HGH

With everything that's happened, baseball players can still use HGH as long as they don't get caught purchasing it or with it on them. There is still no test being used for HGH. So if you can get your hands on it without getting caught, using it is not the problem.

Of course, now if you get caught getting it, that's a 50 game suspension.

Steroids is being tested for and is harder to get. HGH is still very easy to buy on the Internet.

What if I find out where David Ortiz lives during Spring Training. I'm sure that's not too hard to do. Then I go online, purchase HGH, and have it sent to his place. I put in annonymous phone calls to the FBI, MLB's new investigative department, Sports Illustrated, and the Daily News, telling them I'm an employee of the company that shipped it out, and when it should be arriving.

Could I get David Ortiz suspended for 50 games and have his reputation ruined forever? If I were still working in a hotel, it would be very easy for me to wait until I had a guest from Boston come in, and use their Credit Card information.

Without having accurate testing, everybody is at risk.

Catching up

I've been putting off writing about the whole steroids issue until I have time to really sit down and think about what I'm going to write. Clearly that's never going to happen, so I'm just going to do some stream-of-consciousness. What the hell - it's a blog.

I agree with Sully that had the Mitchell Report not included any names, there's a good chance we would have already stopped talking about it at this point. And it is true that the Report is just that - a report of what people said, not an absolute proof of guilt in a court of law. It is unfortunate that these guys could have been lying about some or all of the players, so I am a bit conflicted about it.

My theory about Clemens (and some of these other guys as well), is that it's possible that McNamee and Radomski were lying, but that the players took steroids anyway without those guys' knowledge. Even if Clemens is telling the truth that McNamee never injected him with steroids, that doesn't mean he never took them. At this point, I just assume everyone was using.

I think this idea that the culture of steroids was pervasive throughout baseball helps Barry Bonds. When people look back on the steroid era, I suspect they'll see it as something that swept over all of baseball, including many of the pitchers that Bonds faced. But that might be wishful thinking - even with Clemens' name coming out, Bonds is still the (giant) face of the scandal, and the fact that he's a jerk doesn't help his cause.

The Mitchell Report add yet more evidence that, despite people's imaginations, pitchers used PEDs as much or more than hitters did. Yet it still seems like the public's wrath is focused on the Popeye-like hitters. I think people find guys like Bonds and McGwire just unnaturally freaky, but it's harder to get worked up over the builds of guys like Gagne and Clemens, even though these guys are monstrous in person. (Everyone of course is humongous when you're a kid, so it didn't really dawn on me how huge even seemingly "normal-sized" baseball players are until I saw Turk Wendell up close during spring training one year. He was immense.) But it's certainly possible that not only did more pitchers use PEDs than hitters, but that its effects are more important for pitchers. I think we're still stuck in this belief that the biggest problem was the "giant sluggers hitting 500-foot home runs".

Defaming McNamee???

McNamee's lawyer is saying that depending on what Clemens says in his 60 minutes interview, that they will be considering pressing charges against Clemens for defamation.

I don't exactly see how defamation is possible.

Clemens is going to call McNamee a liar.

There is no question this is true. Either he lied all the times he said he never gave Clemens steroids or HGH, or he lied when he said he did give them to him. Either way we know he lied.

Right now McNamee's reputation is that of liar, drug pusher, and guy who gave a woman date rape drug and sexually assaulted her (although not convicted of that charge).

How can anybody defame this guy?

Sid Fernandez?

This is hysterical. The Radomski affidavit was also unsealed, and names on it that weren't in the Mitchell report are Sid Fernandez, Pete Rose, Jr., and two journeyman minor leaguers who have been out of baseball for years. Sid Fernandez bought $3,500 worth of something from Radomski in 2005, only eight years after he retired. I don't want to speculate, but that seems pretty strange.

Junior Rose distributed date rape drugs to help minor leaguers sleep, apparently. That doesn't completely egg the face of his dad, who a few days ago said that PED use was worse than betting on your own team, but it doesn't help.

The only connection to Pettitte and Clemens is Radomski saying that he sold PED's to McNamee, who was described in the affidavit as being their trainer at the time.

