Incomplete, yes - for all of MLB, not for the the players they were able to identify. For Clemens and Pettitte, the information IS fairly complete. The question is whether or not you believe McNamee. Mitchell's team had three interviews with the guy, and compiled fairly detailed testimony and documentation. People can fairly question his motives, but I don't think it's reckless to buy his story.
There is no documentation on Clemens and Pettitte just what McNamee told them... and to make an accusation that will destroy a legacy, based solely on the word of a drug dealing rapist trying to stay out of jail, no matter how detailed he was, is rolling the dice at best....
They compiled 0 documentation and they had 4 interviews with him. 3 with his attorney present. That is the problem. For every other name in the report there IS documentation. There is absolutely none for Pettitte, Clemens and Knoblauch. There is no paper trail, no failed drug tests, nothing. The testimony of a criminal trying to stay out of jail. That's it.
I wish I had Fehr and Boras working for me....I can tell you that. More brains, and Balls in those two, than the entire MLB organization.
I agree with ollie. Considering the source, this case is sketchy, at best. Like him as well, I fully believe Clemens is guilty as sin. My question right now is in regard to Pettitte. Here are a couple points I've been going over in my head: 1) Pettitte, just yesterday, made a statement that the Yankees should stop pursuing the top flight pitching. He did mention (I think it was Bedard) would be a "nice to have", but wholly unnecessary. Making that statement, one would have to assume he figured he'd be pitching for the next couple years as a Yankee. If he is guilty, he would have to know his name would be dropped yesterday, and that he could be subject to severe punishment. 2) There seems to be only one instance of him actually receiving a steroid, and that was during a recovery period. Is it possible that the accusation is true at the physical level, meaning he did in fact receive an injection from the douchebag ex-cop, but it was cleared medically? I'll be interested to hear his rebuttal. 3) If it was truly just once, does it affect his own personal legacy? I don't know enough about HGH to know if one injection can make a difference to a person's body to affect them one way or another. I'm not trying to defend anyone, I just think Andy's story is a bit more detailed than we're being led to believe.
We'll disagree on this forever. If someone wants to say it was unfair to name players - ANY players - based on the McNamee and Ramomski testimony, I'll accept that. I won't agree, but I'll appreciate how some will think that. Me, I paid $50 per seat for my Red Sox tickets six years ago. They're now $90 a seat. Even if there aren't any big named Red Sox on that list (and I don't think it's because none were juicing), every average player that received an unwarranted salary caused every other salary of every other player to elevate. I PAID FOR THAT! Yankee fans should be even more pissed off. $18 Million for a 6-6 record, which you would never have paid if this report came out a year ago. Wouldn't you have rather seen Ian Kennedy win 6 games? Yankee or not, I would have. Why do I need to see a mediocre pitcher in the twilight of an artificially-inflated career? I'd much rather watch the future mature in front of my eyes. And you paid for that half-assed pitching performance. Mets fans should be INSANE about Mo Vaughn. He artificially inflated (in so many ways) his career, and handcuffed their team financially, as a result. With no performance. None. As I said, some may call this unfair. As for me, I think it's unfair that I've financed Roger Clemens great great great great great grandkids' college tuition. About four generations too many, for my tastes.
I'll tell you this much, Fehr pissed me off yesterday. Bitching and crying about not getting the report, then not having a chance to review it before having to comment on it. 1) He and his union were wholly uncooperative with the investigation from day 1. Did he really expect Mitchell to play nice after they took their ball and went home on repeated occasions? 2) How did he not have enough time to review the report? The entire media got their hands on it when he did, and every single station/paper/web site in the country had read it, and was commenting on it by the time Mitchell stepped down from the podium. Fehr responded 4 hours later. He's a clown.
I understand your point, and I think it's very valid. I even agree. The real issue, to me at least, is the fact that this entire report is admittedly incomplete. It points a finger at specific parties, and leaves out so many. Had this report been based on more than the "testimony" of two drug dealers, and a washed up has-been player who wrote a book, and dropped names from a larger number of clubs (which even Mitchell admits, every club has guilty parties), I think you'd see a different reaction from Yankee fans this morning. Plus, it's being made very clear in the media that Roger was the main focus of the document. All based on interviews with a drug-dealing rapist, one of which occurred without his lawyer present. It's shady, and was conducted poorly. Regardless of whether you think Mitchell was right or wrong for the job, it was conducted poorly, and deserves criticism.
Probably... but I can appreciate your POV about financing Clemens kids... And great point about Vaughn... the Mets fans are dancing around not even realizing how damning this report is to them as well... Goes to show what Yankee envy will do to you... And as I said before.... Clemens can go suck a bag of dicks for all I care, I'm sure he did it...I guess it's because of my job that I'm so annoyed about the lack of real evidence... and one of my worst days as a Yankee fan was the day we traded Wells, Homer Bush & Grahame Lloyd for that pile of moose ass... I truly wish that trade never happened... it was the beginning of the end of building from within and bringing in hired guns... Today I'm really more enraged that Selig got to stand there looking like a 68 year old lesbian in a neck tie & get off scot free....
