Eating Your Own Cooking

Beofre the 2008 season, the Yankees signed Alex Rodriguez to a 10-year, $275M contract. After this season the Yankees will still owe A-Rod $86M over 4 years, with the (increasingly unlikely) potential for another $30M in performance bonuses for hitting certain historical Home Run milestones. But the Yankees may be thrown a lifeline by Major League Baseball which wanted to ban A-Rod for life for his involvement in the BioGenesis scandal. But now MLB wants him to accept a ban for the rest of this season and all of next. We don't know exactly what evidence MLB has against A-Rod, but no matter what it is, a lifetime ban would be so far above the punishment for other recidivists (Braun, Colon, Manny Ramirez) there seems to be more at play here than just wanting to punish a cheater. If the Yankees are freed from the liability of paying A-Rod, not only would it clear up $86M on their books it would get them under a certain luxury tax threshold which would prevent them from paying an extra 40% on the overage. That would be a huge advantage for the Yankees and the worst bailout since the financial crisis. If the league does decide to take this extraordinary step of banning A-Rod, and the Yankees don't have to pay his contract, his salary should still count against their luxury tax number. I can't believe the clubs' revenue sharing agreement doesn't include a stipulation to this regard. It seems like the mostly likely outcome here is for A-Rod to miss the rest of this year and all of 2014, which would still keep the final four years of his contract on the Yankees books, which I'm ok with, though I still thing salaries of suspended players should count against their teams for revenue sharing purposes. If not, it's almost an incentive to sign cheaters, because if they get caught you don't have to suffer any consequences. With these new suspensions and new enforcement methods, I think this is something MLB definitely needs to consider.

A Few Things On Which Murray Chass and I Agree

My dislike for baseball writer Murray Chass is now well-known. It started in 1997, when I asked him if steroids were a big part of baseball and he dismissed me with a sneer. Now Chass is taking my position (a position I have grown into) steroids users should not be in the Hall of Fame. He also agrees that he shouldn’t have a vote, he’s giving his up. But not before he casts one – or two – defiant votes in favor of Jack Morris.
Let’s start with the steroid users. I’ve made a minor adjustment in my position and I would seek to ban all steroid users from the Hall of Fame. I admit that’s is hard-line, and my strict adherence to this principle may end up being capricious and unfair but it’s better than any other way of voting.
Some voters just say let everyone in, forget steroids, just judge based on performance whether it was steroid-aided or not. I can’t stomach that.
Others say vote in the guys who would have been Hall of Famers based on their pre-steroid performance.
Others want to punish anyone linked to steroids but not cast aspersions on those whose names (if not their bodies) have remained clean.
Here’s why I feel so absolute: It’s impossible to know when players started taking steroids. They’re liars, we can’t believe them. It’s impossible to know how their careers would have turned out fir not for steroids keeping them healthy and prolonging their primes.
It’s not fair to allow those who didn’t get caught or admit it while other better players who did the same thing got left out. If anything, we should let in the admitted users, in hopes to smoke everyone out and to get a better understanding of what exactly went on.
Please don’t tell me: players in the 50s and 60s were using amphetamines. It’s not even close to being the same thing in terms of effect on performance.
Steroids weren’t against the rules. Yes they were. They were against the law. Using illicit drugs was against baseball’s rules. Failure to enforce those rules is shameful, but it doesn’t absolve the rule breakers.

So here’s what I’ve got: Bonds and Clemens are out because they’re known steroids users.

Palmeiro and Manny are out because they failed tests.
Sosa, Bagwell and Piazza are out because of serious suspicions about them. I put Craig Biggio in that group too.
So that could result in an entire era of players, stars from the 90s and 00s, pretty much wiped out of the Hall. I’m ok with that. Hopefully a new breed of stars like Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Buster Posey will fill those vacancies in the Hall and in our hearts.

Now, if I had a ballot for this year I would cast one vote: for Tim Raines. He was one of the greatest players at his position during his time period. No he wasn’t Rickey Henderson but he was close enough that he warrants induction as well. I would never vote for Jack Morris. His 3.90 ERA would be one of the worst of any pitcher in the Hall. His career ERA+ (adjusted for park and run-scoring environment) of 105 means he was barely an above-average pitcher. Yes he had a few great postseason games which is nice, but not enough to elevate an above-average pitcher to greatness.

Lance Armstrong All-American

Here are a few well-established facts:
Cycling has a significant doping problem
Lance Armstrong won 7 Tours De France
Lance Armstrong had cancer

If you accept those three things as fact then it would be hard to believe one (of the very few) clean rider can dominate the sport overrun with cheaters.



Armstrong's defense is that he never failed a drug test -- which is true (but there are allegations he bribed his way out of one failed test and got out of another on a technicality) -- but most likely because he was using stuff like EPO that is or was undetectable.

