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Early Addition
We've heard all the names from baseball's Mitchell Report, now let's look at some facts. Roger Clemens, who vehemently denies the accusations against him, is the biggest name revealed in the report. His lawyer says, "Roger has been repeatedly tested for these substances and he has never tested positive. There has never been one shred of tangible evidence that he ever used these substances and yet he is being slandered today."
In the report, Brian McNamee details helping Clemens use steroids sometime in the summer of 1998. Coincidentally, from June 30, 1998 until the end of the year, Clemens went 12-0 throwing 132 innings and striking out 169 batters with an ERA of 1.77. Before that Clemens had thrown 102.2 innings, striking out 102 with an ERA of 3.77.
Clemens is accused of using steroids again in the "latter part of the 2000 season". Here it is harder to divine the results, but it is worth noting that Clemens had an ERA of 4.33 before the All-Star Break and an ERA of 3.15 after it. In addition, there is the infamous night of October 22nd, when Clemens threw the remnants of a broken bat at Mike Piazza and was quoted afterwards as saying, "I came back into the dugout and I said I've got to get control of my emotions and calm down. I told Charlie, the umpire, I didn't know Mike was coming out. I guess it came close to him. That was my emotions."
The final instance detailed in the report came in August of 2001 when Clemens started using again according to McNamee. In this case, the numbers do not back up the accusation as Clemens' numbers do not show any change.
Like Clemens, the evidence against Andy Pettitte ranges from interesting to highly speculative. The accusation is that Pettitte received HGH injections while he was on the DL from April to June of 2002 and Pettitte ended the season with the 2nd-lowest ERA of his career. But, Pettitte's numbers didn't really take off until September when he made five starts, won them all and had a 2.23 ERA.
Some cases with New York athletes are much more cut and dry. Todd Hundley is accused of starting steroids in 1996 a year in which he hit 41 home runs after never hitting more than 16 in a season. Some are not at all, like Chuck Knoblauch who reportedly received seven to nine doses of HGH in early 2001 and then had one of the worst seasons of his career.
Perhaps the only conclusion to draw from this report is that cheating is rampant in baseball and without a test for HGH it will probably continue well into the future.
Photo of Roger Clemens during an October press conference by AP/Julie Jacobson; Photo of George Mitchell yesterday by AP/Richard Drew
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for the record, clemens doesn't deny steroid use, his lawyer denies steroid use.
It's hard to imagine that Roger Clemens got such a fat head without steroids.
cool- you are so right.
these guys were grossly overrated as it was
The canceled checks from some players are very compelling evidence. After all, they didn't pay this guy to detail their cars (his current successful career).
As for Clemens, Petite and many of the others, this guy's word falls far short of admissible evidence.
Intuitively, in a sport where tens of thousands of dollars depend upon each pitch or swing of the bat, there has been and always be a high degree of incentive to improve performance by even a fraction of a percent. In the case of those players whose production improved spectacularly after the supposed onset of steroid use (Bonds, Hundley, et al.), again the evidence is strong, but does not stand up to the "beyond the shadow of a doubt" rule.
Baseball has always turned a deaf ear to this problem because, face it, what is better for revenues than a Sosa vs. McGwire HR race? Or a few more plops in McCovey Cove? Add to that a highly protective players' association and you've got a conspiracy of silence.
Now we've got hGH...at this point, undetectable.
And there are labs everywhere working on anabolic products that similarly are undetectable.
Face it, we're years away from perfect detection and enforcement. In the meanwhile, there will still be juiced players out there, only a small fraction of which are stupid enough to get caught.
Like the two NY-based "strength and conditioning trainers" (thus, the preponderance of NY players named in the Mitchell report), there are similar shady characters with access to every MLB clubhouse. This problem ain't going away.
The fans have to make a decision: either we love this game and will watch robots play it or we vote with our feet and purses.
And, what about Congress? What jurisdiction do they have over our National Pasttime? All this talk of hearings strikes me as a perfect waste of time and money when there are far more important things, more relevant to elected officials (read: Iraq) to discuss.
put the past behind us and lets focus on the now...
this report is retarded.
Hmmm... the guy's word falls short of admissible evidence?
I don't think that's how it works, famdoc. This guy could take the stand in any court of law here and testify that he injected these guys with controlled substances. There's nothing inadmissible about that. Whether a jury would believe him or not is another call. Whether Clemens or Petite would risk prejuring themselves if they decided to testify on their own behalf is another call. What the jury would infer from the leniency the government was showing their witness is another call.
But its perfectly admissible.
Also, I'm getting tired of the tired argument that we can't have anything else on the national agenda because we're at war in Iraq. Did everything else grind to a halt when we were in Vietnam? Nobody talked about or did anything else then? The fact is, these guys are highly paid frauds that young athletes look up to. If baseball doesn't condemn it, where does it stop? And if Congress wants to join the party, go ahead. I can think of worse things those layabouts and shills could do.
You are right...I'm no lawyer, so I misused the word admissible. If I were on a jury, I'd have a hard time believing some of these characters who say they sold drugs to players or injected them. I'm sure many did, but wonder what's in it for them: fame, fortune, talk show appearances, etc.
As for the federal agenda, Iraq specifically, my point is its just not the federal government's business what goes on in MLB locker rooms.
Famdoc:
Why is it okay to dismiss everything else as irrelevant by comparing it to Iraq? Give me a break.
These guys serve as inspiration to millions of younger kids. If even just a small percentage of them use steroids, HGH etc. because they see their favorite player doing it, then guess what - you have a public health crisis on your hands. This won't just affect the student, semi-pro or pro athlete who is using, but their parents and family, opponents, coaching staff, fans, and the healthcare system that now has to take care of juiced-up muscleheads.
And edEx - don't kid yourself: the steroid/HGH era is "the now".
And "famdoc" - if your name indeed means that you are a "family doctor", then you really should know better than to dismiss this out of hand.
And "famdoc" - if your name indeed means that you are a "family doctor", then you really should know better than to dismiss this out of hand.
Steroids or no, Roger Clemens is a gigantic asshole.
Fair point about the fed gov in locker rooms, famdoc. Congress clearly does it for the press. They won't legislate on this. Maybe the player's union should busted up though. Its looks like they may have been tipping off the players about testing? This kind of thing will draw way more attention from the feds than the end users.
As for McNamee, he's finished in baseball and is probably just keeping his ass out of jail. He certainly has been provided some sort of amnesty, but it may predicated on him not profiting on his knowledge. This guy's done. He'll be lucky to find work training little leaguers, and let's hope he doesn't.
I'm inclined to believe him, if only because Mitchell wouldn't stake his reputation (and potential liability) on the guy if he were a phony.