a verifiable test. The players could have cheated and used any clean urine sample, claiming it to be their own, in an attempt to get under that 5%. But my feeling is, in order to keep the test proper, each player needed to have a number matched to his name filed away somewhere. Hopefully the testers took all the necessary steps to keep this test fair, but if the records themselves were totally anonymous, then the players’ samples wouldn’t have to be used in the first place.
Sorry if someone mentioned that already, but I didn’t see it.
Why is the media so confused as to why Arod won’t rat out his “cousin”. Would they?
Tony,
If I may. I suspect that the media is not confused, but disbelieving. The media judges Al’s comments in the context of his various distortions and outright untruths. Through their prisms, as banner carriers of complete truth and full disclosure, they find his conduct to be reprehensible and they view his latest accounts with great sketicism.
We, here at the Nixon Memorial, and particularly at the Ruiz Hall, view his behavior from a completely different perspective. We hold ARod in the highest regard and believe his perfomance over the last 10 days to be his finest hour.
It’s all about perspective.
Hope that helped.
Tony, I kind of agree with you. I mean…REALLY…does anyone have any real expectation that A-Rod is going to name his “cousin”. For that matter, did anyone really think he was going to name other players or staff members? He is pretty stupid, but I am sure that the PR engine behind him right now made sure that, if nothing else, no one else would be thrown under the bus at the press conference. Now, unless he is subpoenaed, he is not required to say anything else about this.
I do find it funny, in a way, that now that A-Rod has had his press conference, the media is scrambling to make sense of things. They can’t make him talk any more, and they have already made his life a living hell over the past couple of years for a variety of other issues (he is a magnet for attention when he does stupid things…), so things probably aren’t going to get any worse for him. Fans already boo him at away AND home games, so that won’t change. I guess all they can do now is wait 14+ years to have the final laugh when they vote for the Hall. Sucks when you really don’t have that much power, doesn’t it?
Richard C
February 18th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Hey AROD.
Want an edge that won’t get you in trouble?
Try ginseng. It stimulates both physical and mental activity. It is also good for inflamation and helps heal injuries quicker. It is a natural substance but you don’t want to abuse it. It could/would give you heart palpatation, anxiety, headache.
Also, I know several advanced Yogic breathing exercises that would give an athlete a significant advantage. They saturate the body with oxygen. Clear the mind. Vision gets very clear. They balance and boost energy. I have been doing this stuff everyday for 30 years.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Interesting stuff. Have you ever heard of a classic (and know, out of print) ‘The Internal Exercises” by Stephen Chang? I do those exercises. Also, goji berries have natural HGH.
Hell, give up flour, sugar and fried food, eat greens and a diet 80 percent raw and you will look 20 years younger and feel it, too.
It just feels as though the media are behaving like spoiled children. They want more, more, more. Arod could give them everything they want and it still wouldn’t be enough. The frenzy is ridiculous. I’ve had my fill. Check please.
The media is, quite frankly, obsessed with uncovering the truth, or at least some believable story involving a healthy dose of truth with a few random lies added for flavoring. They want a story which is both internally consistent, meaning that the beginning of the story is not contradicted by the middle and end, and which stand up to simple logic.
Fans, on the hand, don’t want to hear the truth. They suspect the truth, but they don’t want to know.
We hear at the Ruiz Hall celebrate the baldest of lies. And we honor the creative, blustery, obstinate liar. Our Hall welcomes the unscrupulous, the distortive, the petulant, the rightly accused but never convicted (and yes, obviously,the pardoned), and our favorites – the misunderstood.
Let’s Go ARod. Go Rocket. Go Barry. Vamos Miguel. Right On Marian. Etc.