So why won't this go away? Because so many people who were once close to Armstrong are coming out against him.

Armstrong's former masseuse, Emma O'Reilly, claimed Armstrong once asked her to dispose of used syringes and to give him makeup to conceal needle marks on his arms.

Former teammate Steve Swart, claims he and other riders, including Armstrong, began using drugs in 1995 while members of the Motorola team.

Former personal assistant Mike Anderson claimed he discovered a box of androstenone while cleaning a bathroom in Armstrong's apartment in Girona, Spain.

Former teammate Frankie Andreu and his wife Betsy said Armstrong admitted using performance-enhancing drugs to his physician just after brain surgery in 1996.

Former U.S. Postal teammate Floyd Landis accused Armstrong of doping in 2002 and 2003. Landis said he witnessed Armstrong receiving multiple blood transfusions, and dispensing testosterone patches to his teammates.

Former teammate Tyler Hamilton said he and Armstrong had together taken EPO before and during the 1999, 2000, and 2001 Tours de France.

In each case Armstrong attacks the credibility of his accuser saying they have an axe to grind with him, or they're looking for a book deal. And maybe Armstrong is such a dick that it's actually working in his favor because he really does have some kind of negative personal history with nearly all these people.

But this is a lot of circumstantial evidence piling up against him. Either Armstrong is pretty much the worst person in the world and so many people who used to be his friends are completely fabricating stories just to hurt him -- or their stories are true.

Barry Bonds Gets Away With Murder

Well it wasn't quite murder but he definitely got the OJ treatment from the jury. How could one woman on the jury of 12 not think Barry Bonds knowingly took steroids?
How could anyone look at that man and the physical changes he's undergone and the tremendous improvement in his performance and not think he had done steroids?



And if you can get there, you have to believe beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew what he was taking. Especially after all the other athletes testified they got steroids from Greg Anderson and knew what they were taking.

And speaking of Greg Anderson he's either the best friend ever, or he's getting a lot of money. And whatever he is getting, Bonds ought to double it. But isn't that witness tampering? How would they not find out if Greg Anderson gets out of prison and has millions of dollars? Would he do this for less than $5m?

So the one idiot juror who didn't believe Kathy Hoskins when she said she saw Anderson inject Bonds with her own two eyes, held up the guilty verdict on at least one of the perjury counts. Every other observer, including the 11 other jurors considered Hoskins a very credible witness.



A big part of the defense's case involved painting the prosecution as overzealous in its effort to convict Barry Bonds. First of all, shouldn't prosecutors and federal investigators be zealous in pursuit of a criminal. Secondly, I detest the notion that this crime wasn't big enough to pursue because it was a mostly victimless crime. Why would anyone ever tell a grand jury the truth if there was no penalty for lying? Or should there be a penalty, just not for Barry Bonds or other famous people? Lastly, does the government's zeal mean Bonds didn't commit a crime?

Here's what's going to happen next: the Feds (tired of public opinion turned against them) will offer Bonds a deal. They will agree not to pursue a retrial on the three charges that hung this jury, if Bonds agrees not to appeal to the obstruction conviction. That will mean 6 months of house arrest for Bonds.

Barry Bonds will never go to jail. Or the Hall of Fame.

Mark McGwire's Steroid Admission

The lying scumbag Mark McGwire finally admits to using steroids.

There are a few reasons why this bothers me.

First he cheated. Fundamentally as a fan that hurts me, even though I know hundreds of others did the same thing.

Secondly, he broke sports most hallowed record under false pretenses.

Third, even in telling the truth McGwire told more lies.

He said he only juiced for health reasons, to help recover from injuries. I guess he doesn't buy the theory that his steroid use led to his body breaking down.



When pressed by Bob Costas he refused to even acknowledge that even if that were the case he still benefitted from the roids.

He said he had been hitting home runs in little league, high school, college the minor leagues and even as a rookie before discovering steroids (supposedly). That may be true, but not that many.

And then he trotted out the old hand eye coordination excuse. Yes its true steroids can't teach you how to hit a baseball traveling towards you at 95 miles per hour. But if you already know how to do that like say a major league baseball player, steroids will help you hit it farther. Even the player with the most natural power and the best hand eye coordination would still hit fly balls to the warning track. But with steroids those balls become home runs.

When asked if he could have hit 70 without roids McGwire said yes. I wish he would have said "I think so, but I never gave myself the chance."

A couple things McGwire said did stick with me.

He said he wanted to tell the truth to Congress that day but his lawyers couldn't get him immunity (a longshot) so he pulled the incredibly incriminating "I'm not here to talk about the past" routine. I've killed him over that for nearly five years but I now realize if you have to show up but you can't tell the truth and don't want to lie "I'm not here to talk about the past" is probably your best choice. Especially since "no hablo ingles" was taken by Sammy Sosa.