The Real Grimsley Eleven

Well, I'll say it. I was wrong. I rushed to believe the first list of released names on the Grimsley Affidavit, and it turns out a lot of those names were wrong, namely Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens, Brian Roberts, and Jay Gibbons. Here are the details of the actual affidavit.

I really hope that whoever it was at the L.A. Times that published that first list gives up his faulty source, or at least admits that he, um, made some mistakes in his reporting.

How does this affect the Mitchell Report? It's hard to say. As wrong as the original Grimsley report was, Pettitte, Roberts, and Gibbons have since admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs. This new information is definitely good news for Clemens, but given that the other three are guilty to some degree, and that the same guy that told the truth about Pettitte also accused Clemens, it still doesn't look good. I still believe McNamee, but not as much; last week I would have thought there was a 5% chance that Clemens was clean, but now I'd say it's closer to 15%.

Peter Gammons

Full disclosure – I love Gammons. I’ve never tried to hide that fact, even though a lot of people see him as biased and slow to adapt. I grew up reading him every Sunday in the Boston Globe, kept reading him on ESPN until they Insidered him, and always looked forward to his Diamond Notes on SportsCenter. As unwatchable as Baseball Tonight is now, if I happen upon it while flipping channels, I’ll keep it on if Gammons is on the set. More than anyone else in the media, he made baseball fun for me to follow.

Now… all of that being said, his response to the Mitchell Report, both on screen and in print, has been insulting. I’m not even exaggerating; I’m literally insulted by the way he dismisses baseball’s steroid problem and blames everyone but the dirty players. His follow-up column to the Mitchell Report (it’s Insider, so I have to admit that I haven’t read the whole thing – for details, check here) reads like the minutes from a support group meeting. Woe is he! Everything is just so unfair!

Gammons contends that the “sewer rats” who spoke to Mitchell – McNamee and Radomski – and their sordid tales of drug dealing and injecting, are not to be trusted. Why is that, exactly? Who else should we be asking to explain baseball’s drug culture to us? If you want to know about drug use and trafficking, you can ask two parties: the user, or the dealer. Well, the users seem pretty well content to give us “no comments” and half-truths, so our options for substantive information are pretty much limited to the dealers.

And even if the users were to speak freely, the dealers have a more intimate knowledge of the drugs and the drug culture than anyone. If you’re a player, you can get a dealer’s name and a phone number from someone, send them a check, get your pills and needles in the mail, and go off and take your drugs, oblivious to the enormity of what just happened. You don’t have to think about everything behind-the-scenes: the illegal prescriptions, the sources behind the sources, the health risks. If you convince yourself that you’re just taking vitamins and training hard, eventually it becomes true to you.

The dealers know what they’re doing. They’re aware of all of the illegalities and side effects, the pitfalls and the perils. Does it make them good people? Of course not. But it makes them knowledgeable sources, and whether they’re “gym rats” or “clubhouse guys” does nothing to change that. Nobody likes Jose Canseco, and everyone dismissed his initial claims about individual use and the widespread nature of the problem. Guess what, Peter? He was right! He’s been right all along, and your precious baseball institution, instead of listening to him and acting, blackballed him and slandered him, because he was a no-good, boat-rocking, steroid-using “sewer rat.”

Gammons bitches about hearsay testimonials from the sewer rats, but he saves his best for Larry Bigbie, claiming that he fingered Brian Roberts “without evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever.” Roberts told Bigbie that he tried steroids once. Bigbie told Mitchell what Roberts said. Mitchell printed it. It seems that Gammons has decided, despite his unwavering trust in the judgment and honesty of dirty players, not to trust Larry Bigbie. This conversation that he had with Roberts is not “evidence,” apparently. Bigbie either imagined the entire thing, or made it up for no good reason. That makes perfect sense.

Disregarding the incredible idiocy that it would take to defend Roberts before he had even commented on the matter, Roberts was named (or at the very least, allegedly named) by Jason Grimsley, along with five other guys of whom you may have heard: Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Miguel Tejada, Jay Gibbons, and David Segui. All five of them were also named by Mitchell. Segui admitted that he was in the Grimsley affidavit, and also to using HGH and steroids before the Mitchell Report was even released. Gibbons was linked to Signature Pharmacy, suspended by MLB, and eventually admitted to using HGH. Rafael Palmiero and was linked to Tejada, and Canseco named him as a "suspected" juicer in his book. That’s a lot of smoke surrounding a guy to whose defense Gammons just couldn’t wait to jump.

