Pettitte, Vina admit to using HGH; Latest - Clemens denies usage

[craigharmann]

You know what this all sounds like to me? "I smoked, but I didn't inhale". Yes, I did some wrong, but not REALLY wrong. Come on! Either you did something illegal or you didn't.

[thevaccinator27]

http://www.mutantreviewers.com/pc27.jpg

I didn't .... exhale?

 

[sgtcluels]

The thing that doesn't "click" for me is that he said he took it for what.. 2 days? According to a doctor interview on NPR yesterday such a short stint would NOT be therapeutic and you would need a course of HGH for at least 2 weeks before it started to do something. So just saying "I took HGH for 2 days and it made me get better" doesnt' seem to add up in the Medical world.

[ccbrew]

Vina's has to be the work of a recommendation from a publicist or an agent. It seems that most people have had a "well, it's better than staying silent" reaction to the 'apology' for HGH use, so others are taking the same I-did-it-for-the-team route as well. I'd imagine there will be more of the same from other guys within the next week. Nobody wants to touch the alleged steroid use with a ten foot pole, but since admitting HGH use has been seen by many as better than silence, guys are more willing to admit that part.

[Thurston Fluff]

It seems as though HGH and Steroids are now splitting into differant categories. In a way it probably is correct to differentiate the two. One doesn't boost the body to levels it couldn't achieve on it's own the other does. Maybe HGH is really somewhere between amphetamenes and steroids. Uppers, caffeine included, may help a player play at his normal level a night after partying. HGH may help a player stay at the level of it's youth for a longer period of time than it normally would have. Steroids helps a player do something they couldn't without using it. Amphetamenes help that day but really doesn't take jobs away from players who chose not to use them. HGH by artificially preserving the body does take someones job away. If, for example, Clemens used HGH and it helped him play a couple extra years that means someone else wouldn't have a chance to get their career started. Steroids, the gold standard for chemical cheats, are the only ones that actually make someone physically better than they ever could have been alone.

All in all for me any use of a drug that makes it harder for someone not using it to get a job is bad enough to make me look down on the user.

[RU Rah Rah]

Balto. Sun is reporting that Brian Roberts has admitted to 'roid use. It seems as though the standard excuse is going to be, "I just did it once, and I had a good reason."

[Big Reed]

The Vina interview on ESPN is a classic. he had to know before the interview that he was going to be asked about the three checks he wrote. And then when asked, his mind went blank and he says, it could have been for a lot of things, he didn't remember, but it definitely wasn't for steriods. he was positive about that. the checks were for , you know , stuff. it could have been for any number of things. One of the checks was a certified check. if I went to the trouble of getting a certified check made out, I would remember what it was for. Was Vina having a senior moment? His acting job reading from his script wasn't believable. Funny, yes. Believable - NO. Perhaps the next baseball player will practice his speech a little more. At least Raffy looked impressive in those congressional hearings waving his finger and stuff like that. i guess Like Mark says, we should all just be looking forward and to the future and forget about the past.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Now I'm not trying to make light of the situation, I think the steroid problem is serious, and needs to be addressed (even moreso than it is now), but I really can't be all that disturbed by someone taking a prescription drug that they obtained illegally when it wasn't banned by MLB. Really, my reaction to this is "big deal". This isn't any different than say, Brett Favre eating Vicodin like candy, and just about everyone was willing to give him a pass on that one.

 

I'm just saying, as far as "seriousness of offense" goes, taking a prescription drug illegally really is pretty tame.

[Thurston Fluff]

but I really can't be all that disturbed by someone taking a prescription drug that they obtained illegally when it wasn't banned by MLB.

 

Taking perscription drugs without a valid perscription was banned in baseball since 1971. I wish people would quite with the it wasn't illegal in baseball.

[jwaltz]

Brian Roberts has now came clean. He confirms what the Mitchell report said. The report says he only did it once or twice and he confirmed it.

[Fear The Chorizo]

but I really can't be all that disturbed by someone taking a prescription drug that they obtained illegally when it wasn't banned by MLB.

 

Taking perscription drugs without a valid perscription was banned in baseball since 1971. I wish people would quite with the it wasn't illegal in baseball.

The issue with that is there wasn't a decent drug testing program for the substances that could be used as performance enhancing drugs. It's one thing to make a rule saying such and such is illegal - if time, money, and effort aren't spent on enforcing such a rule, there's no point in even declaring it. With no testing for these substances in baseball, that 1971 rule essentially had no teeth...comparable to some of those random state laws that surface every once in a while that society has evolved beyond and lawmakers never bothered to change or enforce.

