On Michael Kay's show Friday night, David Justice explained the way guys like McNamee go about their business - they rationalize taking HGH and steroids to the point where it sounds completely acceptable.

Justice stated that if he weren't so afraid of the needles, he might have been convinced to take something as well.

But in the end, his name was on the report because he basically had a conversation with McNamee about HGH, and ultimately turned him down.

Personally, I like the tact that Andy has taken. I don't think a complete mea culpa is warranted. As Tim Kurkijan pointed out, when a player takes a cortisone shot, he is a hero. So, why should a player who experimented with HGH well before it was banned be considered such a villain?

Dear Andy.

Apologize away--claim that HGH or steroids are the same as cortisone or aspirin. Whatever.

Soon MLB will ban oxymorons from all baseball-related blogs.

However, he does get credit for 'fessing up.

But honestly, I can't get that worked up about it. It's Christmas. Can't we all just get along? ;-)

"Though it was not against baseball rules ... Technically, the use of prescription drugs without a prescription has been illegal in baseball since 1971. "

Your sanctimony is wasted on me, seriously, but feel free to indulge yourself further if you like.

And 'relativism', huh? I can't wait to hear what that means.

Like I said, I'm inclined to believe Andy's reasons for using the stuff, just not the context. The whole thing sound suspiciously like Clinton's "I didn't inhale" line, ya know?

In a way, not that I think this was wrong, but he did throw Clemens under the bus. This statement gives credibility to McNamee. The Clemens strategy for dealing with this is much more complicated than Pettitte's because McNamee's account is so detailed with regard to Clemens. If I were an adviser to Clemens, I would have no idea what to tell him to do. Taking a heavy legalistic strategy is not a way to win in the court of public opinion. Any ideas here?

I only mention the prescription drug rule to point out that the "it's not cheating because there was no rule against it" argument is fallacious.

So, not only was the usage against already existing rules, it clearly violated the players' own understanding of the rules. And it was illegal.

I enjoy baseball because of the beauty of the game, the competition, the strategy, the history, and so forth. If players cheat, that undermines my enjoyment of the game because it compromises the competition (in my opinion). I don't think I need to be blameless to make that statement.

I'll buy that. It shows why the moralistic preaching about this stuff is so out of place.

Maybe it's because I'm jaded, but I have a hard time getting up in arms about the latest round of cheating.

http://tinyurl.com/3yauq7

Now, if you were to press on the subject, if the HOF had the balls to kick out cheaters, then I guess I would not be too bothered by Whitey Ford being taken out. In fact, I know I would be less bothered by Whitey Ford being kicked out than I am by the widespread defense of the players who cheated with HGH and steroids.

28 Again, no one said anything about record books. I have not once advocated "re-writing" them. records are what they are: statistical facts, data points. It is up to us to place them in context. No, I will never ask that record books be re-written. Instead, I simply stopped caring about all the gaudy performances of the last few years.

24 We'll just have to agree to disagree. It seems pretty clear to me that this was cheating, which for some reason kind of turns me off. For you, not so much on either count. OK.

25 Much truth in this statement, no doubt.

Yes, there needs to be a line. But there also needs to be perspective. This issue should be about trying to get an unfair advantage, not about morals. Look what players do to 'heal' so they can play. Schilling got sutures and cortizone, there is surgery and a whole host of legal drugs, and drugs that are only legal with prescription.

I believe intent is very important. It LOOKS like both Bonds and Clemens and many others had prolonged steroid use specifically to play better and longer. I don't think Andy and many others are anywhere near that situation.

"I don't care, cheaters are cheaters.. it's illegal... it's wrong..." yada yada yada... to me is moralizing. Lets look at what these guys did in perspective to the game and the game's history and react appropriately.

Actually, I am more bothered by his 'apology'--one of the current genre of pseudo-apology in which wrong doing is never admitted. "If what I did was an error in judgment on my part, I apologize." That's not even an apology--it's a contingent apology, and how there could be much debate about whether breaking the law was an error in judgement. Come on, Andy, this isn't like the moral quandary of stealing ten dollars to feed a starving man.

If you apologize, apologize ("I was wrong, I'm sorry"). Otherwise, don't bother and stand up for your actions.

Anyway, I've surely beat this poor dead horse long enough. I sure hope we have some baseball trades or FA signings to talk about soon!

But there is a point. Should I have to 'apologize' because I smoked pot where everyone around me got drunk, many of whom drove a car while intoxicated? Is it MY fault I live in a society that allows alcohol (which I think is terrible stuff) amd makes pot illegal (which I think is relatively harmless)?

