Baseballs "All Clean Team" from SI.com

[ElToro75]

Interesting little story I saw on SI.com about John Donovan's "All Clean Team", active players listed in the article only (at least those in his top 10).

Here are the players on his top ten list:

1. Alex Rodriguez
   
2. Ken Griffey Jr.
   
3. Albert Pujols
   
4. Manny Ramirez
   
5. Frank Thomas
   
6. Vlad Guerrero
   
7. Greg Maddox
   
8. Pedro Martinez
   
9. Ichiro Suzuki
   
10. Chipper Jones
    

Honorable Mention:

Derek Jeter, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Omar Vizquel, Randy Johnson, Lance Berkman

[NJOriolesFan]

Interesting little story I saw on SI.com about John Donovan's "All Clean Team", active players listed in the article only (at least those in his top 10).

Here are the players on his top ten list:

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Ken Griffey Jr.
3. Albert Pujols
4. Manny Ramirez
5. Frank Thomas
6. Vlad Guerrero
7. Greg Maddox
8. Pedro Martinez
9. Ichiro Suzuki
10. Chipper Jones

Honorable Mention:

Derek Jeter, Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Omar Vizquel, Randy Johnson, Lance Berkman

I have to ask this? How does anybody know that those guys are clean?

[ElToro75]

I have to ask this? How does anybody know that those guys are clean?

He covers this somewhat in his article:

The hardest part of this whole Steroids Period in baseball -- sounds much less ominous than Steroids Era, doesn't it? -- is figuring out who and what to believe. I'm not talking Roger Clemens vs. Brian McNamee here, though that's the sub-prime example of the day. I'm talking, on any given day, about the difficulty in trying to determine who has been messing around with the stuff and who hasn't. Or, in any glance through the record book, what is legitimate and what is not.

Bottom line is that no one knows except the player himself. Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors

[mweb]

I'm pretty confident that at least one of those guys used steroids. Rather dumb to come up with a list like that imo.

[Frobby]

They should change it to the "not yet credibly accused to be dirty list."

[Moose Milligan]

I'm pretty confident that at least one of those guys used steroids. Rather dumb to come up with a list like that imo.

I've got 5 bucks that says Pujols gets named before anyone else.

Where's Militant Redbird?

[DrungoHazewood]

It's absolutely ridiculous to claim that none of these guys ever used anything. I'd bet my house that half of the list at least used greenies.

Haven't journalists yet learned that handing out good and evil tags without a shred of evidence is irresponsible?

[Moose Milligan]

It's absolutely ridiculous to claim that none of these guys ever used anything. I'd bet my house that half of the list at least used greenies.

Haven't journalists yet learned that handing out good and evil tags without a shred of evidence is irresponsible?

Looks like they haven't learned, Drungo.

It's just a list of people that don't have strong rumor ties or were named in the Mitchell report. It's a dumb list, to be sure...I don't get what the point is here, anyway.

[Lucky Jim]

Pujols doesn't use PEDs like Lance Armstrong didn't dope.

[byrdz]

Who thought Clemens would be involved? He would have made this list I'm sure if not for the Mitchell investigation.

[Migrant Redbird]

They should change it to the "not yet credibly accused to be dirty list."

Agreed! I've posted before that the biggest myths in sports are that the "steroids era" didn't begin until the late eighties or that we KNOW anyone is clean. I'd be willing to bet that anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of current HOF players used PEDs of some sort -- greenies, steroids, HGH -- and there is no one who is immune from the taint of suspicion, not Yount, not Gwynn, not even Cal Ripken Jr!

And I will qualify that by saying that I was immensely gratified when my son's hero was Ripken and I personally believe that he is one of the least likely players of all time to have used steroids, but.... no one really knows except Cal himself.

I've got 5 bucks that says Pujols gets named before anyone else.

Where's Militant Redbird?

Well, I happen to think that Pujols is one of the least likely of the current players to have used steroids, but I have to go through a lot of rationalization to reach that point.

First of all, it is a commonly held "fact" that PED abuse has been endemic in the Dominican Republic, which means that any player from the Dominican, be it Tejada or Pujols, automatically comes under a higher degree of scrutiny than other ballplayers. That's just a given.

However, despite the current inclination to tar and feather any player who has "super human stats" there have been "Ruthian" performances many times before in baseball history. Was Babe Ruth using PEDS? It's remotely possible, and has even been alleged, but I think that it's highly unlikely.

