Yawn. Dog & Pony Show. I'm not here to talk about the past.

The evidence on Andy Pettitte is weak when compared to that presented on, say, Paul Lo Duca. I'm mostly underwhelmed.

On p.219 there is an interesting email between Theo and a scout about Gagne's use. They obviously got him to block the Yankees. They knew he was a physical and mental risk.

What a load of crap this report is. Even ignoring the fact that the Red Sox come away clean, this report mostly spews out what eveyrone already knew, and basically serves to let baseball look righteous and "on the right track." Pettitte supposedly used HGH when it was totally legal to do so--let us not forget that HGH only was banned two years ago.

I think the patterns of usage are at least interesting... Clemens' trainer leading to the connections of many Blue Jays and Yankees, including Rondell White, David Justice, and Glenallen Hill... the simultaneous connections for many Dodgers including LoDuca, Brown, and Gagne... similarly for the Orioles with Hariston, Roberts, Segui, and Tejada.

Yeah, I have to admit, there isn't much to make it stick to Pettitte. At least as far as what they provided in the report. Not nearly as many big names as I expected...

"Even ignoring the fact that the Red Sox come away clean,"

Which report are you reading? There are a bunch of former Red Sox players throughout.

Weeee!

I love a pony show!

Bring on the dancing poodles!

Weeee!

8 i was hoping you'd trot through this thread.

In the Document, is their an actual LIST of players, or are their names spreadout throughout the doc?

Which Yankees were named?
7 Which Sox were named?

7 I think he means clean as in the 2004+ Red Sox. I don't think Gagne counts. I am glad that Jeter and Bernie aren't on there. Not that I would expect either one to be.

The interesting thing to me is not the content of the report but the existence of the report itself. For months and months the idea of the report as a transformative moment in the sport has permeated discussion. The idea that a bombshell was going to be dropped featuring some of the biggest stars in the sport was common referential context for the whole thing.

What it ends up being is a mostly circumstantial, dimly lit path linking a few networks of players. The names are mostly those already suspected or known and the report is going to fizzle into the ether once pitchers and catchers report in February. The importance of the whole research and its place in baseball history is suspect and the hype that has accompanied any discussion of it for all these weeks and months is like everything else in the 24-hour news cycle: sketchy, fleeting trivia.

I'd say the players for whom the evidence is most damning are:

Miguel Tejada
Jason Grimsley
Paul LoDuca
Scot Schoenweis

The last name is not surprising, given that he came from a steroid-fueled college culture that was Duke baseball. I didn't get to the university until the aftermath, where the coach was fired and one kid reportedly committed suicide due to the pressure to take testosterone.

8 http://tinyurl.com/3bpgtp

10 Names spread out, separated by informant by the most part.

pettitte seems to have used hgh once to recover from an injury. so he could return and help the team!

f- that nonsense.. i think im cool with that.

Just out of curiosity, I pasted the text of the report into Word and counted the number of references to "Red Sox" and "Yankees" (with no context for either), and it was 37 Sox references versus 43 Yankees references.

But the Dodgers were well ahead of both with 54 mentions, while the Giants got 55.

After listening to the press conference and reading parts of the report then I came to only one conclusion, "don't believe the hype".

What a complete bore this report was....wow...Tejada, Clemens, Bonds, Petitte were name. This guy sure went "deep cover" to figure this all out.

Zzzzzzz....Zzzzzzz.

So now I expect an outcry to take away Clemens' records and that he shouldn't be in the Hall. Whatever.

Gammons defending Mitchell who defended Selig. Another big WHATEVER.

Can anybody confirm this?
I have read that HGH has little to no value (as a PED) to an athlete UNLESS used with ('stacked') on steroids. It said HGH creates new muscle, but it is 'immature' muscle and of no added value for strength. With steroids and exercise, this immature muscle can be strengthed.

I think the report needs to separate out players who used HGH, specifically for an injury, specifically for a limited amount of time. I assume the HGH was doctor prescribed and specifically for healing of any injury.

If so, if was not 'used' as a PED, but as a medicine.

It's interesting that Giambi has stated that his use began in 2001. Is that so nobody disputes his MVP in 2000?

espn says pettitte is linked to steroids:

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3153509

i dont see that anywhere in the report.

I wonder what this report would look like if it involved either football players, track athletes, or pro wrestlers. I think you'd find a far more illuminating storyline if you extended into those worlds. You'd probably have a better context by which to judge baseball if you conducted those investigations first, and then established the network of dealers and users common to some or all of them. Without that type of context, this report is birdcage liner.

22 mikeplugh, if it was football players, it would be a byline on ESPN. Football is full of steriod users and no one in the media gives a damn.

