Mitchell Report Comes Out Today

As a die hard Yankee fan who does not miss a game the inclusion of Andy Pettitte really hurts and bothers me. That being said, as a fan of baseball, this article perfectly sums up my feelings about Roger Clemens and the implications regarding the hall of fame.

Source: NY Daily News

Roger and Cooperstown
Today, I feel a little like that kid standing outside the Chicago courthouse in 1920 imploring Shoeless Joe Jackson to say it ain't so.

Even though reports of the Chicago White Sox fixing the 1919 World Series had been rampant for months, nobody wanted to believe Shoeless Joe, one of the half-dozen greatest players of the time, was guilty of being part of the conspiracy. Nevertheless, even after Jackson and his seven other accused White Sox conspirators were acquitted by the grand jury after prosecution evidence mysteriously disappeared, then-commissioner Kenesaw Landis kicked them all out of baseball for life, rendering Shoeless Joe ineligible for the Hall of Fame to this day.

Now, here were are nearly 100 years later, paraphrasing "Say it ain't so, Roger," after revelations in the Mitchell Report citing Roger Clemens as perhaps the most egregious steroids user this side of Barry Bonds. Mind you, they are the allegations of one man - Clemens' longtime personal trainer, Brian McNamee - and they come from a report that is based largely on the testimony of only two people and can hardly be characterized as "thorough." But they are there in lurid detail, so we can no longer look at Clemens and his considerable accomplishments - as a seven-time Cy Young winner and author of 354 victories - in the same way.

Yes, there have certainly been recurring rumors of Clemens being a steroids cheat, especially in the latter years of his career when he was performing superhuman feats. But unlike Bonds, there was no evidence to substantiate the rumors. Clemens was never called before any grand juries, was never found to have been a customer at BALCO or any other steroids laboratories and had no ex-girlfriends ratting him out in a book. So you wanted to believe that his Hall of Fame career was genuine and, if nothing else, the product of a superior workout regimen that few players were willing to endure.

But here comes the Mitchell Report, and in it, McNamee tells us it was all a sham; that it was the steroids that gave Clemens a whole second career starting in 1998.

According to the report, McNamee said he injected Clemens with a steroid called Winstrol four times in the buttocks over a several-week period that year, during which time Clemens' performance "showed remarkable improvement." McNamee added to Mitchell's investigators that he injected Clemens "four to six times" with testosterone from a bottle during the 2000 season, when the Rocket was with the Yankees.

Hours after the report was made public on Thursday, Clemens, through his attorney, Rusty Hardin, vehemently denied the allegations, characterizing McNamee as "a troubled man, threatened with federal criminal prosecution." Hardin went on to say Clemens has never tested positive, conveniently omitting the fact that when Clemens was allegedly being pumped in his buttocks by McNamee, there was no testing in Major League Baseball.

I don't know why Clemens just didn't come out and say the devil made him do it - the devil being much-vilified former Red Sox GM Dan Duquette who, in allowing him to leave for Toronto as a free agent after the '96 season, said: "We see Roger Clemens as a pitcher in the twilight of his career."

As we all know, Clemens won four more Cy Youngs and another 162 games after that and established himself as one of the five or six greatest pitchers of all time. Or did he?

His Hall of Fame plaque may now have to say: "Won seven Cy Young Awards, four of them after he was alleged to have begun using steroids... Set and equaled major league record of 20 strikeouts in one game ... AL MVP in 1986 ... Ranked eighth on all-time wins list at time of his retirement ... Injected four times in buttocks over several-week period in 1998 with steroid Winstrol and injected again in 2000 with human growth hormone."

The problem I have with wanting to believe Clemens and not McNamee is that the trainer's accusations are far too detailed as to have been made up. And why would he make them up?

So while fair or not, every player named in the report is tainted for life. Clemens' stain is far worse because it very possibly will cost him the Hall of Fame. I can't speak for the rest of my voting Baseball Writers' brethren as to whether they will invoke the "character/sportsmanship" clause when it comes to passing Hall of Fame judgment on the known steroids cheats. I have been on record as saying I won't vote for any of them, and if I'm to be consistent in that stance, that now has to include Clemens. It bothers me, though, that so many other steroids cheats have eluded detection (and, subsequently, Mitchell's report), and that some of them are thus likely to be voted into the Hall of Fame under false pretenses. Is this fair either?

In the middle of all the dueling press conferences in Manhattan on Thursday, there was Jose Canseco, the poster boy (and whistle-blower) for steroids in baseball, proclaiming in a TV interview: "All I can say is the Mitchell Report is incomplete. I can't believe (Alex Rodriguez) wasn't in it."

That's the saddest thing of all about this era in baseball. We don't know who to believe or what to believe.

Say it ain't so
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It's my hope that eventually the world will wake up to all the disguised truth surrounding us... It's like we live in a culture of Bury-Your-Head-In-The-Sand-ism.

