Congress summons Clemens & McNamee

[Boy Howdy]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/sports/baseball/05clemens.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch & Kirk Radomski are all supposed to be there too.

[Frobby]

Ha ha ha. Let the Yankees squirm a little for once.

[Migrant Redbird]

Any bets on whether Roger does a Palmeiro or a McGwire?

For what it's worth, I'd come closer to believing Raffie and/or Mark than Rog. McNamee was giving sworn testimony, subject to perjury if he lied, and he already had enough verified stuff -- supported by Radomski's bank records -- to give the feds without throwing Roger under the bus. Rog's buddy Andy confessed, which makes it seem more and more likely that Rog's denials are nothing more than bluster.

I'm betting that Roger follows McGwire's strategy. If he tries to do a Palmeiro, he's setting himself up for federal perjury charges and some serious penitentiary time. The HOF ain't worth it, Rog!

[Boy Howdy]

The HOF ain't worth it, Rog!

I hate to sound like a broken record, but since I'm in a store full of records -some of which are broken- here goes:

If baseball keeps a 7-time Cy Young award winner (Clemens) & the all-time Home Run king (Bonds) out of a Hall of Fame that already refuses to admit the sport's all-time hit leader (Pete Rose), then I'll seriously have to ponder whether the shrine in Cooperstown is promoting the baseball we pay good money to watch or demeaning it.

[Frobby]

I hate to sound like a broken record, but since I'm in a store full of records -some of which are broken- here goes:

If baseball keeps a 7-time Cy Young award winner (Clemens) & the all-time Home Run king (Bonds) out of a Hall of Fame that already refuses to admit the sport's all-time hit leader (Pete Rose), then I'll seriously have to ponder whether the shrine in Cooperstown is promoting the baseball we pay good money to watch or demeaning it.

It does make it interesting, doesn't it? But these players brought those consequences upon themselves.

Let's let time pass before making any judgments. Bonds will be tried for perjury and we will learn a lot about the strength of the case against him and exactly what he did. Clemens and MacNamee will testify at the hearing and maybe we'll get a libel case, too. In the next 5 years, there will be other disclosures about other players, and all of this will have fully settled in. I'm glad that the writers will have those 5 years to think about this.

[66-70-83-??]

I hate to sound like a broken record, but since I'm in a store full of records -some of which are broken- here goes:

If baseball keeps a 7-time Cy Young award winner (Clemens) & the all-time Home Run king (Bonds) out of a Hall of Fame that already refuses to admit the sport's all-time hit leader (Pete Rose), then I'll seriously have to ponder whether the shrine in Cooperstown is promoting the baseball we pay good money to watch or demeaning it.

Many people think that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and others are demeaning the game.

Pete Rose disqualified himself (knowingly) from consideration.

There is still plenty of memorabilia and displays about Rose (and Clemens/Bonds for that matter). But, he will just never have his mug on a plaque in the gallery.

[Boy Howdy]

Many people think that Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and others are demeaning the game.

Pete Rose disqualified himself (knowingly) from consideration.

There is still plenty of memorabilia and displays about Rose (and Clemens/Bonds for that matter). But, he will just never have his mug on a plaque in the gallery.

What's next? Do we strike the Giants pennant in 2002 from the record books? Award the titles the Yankees won with Clemens to the teams that lost the World Series? Can we all get refunds for every ticket we purchased to watch "dirty" players?

RHP Tom House's big league career covered 1971-78, and

"House estimated that six or seven pitchers on every staff were "fiddling" with steroids or growth hormone. He said the drugs and devoted conditioning improved his recovery, but his velocity didn't budge."

from

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/05/03/SPGSTCJ0SK1.DTL

I usually don't get too worked up about steroids issues, but it seems like MLB is in danger of committing suicide while Congress simultaneously targets it for homicide.