Maybe in a few years, they will study HGH and realize that it is a fine drug to administer in situations like Andy's, and make it legal. Will Andy then become retroactively more moral? What if they decide TJ surgery is not natural, and outlaw it. Do all people who have had TJS become retroactively less moral? Maybe Andy and others can't figure out why a steroid/cortizone shot is legal (and performance enhancing) and what he did isn't.

We need laws in a society, but like with Pot, sometimes our laws are immoral or impractical, as outlawing alcohol was in the 20's. Wasn't porn illegal at some time? Certain forms of sexuality? Homosexuality? Interracial marriage? Women voting?

We need laws in a society, but we also need good judgement. Think of all the nice young boys in jail because they smoked pot or didn't want to kill in Viet Nam. Think of all the Enron and Halliburton assholes who still walk the streets.

Laws are made by man and society. But they are not absolute, and certainly not always fair and just.

Why is taking HGH a few times so much worse then throwing a spitball for years? How do we sanction punishing a small monority of 'cheaters' and letting the vast majority go unscathed?

Whatever the issues, baseball has to manage them. But please... let's throw away our soapboxes.

The thing with HGH is that while it's easy enough for baseball to rid itself of anabolic steroids and the like (the main problem here), HGH is not going away. Since it's not exactly clear to me what health risks are associated with human growth hormone, it would probably be less expensive and more of a hassle in general to just legalize it.

The sanctimonius arguments here bagging on HGH are silly. Players use all measure of legal stimulants, and the line is arbitrarily drawn. I say, arbitrarily draw it again.

No you should not have to apologize, and that's my point. If Andy really believes that he did something wrong and is now remorseful, then apology. But if so, make it a real apology. Otherwise, don't bother 'apologizing', IMO. In your analogy, I would never expect you to apologize--indeed, I would tip my hat to you if you went to jail (for example) all the while publicly, boldly holding to your beliefs that what you did was NOT wrong, regardless of what the law says.

ALL lines (legal or otherwise) are drawn arbitrarily, within certain broader philosophical, ethical, and legal parameters. That's how civil societies work. For example, we all agree (well, most all agree) that there should be a speed limit--whether it is 50 or 55 or 65 or 75 is a matter of debate. But when the line is drawn (say, 65) we don't reject that driving 70 is a transgression that should be sanctioned.

42 Your definition of arbitrary is wrong. Laws are not drawn arbitrarily. We have laws against murder not because one guy didn't want to be murdered and made it illegal -- which would have been arbitrary -- but because it's destructive to our society. I have no problem with the idea that lines are drawn. Usually, those lines are drawn for sound reasons and with plenty of actual data behind them. With regard to HGH, this is not the case. The fact that we're debating this now, after it's been banned, pretty clearly illustrates this.

Now, on to Pettitte -- in this case, we have a line that was drawn after the offense was committed, where a man is having his reputation ruined as a result, and the strongest argument people seem to be mustering is "he thought it was wrong so he's guilty." This is what we call "wooly thinking."

We have a little prohibition against ex post facto laws in the Constitution. You can't be prosecuted for something you did before the act was illegal. If you managed to get sucked off by some dude in Mississippi before the sodomy laws came down, congratulations, you've just won the dick-in-mouth lottery! Similarly, if you took HGH before it was illegal you're guilty of breaking the same laws as every guy who smokes weed or takes the occasional recreational valium in MLB.

Do you guys know what DOESN'T happen to those dudes? They don't get hauled up in front of a rabid press corps and accused of being cheaters who are ruining baseball on an ESPN scrollbar. Come on.
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MIGUEL CABRERA IS, LIKE, SO TOTALLY STONED RIGHT NOW. HE ATE A WHOLE CAKE. SERIOUSLY. BUSTER OLNEY HAS MORE AT 11.

And as far as I can tell, the difference between HGH and Cortisone is that Cortisone actually works.

Not exactly. My point is that in any community, the law (the rules) cannot possibly cover every single contingency explicitly, so to a great degree right/wrong/legal/illegal/cheating/etc is determined by societal sanction. The fact that basically all players seemed to think that HGH and steroids went against the spirit of the rules, even if not explicitly so, must be taken into account, at least in my opinion. It wasn't just that Pettitte thought it was wrong, it's that more or less everyone thought it was wrong.

But that is a legalistic argument. As for a moral argument, I am surprised that you do not agree that one's belief in moral culpability has no bearing whatsoever on the discussion. The legal system takes this into account all the time (premeditated murder v. other 'levels' of murder for example). Clearly if Person A breaks Law X unknowingly, he is still legally guilty, but his moral culpability is different from a Person B, who knowingly and willingly breaks the same law.