In this week’s Metro column, I note the ignominious end of Roger Clemens’ storied career. A virtuosic performance has worthy of the big screen has rapidly degenerated into a tawdry television drama. Two thumbs way down.

And though much ink and many pixels have been devoted to whether or not Clemens used steroids, whether he “seems guilty,” the PR of filing a lawsuit, what that tape was all about, and how Andy Pettitte must feel about all of this, it’s basically all been speculation. Leave it to Baseball Prospectus to actually look at the particulars of his lawsuit.

This is the article I’ve been waiting to read. After all, the Mitchell Report only had teeth because of the BALCO trial. By filing a lawsuit, could Roger Clemens be opening up a whole new can of worms? I suppose that depends on the particulars of the case. From BP writer Derek Jacques:

A claim of defamation (usually broken down into slander for spoken statements and libel for statements made in writing) accuses someone of saying or writing something untruthful that is then “published” to a third party, for the purpose of injuring the reputation of the person making the claim. Because a statement can’t be defamatory if it’s true, the truth of the allegations McNamee made against Clemens is the main issue of the suit. The question is simply whether or not McNamee injected Clemens with steroids and HGH in 1998, 2000, and 2001.

[...]

Defamation is a notoriously hard case to prove. In this situation, the allegations are all about the actions of two men alone in a room together with no other witnesses, and likely no physical or documentary evidence to connect or divorce them from what McNamee says they were doing. Clemens will face an uphill climb making his case, both because he bears the burden of proof and because he has to prove a negative—that an event that McNamee doesn’t tie to a specific date and time didn’t happen.

Clemens lamented during his 60 Minutes interview that people were treating him as “guilty before innocent,” instead of innocent until proven guilty. Ironically, filing this lawsuit puts the burden of proof right where he didn’t want it: on him.

And for those who were hoping that the Mitchell Report would close the door on the steroids era and let our beloved sport heal, the Clemens lawsuit effectively crushes those dreams:

Before this matter reaches trial, there would likely be months, perhaps years, of preparation, discovery, and depositions. If you give skilled litigators enough time to dig through someone’s life and financial records, all sorts of interesting and unexpected things can happen.

In other words, yes, the seal has been broken on a new can of worms. The only remaining question: is it a can of harmless earthworms, a can of annoying ringworms, or a can of fearsome Mongolian Death Worms?

The time for knee-jerk reactions to the Mitchell report has passed. Now it’s time to commence with the backbiting and fingerpointing.  In this post, I think I want to bite a back. And it’s a pretty big back.

My personal approach to the announcement of Mitchell’s findings went something like this: I’ll probably find it entertaining, but at this point, the appearance of anyone’s name in the report shouldn’t surprise me.

I was right on both accounts. I was highly amused, seeing names of former players I hadn’t thought about in years as well as those of some guys whose personalities kind of rubbed me the wrong way (I’m not proud of this, but at least I’m being honest). And none of the names I saw surprised me in any way - until yesterday, when both the affidavits of Jason Grimsley and Kirk Radomski were unsealed.

Grimsley didn’t really reveal anything scandalous unless you used to think of Glenallen Hill as your personal savior. But there was a name in the Radomski affidavit that didn’t make it onto the Mitchell report.

It was El Sid.

The affidavit revealed that former Met Sid Fernandez had written Radomski a $3500 check in February of 2005. Problem is,El Sid last pitched in MLB in 1997, eight years previously.

Sid Fernandez was one of my favorite players growing up. When I was a wee lad, he looked like a mountain to me even on the television screen. He was listed as 6′1 and 230lbs (there’s no way that’s accurate; the guy was at least 250) and was always the kind of guy who was overshadowed, either by Doc Gooden’s arsenal of mid-90s heat and Sir Charles curveball, or by the ladies screaming for Ron Darling to give them a smile. He struck me as an everyman, and I always liked that about him.

He had a very solid career that lasted parts of 15 seasons. He never won more than 16 games and his girth made it difficult for him to stay healthy.  But when he was good to go, he was a very dependable strikeout pitcher. During his peak years that lasted from 1985-1993, El Sid had a great 3.12 ERA to go along with a very good 8.4K/9IP and 2.47K/BB ratio (As a comparison, over the same period, Roger Clemens had a 2.85 ERA with 8.21K/9 and 2.54 K/BB).

