Mitchell steroid probe; Latest - Clemens headed to Court; Congress

[orca1963]

"I think Congress should get off baseball's back and start looking from the other side. make it a given that all athletes take some sort of drug/juice. rather than clamping down on the sport, they should start clamping down on the unethical doctors prescribing the drugs and the producers of the drugs".

 

 

I am torn on this one. While I don't think with everything else going on in the world this is a high priority for our beloved congress to be dealing with, I have such a love of the game itself that I don't want it to be going down the road it is. In other words I do want MLB to be held accountable to the highest degree. The athletes that used any substance that they felt the need to hide or make up something to tell there doctor or got talked into by someone knew damn well they were cheating. These are not children, they are grown men who either cheated or turned away while others did mostly because of greed. Barry Bonds would have been a HOFmer had he never cheated. He may not have (maybe he would have anyway) posted the kind of numbers he did but he was a damn good ball player. How any one who calls themself a man can look in the mirror and claim stats he knows he got illegally is beyond me. Maybe I am just lucky because of the values my father instilled in me. (he was my little league coach) Winning is important, hell it's the reason to play the game, but cheating is cheating.

 

I couldn't care less what happens in the other sports (not an endorsement for cheating) but I want the game I love to be played the way it is supposed to be. I want kids to look at the athletes and aspire to be like them because they did it with integrity. If congress can be the way that gets done then I am all for them making an example of MLB.

 

Thank God we have ethical men and women in congress to do this.....uh...yeh...anyway.

[don1481]

Lawyer: Pettitte to back trainer

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Roger Clemens will not be sending Andy Pettitte any more holiday cards...

[RU Rah Rah]

Wow, I just read this Pettite stuff. It doesn't exactly "prove" that Clemens was using, but, if true, it certainly backs up McNamee's story. (He would have had zero reason to lie about Clemens to Pettitte back then.)

[RU Rah Rah]

More bad news for Clemens:

According to a report by the New York Daily News, Brian McNamee, Clemens' former personal trainer, has turned over physical evidence to federal investigators that could support the findings in the Mitchell Report.

"This is evidence the government has that we believe will corroborate Brian in every significant way," McNamee lawyer Earl Ward told the Daily News.

McNamee's attorneys did not tell the paper the exact nature of the evidence, but the Daily News cited a source close to McNamee as saying investigators are now in possession of vials with traces of steroids and growth hormone, as well as blood-stained syringes and gauze pads that may contain Clemens' DNA.

[foamboy1]

Utter legal genius to leak the news of possible physical evidence between the deposition and next week's testimony. He's now on record, yet has public testimony next week. McNamee strikes back, raising the terror level beyond Orange!

 

If he indeed was a user, that evidence is akin to Monica's blue dress.

[bill hAll Star]

Even if Clemens is guilty(which I have felt he is for some time now) and these syringes are really from the injections, Clemens lawyers are probably going to make it very hard to prove that these pieces of evidence weren't tampered with or manufactured within the last 7 or 8 years that Mcnamee has been holding on to them.

[RU Rah Rah]

Even if Clemens is guilty(which I have felt he is for some time now) and these syringes are really from the injections, Clemens lawyers are probably going to make it very hard to prove that these pieces of evidence weren't tampered with or manufactured within the last 7 or 8 years that Mcnamee has been holding on to them.

Oh, I am sure that they will have all kinds of spin. McNamee could have the injections on video, with Clemens saying, "Thanks for the 'roids!" and they would try to come up with some kind of explanation.

 

 

[Cyanogen5]

Even if Clemens is guilty, it is a little weird for McNamee to have kept this stuff for so long. What was it he said was the reason he did? Because he was afraid that Clemens would deny using PED's? Sounds like planning blackmail the entire time. It is all a little strange for me. Isn't it possible that Clemens got a cortizome shot with the syringe, but McNamee then put steroids in them? Maybe the blood came from a bloody nose, or a scab? I am not saying Clemens is innocent, but this is pretty flimsy and circumstantial stuff. I don't think it proves anything, having sat around with 8 or so years to be tampered with.

[crewcrazy]

The New York Daily News is now reporting that not only is McNamee saying he injected Clemens, but that he also injected Clemens' wife Debbie with HGH prior to a Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot. Link: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2008/02/08/2008-02-08_source_brian_mcnamee_testified_roger_cle.html

 

"McNamee discussed his [Clemens'] wife's use before the committee," according to the source. "She was trying to get in shape for the SI cover. He told them the story that Debbie took growth." McNamee testified that he injected her at Roger Clemens' direction, according to the source.

 

Now the Daily News is basically a tabloid, so I don't know how credible this "source" really is, but if McNamee has stuff on Clemens' wife too it doesn't look good for Roger. I can't wait for Clemens' attorney's response.

[RU Rah Rah]

How much weirder can this story get? Clemens' wife? I suppose there are two ways of reading this:

 

1.) McNamee is completely off his rocker, and is just fabricating crazy stuff to defame Clemens; or

2.) Given the stakes, McNamee wouldn't be stupid enough to claim this kind of stuff unless it was true.

[T B0NE 10]

this is really getting crazy now....cant wait to see how this plays out

[Big Reed]

I find it odd that the testimonies of Chiuckie knoblauch, pettitt and clemens were all kept secret, but the testimony of Mc Namee was leaked to the press by an unidentified washington source.