In his statement/confession McGwire said "I wish I never played in the steroid era."

That to me seems like his way of saying he felt obligated to cheat because everyone else was. I'm sure he feels had he played in the 60s or 70s he would have been a great home run hitter without ever hearing the word steroids.

But it was his misfortune that he played in the steroid era. And ours too.

Another One Bites the Dust

We're entering a new chapter in the Steroid Era. We already smoked out most the obvious cheaters now we're getting to the guys we didn't think were users. First it was A-Rod who we thought was too skinny and never underwent a drastic physical change. Turns out he was juicing since high school so we just never noticed.
Now it's Manny Ramirez who we thought was just too stupid and too disinterested to use steroids.
Manny was caught with HCG in his system -- a female infertility treatment. Manny says a doctor prescribed it because he was having a little trouble with little Manny. Don't buy it. He's a cheater like all the rest of them.

Since Eddie Murrary in 1996, 10 players have entered the 500 home run club. Three of those players have failed steroid tests (Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez).
Two of them were implicated in the BALCO investigation (Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield).
Two more embarrassed themselves in front of Congress to the point no one even questions that they are steroids cheats (Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa).

And that leaves us with three who haven't done it or haven't been caught (Jim Thome, Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey Jr.)

I wouldn't be surprised if all three of those guys eventually get caught or admit it. Griffey might be a little shocking, but with the rash of injuries he had, I've often wondered if steroid use was a factor.

If you had any doubts or actually believed MLB's party line that most of the users were lesser players just trying to hand out, this list should dissuade you from that view.

With each passing repot it seems like Ken Caminiti underestimated when in 2002 he told Sports Illustrated 50% of major leaguers we're using steroids.

Murray Chass is Always 10 Years Behind Me

SCZA e-mailed me an article by Hall of Fame baseball writer Murray Chass.
Before I go on let's get a couple things on the table. I hate Murray Chass. He's a pompous douche who belittled me when I suggested steroids where prevalent in baseball.
I hate Mike Piazza, too. Similar to the way I feel about Michelle Obama, it's not Piazza I hate, the treatment of him, the ignorance of the facts regarding him and his poor clutch performance are the reasons I dislike Piazza.
And about 10 years ago I said with near certainty that Piazza was a steroid user.

There is just too much overwhelming evidence against him. He went from skinny 62nd round draft pick to muscle-bound Hall of Famer. He went from feared slugger to decripit old man who tore a muscle moving out of the way of a pitch. And his statistical decline too conveniently mirrored the arrival of punitive steroid testing in baseball.

And one more thing, according to Murray Chass, Piazza had really bad back acne, an obvious sign of steroid use.

Now Chass, who had his head in the sand for years on steroids claims to have known it all along but his editors would never let him voice his suspicions about Piazza. And even now Chass would have kept looking the other way except his piece gave him the chance to criticize a much better article by his apparent nemesis Joel Sherman of the Post.

The point is this, so many baseball players were using steroids during the period from 1993 to 2003 (Piazza's heyday) it would be almost impossible to imagine that one of the few cleans guys also happens to have this many red flags.

And Murray Chass is a self-righteous asshole who was a big part of the problem.

Boob Job May Be Clemens's Undoing

As Roger Clemens continues to deny, deny, deny, his wife's fake tits may pose a problem for him. A lie is like a wool sweater, if you keep pulling on it, eventually the whole thing unravels.
This all comes back to the now infamous pool party at Jose Canseco's house which is where Brian McNamee alleges that Clemens first decided to start using performance enhancing drugs after a conversation with Canseco. Clemens has denied attending the party, saying that he played golf that day (he has the clubhouse receipt to prove it), but Clemens does admit that maybe he went to Canseco's house at some point during the day, to drop someone off.
McNamee claims Clemens was there, and Clemens's wife Debbie and their kids, and even their nanny were all there.
There is reportedly a picture of Clemens at the party to prove it but in absence of that, all we have to go on is Debbie's tits.
The New York Daily News reports that a former major leaguer told Congressional investigators that Clemens often joked in the clubhouse about that party, specifically the part of the party when Debbie and Jose's then-wife, Jessica compared their fake tits.
"I mean, they talked - no disrespect, but they talked about how great Jose's wife's augmentation job was to Debbie and showed her," McNamee said. "And then Debbie showed her her augmentation job."
For a closer, not safe for work, evaluation of Jessica Canseco's augmentation, click here.

Why Congress Should Be Investigating Steroids

It has become popular to criticize Congress for holding hearings on the steroid issue, but actually this is an issue Congress should be dealing with.