Not surprisingly, Roberts used the company “I only did it once and felt bad about it right away” line and admitted that he tried steroids, just as the report said he had. Gammons hasn’t been heard from again on the matter.

All of this is bad, but the money shot, if you will, has to be seen to be believed:

“You can blame the players association and you can blame Bud Selig, but the fact remains that the players who were truly clean did not exercise their power to avoid this, nor did their owners care to know as the business went from a $1.3B industry in 1995 to one that topped $6.2B in 2007.”

I agree with the bookends of what he says: the MLBPA, Selig, and the owners all share part of the blame here. But read that middle section again:

“but the fact remains that the players who were truly clean did not exercise their power to avoid this”

Do my senses deceive me, or did Gammons just blame the clean players for baseball’s steroids problem? How can this possibly be allowed to happen? I hope, I really do hope, that ESPN’s ombudsman takes him to task for this in her next column, because this is a completely irresponsible thing to say at the very least. Here he is condemning society’s willingness to rush to judgment when playing the blame game, and he quickly blames the players who haven’t even done anything wrong!

As for the power of the clean players to avoid this, what if Canseco was right (again)? What if more than half of baseball players were on the stuff, and the clean minority was powerless to convince the union that stiffer testing was needed? That couldn’t possibly be true, though. Canseco’s a sewer rat, after all.

Congrats, Pete. I thought you were untouchable. I really thought there was nothing you could say or do that would make me turn on you, but you’ve done it. You’ve become the face of the “see no evil” media in this whole steroid mess. If you want to ignore the problem entirely, just don’t say or write anything, because you’re doing more harm than good right now, both to the public’s perception of the problem, and to the real fan’s perception of you.

Naming Names

I’ve wanted to post extended thoughts on the Mitchell Report fallout for a few days, and I have enough to say that I thought it would make sense to break it down into a few smaller posts. Let’s start with the debate on whether or not the report should have named names.

In my opinion, they had to refer to players by name – the report has no credibility otherwise. What were the alternatives? Had they just told each player’s story anecdotally, it would have had no weight whatsoever, and nobody would have believed any of it. How many ways are there to say “one player purchased HGH from Radomsky in 2003… another player purchased Winstrol from Radomski in 1999”? Plus, many of these names, like those in the BALCO case, are already public knowledge – it would be silly not to print those names, but how can you do that and not name the others?

Had they referred to each player tangentially, as columnists refer to their sources (for example, instead of using Clemens’ name, they could have said “a prominent starting pitcher from the American League East”), then you’d have people everywhere trying to figure out to whom the report was really referring. In the late 90’s/early 2000’s, that kind of reference could mean any of the following: David Wells, David Cone, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Orlando Hernandez, Pedro Martinez, Tim Wakefield, Mike Mussina, Sidney Ponson, Scott Erickson, Pat Hentgen, or Roy Halladay. What good could it possibly serve to cast doubt on all of them when you’re only referring to one? Clemens isn’t the best example, since he’s the one that had a close personal relationship to McNamee, but you get the point.

Calling out players by name was the only way to give the report credibility. I do agree that it’s unfortunate that they couldn’t get more sources to speak on the record, and as a result certain teams (the Yankees and Mets, especially) have been implicated more than others. But I don’t think for a second that any fan with half a brain who read the report thinks that the steroid problem is limited to a handful of franchises (Mitchell says as much), and I don’t think you can fault Mitchell for using only the information that he was able to get.

There was a lot of talk before the report was released that trainers and team staffs were asked to speculate on who they thought might have done steroids, but I don’t see any names named in the report based on speculation. Everyone named was either through a federal investigation, a direct source of PED’s, or a teammate, and they all had facts to back up their assertions. They didn’t all have tangible proof, which has led to many apologists to scream “hearsay!” (including a choked-up Peter Gammons in defense of Brian Roberts, but we’ll get to him later), but it’s all Mitchell could get due to the union stonewall. Plus, he gave every player named a chance to speak to him about the allegations, but they all declined. Now we’re supposed to feel sorry for them because their names have suddenly and unfairly been thrust into the public eye?