[Thurston Fluff]

Of all the guys who needed to come clean Roberts was one of the few that could have lied and got away with it. So in a small way I'll give him some credit for being honest when he was one of the few who didn't need to be. His inclusion was one of the real weak ones that got the ESPN taking heads started one discrediting the whole report because of it's inclusion. When the weakest link proves to be true I guess it should go some way towards validating the stronger case's validity.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I think the naming of players in the Mitchell report really wasn't the greatest idea - yes, we found out who was involved with a shady clubhouse attendant and shady personal trainers. There are obviously many, many more names left off that report that were far more involved in performance-enhancing drugs than some of the names mentioned in it. I think the intent was to show that if 86 players could be linked to only two sources/suppliers of PEDs, who knows how many other players were using countless other sources. What has ended up happening in the public's eye is that only the players mentioned in the Mitchell report used PEDs, when in reality the bulk of the Mitchell report is what two people have given statements on to keep their butts out of jail.

[Big Reed]

yes , taking a prescription drug without a prescription is illegal. So is smoking marijuana. So is going 75 MPH on I 94. let's take it another a step farther and closer to reality. Your wife has alergies. She's also female. Until a couple of years ago, claritin and motrin were considered prescription drugs. however, they were frequently prescribed to females. You've been working real hard in the sun all day long, triming the trees and rototilling the garden. You come into the house and have back pain and a headache and are sneezing from all the pollen in the air. your wife realizing your sorrow reaches into her purse and offers you a motrin or a claritin . Are you going to say no honey, that's a prescrption drug and it would be illegal for me to take it? Are you going to tell your wife she has to go to the medicine closet to get the sudafed or tylenol because they are legal? or are you going to take the motrin and get rid of your back pain? or are you going to take the prescription claritin to get rid of your sinus headache.

 

on a related note, is viagra a prescription drug? was it at one time and now it's over the counter? if you were offered some, would you refuse it? Could a baseball player have violated that 1971 drug policy for taking viagra without a prescription? That could be interesting having a player suspended for taking too much viagra. Just think of the poor guy who was a multiple offender.

[TooLiveBrew]

Fernando, your use of steroids makes Albert Belle nearly decapitating you in the basepath at County Stadium even more funny now. C'mon - you were juicing, and couldn't put any weight into it?

 

http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

One of the most jaw-dropping things I've ever seen in person at a sporting event.

[Thurston Fluff]

The issue with that is there wasn't a decent drug testing program for the substances that could be used as performance enhancing drugs. It's one thing to make a rule saying such and such is illegal - if time, money, and effort aren't spent on enforcing such a rule, there's no point in even declaring it.

 

Since there is no testing for gambling on baseball what's the point having that policy? Since the Michell report didn't rely on testing to name names yet got 80 some names and admissions of guilt from players it seems pretty obvious to me that testing isn't the only way to root out the cheaters. The report also endorsed taking steps beyond testing. Something that I think should have, and could have, been done a long time ago.

 

yes , taking a prescription drug without a prescription is illegal. So is smoking marijuana. So is going 75 MPH on I 94. let's take it another a step farther and closer to reality.

 

If people were saying baseball didn't ban speeding then this would be relevant to the subject. In reality taking viagra without a perscription is illegal in baseball. So what? How does that change the fact that it was specificaly spelled out that you can't take PED's without a legal, valid, perscription? How does that arguement change the fact that claiming it wasn't banned in baseball was a false claim? Simply put it doens't change the facts regardless of how you try to spin them. It was banned in baseball since 1971. The fact that said ban encompassed more than just PED's doesn't change the fact that it indeed did include PED's.

What people are saying is PED's weren't explicitly illegal in baseball yet that is not true. It was explcitily illegal and spelled out as such in baseball yet people still trot out the same old false line that it wasn't banned by baseball. That is untrue. How many differant ways does that need to be spelled out?

[TooLiveBrew]

http://mlb.mlb.com/images/2005/08/01/BRM6yZtE.jpg

 

Let me start by telling you this: I have never used Viagra, period. I don't know how to say it anymore clearly than that. Never.

[RU Rah Rah]

I think we're conflating two separate but related issues in this whole debate.

 

One is the issue of sheer "legality" (as defined in terms of criminal law, or MLB standards). I agree that this can be a little murky, and that it would be difficult, based on the evidence presented in the Mitchell Report and elsewhere, to establish beyond-reasonable-doubt guilt for many of the offenses that we've heard about.

