December 13, 2007
Baseball's Day Of Shame
The morning started with rumors of names mentioned in Senator George Mitchell's report to Major League Baseball, but not until this afternoon were any rumors substantiated. Stating in his report that “there is much about the illegal use of performance enhancing substances in baseball that I did not learn,” Mitchell proceeded to lay waste to the careers of many notable players, perhaps none more so than Roger Clemens.
In the report Brian McNamee, Roger Clemens’ personal trainer and a former Yankees’ employee details extensive steroid and HGH use by Clemens from 1998-2001. One such example from the report:
According to McNamee, during the middle of the 2000 season Clemens made it clear that he was ready to use steroids again. During the latter part of the regular season, McNamee injected Clemens in the buttocks four to six times with testosterone from a bottle labeled either Sustanon 250 or Deca-Durabolin that McNamee had obtained from Radomski.McNamee stated that during this same time period he also injected Clemens four to six times with human growth hormone he received from Radomski, after explaining to Clemens the potential benefits and risks of use. McNamee believed that it was probably his idea that Clemens try human growth hormone. Radomski instructed McNamee how to inject human growth hormone. On each occasion, McNamee administered the injections at Clemens’s apartment in New York City.
McNamee also worked with Andy Pettite, helping Pettitte to obtain HGH and injecting him with it on “two to four occasions” in 2002.
And there are plenty of other names associated with New York teams listed in the report. Mike Stanton, Kevin Brown, Todd Hundley, Chuck Knoblauch, David Justice, Jason Giambi, Jason Grimsley, Mo Vaughn and Paul LoDuca are all mentioned in the report. LoDuca even went so far as to write a thank you note to Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse employee, who helped him get HGH.
While the names provide the sizzle for the report, Mitchell’s conclusions are much more troubling. Mitchell warns that the drug designers are one step ahead of the testers, developing steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs that are dispersed out of the body fast enough to be, or are already undetectable by current methods. He points to significant flaws in the methods that current tests are collected which leads to abuse. And he points out while noting that he has only scratched the surface of this issue that, “In fact, each of the thirty clubs has had players who have been involved with performance enhancing substances at some time in their careers.”
You can download the full report from Major League Baseball here (6.5 MB .PDF file).
Images of notes written by Paul Lo Duca to Kirk Radomski from the Mitchell Report
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Since Gothamist is a NYC-related site, let's look at this from a NYC angle. Notice the preponderance of Yankees on the list. Notice the source of the information is a NY-based fitness consultant (who now does automotive detailing for a living. Ahhh, fame is fleeting). Seems to me the number of "guilty" parties on other teams would be much higher if more sources from, say, Seattle, were involved.
Is anyone surprised? These were just the guys caught. The number is probably many-fold higher.
Petite's name certainly shocks me a bit.
And, Knoblauch. Doesn't seem those drugs did him much good. Probably responsible for his career-ending yips (exactly whose mother did he konk on the bean in the stands?).
Dear Mike:
Sorry about cheating your team out of the World Series in 2000. Here's my ring.
Love,
Roger
PS: 26*
Good point Famdoc and it was Keith Olbermann's Mom.
well, that's it for baseball for me-- time to start following a more honest sport-- like the WWE or foxy-boxing.
Love the Lo Duca notes.
I can't wait for Rogers response, if there is one.
"I thought it was the ball I was shoving in my ass."
Pettite is sad...but LoDuca's still a douche (can I say that?).
so much for being good Christians.
Really pathetic that these lucky scum who get paid a ton of money to play a childs game would cheat, rob and steal... They should all be banned from baseball for life.
This is why I refuse to support professional sports, especially baseball, football and basketball. For all you folks who continue to pay ridiculous admission to these games to support the ludicrous salaries of owners and player so you can watch a bunch of phonies smash records that aren’t even real is the biggest joke of all. They don’t play for you, they play for themselves and their pay. I am sure they are laughing at you all the way to the bank. LOL
Here's one for you. Bad. More shame.
WNBC.com this morning was provided with a list of ballplayer names expected to appear in the Mitchell report. We received the same list of names from two independent sources. These two separate sources both told us repeatedly that the information they provided to us was correct.
After we published the list, an MLB official informed us that there were numerous discrepancies between the list provided to WNBC.com and the final Mitchell report, which at the time had not yet been released. In order to sort out any discrepancies, we immediately pulled the list, even though our sources reiterated the list provided to wnbc.com was accurate.
After the Mitchell report was released, we learned that the list we had received contained several errors and listed several names that do not appear in the final Mitchell report. WNBC.com sincerely apologizes for providing the incorrect information in the initial list.
http://www.wnbc.com/news/14849131/detail.html
I still watching baseball. Not all of them use steroids (and most of them don't).
What a horrible year for NYC sports teams.
Considering that we all know that Bud Selig will screw the whole thing up given his track record and probable involvement, it is time to say to hell with baseball. Might as well say to hell with all the other professional sports since they seem to attract sociopaths like the Dolans and Bruce Ratner.
Did you see Donald Fehr's press conference? With that asshole in charge of the player's union and Selig in charge of the rest of this miserable enterprise, is it any wonder baseball is so F@%ked up? For god's sakes, take their money away from them!
I knew this would give an opportunity for all the sore-loser Mets fans to check in. Radomski worked for the Mets, and yet the one team he didn't rat out players on? Hmmm...
I make no excuses for Clemens and the rest of them, but this "report" is full of holes.
And BTW #2, Piazza's day is coming... you might want to avoid that high horse.
There are plenty of players with connections to the Mets named in the report, Tim N.
I agree, JMH. But it hasn't stopped the whining Metsies from crying about losing '00 all over again.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/should-the-yankees-be-stripped-of-the-subway-series-title/#comment-249193
http://toastedjoe.blogspot.com/
Guys, you lost. It's been seven years. Get over it. You'd think you'd be used to this sort of thing by now.