 

I think President Bush needs to start a new committee hearing to look into the secrecy of his committee hearings. This isn't the first time information has leaked from these type of supposedly secret hearings. Just ask Barry Bonds. it's as if there is a microphone in the room with a destination to the Washington Post and New York Post. it's not like Congress has anything else to do. Forget the review of the annual budget which is already 5 months late. We need our Congress to sort out who is lyeing about taking HGH.

 

Now that we know Mrs Clemens was on the juice, I wonder how many other SI swimsuit models have been taking the juice too? forget baseball. I want to know how many of those other past SI models were natural or using HGH and steriods t o create an unfair advantage. Was Crawford natural, or was she on supplements? And what about Dolly Parton? natural? or using supplements to her advantage? We need this to be investigated! I nominate myself! it may take me a decade to find out the real truth, but it will be worth it.

[iluvlamp]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/sports/baseball/12clemens.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

 

Looks definite that Pettite rolled. Clemens is so screwed. Makes me laugh.

[RU Rah Rah]

McNamee's lawyers say that Pettitte, in the past, talked with both McNamee and Clemens, separately, about Clemens's use of human-growth hormone.

 

Yeah, if Pettitte fingers Clemens like this, then it's pretty much over. There's no way that Clemens' lawyers can really impugn Pettitte's integrity/credibility without making themselves look totally desperate.

[iluvlamp]

Only thing they can do, RU, is say Pettitte is a liar and a cheater. Hmmm.

[RU Rah Rah]

(Laughs.) Exactly. And if he's named by Pettitte, he's going to look all that much worse for having denied things so vehemently. (And it's going to open him up to all kinds of perjury charges.)

 

I keep wondering what Clemens' strategy might have been. I suppose he could have tried to stay somewhat above the fray by admitting that he might have inadvertently taken some "supplements" that -- lo and behold! -- turned out to be HGH or steroids. Who knows if that would have worked, but it probably would not have been worse than his current hyper-aggressive approach -- deny everything across the board, attack the accuser, and generally act like a bully. (Even some members of Congress have wondered why he's been roaming the halls and lobbying them before these hearings.)

 

As it stands now, he's kind of locked into what appears to be a lie.

[Fatter than Joey]

John Rocker just said -- The Rangers gave lectures and seminars on how to use steroids.

[RobertR]

John Rocker just said -- The Rangers gave lectures and seminars on how to use steroids.

Well you should consider the source. That doesn't bode well for Doug Melvin's reputation though.

 

Robert

[Fatter than Joey]

Well you should consider the source.

 

Agreed, and that was my first thought -- however, after the last "bad source" -- Jose Canseco, I thought this merited attention. Your point is well taken though, but I am not sure what Rocker has to gain if this is not true.

 

That doesn't bode well for Doug Melvin's reputation though.

 

This was the main reason I posted this -- however I think Melvin and Rocker missed each other, so I don't think DM is in any "trouble" directly -- but on the other hand -- I can't imagine that the first thing John Hart did was show the boys where on the butt the needle goes.

[RU Rah Rah]

I am glad to see that some members of Congress are not responding to the Clemens PR campaign. From today's NYT:

 

Mark Souder, a Republican from Indiana, refused to meet with Clemens. "They were very persistent," he said in an interview on Tuesday. "I had to tell them, 'It's not a scheduling problem - it's that I don't want to meet with him.' "

Souder added of Clemens: "He's wandering around the Hill like it's a campaign. It's unseemly."

[brewizard]

 <big>[b]Has anybody noticed the resemblance between Clemens and Napoleon? [img=http://i30.tinypic.com/2wci261.jpg] [img=http://www.ceryx.de/kunst/hb_delaroche_napoleonfontainebleau.jpg][/b]</big> 

[Big Reed]

Now petitte has admitted to also taking HGH in 2004. he claims his dad got them for him. I think we all knew his claim of using them only twice in 2002 and then feeling bad about using them, so he quit was kind of lame. for fantasy purposes, admiting t o use of HGH in 2004 is going t o cost Pettite some games in 2008. then again, good buddy Bud has done nothing t o an y of the players who have come out and admitted use.

 

Maybe Bud will have an amnisty day and give amnisty to every player that comes clean and admits their past usage. we all know there are a lot more users than reported in the mitchell report. All the mitchell report covered was the north east section of baseball. There had to be several dealers on the West coast as well. perhaps barry could do us all a favor and start telling the truth and namimng a few suppliers.

 

i really think an amnisty day would be a good thing. people wh o are drug users are allowed to go into a rehab without being prosecuted or doing jail time. if baseball really wanted an accurate account, this would be one way of doing so.

 

I'm still upset the focus remains on baseball. I have to believe 90% of all football players use HGh as if it were a protein shake. i can't believe more documents/suppliers have not been located.

[Patrick425]

Is anyone watching or listening to this? You could make a drinking game out of it. Every time they use the phrase "Roger's (or Clemems') buttocks"..take a drink.

[Invader3K]

Not really paying attention to it. Has anything substantive been said or happened so far?

[Patrick425]

I have it on, but I'm not really devoting my full attention to it, but just caught something about a nanny. Apperantly they asked Clemens to provide the name of his nanny. Clemen's told them he would get that to him. Then Clemens had the nanny come over last Sunday to talk to her before he handed over her name to the committee, and Waxman grilled him as to why he would have felt the need to do that. Clemen's lawyers got in a big uproar about the questioning regarding the nanny.