14 December 2007

Rockets don't burn regular fuel...

Roger Clemens, a dominating pitcher who according to the Mitchell Report was helped to his dominance via chemicals -- better statistics through chemistry! --, of course has never touched steroids. Never.

Here's the CNN report on his lawyer's statement:
"Roger Clemens adamantly, vehemently, and whatever other adjectives can be used, denies that he has ever used steroids or ... improper substances," Clemens' attorney, Rusty Hardin said Thursday.
Dude. "Adamantly" and "vehemently" are not adjectives. They are adverbs.

So please, shut up, because you're making it worse. As in "You and your client are rapidly driving nails into the coffin of Major League Baseball."

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Mitchell report is the information regarding Mark McGwire, the short-lived home run king who was the focus of all sorts of speculation after 1998, when a reporter noticed a bottle of androstenedione sitting in open view in McGwire's locker. McGwire was famously called out by Jose Canseco in Canseco's "tell all" about his own steroid use, but according to Mitchell, corroborating evidence is in short supply:
During the course of this investigation, we interviewed a number of coaches, club personnel, former teammates, and other persons who know McGwire. Only Canseco, who repeated the allegations from his memoir, said he had knowledge of McGwire’s alleged use of steroids. Through his personal lawyer, I asked McGwire to meet with me for an interview about these issues, but he declined to do so.

You have to think that if McGwire was shooting up in bathroom stalls with Canseco, as Canseco claims in his book, someone else would have known...someone would have known the supplier...somewhere more information would come out. However, McGwire's reticence to come clean (in fact, his public testimony only leads observers to believe he was doing steroids for a considerable period of his career) isn't helping his case.

Is McGwire doing the noble thing, refusing to testify because it's his right under the Constitution to refuse to answer these questions, or is he simply afraid of pulling a Palmiero?

2 comments:

m.a. said...

Well, it's a shame that this is even an issue, but doping has be a problem for ages I'm sure.

Grad School Reject said...

I want to send MLB a memo confirming what should be their worst fear. When the report was released I, who grew up listening to, playing, and attending baseball games, did not care.

After the steroid scandal began to unfold in the late 90's I was done. Ripken tried to save baseball, brought it back to a respectable place, and then it all went away.