I want to stress something, and my posts will back this up: I would be railing on Papi, Manny, Varitek, and whatever other Red Sox player were in the same position. I've actually said that I think Varitek, Ortiz, and a host of other Sox probably have taken performance enhancing drugs. Having said that, Roger Clemens is identical to Barry Bonds, in almost every respect. He had a career prolonged to an unprecedented extent, and with unprecedented success. His statistics went up - WAY up - after the time when he's alleged to have begun juicing. Smoke. . . meet fire.
No, McNamee actually went on to say, "There's a lot of things I want to say, but I'm holding back because I'm on a cell phone, and I don't know who might be listening." Roger then lies, and says something about how there's no one listening on his end. It's either a private conversation, or a conversation in which McNamee knows people are eavesdropping - EITHER WAY, he has no incentive to do anything but affirmatively agree with Clemens that his story was false. He doesn't. So, McNamee, who had nothing before the phone conversation, wound up with less when it was finished. And that's evidence of Clemens' innocence? Yeesh. Good luck with that.
Are you kidding me? Developing a splitter is what turned him into one of the better pitchers in the game in his mid 30's to one of the best pitchers later as he got older? Developing a splitter is what enabled him to have a park adjusted era 226% better than the average guy at the age of 43? And his velocity? That jumped after his move to Toronto and he maintained it much better than most players his age, his fastball didn't start to really fall off into the 80's until the last 2 years. The difference between Clemens and Bonds is that one of them is black and Bonds had more talent to begin with. Bonds slug % and ops+ were both at excellent before, by most accounts, he started juicing c. 1998. Clemens had pedestrian numbers with the Sox before suddenly being in awesome shape with Toronto and having other world numbers, all while time should have kept pushing him harder to an average pitcher.
So McNamee was told by the feds all he had to do to avoid jail time was tell the truth. But he said "screw that", I am going to say Roger took steroids even if I know that was a lie, and risk going to jail. ARE THE ROGER DEFENDERS REALLY BELIEVING THAT?
Clemens' splitter has NOTHING to do with his sudden spike in numbers. Here's an article from 1996 that talks about how his fastball had dropped to about 90 (though after that he was back up to about 95... funny) and mentions his splitter. This was during the end of his time in Boston, right before he started taking the drugs. So the splitter wasn't new in Toronto, but his fastball was faster and he was on the juice. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-18527365.html
This is what I posted in the other thread when you asked the same thing. ------------------------------------------- (Note: I'm just looking for a semi-plausible answer to your question... I'm not stating that I believe this is what happened.) If it seemed clear to McNamee that "telling the truth" equated to "saying Roger was guilty" in the minds of the investigators, then it wouldn't be surprising if he lied about it. Interrogators can/will lean awfully hard on a subject to get the answer they want, as opposed to getting the truth (although the interrogators can/will often think of the two as one and the same). And the greater the duress, the less certain you can be of the veracity of statements from an interrogated subject. -------------------------------------------
I'm almost positive he's guilty. I'm interested to see the hearing on Capitol Hill. What if they ask Pettite if he has any reason to believe that Roger used PEDs?
2 things: first off, Ortiz has the same basic look in both pictures. His head is the same size in both, the jersey is a lot tighter in the first one so that makes him look even smaller, and most importantly, it IS natural to gain weight like the way Ortiz is shown in between the age of 20 and 28. It isn't natural to do what Clemens did, at all. 2nd: There is a very good chance Ortiz is or has been on the 'roids. I've said it many times, EVERYBODY did it for 10-15 years. I like to think that guys like Varitek, Manny, and Papi are clean but realistically 2 out of those guys and probably all 3 of them have been on the juice. The guys getting suspended thus far have been people like Alex Sanchez and Matt Lawton are doing steroids that points to a much, much larger issue than most people would like to admit. It means that the fringe guys are doing it, which means that the base of the player population is part of a drug culture, I'm convinced the vast majority of other guys have been doing it.
It's strange that suddenly Roger doesn't want to take a lie detector test. To me this would suggest that him and his lawyer's already took a private one which he bombed, because you can be sure that had he been shown to be clean by that thing they would have done their damn best to make sure everyone in this hemisphere knew he could pass a lie detector.
In Manny's defense though (if he used PEDs), he probably thought it was a magic needle that no one knew about and couldn't be banned.
This may come off as racist, but in regards to steroid suspicions it really is a strike against a guy that comes from the D.R. So many players from there have juiced and so many use it as an attempt to get off the island and make a living.