They all could have refuted the claims in the actual report, but they chose not to, probably because they didn’t want a public record of their fraudulent denials. If Andy Pettitte, for example, told Mitchell “I only used HGH on two different days to help me recover from an injury” and then was later proven to be lying, his lie is out there, in print, for everyone to see for the rest of time. I’m not saying that he’s actually lying, but I think that’s the greater problem here: nobody wants to tell the whole truth, so we’re left with Mitchell telling as much of the truth as he can figure out, and that includes the names.

Mitchell Report Stuff

I'm trying to figure this whole thing out. The steroid thing is pretty cut and dry. Anabolic Steroids (the kind of steroids that athletes use) have been on the federal controlled substance list (meaning they are completely illegal).

HGH does not appear on that list.

You can get HGH legally from a doctor, sort of.

First, it should be mentioned that you can go online and purchase it without a problem. You can purchase it online without a prespricption in pill and spray formats (which many doctors say means it won't work at all either). Some places make you get a doctor's prescription but they are easy to get. Most of their clients are not athletes.

There are only a few completely legal reasons to prescribe HGH for someone, it is estimated that around 75% of the prescriptions written are not for those reasons. This includes clinics that are out there in the open. They are not hiding.

This is where it gets a bit more confusing. In the Mitchell Report it says "The use of HGH is a violation of federal law if not for an authorized purpose, even if with a prescription."

I could not find that anywhere in any law. It is illegal to distribute if not for one of those purposes. Despite it being illegal to distribute, which is not the players' issue, it is being distributed right now for these "illegal uses" out in the open.

5 years ago, well before we were talking about HGH, is it reasonable to say "I went to a clinic that openly advertises HGH for anti-aging, and I took it as it was not a banned substance in baseball or an illegal drug (on the controlled substance list."

In the past few years the laws have been getting a little harder on HGH, and of course it is now a banned substance.

Anybody who was an HGH person prior to 2005 when baseball banned it gets a free-ride in my eyes, including Andy Pettitte.

As far as the report on the whole, it's ridiculously weak, and in my opinion irresponsible. I don't think names should have been named, without a drug test to back up what people said. First it was unfair to the Yankees and Mets. Clearly there were many more people he didn't find out about, it just so happened the two people they were able to get speak were in the Yankee and Met clubhouses. By naming names it makes it seem that the people who were not named are innocent, as opposed to just him not having the source.


The Roger Clemens case Revisited

I think Clemens has a chance to clear is name. Clemens biggest problem in my eyes was he was a "steroids guy", not HGH according to the report. So if it is proven the report is true, you can punish him accordingly.

However, I'm not so sure about proving anything in the report is true, and if he decides to go all out, he can certainly make the case against him look rather weak.

Let's look at the timing. McNamee claims the first time Clemens approached him was in August of 1998. This was not exactly a time that Clemens needed a boost to his career. In 1997, he won the Pitching Triple Crown and his 4th Cy Young award.

In July of 1998 Clemens made 5 starts, going 4-0 with a 1.74 ERA.

Does that sound like a person about to play with performance enhancing drugs for the first time? How do you enhance that?

According to the report there is no knowledge of Clemens using after 1998 until the latter part of the 2000 season. His ERA going into August that year was 3.78 and ended the year at 3.70. Nothing conclusive one way or the other.

Then according to the report they didn't discuss it again until August of 2001. Through July of 2001, Clemens had a won-loss record of 15-1. Does that sound like a person who needs performance enhancers.

The report then says that McNamee never gave Clemens performance enhancing drugs after that. Those years that that includes are his All-Star year in 2003, Cy Young year in 2004, 1.87 ERA year in 2005.

Since he worked so closely with McNamee, it is reasonable to assume that he would not have been getting injections from other people other than him.

There is no proof (to this point) of Clemens buying steroids anywhere. Two of the three times he supposedly started using steroids was when he was perofming at his impressive peak. The timing makes no sense.