But perhaps his greatest statistical accomplishment is the fact that over his entire career, the behemoth of a man only allowed 6.85 hits per nine innings pitched, which ranks fourth best in MLB history behind only Nolan Ryan, Sandy Koufax, and Pedro Martinez. All in all, not a bad career by any stretch of the imagination. Despite this, in a move that served as a microcosm for how under-appreciated he was, he received a total of two votes in his only appearance on the Hall-of-Fame ballot back in 2003.

But what the hell made Fernandez seek out help from Radomski in 2005? This was 8 years after he last took the big league mound (He tried to make a comeback with the Yankees in 2001 but made one start in Columbus before retiring once more). I don’t have the answer to that one, I’m afraid. We don’t even know what that $3500 check paid for. Was El Sid trying to make another comeback at the age of 42? If not, was there something wrong with him physically that he sought Radomski’s help because his own personal doctor wouldn’t prescribe him with something that Radomski was offering? Did Kirk Radomski also sell Stacker 2, the world’s STRONGEST fat burner? Come on, Sid. You gotta tell us.

The time for knee-jerk reactions to the Mitchell report has passed. The time to play devil’s advocate—whether said devil deserves an advocate or not—has arrived. After all, every week must have a new storyline. In this installment of our post-Mitchell report coverage, I’ll take a look at the arguments for legalizing steroid use in baseball.

It became trendy, when the steroid whispers started, to act like it didn’t matter. “Why not take steroids?” these cutting-edge pundits said, “It only increases the entertainment value of the game!” The make-steroids-legal argument has really come out into the open, though, since the Mitchell report became public last week.

At Jon Swift, an apparently satirical blog, they even compared using steroids with the second amendment:

 The real problem is that baseball banned steroids in the first place. It is a fact that when you ban guns, only criminals have guns. The same is true with steroids. When steroids are banned, only cheaters will have steroids…Distributing guns to everyone and requiring everyone in the community to know how to shoot levels the playing field and gives everyone a fighting chance against criminals. In the same way distributing steroids to all baseball players and requiring every  player to take them would level the baseball playing field and give everyone a fair chance to compete.

It’s a good thing Jon Swift is meant to be funny…because requiring any human being to inject themselves with any substance—and especially, in this case, ones that have been demonstrated to cause serious physical and mental problems, including heart problems—is obviously fascist. (And in fact, the communist-fascists in East Germany did require their Olympic athletes to do just that.)

But, to my mind, making steroids legal would have the same effect as requiring all athletes to take them. Even now, any athlete who doesn’t take them is basically consigning himself to a serious disadvantage and leaving millions of dollars on the table. But at least the clean athlete knows he’s not cheating. He’s not risking his health. He’s not risking his credibility or jeopardizing the integrity of the game. If steroids were made legal, all that would change.

Some people say that steroids, like any forbidden drug, would be safer if they were legalized. Look, this isn’t a case of cancer patients growing weed in their basements. These athletes are already perfectly healthy. It is true that messing around with controlled substances under a doctor’s care is safer than squeezing into a bathroom stall with Jose Canseco and a syringe. But that still doesn’t make it safe. And since using steroids is all about getting an edge, I contend that there would still be a thriving black market of all the newest, latest, hottest performance enhancers. After all, if everyone starts using Deca or Winstrol, what’s the point of using them at all? You’d have to find something else, something new and improved if you wanted to keep your edge. The FDA couldn’t keep up.

Some folks say that steroids—like stealing signs or scuffing the ball—are just another way of giving 110%. Isn’t doing anything and everything to win just part of the American way? I can only assume these people are Ayn Rand-addicted psychos who think insider trading and price fixing are okay and believe that Tonya Harding should have been allowed to kneecap however many opponents she wanted to.

