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

[GAME05]

"So basically, judging by this list, steroids make you an amazing top tier athlete, except all those times when they don't."

 

I'm thinking more like All-Stars become superstars and players who don't have the talent to make it out of Single-A get to see a couple years at the MLB level.

[wOOgiE22]

Wow no Eckstein on that report?! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

None of those names surprised me the least, especially Brian Roberts. He was a nobody and all of a sudden came out of nowhere and had a huge year.

[SeriesFinale]

"So basically, judging by this list, steroids make you an amazing top tier athlete, except all those times when they don't."

 

I'm thinking more like All-Stars become superstars and players who don't have the talent to make it out of Single-A get to see a couple years at the MLB level.

Yeah, that's another way to look at it.

 

What do you know, The Mitchell Report isn't the be-all end-all of the steroids debate

[JohnBriggs12]

In perusing the report one thing is obvious. That all they had was developed from two sources. It would stand to reason that many other players not named had different suppliers. We'll never know the full extent. That's why MLB isn't likely to do anything about the guys named. Many others likely got away with it.

 

The big news in this report revolves around Clemens.

 

It will be interesting to see if guys "busted" on here reveal other names.

[bjkrautk]

Just compiling after reading most of the names, so I probably missed a few:

 

Brewers w/ exposure to steroids before joining team:

Turnbow (andro, not-banned by MLB at time)

Fernando Vina (purchases started after time w/ Brewers, but knew trainer from Mets)

Gary Bennett

David Bell

Eric Gagne

 

 

After

Ricky Bones

Josias Manzanillo

Gary Sheffield

Steve Woodard (unconfirmed)

Ron Villone

[sgtcluels]

Are roids the key to pretty hair like David Bells?

[SmartBall]

Looking at some of the names it becomes clear to see why bullpens are so erratic from year to year. There are a number of guys in there like Brendan Donnely that came out of nowhere to be really good relief pitchers for a year or two and then they just blew up. Really gives me a lot of confidence in Mota this year.

[LUKE232323]

The only question that matters to me is will this cause Gagne to miss any games next season?

[ELCABALLO45]

Am i the only one "not impressed" by this?

[Team Canada]

When I saw Gagne at his press conference here I thought wow look at how tiny he got! He must have been on the juice!? Looks like thats confirmed

 

In all fairness, Brian Anderson commented on this in his post about Gagne, and most, if not all, of the weight loss is extremely recent, because he's able to run and workout full strength again. Not because he was taking HGH in 2004.

 

[yoyo49]

HGH wasn't banned in the MLB until 2005. The report says Gagne ordered it in 2004. I assume this reduces his chances of being suspended in 2008.

[Oldcity]

No I'm not that wowed either. I actually expected more "big" names.

[twobrewers]

*Applauds all current Brewers not on the list*

 

I would have been devasted to see Prince, Braun and Hall et all on the list.

[BrewCrewForever]

*Applauds all current Brewers not on the list*

 

I would have been devasted to see Prince, Braun and Hall et all on the list.

I here that! And I still have love for Gagne, as long as he is done with the roids and closes games Im fine with him.

 

[Mr QL]

Interested in Gagne's response. Hopefully he doesn't get suspended or at least not for too long.

[thablingster]

I'm just glad to not see Jenkins, Sexson, Burnitz, etc. on there.

[Tbadder]

This has confirmed my suspcions (yes, I know it's still early) but roids doesn't necessarily make you better or good or any thing. It looks like in some cases it can make you worse. Is this the tip of the iceberg? Very happy to see how prominent Clemens is, always hated the dude, but not as much as his accolades.

[SmartBall]

I was glad to see the Brewers heroes of the past absent from the list too, but seeing as all of these players were basically connected to two trainers, I still am not convinced that none of those guys took roids and got away with it.

[naivin]

Well, in the opinion of that Red Sox scout, unless Gagne keeps sticking needles in his butt, Doug Melvin just threw $10million bucks out the window.

[Fear The Chorizo]

*Applauds all current Brewers not on the list*

 

I would have been devasted to see Prince, Braun and Hall et all on the list.

The reality is that Baseball's minor league system had a much better testing program in place well before MLB finally started its PED program. I was never overly concerned with the young players on the Brewers (or any other team, for that matter) getting implicated in this report, unless they had previously tested positive during a drug test - which would have been made public at the time, anyway.

 

If this report shows us anything, it's that players coming into this league for the past 4-5 years have been playing under much stricter drug policies than players who came through the minors and broke into the bigs in the late 90's.