1) Congress originally took up the issue at the urging of Don Hooton, whose son Taylor killed himself after using steroids. Hooton attributed his son's suicide to steroids and his son's steroid use to the pervasive use of steroids by professional baseball players. So a citizen took this issue to Congress, and they began an investigation on his behalf, exactly what Congress should be doing.

2) When Congress dug, they found that Major League Baseball and its players had basically been involved in a conspiracy, on an unspoken basis, to allow players to use illegal drugs through an overly lenient testing and punishment policy.

3) Congressional hearings have been very efficacious on this issue. Congress forced Major League Baseball to adopt a stiffer drug testing policy, one that will hopefully succeed in cleaning up the game, at least to some degree.

4) The notion that Congress could solve the other more important problems facing our country if only they weren't so mired in the steroid mess is preposterous. Congress could debate all year about Iraq and nothing would change. Same with many of the other issues. And it's not like they're holding hearings every day. One committee of about 15 Congressmen (out of 435) focusing on the issue for a couple weeks at a time, every couple of years, isn't having a major impact on the future of the country.

Admittedly, this last hearing was little more than a spectacle designed to embarrass Roger Clemens, but if they hadn't held this hearing wouldn't it appear as if Clemens were being let off the hook? Also, Congress still doesn't feel that baseball is doing enough to clean up the sport so they want to keep the heat on.

And yes, I also concede that the Congressmen love the attention they are getting from these hearings, but if it is any consolation, many of them (Shay, Cummings) completely embarrassed themselves.

Finally, as baseball fans, we should all be thrilled that Congress is so tough on these cheaters because without Congress we wouldn't know what to think of McGwire, Sosa, Clemens and especially Rafael Palmeiro.

Why Typos Are So Bad

A typo made by federal prosecutors in court documents started reports that Barry Bonds had failed a drug test in November 2001, a couple months after hitting his record 73rd home run.
The documents should have said November 2000, a test the government had already alleged Bonds failed.

Whom Should We Believe?

A few thoughts on the Brian McNamee - Roger Clemens showdown on Capitol Hill:

1) Most of the Congressmen were complete retards. I'm shocked that the Republicans (mostly) were so awestruck by Clemens that they attacked McNamee. Yes, McNamee lied in the past and had holes in his story but some of them didn't even question Clemens at all.

2) In most situations where you have two witnesses with completely opposite accounts, both of whom insist they are telling the truth, the best way to determine whose account is accurate, is to see whose report is corroborated by the other evidence. Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch and even Debbie Clemens to some extent corroborate what McNamee said.

3) There was too much talk about Clemens's ass. First, it was a report that Mike Stanton made fun of Clemens for bleeding through his pants after getting a shot in the ass, prompting McNamee to start carrying band-aids. Then there was the stuff about the abcess on his ass, which one Congressman took to an outside physician who said the mass was likely an abcess and unlikely to be from B-12.

4) But the key thing many people are focusing on is the nanny. The account of the party at Jose Canseco's house is the one area where everyone (McNamee, Clemens, Canseco and the nanny) all seem to have different recollections. But McNamee remembered that the nanny was wearing a peach bikini, which led me to think she was a young hot nanny. But then I found out she quit working for the Clemens family when she became a grandmother. Either way, the nanny is important because before turning her contact info over to the committee, Clemens and his team contacted her, leading the Congressmen to think that Clemens may have tampered with her, coercing her into altering her testimony.

5) Misremember actually is a word.

6) Don't tell anything to Andy Pettitte that you don't want his wife to know about. He tells her everything.

Scammed by Performance Enhancing Drugs

All of baseball's home run records have been tainted by steroids, now the taint has leaked over to the players' wives.
This picture of Debbie Clemens scammed me. I remember looking at it and thinking damn, she's 39 years old (in 2003 when the picture was taken), and she has 4 kids, and she's a fuckin MILF.
But like her husband Debbie Clemens was using HGH to enhance her performance, and her other stuff.

McNamee Has Proof

Brian McNamee gave federal prosecutors syringes and other physical evidence which his lawyers say support his claims of drug use by Roger Clemens.
McNamee turned over gauze pads and syringes which have Clemens's blood and a blue dress which has Clemens's DNA.
The syringes were used to inject Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone in 2000 and 2001.

Roger Clemens is a Fuckin Liar

Roger Clemens's recent campaign has done nothing to clear his name. In fact, the cleverly orchestrated act makes Clemens look even more guilty to me.

The McNamee Tape
There was nothing in this tape that makes Clemens look good. Yes, McNamee didn't confront Clemens and say "I did tell the truth" but it was clear to me that McNamee was sorry that he had to rat Clemens out to save his own ass.
McNamee said "what do you want me to do?" about 100 times during the conversation and never once did Clemens (who knew he was recording the conversation to play it at the press conference) say "just admit you lied about me."
You know why? Because McNamee would have laughed in his face.