Still others point out that sports are, after all, just a form of entertainment. And doesn’t using performance-enhancing drugs make sport more entertaining? Don’t we all want to see everything bigger, better, faster, more? First, considering the health risks associated with steroids, I find this attitude unbelievably callous. For instance, pro wrestling is extremely  comfortable with its status as entertainment, and pro wrestlers are some of the most obvious steroid users. Pro wrestlers also die of heart disease at a rate 12 times the average for Americans their age. This isn’t Xbox. This is real. These athletes are real people, people with families. Expecting them to risk their health, even their lives, just for your titillation? That’s cold.

And maybe the casual fan needs 70 450-foot homers a season to keep himself entertained, but not all of us do. Some of us are more excited by a strike-em-out-throw-em-out double play, a suicide squeeze, a  double steal, a triple play, or the hidden ball trick. Some of us are interested in the strategy that goes into pitch selection, the skill needed to be a truly dangerous baserunner, or the deception of a surprise bunt. And for some of us, it’s not about the highlight reels. It’s about the crack of the bat and the pop of the mitt. It’s about blue skies, good friends, and flat beer.  It’s about history, and knowing that David Ortiz is playing the same game Ted Williams played. And when an old record is surpassed, you know that the player who surpassed it has accomplished something meaningful. Remember, baseball is supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, anyone could do it. It’s the hard that makes it great. Legal or illegal, steroids make baseball easier. And in so doing, steroids make baseball that much smaller.

The time for knee-jerk reactions to the Mitchell report has passed. Now it’s time to commence with the backbiting and fingerpointing. Let’s look at some reactions from a few clean players.

For the most part, the players not involved in the Mitchell report have been keeping their heads down and not saying nuthin’. Those who do speak have mostly stuck to banal comments and harmless generalizations. The players named by Mitchell have resorted to a) silence, b) denial, or c) lame-ass apologies, such as those by Brian Roberts (”I didn’t inhale!”) and Andy Pettitte (”If what I did was an error in judgment on my part, I apologize…I accept responsibility for those two days.”)

The most interesting exception to this sit-down-shut-up-boo-hoo-poor-me spectacle has been the former players who were clean, and who are pissed as hell they had to compete against these cheaters. If there is any doubt that using steroids was cheating (and nasty, no-good, dirty, cheateriffic cheating at that), listen to the words of folks like Joe Oliver and Mike Greenwell. As Oliver wrote in an email  to Boston Herald columnist Joe Horrigan,

I had to vie for a job every year and now I know it had something to do with certain players having a competitive edge on me…I spent all that time in the early hours running and lifting weights, these guys would shoot up and be done and get stronger, faster, and the owners knew who they were and the GM’s knew who they were. Every time I argued for a contract, I was competing with juiced catchers in the same boat looking for a job. They got the higher paying jobs and I got screwed.

That reflects the sentiments of Mike Greenwell, another former Red Sox player. He was never the kind of guy who got the awards or the glory or the big-money deal. He just showed up to work and played hard. (In fact, he turned running into the Green Monster into a kind of art, occasionally kicking the wall in retaliation for some of those bumps and bruises.) He had a couple of All-Star game appearances, over the course of his 12-year career, and then faded gracefully from view. His best season was 1988, when he came in second in MVP voting. And who should happen to have beaten him out that year? Why, Jose Canseco, who just that year had his 40-homer, 40-steal season. Now that Canseco has fully admitted to using steroids, shouldn’t the Gator get the hardware? That’s what he said back when Jose’s first book came out:

“Where’s my MVP?” Greenwell told the Fort Myers News-Press. “[Canseco's] an admitted steroid user. I was clean. If they’re going to start putting asterisks by things, let’s put one by the MVP.”

[...]

“I do have a problem with losing the MVP to an admitted steroids user,” Greenwell told the News-Press, adding that not winning the award likely cost him millions of dollars.

Even Curt Schilling, whose comments on the subject have been mostly of the don’t-make-waves variety (for a change) admitted that the idea of an uneven playing field disturbed him.

As a competitor, the one thing I can’t help but think is how different, or if at all different, my career numbers would be if I was playing against a level playing field and in an era that was already offensive-tailored and knowing that a lot of guys, well, everybody that’s been named, has done something against me in the past.

As for my part, I’m glad to see at least some players, current and former, standing up for themselves. Maybe it will help the players’ union remember, the next time they’re tempted to stonewall even the most pathetic, flaccid, symbolic steroid testing program, that it’s not just the Cansecos and McGwires and Bondses that they represent. But (heavy sigh) probably not.