The timing of when McNamee talked poorly of Clemens does make sense though. He did so after Clemens fired him. McNamee was in trouble with the Feds. One way to get a reduced sentence is to give a name bigger than yours, he was mad at Clemens and could get a reduced sentence by creatiing this story. (I'm not actually saying he created it or not, but for Clemens' argument, it fits very well).

McNamee is not a sympatheic character as he has a lot of skeletons in his closet. In my opinion Clemens has a very good case against these claims as the timing of when he used makes little to no sense at all. There were other points in his career that he could have used a boost, but not at the points he supposedly used.

Also, according to this, he used it for about 6 months (2 months in 1998, 2 months in 2000, and 2 months in 2001) or a 24 year career. If there is nobody to back up McNamee's claims, Clemens should get out there and point out all of these things. He clearly won't have everybody believe him, but I bet he could turn around enough people to make sure his name is cleared enough for Hall of Fame purposes.

After skimming the report...

I skimmed the report and it wasn't as damaging as I thought it would be to Pettitte and even Clemens.

As for Pettitte, it basically has him using for a couple of weeks while he was on the DL in 2001. That's it.

As for Clemens, it also doesn't have him using after 2001. It was after that his dominant Astro years. Also the timing means that neither of them failed a drug test. I can't imagine either would be suspended as the players' union would never hear for it.

Also, as for their trainer who ratted them out, that didn't happen until after a report that Clemens fired him. The Daily News reported that Clemens let him go in June, his first conversation with Mitchell was in July.

I'm not saying the trainer is lying, but in a court of law a case against Clemens would come up very short. They don't have Clemens ever buying anything. They have no positive drug test. The trainer had previously been quoted as saying that he never gave Clemens anything and the story only changed after Clemens fired him.

I'm not saying it's not true, and while it will hold up in the court of public opinion, it would not under reasonable doubt in a court of law.

The Mitchell Report

I wanted to title this post "LOL!!!!!!!!!" after I read that Clemens is in the report for receiving steroids before and during his time with the Yankees, but I thought that took my irrational hatred for the man too far. I have plenty of questions, though, which I will try to type out in a manner that is readable as I giggle uncontrollably:

- What are the chances that a Santana trade goes down today to try to steal some headlines? 99%?

- Anyone wonder why Tejada was traded yesterday? And why Pettitte officially signed his deal this week?

- Is Clemens a hall-of-famer based on just his years in Boston? I think that's a valid question now, especially since that's the defense everyone uses for Bonds when they talk about his candidacy. Bonds was a hall-of-famer before he likely began juicing. Clemens? Possibly, but I don't think it's a slam dunk.

I realize that I probably think this is more fun than you guys, but wow - today's going to be enjoyable until a Red Sock is named. That's gonna sting.

Game Seven

I love Game Sevens. In any sport, they're fantastic, but there really is nothing better in sports than a Game Seven in baseball. I love the phrase "win or go home." I love the phrase "all hands on deck" even more. That's easily my favorite baseball saying, just ahead of "double-barreled action in the bullpen." And I love the anticipation - I have a paper to write today, and I'm blowing off the game of a historically good Patriots team to write it so I have all afternoon and evening free for Game Seven.

And how do I even count the ways that I love this Game Seven? I can't wait to see Jacoby Ellsbury get another start. I'm hoping I don't have to see him, but I want to know how John Lester can pitch on the grand stage when the Red Sox need him most. I want to see if something happens that I never thought possible: J.D. Drew getting a standing ovation, at Fenway Park, no less. I hope to see C.C. Sabathia being used as a situational lefty, although Eric Wedge will probably leave him in too long. I don't even know how this hilarious Paul Byrd business will affect the game, but there's a 100% chance that I will complain about it repeatedly if the Indians win tonight (will Ross join me?).

I hopeful, of course, because you have to be. I'm hopeful that Matsuzaka won't put too much pressure on himself, and will attack the strike zone and keep his pitch count manageable. I'm hopeful that the Red Sox can finally solve the Jake Westbrook knock-knock joke (he's not really a riddle, is he? He's Jake Westbrook!). I'm hopeful that Eric Wedge will continue to blow this series, after pushing Sabathia too hard in Game Five and using up most of his good relievers in Game Six (I finally know what it was like for Yankee fans playing against a Grady Little-managed team - it feels sweeeeeeeet). I'm hopeful that Troy O'Leary throws out the first pitch. I'm hopeful that the last few innings are rendered meaningless by a huge Red Sox lead, but if they're not, I hope for one or two things, or both: the prominent involvement of David Ortiz and the prominent involvement of Joe Borowski.