 

But the second issue is one of basic ethics. Was it right, or was it wrong? Forget about whether it technically violated the rules, or whether the accuser is a "sewer rat," or whether it should DQ a guy from the HOF, or whatever.

 

For me, what's telling here is that the players themselves clearly seem to have understood that they were doing something ethically questionable because they refused to address their usage of HGH or steroids until after the Mitchell Report came out and they were basically exposed. That speaks volumes to me.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Since there is no testing for gambling on baseball what's the point having that policy? Since the Michell report didn't rely on testing to name names yet got 80 some names and admissions of guilt from players it seems pretty obvious to me that testing isn't the only way to root out the cheaters. The report also endorsed taking steps beyond testing. Something that I think should have, and could have, been done a long time ago.

 

There's no testing for gambling in baseball? You lost me - there may not be testing (not sure what that even means regarding sports gambling), but if there's evidence of a player gambling in baseball, there are severe consequences. Once there's legit proof, there's swift and decisive punishment. My point is that even though prescription drugs were declared "illegal" in 1971, they had NO good drug policy in place to test for such PEDs. With no testing, you get no concrete proof, and without concrete proof, you have a very difficult time administering punishment without an uproar from the players' union. The culture of steroids and PEDs became acceptable in baseball, because there wasn't a way to effectively enforce baseball's drug policy. Blame should be equally levied to the players, owners, comissioners, organizations, trainers, everyond associated with the game.

 

The portions of the Mitchell report that discuss steps that could be taken to improve their drug testing policies are well and good, but I hope for MLB's sake that suspensions aren't handed out to players just because they were named in the report. Doing so without a failed drug test starts to turn this thing into a witch hunt from the past, and into a he said/he did accusation game with no end in sight should other sources start rattling off names. Baseball should adopt everything the Mitchell report suggests in their current drug policy, and move forward. Continuing to dwell in the past takes the focus on the present and future health of baseball, and hopefully the lessons learned and subsequent policies implemented as a result of the steroid era benefit the game.

[Thurston Fluff]

There's no testing for gambling in baseball? You lost me

 

If I was reading your arguement correctly it was basically since there was no testing for banned substances it didn't have any teeth. The implication you seemed to be getting at was if it didn't have proceedures in place to discover cheaters that it wasn't really banned. Granted I was reading into a hidden assumption but I'm not sure what else that could have meant wihtin the context of the arguement.

If I'm wrong about that please clairify what that statement was getting at.

My counter to that is there wasn't testing for gambling but that doesn't mean the rule wasn't in place. Just because there are no explicit procedures in place to catch cheaters doesn't somehow mean it isn't cheating or it wasn't specifically banned.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Clemens refutes report.....

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3160063

 

Interesting, to say the least.

[Thurston Fluff]

I find it curious that he wouldn't have accepted the invitation to tell his side of the story to Mitchell when asked. Honestly if I hadn't done anything wrong I'd have been in his office the next day with lawyers, dogs, artilley and the piece of bat Clemens threw at Piazza. If he wasn't willing to answer the allegations in the one place that could have prevented his name from coming out or at the very least have his version of why his name came up. What he is doing seems to me to be a way to control the way he spins his side without the other side getting the same chance to defend themselves in the same fashion they offered him. Sorry dude butI'm not buying it. You're the same as Bonds to me. An arrogant, self centered, wienie who just couldn't give up the limelight when the time came.

[RU Rah Rah]

If Clemens really is as innocent as he claims to be, I expect he will initiate legal action against his accuser and perhaps Mitchell / MLB. If he does that and testifies under oath, then I'm going to be willing to believe him. Otherwise . . . not so much.

[iluvlamp]

RU, I agree with you. If he was innocent he could have just talked to Mitchell about what he was going to report. Clemens and Bonds are just two peas in a pod, huh? The steroid denial playbook is in full force.

 

1. NO, I never did anything.

2. Silence

3. Caught and say I only used HGH once or twice when I wanted to heal...not for any advantage whatsoever.

4. Clemens...we will find where it leads. Probably the same way as Bonds has.

[LouisEly]

It seems as though the standard excuse is going to be, "I just did it once, and I had a good reason."

 

 

I was going to say the exact same thing... as soon as one person said "I used it once in 2003/2004 (before it was illegal) and didn't like it/changed my mind/realized it was bad and never used it again" I knew that was going to be the excuse du-jour. Look for everyone named to do the same thing.