I've always seen Clemens as the white Barry Bonds and this report didn't do anything to effect my opinion. And before anyone starts I know, I know, Clemens didn't commit perjury or cheat on his taxes, but just in that both started their careers at the same time, ridiculously talented and clearly future stars. Then, both got older, started to plateau (in Clemens' case decline) and then suddenly around 2000 both of them got better right when they should have been rapidly declining, and non-coincidently, both looked to be more ripped than they had ever been during their careers. Anyone who had never thought that Clemens was on PEDS wasn't completely delusional; hell I'm not willing to be that one single specific player wasn't on them in the '90's. When the average joe's, the Mike Lansings, Manny Alexanders, and Brendon Donnellys of the world are on PEDS, that is a very, very bad sign to me because it means that there is a huge drug culture involved. The way I look at it, everybody from '95 on up is guilty until proven innocent. That's unfair to a lot of players, and probably wouldn't be a good philosophy for a HOF voter, but it was just too many guys to think that the ones caught aren't anything more than a drop in the bucket.
What the hell are you talking about. The YANKEE FANS here turned it into a yankee thing, not the Mets fans. I'm sure most Mets fans are more concerned about Dykstra, LoDuca and the other Mets on that list than they are about Denny Neagle and David Justice. (Clemens and Pettite are the biggest names, so naturally they're garner the most attention) The real problem with these threads started with Don's bitching and then Hacket joining in on it and bumping the retarded GMC thread (which led to the rebuttal bumping of the equally dumb GYC thread).
There's dopes on all sides... but to say no Mets fans were rejoicing here or that there's no such thing as Yankee envy on the part of some Met fans is silly...the Arod signing was evidence of that... go back and look
Don't let Shade speak for the rest of us. Personally, I'm disgusted by the rampant use of steroids, and I'm especially disgusting by guys like LoDuca (who I had loved as a player until yesterday) who helped peddle the stuff onto other guys. I'm also sickened by the GM's and othehr higher ups who knew about it, yet did nothing.
I know it's not everyone... and to tell you the truth I never realized you were even a baseball fan, let alone a Mets fan until yesterday
Because he represents the Players, who have now been exposed as being guilty of violating numerous interstate drug trafficking laws... Can you blame him ? Media???? Those ass clowns couldn't even unmask McGuire when he pulled that Androscam...empty cans make the most noise Alio... Fehr, unlike the commentators, has the resposibility to actually understand the ramifications of what he is commenting on.
THAT'S one of the points the report should have addressed, and the one big story of this whole steroids era that will, regrettably, go unreported forever: Where were all these sanctimonious effing baseball writers when this was all going on?! Guys like Kurkjian, Gammons, McAdam, Olney, Rosenthal, Verducci. If I'm being charitable, I'd call them negligent in their jobs; If I want to be more truthful, I'd call them complicit. Roger Clemens pitches two 10-win seasons, and then suddenly signs with Toronto throws 21 and 20 wins consecutively. These boobs stand back and marvel at the miraculous resurgence, too busy adjusting their crotches to wonder publicly how that happens to a 35 year old pitcher. How does a guy get markedly better like that? Beyond that, baseball writers just annoy me to no end. They're so flipping pompous in their work. They'll tear apart statistics like lions on a zebra carcass, but then act as oblivious as the rest of us when it turns out that some of those statistics were artificially assisted. Olympic athletes left and right are being stripped of medals, and baseball writers never stopped to consider that the same thing was happening in their sport. As guardians of the history of the game, the should all be fired tomorrow. But, down here on the planet earth, the Mitchell Report should have addressed their incompetence.
Can I blame him for covering for a larger number of criminals? Umm, yeah? It's not that he needs to understand the ramifications of what he's commenting on. He knows the ramifications. He was smokescreening. Come on Hobbes, seriously.
These are all good points, but they all ignore the facts of the circumstances. Imagine any of these guys had publicly wondered if Clemens was juicing back then. First, the guy would never get another interview, at least from Clemens, if not more people (who already knew they were guilty as well). Plus, it made more sense for them to sensationalize the Rocket's Resurgence back then, rather than skip that story to start one that would eventually come anyway. The media sucks. I think we all agree on at least that much, even if we disagree why.
I've given it some thought, and I don't even care anymore. Let them all do steroids or whatever they want, I don't care. If Mike Lansing and Manny Alexander were doing them, then clearly they don't help you play baseball that much. I think the entire thing should be looked at as the steroid era, like the deadball era.