The 60 Minutes Interview
I thought Mike Wallace did a decent job asking Clemens some tough questions but he didn't really hammer him as he allowed Clemens to ask a bunch of rhetorical questions that shouldn't have remained rhetorical.
"If this stuff is so good why didn't I keep taking it?" Clemens answered this one later by saying steroids are just a quick fix.
"Why didn't my tendons turn to dust?" Just be patient Roger.
Clemens also suggested that he never underwent a drastic physical change. And Wallace didn't show him a picture of himself from 1985, that's inexcusable softball journalism.
The best part was when Clemens was asked if he would take a lie detector test and he said "I don't know whether they're good or bad." His lawyers advised him not to take one, they say because they're not reliable, I'd say it's because he would fail.

The Mitchell Report
Using information told him by McNamee, before which McNamee was warned that any false statements would result in criminal charges, Mitchell constructs the picture of McNamee's relationship with Clemens. They met in Toronto when McNamme was hired by the Blue Jays as the strength and conditioning coach in 1998. Clemens who had joined the team the year before was living in the hotel in the Skydome, as was McNamee.
In early June of 1998, the Blue Jays went to Florida to play the Marlins. McNamee and Clemens went to a lunch party at Jose Canseco's house in Florida, Canseco was on the Blue Jays at the time.
Canseco told Mitchell's investigators that he had conversations with Clemens about steroids, and cycling.
It was after this meeting that McNamee says Clemens brought up the topic of steroids, and asked McNamee to inject him.
McNamee claims to have injected Clemens with steroids several times during 1998 and then in later years when McNamee was hired by the Yankees.
At that point in the 1998 season Clemens was 6-6. He went 14-0 the rest of the season. Granted he won the 1997 Cy Young Award after 4 mediocre years with the Red Sox, but this seems to be the beginning of Clemens's resurgence.

Circumstantial Evidence
Clemens had a famous roid rage incident on the mound during the 2000 World Series.
Clemens not only continued pitching at a high level at an age when most pitchers retire, he surpassed his best performances from early in his career at an advanced age.
His head grew.
Several seasons after he retired, he came back but waited until midseason, perhaps so he could cycle back on the roids.
There is zero chance that Clemens did not use steroids and his histrionics lately make him seem even more guilty.

Deeper Thoughts on the Mitchell Report

You've read my broad view of the Mitchell Report, but now it's time to delve a little deeper.

I know it's taken me a long time to get to it but after printing it and reading it, I figured I might as well say what's on my mind.

First off, I've changed my mind a little, I now think all players mentioned (and those not mentioned) should have until March 1 to write and sign an affidavit detailing their steroid use in exchange for full amnesty. Anyone who fails to do so and is later found to have bought or used steroids will be subject to the current penalties, not the penalties in place at the time of the infraction.

*****

The Mitchell report included the names of mostly marginal players who quite possibly would never have had major league careers if not for steroid use. Many people pointed out that it's hard to blame someone for trying it, if they felt they weren't good enough without it, and if they felt they had to in order to keep up with everyone else.

That's exactly the point. Of course they would do it. Maybe we all would do it, if we didn't think we would get caught. That's why strong testing is needed. I won't get into all the specifics of how testing should be done, but obviously it needs to be tougher, it needs to be more frequent (at least 2 tests in the offseason) and they need to test for everything (including a blood test for HGH).

*****

The report named about 60 position players and about 30 pitchers. Since teams usually have about 13 players and 12 pitchers, these numbers are slightly weighted towards the hitters, but not as much as some would have thought. This doesn't exonerate Bonds just because he was hitting his steroid aided home runs against juiced pitchers.

It seems that steroids aid pitchers differently. It helps muscle recovery, helps them pitch longer and even if it does add a few miles per hour on the fastball, steroids did not have the destructive impact on the pitching record books the way they did on the offensive numbers.

*****

Because the main sources of information for the report were New York based, the report shows a dearth of Latin American players. I believe many Latin American players purchased steroids during the offseason (in some countries they're legal), avoiding the paper trail that brought down many of the people in the Mitchell Report. Also, because all the information in the Report can trace it roots to a government investigation, the Latin American players will never be found out, but I believe they were a much larger part of the problem.

*****

The Mets should have won the 2000 World Series. All four games won by the Yankees were started by pitchers named in the Mitchell Report (Clemens, Pettitte, Neagle).