Mitchell barely called out Selig. I wish Marvin Miller was still the head of MLBPA. He would take huge chunks out of Mitchell and Selig. This whole thing is so sickening. It is all scapegoating the players.

21 Er... Pettitte's got his own section, from page 219-224....

19 HGH is not a "Performance Enhancing Drug." It does not increase muscle mass... As a supplement, it may increase fat burning, it may increase the growth of bone and other tissues, and it may help the immune system. It has about the same side effects as massive injections of vitamin B12.

The primary difference is that HGH is a controlled substance and possession/illicit use can result in jail time and significant fines.

19 OYF, I don't know about the need to link hGH with steroids to see any performance-enhancing effects, but if you go to sabernomics.com and start reading, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

24 errrr where does it use the word steroids

Ultimately, this report was a colossal waste of time and money. The only news coming out of it is Clemens alleged steroid use between 1998-2001.

I personally don't think Pettitte is stained much by this report. We know HGH wasn't on MLB's banned list until 2005. I am not sure if it was illegal to possess. If not, I really don't see what Pettitte did wrong?

23 "This whole thing is so sickening. It is all scapegoating the players."

"Obviously, the players who illegally used performance enhancing substances are responsible for their actions. But they did not act in a vacuum. Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades – Commissioners, club officials, the Players Association, and players – shares to some extent in the responsibility for the steroids era. There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on. As a result, an environment developed in which illegal use became widespread."

21 It's in there, the quote is correct. But, that's pretty much all it says. It doesn't say that Pettitte asked for it or knew what McNamee was injecting or that there was ever any other steroid connection with Pettitte - it's all very foggy and unuseful. Raises more questions than it answers or than can be answered.

26 Certainly nowhere in the section about Pettitte in the ESPN article you linked. It talks about Clemens being linked to steroids like Winstrol, but the only mention of Pettitte in that article is Human Growth Hormone.

24 HGH can markedly improve someone's eyesight. i think that could help a hitter's performance quite a bit.

...remember all of those articles written about giambi's great eyesight way back when? i am genuinely curious to know if he still has that going for him.

28 Ever the politician, Mitchell sticks in a couple sentences targeting MLB in the middle of crushing the players. Even Roger Cossack on ESPN pointed out that the Commissioner is more than pleased with the report because the finger is squarely pointed at the players and union.

Pettitte's inclusion in this report is a smear.

Now, Yankee-hating fools will hurl insults and syringes at him before games and between innings.

Fucking stinks, but what can you do?

Hopefully, he and the Yanks (hello Hank) won't overreact too much to the smear. Could make it worse.

Best they can do is calmly present his case to a national media outlet, and then stifle themselves.

Just what the Yanks need -- another overblown distraction. Fuck.

26 Oh, you're talking about this:

"Clemens, Miguel Tejada and Pettitte were named in the report, an All-Star roster linked to steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs that put a question mark -- if not an asterisk -- next to some of baseball's biggest moments."

Yeah, that's a crappy, sensationalist sentence. Someone was getting far too creative there. That article has been expanding since the press conference started and that line was in there from the beginning. My guess is that someone wrote that before they actually got their hands on the report and then just checked to make sure those names were actually in there. Big media at its best.

28 That quote is a perfect illustration of the political whitewashing that the report represents. It does what the 911 Commission did. It does what any politically motivated document does in the current media climate. It provides a catharsis for a societal crisis, perceived or real, by naming a few names, slapping a few wrists, and eventually blaming everyone and no one all at once.

That's why I said that the existence of the report is more interesting than the content. It is less a piece of paper with information than a symbolic cleansing of the public palate. It's a facilitator of purgation that allows us to move on. That is the only importance of the document.

On a humorous note, Kevin Brown? Really? LOL!

32 Sure, but I'm curious why it shouldn't be focused on the players and the union, because the players were doing it (and denying it publicly), and the union did everything it could to keep testing from ever happening.

Were owners and the commish turning a blind eye because revenues were up? Sure. But the balance of power in baseball is clearly on the side of the MLBPA.

Then HGH by itself is NOT a PED?
If so, don't you think it's important to separate HGH 'users' from steroid users?

Yes? No? Isn't this a MAJOR MAJOR issue?
Aren't there many people, including the press, that see HGH and Steroids as the 'same thing'?

It's a little like lumping Pot and shooting Heroine together?

I think the funniest thing is MLB could have paid Kirk Radomski a fraction of the cost to write the same report.

31 I don't mean to come across as "that guy", and if I am, I'm sorry YFiB - but can you give me a link to a credible study that proves that? I remember there being an article that had one guy who took hGH and made that claim, but that's it.