 

This report is definitely NOT something MLB should be able to impose suspensions with - the entire report concerning naming players uses evidence from only two sources/suppliers. The players who were mentioned in this report were either too stupid to not write personal checks (which leave a paper trail) to their suppliers, or directly linked to the sources. I'd suspect that during the 90's, there were many more personal trainers, clubhouse attendants, agents, friends, etc who were smarter in how they went about purchasing, distributing, or talking about steroids, hgh, etc.

 

We'll never truly know all the players who bought and used PEDs, because baseball's powers that be turned and looked the other way for over a decade while the culture of acceptable steroid use was developed leading up to and especially after the strike of 1994.

[DuWayne Steurer]

First off, I almost have to say "big deal" to all this, as it's almost certain that no suspensions will or should come of it.

 

Secondly, regarding Gagne, HGH wasn't banned by baseball when he was taking it (IF it was HGH he was taking, and not steroids) and as far as I know, HGH isn't illegal to use personally. I know a lot of people (myself included) don't see how a sport should have to say something is banned from that sport if it's illegal by law to begin with, but that's neither here nor there.

 

Long story short, if Gagne was only using HGH, I don't see how he can be punished for using something that wasn't banned at the time he was using it.

[jaybird2001wi]

Although Burnitz was not named in the report, he was with the Mets for two stints around the time said trainer was with the team. I would not be surprised if Radomski provided Burnitz with PEDs while Burnitz was entering the Majors with the Mets.

 

Does anyone believe this report will cause players named in the report to cry foul and want to rat out other players? MLB players have a long-standing "mafia defense" where players could get "outted" and "blacklisted" if they "talk bad about the 'family.'"

[Samurai Bucky]

In the footnote on page SR-6, it says:

 

Lawyers from Foley & Lardner LLP played a separate but important role as counsel for
the Commissioner and Major League Baseball. Lawyers from Foley & Lardner did not
participate in many of the interviews that we conducted and had no role in preparing this report
other than reviewing it, as representatives of the Commissioner, three days before its release.

 

Does Ulice Payne work for Foley? I don't remember where he went after he left Reinhart, Boerner and before he ran the Brewers.

[TooLiveBrew]

Here is one particularly troubling tidbit, imho:

 

"A former major league player stated that in 2003 he was tested as a part of the survey testing program. He said that in Sept. 2004, Gene Orza of the Players Association told him that he had tested positive and that he would be tested in the next two weeks. Independently, Kirk Radomski told us that this former player had earlier told him the same thing about Orza's statements shortly after the converstation between Orza and the former player occurred. In addition, the former player Larry Bigbie told us that the same [previously noted] former player had told him the same thing about his conversation with Orza.

Furthermore, according to Bigbie, in 2004 a current player admitted to Bigbie that he also had been told by a representative of the Players Association that he had tested positive for steroids in 2003.

I am not permitted to identify either the former player with whom we spoke or the current player who made the admission to Bigbie [due to confidentiality with MLB/MLBPA]..." (p. SR-26 & 27)

 

Wow. Just wow.

 

That, and the scouting reports/'internal [team] discussions' on how they know/knew guys were juicing or not juicing, and how the player(s) could get back on the juice... like the snippet on the Dodgers evaluating Lo Duca as to whether or not to trade him:

 

"Steroids aren't being used on him anymore. Big part of this. Might have some value to trade... Florida might have interest... Got off the steroids... Took away a lot of hard line drives... Can get comparable value back would consider trading... If you do trade him, will get back on the stuff and try to show you he can have a good year. That's his makeup. Comes to play. Last year of contract, playing for 05" (p. 209, bottom, doc. page #)

 

That's sickening. Being used "on him"? Is he a dairy cow? It'd seem a similar comparison. He "comes to play" because he uses steroids? I have to get away from this for a while. The stuff about MLB/MLBPA/Clubs knowing, condoning, & operating with this was the #1 thing I hoped to not be true.

[Thurston Fluff]

The number of personal checks used is staggering. Makes you wonder how many other players there were that weren't stupid enough to be caught.

 

I think that points to the culture aspect Michell was talking about. It was so common and so accepted as part of the game that no one seemed to feel it was ever going to come back to haunt them.

 

I was less interested in the names as I was in the recommendations he makes going forward. In the past I have advocated baseball establishing an investigative branch to root out players and dealers. It was nice to hear him address that early in the press conference. I really hope they do something along that line to compliment testing. I think that would go further to eliminating the culture of acceptance than peeing in a cup will. It's easy to take something that can't be tested for. As this report shows it's harder to cover the paper trail needed to aquire them.