[Migrant Redbird]

If baseball keeps a 7-time Cy Young award winner (Clemens) & the all-time Home Run king (Bonds) out of a Hall of Fame that already refuses to admit the sport's all-time hit leader (Pete Rose), then I'll seriously have to ponder whether the shrine in Cooperstown is promoting the baseball we pay good money to watch or demeaning it.

FWIW, I don't believe that Clemens and Bonds should be kept out of the HOF either, any more than I think that Palmeiro, McGwire, and Rose should be excluded. However, recent polls have shown that half or more of fans think they ought to be kept out if they used steroids. Realistically, if the fans think that way, it's going to be difficult to get 75 percent of the BBWA members to set aside their prejudices and their sense of righteousness and vote anyone suspected of steroid use in on the first ballot.

My rationale is that you just discount their performance as much as you feel appropriate, given that you really don't know if any ball player in or out of the HOF used steroids/amphetamines or not, and go ahead and vote for them if they meet your personal criteria.

I don't have any heartburn if McGwire has to wait for the veterans committee to vote him in; if he's not happy about that, he should have gone ahead and testified. I don't assume that taking the 5th (which technically, Mark didn't do) makes anyone guilty, but it certainly helps to erode that "reasonable doubt" a little.

[Migrant Redbird]

RHP Tom House's big league career covered 1971-78, and

"House estimated that six or seven pitchers on every staff were "fiddling" with steroids or growth hormone. He said the drugs and devoted conditioning improved his recovery, but his velocity didn't budge."

I am fairly confident that baseball's "steroid era" began by 1960 at the latest, and probably anywhere from 30-80 years earlier than that. How many baseball players before 1900 used patent medicines? Nobody knows what was in those concoctions except that most of them were laced with alcohol and/or cocaine along with other "secret" ingredients. Any halfway competent lab technician with access to a decent chemical laboratory could have extracted testosterone from animal testes (along with lots of impurities) and put it into their patent medicines or passed it along to a friend playing ball. The only catch is that it probably would have needed to be injected to be effective (I believe the stomach breaks down testosterone), which would have been rather dangerous given the impurities. However, I take prednisone orally (another steroid) and it's quite effective for my asthma, so I suppose drinking patent medicine containing testosterone might help as much as andro pills do.

If we actually knew who has used steroids, I suspect it might break out something like this:

1880 - 1930 0.01 percent of players used testes extracts

1930 - 1940 0.02 percent of players used testes extracts or testosterone

1940 - 1950 0.05 percent used testosterone or synthetic steroids (jump started by WW2 experiments on soldiers)

1950 - 1960 1.0 percent (use growing rapidly among amateur athletes and body builders)

1960 - 1970 3.0 percent (usage becoming endemic in body building and football)

1970 - 1980 10.0 percent (when House was estimating half the pitchers were experimenting)

1980 - 1990 20.0 percent

1990 - 2000 50.0 percent

2000 - 2005 30.0 percent steroids and 20.0 percent HGH

2006 - 2008 5.0 percent steroids and 20.0 percent HGH

All of the above is purely a WAG, of course. I don't know, nor really does anyone else who wasn't a part of it. I'd be willing to hazard a guess that no more than 2 - 5 percent of the suppliers have been uncovered; if there was a way to nail those guys and get them to turn states evidence, we'd have ten to a hundred times as many users as we know now and a significant percentage of them would already be in the HOF!

[66-70-83-??]

What's next? Do we strike the Giants pennant in 2002 from the record books? Award the titles the Yankees won with Clemens to the teams that lost the World Series? Can we all get refunds for every ticket we purchased to watch "dirty" players?

RHP Tom House's big league career covered 1971-78, and

"House estimated that six or seven pitchers on every staff were "fiddling" with steroids or growth hormone. He said the drugs and devoted conditioning improved his recovery, but his velocity didn't budge."

from

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/05/03/SPGSTCJ0SK1.DTL

I usually don't get too worked up about steroids issues, but it seems like MLB is in danger of committing suicide while Congress simultaneously targets it for homicide.