Mostly, I hope that the Red Sox finish off their 1986-esque ALCS comeback, and if it happens, I hope that I can get World Series tickets. Fenway is impossible, but the Rockies don't start selling until tomorrow morning, and I've got three other guys committed to a weekend trip to Denver.

I'm giddy. I'm nervous. I'm ready for Game Seven.

The Mother Lode

Well, this investigation sounds like it could get juicy. Already the names of Gary "career year" Matthews Jr. and Evander Holyfield have been released (and Canseco, but he's old news), plus a trainer from the Pittsburgh Steelers and an unnamed player from each of the Washington Redskins and Philadelphia Eagles.

The thing is, none of the people named so far have any business being in an Orlando pharmacy (maybe Holyfield - I have no idea where he lives), so they've definitely got some 'splainin' to do. This is going to get nasty - I can't wait.

The First Unanimous Hall of Famer

Well, it looks like it won't be Roger Clemens. In an interview with Maury Brown, Ken Rosenthal says:

As of this moment—and I reserve the right to change my mind on a question that will not be relevant for at least five years—I will not vote for Clemens on the first ballot. I will not vote for any player from this era first-ballot, though I made exceptions for Ripken and Gwynn and probably will make them for certain others; Glavine and Maddux come to mind.

My feeling is this: We don’t know who did what. We don’t know the impact that performance enhancers had on the game. Therefore, I’m uncomfortable equating the greats from this era with the greats of the pre-steroids past. A first-ballot snub is one way to draw that distinction. Is it unfair to implicate everyone that way? Perhaps. But the players were members of a union that could have agreed to testing or unilaterally adopted it themselves if they did not trust the owners. Instead, they were completely dismissive of the issue.

What will I do with these guys after the first ballot? I have no idea.

One thing people should understand: This is a Hall of Fame vote, not a court verdict. Voters don’t need evidence or proof to render their decisions. We are instructed to consider character, integrity and sportsmanship, creating wide latitude for subjectivity.

I’m not sure what the proper answer is. I’m not sure there is a proper answer. I respect others who disagree with me. The topic is so complex, virtually every point of view is valid. Basically, I will vote my conscience, using the information and perspective that is available to me at the time.

Personally, I think not voting for McGwire is too far, given that he never tested positive, but this a lot worse. I think there's a decent chance Clemens used steroids, but other than pitching well at an old age, there's really no proof. (Unless Rosenthal does know something but is keeping quiet about it).

That being said, since it's Clemens, I'm okay with it.

The Union's Response

Donald Fehr responded to the recent court ruling on the use of seized drug test results in the steroid probe. While I wish that the union would settle down and realize that many players have broken the law (and that I want to know their names, damn it), I don't see how they don't at least consider that the feds aren't trying to nail the players. They're trying to nail Bonds, for sure, but it seems that the whole point of this probe is to get to the dealers and the creators of the drugs.

Of course, they do still have to worry about leaks, and this line of reasoning from Fehr actually made a lot of sense to me:

Under a search warrant seeking information about only 11 baseball players, confidential records for every player were seized, along with confidential records of thousands of other people with no connection to baseball, including many with no connection to sports. The government seeks to retain all of this private information about thousands of people who were not the subject of any criminal inquiry.

It does seem like the government is overstepping its boundaries here. There's a shock.

Anyway how about Fehr going by the full name "Donald M. Fehr" in the press release? What is it with so many people doing that all of a sudden? I see politicians up here using their full names all the time (most notably mayor Thomas M. Menino - formerly just Tom Menino - and senator John F. Kerry). This trend is almost as irritating as hyphenated names. Almost.

2003 Drug Test Results

According to the AP, the government can use seized results of 2003 performance-enhancing drug survey testing as evidence in the its ongoing steroid probe. According the the article, approximately 100 players tested positive, going over the league's 5% threshold and resulting in full-time testing beginning in the 2004 season. I don't know if the names of the 100 players who tested positive will be released, but I'm dying to see the list, even though it will probably include a few of The 25. This probe gets more and more fascinating by the day.