PS—Just look at those pictures of Oliver and Greenwell and compare them with this shot of Canseco. Even with his catching gear on, Oliver looks like the proverbial ten-pound weakling next to Jose. And Mike Greenwell is a dead ringer for my fifth-grade homeroom teacher, Mr. Grosky. You have the Incredible Hulk in a mullet, there, versus Mr. Grosky. This playing field has a steeper incline than the Matterhorn.

The time for knee-jerk reactions to the Mitchell report has passed. Now it’s time for deeper analysis, more thoughtful reflections, and, best of all, time to make fun of those knee-jerk reactions. First, we examine claims that the report reflects a pro-Red Sox bias.

I didn’t pay too much attention when the Mitchell report was commissioned. So color me surprised a few months ago to read that the man being tasked with investigating steroids in baseball is also a director with the Boston Red Sox. “Gee,” I thought, “Even if the man’s a saint, that’s a pretty clear conflict of interest. How will he have any credibility?” Well, it turns out that while you might be able to broker peace in Northern Ireland, orchestrating a cease-fire between Red Sox fans and Yankee fans is a horse of a different color.

The morning before the report was due to be released, rumors chased each other around the internet that it would expose key Red Sox players such as beatified captain Jason Varitek, who seemed to lose some size and pop in 2005 when testing began, and Nomar Garciaparra, who got big, fast, and whose connective tissue was never the same afterwards. I was not surprised that Yankee fans instantly pounced on Mitchell’s position with the Red Sox (a position from which he has been on leave lo these 20 months) and to accuse him of bias and call the report a sham. While I am sympathetic to their rage, I think a recourse to the facts throws cold water on any conspiracy theories. The report named 14 players who, at some point, had played for the Red Sox, and quoted from some  unvarnished emails between Sox GM Theo Epstein and scouts on the subject of steroids. The report named 22 Yankees. Taking into consideration that most of the report’s information was gleaned from New York-based steroid dealers with a lot of ties to the Yankees and the Mets, I don’t think that shows any real evidence of bias. George Mitchell himself was the first to admit that his report was far from the last word on steroid use in baseball.

Apparently, however, others take a different view, such as Thurmon Munson Should Be in the Hall of Fame:

Is it just me, or is Mo Vaughn the only Red Sox player (sans Brendan Donnelly) on the list?

Something stinks up there in Beantown, and this time it’s not just the Red Sox.

Jeannie and I were at our favorite Mexican restaurant for about an hour at lunch, and the ESPNation mentioned Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Barry Bonds and Miguel Tejada.

Just those 4 players…

For an hour straight…

The “Mitchell” scroll tab at the bottom of the TV screen reported Clemens and Pettitte ONLY. Over and over and over and over and over.

No mention of any other players, other than Jason Giambi.

Just the Yankee players.

And we’re to believe that this report isn’t biased?

Yeah… RIIIIIIIIGHHHTTT…

First, there are 12 other guys TMSBITHOF conveniently forgot to mention (including Eric Gagne), along with the unflattering Epstein emails. Second, to leap from “Something stinks up there in Beantown” to lambasting ESPN’s coverage of the report and back to “and we’re to believe that this report isn’t biased?” is such a case of the nonsequiturs, I am not even sure where to begin. ESPN had nothing to do with the Mitchell Report. How does ESPN focusing on the Yankee players cast any shadows on the report itself? As to why ESPN would focus on some names and not others, well, ESPN is a New York-based company, first of all, and much like supposed national print outlets the New York Times and the New Yorker, they consider anything that affects the Big Apple to be their lead story. And let’s face it, Clemens is bigger news than Mo Vaughn, who isn’t even an active player anymore. In fact, I don’t even know why I’ve spent this long eviscerating such an illogical and poorly written post. I mean, it practically eviscerates itself! Yet still, the topic has been cropping up on various message boards. And certainly, reporters asked about the conflict of interest at the news conference last week. So is there anyone else out there who really thinks this thing is biased? Have you read anything else claiming undue influence by pro-Sox or anti-Yank sentiment? What do you think?