*****

While I'm not surprised at the number of Mets and Yankees who were named, I was shocked at the number of Montreal Expos. Remember the mid-90s when those spunky undermanned Expos always managed to hang tough in the NL East? As it turns out, many of the team's players (David Segui, Mike Lansing, Tim Laker, Rondell White, FP Santangelo) were using steroids.

*****

Load of crap #1: Players were not given the chance to respond to the Mitchell Report.

At the end of every passage involving a player, Mitchell concludes with the sentence, "In order to provide [player's name here] with information about these allegations and to give him an opportunity to respond, I asked him to meet with me; he declined."

Almost all players declined.
*****

Load of crap #2: Mitchell was biased because of his position with the Boston Red Sox.

Mitchell included a conversation between Red Sox GM Theo Epstein and a scout about Eric Gagne. Epstein said "I know the Dodgers think he was a steroid guy. Maybe so." To which the scout replied "steroids IS the issue." But the Red Sox traded for him anyway and he was a disaster.

Also he included a story told by Paxton Crawford to ESPN, that Crawford dropped syringes on the floor of the Red Sox clubhouse, and everyone laughed.

Mitchell, though hired by Selig for this purpose, hammered Major League Baseball, for its inaction and ignorance on steroids, he did not simply blame everything on the players.
*****

Load of crap #3: Mitchell's source weren't reliable.

Kirk Radomski has notes, canceled checks and shipping receipts from many of the players named in the report. And 11 players admitted to being supplied by Radomski. If Radomski had all that credible evidence, why would he bother to make up anything? Because he can prove so much, I believe everything he said, even if he didn't back up every single transaction with every single player with hard evidence.

The same is true of Brian McNamee. Yes, he was forced to cooperate with Mitchell as part of his plea agreement. But his agreement stated that he must give truthful testimony. So if he was telling the truth about Pettitte (which he was), that was enough to get him his deal, why would he make up anything about Clemens? Because if McNamee is found to have lied, his deal with the Feds is off.

A couple side notes on Radomski. When he was growing up he lived near Charlie Samuels, the Mets equipment manager at the time and that's how he starting working with the team in an informal capacity. In 1987, he was hired as a fulltime clubhouse attendant. In 1994 the Mets cut the salaries of the clubhouse guys, leading Radomski to quit and become a full-time personal trainer and bodybuilder.

*****
Paul LoDuca was introduced to Radomski by another Mets catcher, Todd Hundley, after Hundley went to play for the Dodgers. Radomski did at least 6 transactions with LoDuca, produced 3 checks for $3200 each (2 kits) and several notes from LoDuca. One said "I haven't been able to call you back because my phone is TOAST!" Another was written on Dodgers stationary and said "Thanks! Call me if you need anything."

After the 2003 season Dodgers executives said LoDuca "got off the steroids...took away a lot of hard line drives" but warned "if you do trade him, will get back on the stuff and try to show you he can have a good year." He was traded on July 30, 2004. But the Dodgers were wrong because he hit much worse after the trade.

*****

It is my sincere wish that the Mitchell Report goes down as the tipping point for baseball, when the Players Association finally stops fighting testing and becomes a proponent of the type of testing necessary to clean up the sport once and for all.

Mitchell Report Analysis

Here are the players named in the Mitchell report:

Chad Allen
Mike Bell
Gary Bennett
Larry Bigbie
Ricky Bones
Kevin Brown
Ken Caminiti
Mark Carreon
Jason Christiansen
Howie Clark
Roger Clemens
Paxton Crawford
Jack Cust
Brendan Donnelly
Chris Donnels
Lenny Dykstra
Matt Franco
Ryan Franklin
Eric Gagne
Jason Grimsley
Jerry Hairston
Phil Hiatt
Matt Herges
Glenallen Hill
Todd Hundley
Ryan Jorgensen
Wally Joyner
Mike Judd
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Tim Laker
Mike Lansing
Paul Lo Duca
Exavier “Nook” Logan
Josias Manzanillo
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Bart Miadich
Hal Morris
Daniel Naulty
Denny Neagle
Rafael Palmeiro
Jim Parque
Luis Perez
Andy Pettitte
Adam Piatt
Todd Pratt
Stephen Randolph
Adam Riggs
Brian Roberts
F.P. Santangelo
David Segui
Mike Stanton
Ricky Stone
Miguel Tejada
Derrick Turnbow
Mo Vaughn
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White
Jeff Williams
Todd Williams
Kevin Young
Gregg Zaun
Rick Ankiel
David Bell
Paul Byrd
Jose Canseco
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus
Jose Guillen
Darren Holmes
Gary Matthews Jr.
John Rocker
Scott Schoeneweis
Ismael Valdez
Matt Williams
Steve Woodard
Marvin Benard
Barry Bonds
Bobby Estalella
Jason Giambi
Jeremy Giambi
Benito Santiago
Gary Sheffield
Randy Velarde

I'll have more on some of these players as I read through the entire report. It's 400 pages so it could take a while.