If you want to see how laughable it is, pick up almost ANY bodybuilding magazine and look at the top level freaks who claim to get there on chicken breasts and oatmeal. I've got friends locally who will swear that Mac never did juice, even though he suddenly developed Popeye's forearms and the tell-tale bulges of muscle where the jawbone connects near the bottom of the ears.

If you want to know if somebody juiced, or is juicing... look at their pictures and check the area just below and in front of their ears... Steroids do not discriminate... they inflate whatever muscles are exercising the most... so normal eating and chewing causes the facial bulges at the back of the jawline.

It's SUPER obvious... and yet people act like it's some mystery who's doing it or who did it. If you want to know who does/did "growth" or HGH or "growth hormone" then look at the forehead over the eyes... and also the space between the two front teeth. A dentist can fix the latter... but there's no hiding the former.

So rather then watch the court cases and investigations with wonder... you can determine the truth for yourself in about 2 seconds.

Go to google images and type in the name of whatever player you like... then type in that name and add "rookie"... compare their faces and these features. If you don't believe me then do the same thing with your own family photos over the same spread of time... or for any people you want to use, who do not benefit from substance use. (Actors inflate also... and so do other athletes... but the truth is as plain as the smile on their faces.)
 
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That's a great quote Jeremy about Roger and Cooperstown.

I mentioned before I have been a pro cycling fan for years. What happened with that sport is happening here (with some exceptions). Baseball's just a year or two behind. Cycling fans used to defend their heroes, and the riders all denied it. But scandal after scandal, and fallen hero after fallen hero has turned the tide completely against doping, and is showing no quarter for the dopers because it's all but destroyed the sport.

The same thing is happening to MLB. Excuses like "wasn't legal" and "didn't test positive" were used repeatedly in cycling, but they became meaningless when all the evidence came out on how many guys were on drugs, and how they were able to avoid tests or testing positive.

The only way cycling has kept itself alive (though still on life support) is to have a zero tolerance, extensive testing program, and punish the cheaters to the maximum possible extent. I suggest MLB fans do the same, or you'll slide even further down the slope like cycling did, where less people come to watch, as no one trusts any of the participants, and all the money is drying up.
 
snowleopard said:
Cycling fans used to defend their heroes, and the riders all denied it. But scandal after scandal, and fallen hero after fallen hero has turned the tide completely against doping, and is showing no quarter for the dopers because it's all but destroyed the sport.

The same thing is happening to MLB. Excuses like "wasn't legal" and "didn't test positive" were used repeatedly in cycling, but they became meaningless when all the evidence came out on how many guys were on drugs, and how they were able to avoid tests or testing positive.

The only way cycling has kept itself alive (though still on life support) is to have a zero tolerance, extensive testing program, and punish the cheaters to the maximum possible extent. I suggest MLB fans do the same, or you'll slide even further down the slope like cycling did, where less people come to watch, as no one trusts any of the participants, and all the money is drying up.
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How is it that Lance Armstrong was able to do what he did? :evil:
 
Clemens has to deny (as well as anybody else named). What he was doing was illegal. Therefore if anyone decides to file a lawsuit against him, he's on the record as saying "no I didn't." If he says he did and goes to court, there's the admission right there in the papers. So even if he wanted to admit he did steroids and apologize to everyone, in order to stay out of jail, he can't.

Lance Armstrong goes against everybody's preconceived notions of steriods. That upon doing them you get huge. Why isn't Lance huge? Why isn't his head huge? Not saying he did or didn't but it just goes to show that big bodies don't always mean you're taking steroids.
 
For the sake of argument, let's remove Lance from the equation and concentrate on any number of pro cyclists who have been caught and convicted, or confessed (dozens to choose from).

Steroids are only a very minor product of choice for doping because it's an endurance sport. But steroids are used, mostly for helping in recovery. Doping in cycling tends to work like this:

Blood doping - Have your own blood removed, and put back in before your big race. It is said to work great, and is almost impossible to detect. Flags are high hematocrit levels, and low levels of new blood cell reticulates. Go over a limit, you're busted (or suspended) Marco Pantani was "caught" this way. Removing your own blood also gives you odd numbers, and you're tired for a while, so some guys have doped other people's blood. This is easier to catch (Tyler Hamilton, Alexander Vinokourov). It's also not the Mayo clinc doing the work here, so sometimes blood bags get swapped and you get someone else's blood on accident (Jesus Mendoza. Maybe Hamilton and Santi Perez, likely Vinokourov and Andre Kachekin). The huge Spanish case Operation Puerto which busted Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, and dozens others, was mostly about blood doping. Riders were not caught by tests, but by the doctor (and team manager) being busted by the police, and eventually some blood bags tested and matched with DNA (Ullrich) or through confession (Basso, Jorg Jasche).