How about Ralph Kiner, Roger Maris, Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, Ken Griffey Jr., Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Hack Wilson, Mickie Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Harmon Killebrew, Ted Kluszewski, Frank Robinson, or Ernie Banks? All of those guys played after testosterone was identified and most of them played after synthetic steroids became readily available in the fifties to anyone with contacts in the illicit market supplying body builders and olympic power lifters. One of the US Olympic Committee physicians back in the fifties even advocated the use of steroids by US athletes so that we could keep up with the Soviets and Eastern Bloc athletes who were already heavily into steroids use. If it were available, you better believe that there would have been major league ballplayers with "friends" who could have gotten steroids for them and that some of them would have use it.

I can't really argue that Pujols hasn't used steroids because I don't know. What I would point out is that his performance has been so absolutely and incredibly consistent in his first five seasons: 590 at bats in his rookie season; 590 again the next year; 591 in 03; 592 in 04; 591 in 05. And his production was also so incredibly consistent: 100 runs, 30 home runs, 100 RBIs, or more every season until 2007, when his runs scored slipped to 99. A low mark of 32 home runs in 2007 and a high mark of 49 the season before. The guys who have used steroids so effectively also seem to have suffered physical breakdowns which would have made it difficult for them to sustain such consistent performance, so I take that as an indicator, just as I take Cal's ironman streak as an indicator that he probably wasn't doing steroids either. I think that, given what these athletes put their bodies through during training, it would have been really difficult for them to have stayed healthy to keep playing in game after game, putting up the numbers they do.

And yes, Pujols has had the extremely painful plantar fasciitis condition for several years, but he's managed somehow to play through it without his performance being overly impacted. He even led the team in steals in (16 steals in 18 attempts, and at least one of the caught stealing was a busted hit and run). Albert also had that elbow injury back in 2003 which prompted his move to 1st base, which I thought had healed but recently read a rumor that it was giving him so much pain last season that he's seriously considering surgery (TJ?) to obtain relief. He strained an oblique muscle in 2006 which put him on the DL and dashed hopes that he might make a run on the Bonds single season HR record, and he strained a calf muscle in 2007 that is largely responsible for the "slump" he had. (.327, 32 home runs, 103 RBIs, what a slump!)

Who thought Clemens would be involved? He would have made this list I'm sure if not for the Mitchell investigation.

Me. And probably a lot of other people. Each year that Clemens didn't sign until after the season had begun, there were rumors that he was delaying to avoid the testing during spring training and to give himself time to purge the stuff from his system.

When a HOF quality athlete begins doing things in his late thirties and early forties that he couldn't do during what should have been the prime of his career, one has to suspect that he's getting help from something.

Go and look it up; Clemens posted the lowest ERA and highest ERA+ of his career at the age of 42, and he did it in a ballpark which used to be nicknamed "Ten-Run Field" instead of Enron Field because of its bandbox reputation.

[blakesta]

This is just stupid. Every single one of those players were playing 5 years ago when all this steroid talk was hush hush. No doubt in my mind that more then half of them have atleast tried them and i'm willing to bet some of them used them for an extended period of time.

[blueberryale77]

It's absolutely ridiculous to claim that none of these guys ever used anything. I'd bet my house that half of the list at least used greenies.

Haven't journalists yet learned that handing out good and evil tags without a shred of evidence is irresponsible?

All "journalists" have learned (again) from the latest round of steroid hysteria is that the majority of the public will still buy their pro-wrestling style good vs. evil story line hook, line and sinker and it will make them a lot of money, no matter how blatantly false it is.

[Why Not?]

All "journalists" have learned (again) from the latest round of steroid hysteria is that the majority of the public will still buy their pro-wrestling style good vs. evil story line hook, line and sinker and it will make them a lot of money, no matter how blatantly false it is.

Which stories have been false? The LA Times release of the Grimsley names is the only one I know of (though many of the names in that list have since turned out to be legit).

Which writers are making "a lot of money" from producing these supposedly false stories?

[blueberryale77]

Which stories have been false? The LA Times release of the Grimsley names is the only one I know of (though many of the names in that list have since turned out to be legit).

Which writers are making "a lot of money" from producing these supposedly false stories?

The idea that all baseball players not named in media reports as steroid users are "clean" and therefore morally superior to those unlucky enough to get busted is patently false and everyone knows it.

Obviously I can't quantify the amount of money sports and mainstream publications have made off of sensationalizing the steroid story, but if it wasn't profitable for them, they wouldn't be so desperate to keep drumming up non-stories.