What should happen to the players whose names are on this list? Nothing. Because the information in the Mitchell Report is selective, and not at all comprehensive, it would unfair to punish only those who happened to buy steroids from the suppliers who got caught and ratted them out.
But Jay Gibbons and Jose Gullien did get 15 game suspensions so perhaps we could see similar punishments for other active players.

Also, there is no reason for criminal prosecution of these guys. The same people who complain that our tax dollars are being spent on prosecuting Barry Bonds now want the law to go after these guys.
First of all, the standard of proof needed to convict someone is much higher than the standard used to include someone on this list.
Second of all, Bonds is not being prosecuted for using steroids, they're going after him because he lied to a federal grand jury. If the Feds let such a high profile figure get away with that it dilutes the power of all federal grand juries.

The men on this list, as well as McGwire, Sosa and countless others who used steroids cheated...the fans out of the thing which most hardcore baseball fans like myself hold most deaR about the sport, the sanctity of the records and numbers. These players have robbed me of the chance to discuss many of baseball's hallowed numbers in reverent terms with my son. And even worse, the problem of what to do with baseball's history books seems like a problem without a solution. Retroactively expunging the records and entire careers of the cheaters is capricious and ineffective because it might leave records to other cheaters who just didn't get caught. An ineffectual asterisk is not appropriate because it's either too specific (once again it wouldn't nail all the cheaters, just those who got caught), or too broad (if applied to the entire generation).

But Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens still deserve to be in the Hall of Fame because they were great before they started juicing.

The fate of a nation of baseball fans turns it's lonely eyes to Alex Rodriguez. Other than elite performance A-Rod bears none of the other hallmarks of a steroid user. He did not undergo a significant physical change, nor drastic swings in his performance.

I don't want to hear anything from any player on this list about them being wrongfully accused. In all, the players on the list comprise no more than a quarter of baseball's total steroid cheats since the 1980s. So how are we to believe that the few that got fingered by a reliable source are wrongfully accused?

That said, this report doesn't, in many cases prove that players used steroids, it's merely an as comprehensive as possible accumulation of everyone who has been linked to steroids.

There are three major reasons why steroid use flourished in baseball for so long. The players used them for financial gain, the league ignored the problem for financial gain and the media (this means you Murray Chass) looked the other way for no good reason at all. And the media is still doing it. You have a guy saying he shot Andy Pettitte in the ass with steroids and retarded monkey sportswriters are still defending Pettitte. The job of the media is to look at issues critically but the sports media is full of ex-jocks and jock sniffers who won't state the obvious for fear of being ostracized. No one on this list is unfairly targeted, they're cheaters.

Don't tell me that Paul LoDuca paid Kirk Radomski $3,200 because he took his car to be washed, picked up his dry cleaning and brought his 19-year old girlfriend to the clubhouse so she could give him a postgame blowjob. As valuable as those services are, LoDuca paid the guy for supplying performance enhancing drugs.

The best thing that could come from this report would be stronger testing, blood testing, similar to what the Olympics does. A program that tests for everything. If after so many of their brethren were outed, the Players Union still opposes such testing than the owners should impose it (to the extent to which they can do so) and force the players to strike over it. Also, there has to be random testing during the offseason, at least twice, for every player.

Now that we have a list of users it will be interesting to compare this list in 15 - 20 years to the list of ballplayers who died prematurely. Ken Caminiti is already on that list, let's hope none of these other guys join him, but maybe if they do people will finally wake up to the dangers of steroid use.

Mitchell Report Set to Drop

The Daily News reports that Major League Baseball officials have their copy of the Mitchell Report and it's set to drop tomorrow on the rest of the public.
The report names somewhere between 60 and 80 players. That's a lot more names than have already been made public.
The Mets could be prominently involved because Mitchell got a lot of his information for Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse employee who after his 1985-1995 stint with the Mets spent the next several years as a steroids supplier.
What Mets could possibly see their names turn up?
Lenny Dykstra? Todd Hundley? David Segui? Mike Piazza?

Wikipedia has a very comprehensive list of players who have already been linked to steroids through a failed test or a media report. At first I thought the Mitchell Report would only be a compilation of that which we already knew or suspected, but if 60 to 80 names are in there, some of them are very likely ones we've not heard before.