What I've read - thank you sabernomics.com - doesn't say anything about hGH improving eyesight (http://tinyurl.com/2utp39). In fact, it seems that claim is in an unsubstantiated line from Game of Shadows - http://tinyurl.com/3bp9ch.

Oh and check out the Washington Post. They have Pettitte plastered on the home page alongside Bonds, Clemens and Tejada, but way down in the article it says:

"The trainer reportedly also provided information about pitcher Andy Pettitte"

reportedly!! So, they hadn't even read the report yet either.

Let's just put all the names in a big, boiling pot and stir!

35 Fair enough. But what's the alternative? What would a proper report contain, when no one cooperated and there was no legal issue to warrant subpoenas forcing testimony? Or alternately, should there have been no report at all?

The report isn't all that interesting or surprising. It's just a connect the dots from a few people who did cooperate. But that was critical to show how a few people could have such a large impact on the rest of the league. And there were a lot more than a couple of trainers out there supplying this stuff.

But I'm inclined to agree with Mitchell that we should stop worrying about who did what and do whatever's reasonable to stop this moving forward.

38 Regardless of whether it is a PED, the following is true:

1) HGH was not on MLB's banned list until 2005; steroid have been since the 1980s (even though no testing was done).

2) HGH, by best searches, was not considered a controlled subtance until 2004, while steroid have been illegal since 1990.

Based on those two facts, what was wrong with taking HGH before 2004/2005?

28 Ever the politician, Mitchell sticks in a couple sentences targeting MLB in the middle of crushing the players. Even Roger Cossack on ESPN pointed out that the Commissioner is more than pleased with the report because the finger is squarely pointed at the players and union.

37 The balance of power in MLB lies with the owners, not the MLBPA.

38 It's absolutely a false relationship between anabolic steroids (let's face it, mainly testosterone) and HGH. That's why folks found my "ear infection" comment funny in a previous thread. I took Cortisol... a steroid... but do non-mediciney people know that there's a difference between stress steroids and anabolic steroids? Do the players?

33 Honesty is the best policy. If Andy did HGH, he should man up and move on. There wasn't much chance of him escaping unscathed since Roger was under the microscope and they were connected at the hip. Like my folks once told me - gotta be careful who you hang out with.

Best option at this point is to take the lumps and start preparing for the season.

And yeah - I'm counting my blessings there was no mention of Bernie, Jeter, Mo, or Posada.

39 That's the funniest and sadly truest thing I've read on this all day. Nice job Will.

I count at least twelve onetime Yankee players in this report, but not one single mention of Brian Cashman, or Steinbrenner. Sort of makes you wonder how the front office could possibly have been unaware -- or, if they were aware, why they don't seem to have taken any action whatsoever. The report doesn't deal with that aspect of it at all.

(Of course this is a baseball-wide problem -- I'm just taking the Yanks as the example most familiar all of us, not to single them out).

Also: I haven't thought about him in years, but in retrospect Glenallen Hill might as well have carried an enormous neon sign reading "STEROIDS" to the plate with him. I once saw him flick his wrists about six inches and send a ball into the black seats...

38 They're "the same thing" in that they are controlled substances (generally) being used without doctor supervision. Trainers shouldn't be making these calls... in fact, it's illegal for them to be doing it.

Ignoring the ties between HGH and steroids (as in, the former nearly requires the latter to be effective), a lot of the recent HGH names came from an anti-aging clinic in Florida. So, why were highly-paid athletes going to see this guy instead of an expert in elbow or knee injuries?

40 don't apologize. i read that same article. (from "outside magazine." the reporter's name was stuart something...)

i saw another article or two as well when i read that way back when that seemed to follow that line... i'll poke around and see if i can find it.

49 So if Nolan Ryan pops 8 Advil on his pitching day, does that count as the "same thing," since it's not following the directions?

Actually, the funniest allegation of all is that about one pound of marijuana was delivered straight to the Marlins clubhouse in a "padlocked duffel bag" in 1998. I guess they needed something to get over the pain of the Fire Sale...

34 exactly what i was talking about. just feeling for my boy andy.

49 That's true now...but was it true before 2005? According to everything I can find, HGH was not illegal and definitely not banned by baseball before then.

51 I don't know about you...but a padlock on a duffel bag kind of look suspicious.

44 I would agree that the balance of power has shifted in the last few years, mostly due to public opinion and congressional meddling forcing the union to drop its anti-testing stance.

But when steroid use skyrocketed, I'd say the union was running the show. I suppose you can argue that the owners were letting the union get away with it because they were happy with the eye-popping numbers, but those same numbers drove up the pricetag for marginal players like Brady Anderson and Brett Boone.