To avoid that mess, there's the drug of choice: EPO (and it's alternates). This helps your body build up more red blood cells on it's own. It can be detected, but only for maybe 2-3 weeks after taking it. You get the benefits of it for 2-3 months. And you can use it in the off season,when not likely to be tested, to help train harder. Apparently works very well, but risky because some guys have been caught. Roberto Heras, Michael Rasmussen, many others.

HGH - Human Growth Hormone. This showed up in the Mitchell report. Helps your body heal better mostly, but also does things like improve vision, reflexes. Almost impossible to detect unless through blood tests, right after taking. No one has ever been busted for it. Lots of riders suspected of taking it. (Floyd Landis, TH, many more). Big side effect in that it does nasty things like, oh, make tumors grow up to 100x their natural rate (ask Lyle Alzedo, wait, he's dead).

Steroids - Not too many cyclists busted for it. (Floyd Landis, Patrick Sinkewitz). Mostly used to help not build muscle, but help the body heal faster. Cyclist Joe Papp confessed to using it, and testified on behalf of the USADA in their successful case against Floyd Landis, explaining in detail how a little bit helps a lot. Sinkewitz said pretty much the same thing.

Beyond this, it's very likely on the highest end of sports that gene doping is on the near horizon, or here. Busted for supplying other drugs to athletes, German track and field coach Thomas Springstein is suspected to have used Repoxygen - a form of gene therapy, to get athletes own bodies to produce more natural EPO on their own. Michael Rasmussen, after being kicked out of this year's Tour de France was found to have used a form of natural EPO along these lines. People may recall gene doping as being the therapy that scientists were using to create rats that were super marathoners, and "Schwarzenegger mice". Currently completely undetectable, but also very hard to attain, and likely very expensive.

Finally, while Lance Armstrong did never test positive for anything in sanctioned tests, EPO was found in his urine in a retroactive tests from the 1999 Tour de France. This test was unable to be counter tested, or verified, and ruled inadmissible by an arbiter. Furthermore, he participated in a sport where virtually every single person he beat, and several of his former teammates were doping, some of them quite extensively. He also was on a team with a very lax attitude towards taking action regarding doping, and in his career did very little to speak out against doping, staunchly upholding the omerta, and on at least one case went after a whistleblower, in addition to being linked to many others, and accused many times. But having said that, who knows? He did after all beat everyone else, one way or the other.
 
If anyone wants a closer look at doping in sport, start with this link. Mostly filled with track athletes and lifters, followed by cyclists I suppose. Baseball should soon "catch up" though.

On a side note. Though football has done a better job of testing recently, who here thinks everyone playing in the last decade or so is clean?
 
To clear up any misconceptions... there are many types of steroids and they all do different things. Cutting, bulking, healing, joint strength, etc. etc. HGH would be great if it were well controlled. Steroids offer temporary gains and HGH offers permanent gains... the ideal situation for an athlete is to stack the products... then of course there are several other supplements that should be used in conjunction with these to minimize side-effects... and get your body back to producing it's own "test" after the cycle is over.

There's a lot more to it then the media (and much of this thead) implies... Why do you think bodybuilding is so popular in SoCal? Because of the weather? Yeah that probably helps but when those guys make a run for the border they 'aint buying tacos.

So I guess most of you guys are believe the chicken breasts and oatmeal crap? Why the big surprise about these athletes? Steroids have been around since before WW2... if you want to know what humans can look like naturally then look at the greek statues of mythology. Weight is weight.
 
Anyone catch Clemens press conference he held yesterday? Looks like he's not backing down. The phone call they played of him talking to McNamee sorta makes McNamee look like he's just trying to cover his own ass, however McNamee doesn't admit to anything, basically just saying over and over again "What do you want me to do?", he brings up the fact that he doesn't want to go to jail, so I wonder if under federal pressure he gave them a big name to cover himself. That be a pretty slimeball thing to do if that's the case.
 
This is a heavy discussion over at Bicycling.com's forums. The reason why is that cyclists have a LOT of experience with dealing with doping violations and scandals, many of which make the Mitchell report look like a Cliff Notes page.

The general belief is that Roger is guilty, but anything but a steroid abuser. The thinking is that steroids were as Ken Camanetti and Jose Canseco said - heavily used by about half the players. And Roger was a minor offender. But if this case were taken to WADA or the CAS (doesn't apply to Baseball) Roger would skate, easily.

Many people also think even the tape of McNamee doesn't change that, if anything one can interpret that tape how they like, as if McNamee was saying that he felt he told the truth, but would have been willing to lie to them and risk going to jail to protect Clemens. Keep in mind, McNamee was under oath to tell the truth, and face perjury charges if found lying in either direction. So if he lied to damage Clemens, and Mitchell's people (or Congress, or a court of law) later prove that, he's in trouble. If he was coerced to lie about Clemens, in theory he could have gone to Mitchell's team and said so. He could still do that.
 
Clemens is going to show up when McNamee testifies with McNamee's long lost Italian brother and sit down beside him. McNamee is going to tell them he made the whole thing up.
 
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