[LA Times] "Clemens, Others Implicated in Banned Drug Case"

say what you want about gonzalez..but until there's proof, it's just speculation.

i think buck's comments nailed it. there is steroid speculation around everyone. in the 70's they were popping "greenies" like skittles. players are always looking for an advantage where the difference between great and a trip back to the minors is one more hit in ten at bats.

the exclusive focus on baseball is silly to me, now. particularly when we're talking HGH. and the media is missing that entirely.

 

I think people have enough circumstantial evidence on guys like Luis Gonzalez to make their own judgments. It's interesting how the stats of guys like him and Boone and Bonds want down after the league started clamping down.

As far as people always looking for an advantage- that doesn't make it ok to use steroids, and it certainly doesn't mean their accomplishments cannot reduced in the eyes of fans. It definitely reduces the enjoyment of the game when people chemically enhance their abilities to such an extreme degree.

I don't think the focus should be exclusively on baseball, every sport should be looked at.

 

When exactly was your enjoyment of the game reduced?

 

pitchers use hgh and steroids for recovery. no one's gonna increase their velocity.

 

Probably because baseball has been, by far, the worst of the major sports leagues about enacting or enforcing drug bans, and because the way baseball was able to resuscitate itself from the 1994 strike (where its populartiy was at an alltime low) and becoming bigger and more popular than before by using steroid pumped sluggers like McGwire, etc. to re-build the fan base. Say what you will about the other sports, but that's basically unprecedented; no other major pro sport in the US has so openly and obviously profited off of performance enhancing drugs the way baseball has.

 

I'm not searching for a standard of purity. But when the game becomes about chemically enhanced freaks setting unbelievable records, then it's a joke.

 

During the steroid era, when scrubs like Bret Boone looked like Jeff Bagwell (who may also have been on steroids).

 

Maybe so, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Clemens or Pettite used. But their stats didn't get better.

 

you're absolutely right. the track record isn't good.

but HGH isn't just a baseball problem. that's what we're talking about in this affidavit, apparently.

 

But not earlier, when by all accounts the vast majority of players were undoubtedly using performance-enhancing drugs?

 

Are you talking about amphetamines? I don't think the degree that performance was enhanced was anywhere near to what happened in the steroid area.

 

Still haven't seen anyone make a lucid argument on how steroids OR hgh brings your ERA down. Nor how they would affect control, which the main reason cited for Clemens great pitching the last few years. Until that happens it seems incredibly irresponsible to point to his lower ERA as PROOF that he's used steroids or hgh.

 

Don't know if its HGH or steroids, but I've heard there is a bounce back drug (I'm thinking amphetamines) that allows a pitcher's arm to recover quicker after a start or relief outing. This wouldn't help lower ERA early in a season, but preventing a dead arm would keep it low.

 

I don't know why anybody would argue that; the major benefit about steroids and GH is that they allow your body to recover from injuries & every day wear & tear faster, which, given the incredible longevity of Clemns, is something he seems to have done well.

Actually I don't know if anybody mentioned it, but check the very careful wording of his "denial", in which he claims that he never tested positive -- perhaps he just misspoke, but obviously if wrongly accused why not just deny it outright?

It should also be noted tath Canseco claimed that he and Clemens talked about roids more than once.

I rmemeber when Canseco's book came out and he was ridiculed for it and everybody said he was big fat liar -- well, since then a lot of his allegations have been corroborated. McGwire took the fifth, Giambi fessed up, Palmiero tested positive. Canseco might be an ass but he's been vindicated so far.

 

San Francisco U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan issued a statement Monday, saying: "In view of the recent news reports purporting to identify certain athletes whose names had been redacted from the government's search warrant filings in the Grimsley matter, and in the interests of justice, please be advised that these reports contain significant inaccuracies."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061002/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbo_drugs_grimsley_other_names

 

If longevity is considered proof of steroid or HGH use then I personally don't have any time for that kind of pseudo science. Nolan Ryan also pitched into his mid to late 40s and I don't think anyone is going to contend he used hgh and steroids.

He did when he said his mama always told him not to get in a pissing contest with a skunk.

Some of his accusations have been vindicated. That doesn't translate into a carte blanche 'everything he said is true.'

 

Nobody said it was "proof", but the circumstancs are there in a way that they are not for Ryan.

LOL, that's a fancy way of saying "no comment". Honestly his denial is just as ****ty and contorted as the kind we've heard before, the kind we've learned not to trust.

I'm trying to think if any one of his allegations has definitely been proven wrong yet......I can't think of one. I'm just saying that the bulk of what he (and others, like Caminiti, et al.) have said about the gravity of the nature of the drug problem in baseball -- most of which was initially dismissed as fantasy -- has since been corroborated in some way.

Honestly, would you really be surprised? I mean baseball basically allowed its players to cheat without testing them for years and now still allows you to cheat with the use of GH since it's undetectable. I'd find it odder if highly competitive players didn't use performance enhancing drugs.

 

Ryan was pitching at the same time Canseco was putting up big numbers.

Would mimicking Palmero be any more convincing - he was pretty definitive, no? That's kind of the catch 22 these guys are in now. If they flat out deny it people say 'oh yeah well Palmero denied it.' If they point to tests people say 'that's not the same as denying it.'

I understand your point and you're right that the gravity of the problem can't be dismissed. However trying to prove some of Canseco's allegations wrong are like trying to prove a negative. Can anyone 'prove' Clemens and Canseco didn't 'talk' about steroids? Not unless they have audio and video of a 15 year chunk of Clemens life.

Yes. I would be completely suprised if he was found to be guilty of juicing. I don't think his game changed at all (usually an indicator) nor has he seen an increase in power (another indicator). I think about the conversations he had with Schilling early in his career where he took him to task for not taking care of himself, preparing and acting as a professional etc. I really would be suprised.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2610878

Imagine that... who would've ever thought this was nothing but a witchhunt by wild conspiracy theorists that has no basis in reality whatsoever? I know I personally am shocked!