So today at work, at approximately 1:30 EST, the call went out: cubicle drones, go home! A massive snow storm was about to hit New England, and we were instructed to flee before it. And its wintry wrath. Out into the swirling white I went, and soon I was ensconced in my cozy (read: pathetically small) apartment and happily curled up with my laptop and the Mitchell report. Soon thereafter (following a brief sojourn for provisions) I was curled up with my laptop, the Mitchell report, and a Kahlua mudslide. And thus, without further ado, I present random and slightly inebriated thoughts on the Mitchell report:

1. Initial reaction: Despite morning rumors that current members of the Red Sox would be named—including captain Jason Varitek and former right fielder Trot Nixon—and assuming that former shortstop and ex-franchise face Nomar Garciaparra would be among the list, no members of the ‘04 or ‘07 championship teams were named. I admit, as a shameless Boston homer, that I have had enough of asterisks next our championship teams (thank you, Bill Belichick*). With several players who had been on the Red Sox named, only one was caught with steroids while he was playing for Boston (and he was some minor bit-player whose name I can’t even remember right now). I feel like my boys dodged a bullet. Is it so wrong for me to be relieved?

2. The way that Mitchell arranged his evidence chronologically highlighted the viral nature of steroid use. One guy tries it in one city; he tells his friend about it; the friend gets traded two a new city; he tells a couple guys about it; one of them leaves to play somewhere else….and you get the idea. Not surprising, but kinda creepy all the same. A Hercule Poirot-caliber bit of detective work by Mitchell. And without subpoena power!

3. That said, the entire report is limited by being so dependent on Radomski and his various associates. It’s clear that he was far from the only dealer in the game. The fact that the majority of players named in the report hail from ballclubs like the Yankees, the Orioles, the Yankees, the Diamondbacks, the Yankees, the Dodgers, the Yankees, and the Mets is obviously due to the fact that Radomski and his minions were closely linked to those clubs. It doesn’t mean that other clubs are innocent. It only means those players didn’t buy their drugs from guys in Radomski’s ring.

4. When early reports suggested that over a hundred MLB players could be named, I began to doubt my conviction that steroid-users should be kept out of the Hall of Fame. Maybe the problem was too widespread to make such a harsh judgment. But then I read the actual list. The only HOF lock is Roger Clemens. Will I cry for Roger if he gets shut out of Cooperstown? No. Do I think that will actually happen? Hell no. Today’s report actually makes it more likely that Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds will be elected to the Hall, because it shows how widespread the problem was. Same goes for Clemens. That said, I wouldn’t be sorry to see Clemens get the Pete Rose treatment. At least Dan Duquette can finally sleep easy again.

5. One question people have been asking me is, “Why does Congress even give a hoot what baseball does?” The answer, broadly, is that major league baseball is a monopoly that gets an exemption from anti-trust law from Congress. That is to say, Congress allows MLB to continue on as a monopoly as long as they’re good girls and boys and keep their noses clean. Essentially, this gives them oversight of baseball. Maybe not to the degree that the police have oversight of your driving habits, but definitely to the extent that your parents did when you were sixteen. Sure, it was legal for you to drive…as long as Dad would let you borrow the car.

6. The one reaction to this report I just don’t understand is apathy. Despite the fact that there are, right now, over 14,000 news articles on this topic coming up on Google, there are still some folks out there who just don’t care! Worse, there are baseball fans out there who claim not to care. You guys should donate your brains to science.

Here’s the response from the Blogosphere, so far:

Fire Joe Morgan: The greatest hitter and the greatest pitcher of this era of baseball were both having superpower-juice regularly injected into their bodies. And we may never know the names of all of the hundreds of other users.

Vegas Watch (from its live blog): 2:01 Apparently Cossack said “Priestley” instead of “Grimsley”. Now that is funny.

Bugs and Cranks puts together the All-Mitchell Report Team and points out A-Rod’s attempt to upstage the Mitchell Report.

But A-Hole is not alone in his attempt to steal Mitchell’s spotlight. Mrs. Theo Espstein had the nerve to go into labor last night. Attention-seeking ho.

Tired of staring at “old man Mitchell,” With Leather posts a photo of Jessica Simpson.