Bonds is Fucked

Barry Bonds used steroids.
If you don't believe that please stop reading this blog right now.
The only person in America who is convinced that Bonds never used steroids is Bonds himself.
Somehow Bonds has said it so often that he believes it.
But it's not true, he knowingly took steroids because he was pissed that Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were getting all the attention.
But that's not the point here. The point here is that Bonds could very well be going to jail.
In December 2003 he told a grand jury that he never knowingly used steroids.
Now federal investigators indicted him on perjury charges, meaning they have enough evidence to prove he took steroids (postive tests) and that he knew he was taking steroids (witness testimony).
Right after the Bonds indictment was announced, Bonds former friend and trainer Greg Anderson was released from prison. Anderson was in jail for not testifying against Bonds.
Because there's no such thing as a coincidence I think this means Anderson finally agreed to flip on Bonds.
But Anderson's lawyer says that's not what happened. I guess it's possible the Feds have the case without Anderson so they didn't need him anymore. Or maybe they want to scare Bonds into confessing by making him think Anderson dimed him out.
Either way I think Bonds is fucked. I don't think the Feds are going to let this go without sending him to jail for at least 9 months.

This indictment does pose a major problem for Major League Baseball. If for some reason Bonds should admit his steroid use they would have to take his records away. Especially if he says he was juiced during 2001 when he hit 73 homers, a 49% increase over high previous career high. The problem with that is, that would give the single-season crown to another juicer, Mark McGwire. Unless they can catch McGwire and Sosa and roll back the crown to Maris, an admission by Bonds would be disastrous for baseball.

One last issue, I don't want to hear that Bonds is being unfairly targeted. He lied to the grand jury, he deserves what he's going to get regardless of whether Palmeiro and McGwire are unmolested and regardless of whether the Feds should be chasing a murderer somewhere.

I also hope the idiots in the media who defended Bonds for no other reason than because he's black and so are they, will apologize also when Bonds is found guilty.

So That's Why He Was So Good

Scott Schoeneweis received six steroid shipments from Signature Pharmacy while playing for the Chicago White Sox in 2003 and 2004, according to ESPN.
According to a source in Florida close to the ongoing investigation of Signature, Schoeneweis' name appears on packages that were sent to Comiskey Park.
The doctor who prescribed the drugs, Ramon Scruggs of the New Hope Health Center in Tustin, Calif., also wrote prescriptions for Toronto third baseman Troy Glaus. Scruggs has since been suspended by California's state medical board on charges that he "prescribed approximately 6,073 prescriptions of dangerous drugs or controlled substances over the Internet without a good faith examination of the patients."
The source who reviewed the invoices said that Schoeneweis spent $1,160 on the steroids. The packages he received on May 23 and June 25, 2003, contained 10 milliliter bottles of both testosterone and stanozolol. The package sent on Sept. 3 had double the dose of stanozolol -- the same drug that caused Rafael Palmiero to be suspended for 10 games in 2005 after it showed up in his urine. The last three shipments -- on Nov. 18, 2003, and April 15 and June 24, 2004 -- contained one 10 ml bottle of testosterone.
The disclosure about Schoeneweis is the latest to emerge from a year-long probe into Signature being conducted by Albany, N.Y., district attorney David Soares. Last month, Sports Illustrated reported that Baltimore outfielder Jay Gibbons received shipments of steroids and growth hormone from the pharmacy between 2003 and 2005. Gibbons met with MLB officials on Sept. 17, afterward telling reporters he was "happy to answer all of their questions." He did not elaborate.

Steroids in Baseball

At the start of the 1997 baseball season Syracuse University held a panel to discuss the state of baseball. On this panel were Murray Chass of the New York Times and Pete Thamel then of The Daily Orange, now of the New York Times and other people I don't remember.
After the panel discussion I went up to Murray Chass, and I swear this is true, and asked him about steroids in baseball. He looked at me like I was crazy. He trotted out the now trite apologists' argument "steroids don't help you hit a baseball."
I brought up Kevin Elster who basically took four years off, then came back and hit 24 homers in 1996.
The point is not that I was right, because that happens so often it's no longer worth pointing out, the point is that the establishment (players, managers, executives, writers) willingly ignored the signs of steroid use, that observant people should have noticed.
One writer who was on the ball was Bob Nightengale (now with USA Today) who on July 15, 1995 wrote an article for the LA Times titled "Steroids Become an Issue: Many Fear Performing Enhancing Drug is Becoming Prevalent and Believe Something Must Be Done."
But pretty much everybody else ignored it, including Bud Selig who said he knew nothing about the problem until Mark McGwire's use of andro was reported in 1998.
Looking back I think McGwire purposely planted andro in his locker to throw suspicion off him as a steroid user. It seemed a little too obvious that McGwire had the bottle so clearly displayed in his locker. He probably never used andro, just thought it would give him plausible deniablity when people started questioning him about steroid use.
I hope the steroid era is now over and a new breed of juice free sluggers like A-Rod, The Magnificent Pooh Holes, Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn will come along and wipe the cheaters out of the books.