Clemens/Pettitte respond

According to mlb.com.

Pettitte comes right out and says "I've never used any drugs to enhance my performance on a baseball field before." Time will tell if he comes out looking like Raffy Palmiero.

Clemens, on the other hand, has been taking lessons at the Barry Bonds school of denial:

Grimsley never worked out with myself or Andy at any point. I don't know where that's coming from. When it's going to take a serious turn for me is when one of my sponsors pull out, then somebody's going to be responsible for that. Then my lawyers will take over from there.

So, he never worked out with you... but did you do steroids? Feel free to answer the accusation, Rog. And I'm glad that, as always, this is all about money for Clemens. As soon as this affects his wallet, he'll sue you, damnit.

The Grimsley Six

This is marvelous...

Clemens, Pettitte, Tejada, Jay Gibbons, Brian Roberts, and David Segui are the six people named by Jason Grimsley. I have never been happier to see someone linked to steroids as I am about Clemens. Good, good times.

David Segui

He admitted that his was one of the names in the Jason Grimsley affidavit. Of course, he says he was taking HGH legally with a perscription, and advised Grimsley to do the same with his doctor in Florida. Well, that line of BS probably satisfies Bud, but it really makes me angry that Segui (and others) can just lie right to our faces about stuff like this, pretend they're being honest and noble (I'm looking at you, Giambi), and expect us to take everything they say as gospel.

Just admit that you cheated and move on. We're not that dumb.

Terry Mulholland

So far, he comes off as being the biggest dope in this whole thing. Here's what he had to say after Grimsley addressed the team on Tuesday night:

"He (Grimsley) expressed to us that he had too much respect for us to allow
this to bring us down. He's that kind of guy."

Oh, he's that kind of guy. Not the kind of guy who would name names, but the kind of guy who doesn't want to disrupt the team, so he'll just take his full salary and go on his merry way. Not that kind.

By the way, according to Grimsley's lawyer, the feds wanted Grimsley to wear a wire and gather evidence against Bonds. This whole thing is too good to be true...

Who has Back Acne?

There are some interesting nuggets of information in the affidavit for the search warrant of Jason Grimsley's house. It looks like the Feds nabbed Grimsley when he received a package of HGH in the mail. After that, Grimsley must have started yakking without a lawyer or something, because he does name names. For now, the names are blacked out - fill in the blanks!

Grimsley stated that throughout the course of his Major League Baseball career, he has purchased and used the athletic performance-enhancing drugs, anabolic steroids, amphetamines, Clenbuterol and human growth hormone...

Grimsley stated that since Major League Baseball began its drug testing for sterids and amphetamines, the only drug that he has used is human growth hormone...

Grimsley stated that during Major League Baseball's 2003 drug-testing program for anabolic steroids, he tested positive. Grimsley states that ___________________________________ told him about the positive test...

Grimsley described himself as a former user of amphetamines, which he referred to as "greenies" and "beans". Grimsley further states that "they work." He has seen other players taking amphetamines. He stated "everybody had greenies. That's like aspirin." Grimsley stated that until last year, Major League clubhouses had coffee pots labeled "leaded" and "unleaded" for the players, indicating coffee with amphetamines and without...

When asked what other current [or] former Major League Baseball players used athletic performance-enhancing drugs Grimsley named former players ________ and __________. Grimsley stated that this past winter, ____ told him of a doctor in Flordia that he was using [as] a "wellness center" to obtain human growth hormone. _____ told him, "if you are going to do this, you should do it right."...

Grimsley was asked about his knowledge of other Major League Baseball players who took anabolic steroids. Grimsley named _____________, __________ (whom he stated was ____________________), _____________ (whome Grimsley stated was very obvious and had the worst back acne he'd ever seen), and ____________ as anabolic steroid users...

Grimsley also identified ____________, a former Major League Baseball player, as one of his better friends in baseball. Grimsley stated that [he] knows ___________ used human growth hormone and knows that ___________ obtained the human growth hormone from the same source Grimsley obtained his from.

I love how Grimsley ratted out "one of his better friends in baseball". What a great guy.