In order for you to believe that Roger Clemens pitched free of performance enhancing substances, you must also believe: (1) That, at the age of 35, he dramatically, but naturally, increased his average number of innings pitched from his four pre-McNamee years (1993-1996) to his next four post-McNamee years (1997-2000) - 186 => 223. (2) That, at the age of 35, he damatically, but naturally, increased his average win total from his four pre-McNamee years (1993-1996) to his next four post-McNamee years (1997-2000) - 10 => 17 (with 21 and 20 wins immediate following McNamee's "training") Stop here and note that the above has never been done before in the history of MLB. But moving on. . . (3) You have to believe that the Mitchell Committee was right about Lenny Dykstra, David Segui, Larry Bigbie, Bran Roberts, Jack Cust, Tim Laker, Josias Manzanillo, Todd Hundley, Mark Carreon, Hal Morris, Matt Franco, Rondell White, Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch, Jason Grimsley, Gregg Zaun, David Justice, F.P. Santangelo, Glenallen Hill, Mo Vaughn, Denny Neagle, Ron Villone, Ryan Franklin, Chris Donnels, Todd Williams, Phil Hiatt, Todd Pratt, Kevin Young, Mike Lansing, Cody McKay, Kent Mercker, Adam Piatt, Miguel Tejada,Jason Christiansen, Mike Stanton, Stephen Randolph, Jerry Hairston, Paul Lo Duca, Adam Riggs, Bart Miadich, Fernando Vina, Kevin Brown, Eric Gagne, Mike Bell, Matt Herges, Gary Bennett, Jim Parque, Brendan Donnelly, Chad Allen, Jeff Williams, Exavier "Nook" Logan, Howie Clark, Paxton Crawford, Ken Caminiti, Rafael Palmeiro, Luis Perez, Derrick Turnbow, Ricky Bones, Ricky Stone, Rick Ankiel, David Bell, Paul Byrd,, Jose Canseco, Jay Gibbons, Troy Glaus, Jason Grimsley, Jose Guillen, Darren Holmes, Gary Matthews Jr., John Rocker, Scott Schoeneweis, Ismael Valdez, Matt Williams, Steve Woodard, Benito Santiago, Gary Sheffield, Randy Velarde, Jason Giambi, Jeremy Giambi, Bobby Estalella, Barry Bonds, Marvin Benard. . . . . . . . and yet wrong about Roger Clemens. Every other player, including Barry Bonds, has either admitted taking performance enhancers or has not refuted the Mitchell report. (4) You have to believe that Brian McNamee, who is confirmed to have provided HGH to Clemens' teammate, best friend, and workout partner, did not also provide them to Clemens - and yet no real discussion occurred between Clemens, Pettitte, or McNamee. (5) You have to believe Jose Canseco's 2005 statements about Clemens referring to "B-12 shots" (code words for steroids) - were false. (6) You have to believe that Clemens went to Brian McNamee - a personal trainer - for B-12 and lidocaine shots, and thought that was perfectly normal, never thinking to go to, y'know, the team doctor. (7) You have to believe that Clemens took the stuff that McNamee was injecting without questioning, or caring about, the source (1/2/07 press conference) (8) You have to believe that Clemens would take lidocaine and B-12 injections in the ass, without thinking that strange. Beyond that, lidocaine is a drug that must be delivered into a specific joint with precision. You have to believe that a multi-million dollar pitcher would trust that to a personal trainer. (9) You have to believe that Clemens would make a specific inquiry to McNamee about Kirk Radomski, and that McNamee would remember specific details about his conversation with Clemens's agent's assistant, but that was just idle talk without any connection to performance enhancers. (10) You have to believe that Clemens would engage in a 17 minute conversation with Brian McNamee and never accuse him of lying, despite McNamee's repeated questions about "What (Roger) wanted him to do." I'm sure I can come up with more.
This is just me playing devil's advocate, but there are some flaws in several of your ideas about what other people have to believe. Many of the things you outline don't necessarily mean Clemens didn't use PEDs. Not all, but many. If 1997 is indeed when Clemens, then out of shape, became serious about a workout program, then a "natural" increase in innings the following years isn't unbelievable. Win totals are a poor indicator of individual performance. For example, his lowest win total of that span, 1994, showed Clemens with an ERA of 2.85, the third highest ERA he posted over the span both pre- and post- McNamee. And it was the second-highest ERA+ over that span, as well. Meanwhile his ERA during his first year with the Yanks was the worst over the span you are referencing. The Red Sox were not a consistently good team during Clemens' final years (under .500 in two of those four years): The Blue Jay weren't great (one sub-.500 year, one above .500), and we know the Yanks were good in 1999 and 2000. None of the other players have ANYTHING close to the legacy that Clemens does, and therefore have far less reason to attempt to refute the report, nor would they garner anywhere near the media attention allowing them the opportunity to publicly refute it. Glenallen Hill is refuting the claims in the Mitchell Report?! STOP THE PRESSES! This seems like a damned if he does, damned if he doesn't approach. If he didn't say anything, he'd be incriminated by his silence. But now that he's saying something, it's the incrimination of everyone else by their silence being used against him? This is probably the most damning evidence against Clemens, as far as I can see. But still no more than circumstantial guilt by association. You don't have to believe they were false. You just have to believe that they are not necessarily indicative of anything more than those comments. In the world of professional sports, trusting your personal trainer is far more normal than trusting a team doctor. One is paid to look out for you and your interests. The other is paid to look out for the interests of the team. This is actually separate from whether or not Clemens took PEDs. There are several situations where the above could not be believed but Clemens still didn't take PEDs. This is the other evidence that I think seriously hurts Clemens' defense. Contingent upon McNamee's testimony and "specific details" being true and verifiable. Again, separate from whether Clemens actually did PEDs. So while I personally believe that Clemens did use steroids, I don't think it's quite so easy to write off the defenders of Clemens as needing to believe some of these things as though they're sooooo out there. At the very least, most of the list doesn't invoke the incredulity you seem to think it should.
So did Nolan Ryan..he pitched 27 years and was still hitting 100 mph when he retired..do you think he did steroids too? I don't think they even existed then. Some people just take better care of themselves and nobody has ever said that Clemens isn't the hardest worker in the game.
The topic is "players who get better with age." That's not Nolan Ryan. Ryan is remarkably consistent over his entire career and his consistency was just good, not great. Certainly better earlier in his career, and he never did have the explosion of new production that Bonds or Roger had. Ryan still threw heat up to the end, but he's spoken quite a bit about how his learning to pitch and, more specifically, learning to throw a change, prolonged his career. But here's the real kicker - I wouldn't go so far as to say that Nolan Ryan never took steroids. It's not like they weren't around and widely used when he was pitching, particularly in the twilight of his career. I believe Brian McNamee when he suggests that "more than half" of all MLB players take performance enhancing drugs. I suspect any player who shows eye-popping production. I always will.