Curt Schilling says, “I am hoping no one I know or respect shows up as a name on this report but I am feeling like that’s wishful thinking.” Well, it’s not like Roger Clemens was Curt’s hero, or anything like that.
more to come, as the internet geeks respond…

Here at UmpBump, we slog through 409-page congressional reports so you don’t have to! Thus we proudly present the Mitchell Report, slightly condensed to provide only the juiciest gossip and none of that boring crap.

I am currently reading through the Mitchell Report. I will post excerpts I find interesting as I go, updating along the way. To kick things off, a rather touching story about David Segui:

Segui’s name, with two addresses and several telephone numbers, is listed in the address book seized by federal agents from Radomski’s residence. Radomski’s 2004-05 telephone records include eleven calls made by Radomski to Segui’s number between July and October 2004, when Segui retired from baseball. Segui is the only player who called Radomski after news of his plea agreement was reported in the media. Segui asked Radomski if there was anything he could do for him. Radomski told Segui that he likely would have to tell the government about Segui’s steroid and growth hormone use, and Segui responded that he did not care. (pp 151-152)

Awww.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every December and every July for the past few seasons, Miguel Tejada has been a standby of the trade rumor mill. No longer. The Orioles, looking to start afresh, are shopping all their big-name players this winter and today, they traded Tejada to the Astros for five younguns: Luke Scott, Matt Albers, Troy Patton, Dennis Sarfate, and Mike Constanzo. The reaction at UmpBump was swift and scathing:

Nick to UmpBump Staff - 1:52 pm

Re: Tejada to the Astros

Is there anything more fun than watching Ed Wade run the Astros into the ground?

Paul to UmpBump Staff - 2:01 pm

Re: re: Tejada to the Astros

Yes. Watching Ed Wade run the Phillies into the ground. I miss those days.

Other blogs concur. “That’s a fine haul for Baltimore,” notes MLB Trade Rumors. “The Astros pretty much cleaned out their farm system for two years of an average-hitting third baseman.” Bugs and Cranks takes a quick look at the kiddies’ numbers and concludes that “the Houston Five are a couple lefthanded bats with some pop - particularly Scott, who had 18 homers last year - and three pitchers with varying degrees of promise.” Over at the Fanhouse, the consensus is the same: “For a team that’s short on young players, the Astros dealt a lot of them for two years of Tejada. Everyone knew that the Orioles were desperate to move Tejada’s salary. To get so much in return for a player coming off a down year is a feather in the cap of Andy MacPhail.”

But in Baltimore, the reaction has been very different. On the Baltimore Sun’s blog, Bill Ordine laments:

The Orioles sent Miguel Tejada to Houston, and for all those who thought the four-time All Star shortstop would be tasty trade bait, well, think again.

There are five guys coming here — outfielder Luke Scott, pitchers Matt Albers, Troy Patton and Dennis Sarfate and third baseman Michael Costanzo.

If there’s a household name in there, it’s Luke Scott. And if it is a household name for you, you must live in Scott’s neighborhood.

The deal must have been a hard one for O’s fans who, just a few years ago, were being offered Manny Ramirez and Matt Clement for their four-time All-Star shortstop. And some of these players aren’t exactly hot young prospects with tons of upside—Scott is 29.

But—and now it starts to get interesting—some of those who think Baltimore’s haul for Tejada is suspiciously slim think the Orioles were desperate to unload a player who is sure to be named in the Mitchell report tomorrow. Tejada was linked to Rafael Palmeiro’s steroid probe two years ago, and the blogosphere is rife with conspiracies about Baltimore dumping him today before his name became as poisoned as Barry Bonds’, who is currently out of work and under indictment. FanNation notes that Pettitte also signed his contract today—and has also been mentioned as a possible Mitchell reportee. And for its part, the Associated Press tried to ask about the timing of the deal vis-a-vis the Mitchell investigation, and got stonewalled.

So what do you say UmpBumpers? Who got the better of this deal? The Astros, who get Miguel Tejada for a bunch of guys who aren’t that good anyway? Or the Orioles, who get a cadre of new young(ish) players, divest themselves of Tejada’s salary, and manage to pull it all off just before what little value he has retained takes a nosedive?