No, I wouldn't take pennants away.

Bud/MLB is in a no-win situation.

No matter what he does, he is either not doing enough or he is doing too much.

They have to do something. What specifically ? I don't know. Which makes it a good thing it isn't my decision.

If something isn't done it will give the appearance that MLB is sweeping the scandal under the rug.

Going forward MLB should make penalties for steroid/PED use the same as for gambling. One strike and you are out for life. Yes that is extreme but the penalties must be severe enough to deter players with the means to keep a step ahead of the chemists who are coming up with new undetectable drugs.

Bud/MLB has no control over the HOF, though. That is a private institution.

[TakebackOPACY]

My rationale is that you just discount their performance as much as you feel appropriate, given that you really don't know if any ball player in or out of the HOF used steroids/amphetamines or not, and go ahead and vote for them if they meet your personal criteria...

I suspect that having an MLB career without at least trying amphetamines is kind of like graduating from college without ever getting drunk.

[Boy Howdy]

I suspect that having an MLB career without at least trying amphetamines is kind of like graduating from college without ever getting drunk.

I almost did that. I was a big fitness freak at the time, and managed to get through four years of classes without my first sip of alcohol.

The night before graduation though, I downed an entire bottle of wine at my buddy's insistence and nearly got locked up for arguing with the cops when they came to break up my 3 a.m. basketball game because it was making too much noise.

[Goop]

This ought to get interesting.

[Migrant Redbird]

I suspect that having an MLB career without at least trying amphetamines is kind of like graduating from college without ever getting drunk.

Which is a large part of the reason that having used amphetamines is not looked down upon to the same degree that having used steroids or HGH is. We know that large numbers of baseball players have been using amphetamines (greenies) since the fifties, which probably includes most of those who have entered the HOF in the last 40 years, so we're more accepting of that usage even though it was just as illegal then as using steroids or HGH was until recently. Another factor which encourages acceptance of amphetamine usage is the perception that it's less effective than steroids or HGH are. (How true that is in reality, I don't know.)

It's not quite the same as alcohol, because being in possession of alcohol is only illegal if you're under 21. Police have to actually catch the under-21 drinking or with alcohol in their blood. If they catch you with amphetamines, steroids, or HGH without a prescription, you're subject to criminal prosecution.

A better analogy would be the use of marijuana and/or coke.

According to this source 1/3 of Americans have at least tried Marijuana -- which includes my generation and older that weren't exposed to it while growing up -- and about that percentage of college students are currently using it. Another source says that 1/4 of students (high school and college) surveyed had used marijuana within the last 30 days. Another study indicates that the Boston region has the highest rate of marijuana (and cocaine) usage in the country, with 1/8 of the entire population (not just students) having used marijuana within the last 30 days.

There's no reason to suppose that athletes would be less reluctant to use steroids or HGH than they would to use marijuana or cocaine, aside from the necessity to administer it by injection. Some people, myself included, have phobias against using needles. Mine is mild enough that I have no real problems accepting injections at the doctor or dentist, but I'd have a real hump to get over if I needed to inject myself with insulin.

So, are athletes afraid of needles? One report was that Clemens sought out McNamee to give him the steroids because he couldn't inject himself. I don't think that the need to inject steroids or HGH would be that much of an impediment to athletes using steroids -- given the obvious motivations for someone determined to reach the major leagues.

I would also argue that natural selection favors athletes being predisposed to use steroids/HGH. From the beginning, natural selection has favored males who are bigger, stronger, more agile, more aggressive, and more willing to take risks. Males with these qualities probably already have higher levels of natural testosterone than average and they're going to be more willing to engage in illegal activity in order to increase their performance. If you're good enough to become a professional athlete, you're also going to be significantly more inclined to use PEDs than the average person would be. It's in your genes. (Not mine, unfortunately.)