It's certainly an arguable point, though we're probably given too much credit to both sides.

Reading it over, it looks like the report basically investigated Clemens and the baseball teams in New York. I suspect some combination of "we could only get to this one guy" and "we didn't try to hard" and "I don't want to lose my fucking job" played into it. Pretty disappointing, honestly.

56 I don't know, there's plenty about the Dodgers, A's, and Orioles in there.

My posts from the dead thread:

This is ridiculous. Almost all the guys named were from the trainer in NYC. Yeah, like trainers in Boston and Miami and Chicago and L.A. are totally clean.

It's no wonder the '01 Yanks look like a bunch of criminals. Only their trainer spoke up.

And

Years ago, some asshat on ESPN claimed that if you put Tejada in Jeter's place in 1996, you'd have the same result.

Who's laughing now biatch

56 If anything, this report gives a pretty definitive account of what the Yankees were doing from 1998 on. So, while the report names a lot of Yankees, you could also argue that it exonerates even more. The same can't be said for other teams.

Anyone who is downplaying this is an idiot. Clemens and Pettite illegally took steroids or HGH or w/e. Clemens began to decline his last few years in Boston and then wow all of the sudden everything returned. He's a piece of crap and this hopefully will keep him out of the hall.
I look forward to the day Piazza gets in as Clemens watches at home. Looks like Piazza will get the last laugh and it won't involve throwing a bat @ him in the middle of roid rage.

51 I'm not sure what your point is about Nolan Ryan, as an over-the-counter painkiller isn't quite the same as HGH or steroids.

But if a trainer is giving Ryan 8 advil, he should be concerned about its effect on his kidneys. (I think.) Regardless, a doctor should be consulted if you're going beyond recommended dosages because a trainer wouldn't necessarily know about the long-term impact of some of these drugs.

53 I don't know. But I suspect that even if it wasn't illegal, it was still only available via a prescription from a doctor... I don't think it was something you could buy at GNC (unlike creatine and andro, at the time).

I'd think a trainer shouldn't be injecting athletes with most of this stuff without doctor supervision.

19 OYF:

In my research on HGH it seems that the biggest way it could be of assistance to an athlete is in muscle recovery. This could be especially helpful to a pitcher, who does the exact same thing with his arm 100+ times in a row.

42 The idea is that the report's only value is in the purgative. It draws a picture based largely on filling in the gaps between legal evidence and pure hearsay by insinuation. If that's the best you can do, you should avoid naming names at all.

From a legal perspective, I'd guess that the players have no recourse for slander, but from a purely ethical standpoint, with the knowledge that what is printed in the mass media becomes truth via repetition, it would be better to avoid names without hard, damning evidence. The discussion here about Pettitte illustrates that better than anything.

Score another one for the corporate government media complex.

This whole thing feels like masturbation, only without the pleasure.

Anybody remember (my favorite) TV show, 'The Practice'?

There was a great episode where an old Jewish man was suing a cryogenics firm who was using data gathered by the Nazi's during WWII. It seems Hitler was dunking Jews into vats of ice water to 'study' the effects.

His case was based on the fact that this was an extreme form of torture, and collected by a wholly immoral group, and that data collected in such a reprehensible manner should not be used in trying to create 'positive' science.

The Jew who started the case was a survivor who had this done to him many times. Many others died of heart failure and other organ damage. When he 'testified in court' to his experience, I was quite moved.

(To finish the story on the show...)
Anyway... the case was lost, and the judge ruled that this 'data' was allowed to be used for further scientific research. The Firm was crestfallen, but very surprised when their client wasn't. When they asked why he wasn't disappointed in the outcome, he said "I never expected to win". Then why go through thsi emotional trial? "So they will never forget" he said.

Anyway, my point is, regardless of the motivations of the report, and all the other issues that can legitimately be challenged, I still think it's important to examine the issues raised and discuss them. Just saying the report is a 'crock' should not allow us to dismiss what was said.

Certainly the players can't.
Any if Andy, or anyone else did HGH for medicinal purposes, and did NOT do steroids, I hope they come out and make that very clear to the public. I can't say I've read a lot, but I have seen little if any real proof that HGH has any benefits other then repairing/rebuilding tissue. If prescribed by a doctor, how can this be seen as 'wrong'?

An antibiotic helps heal infections faster. Is this a PED

As an aside, I read that Bonds said the HGH improved his eyesight, but that it had been damaged by the steroids, and it 'improved' back to it pre-damaged condition. Does that seem right to you?

58 This wasn't intended as a comprehensive look at the steroid problem. It couldn't be, because most people refused to participate. (And as this wasn't a legal issue, Mitchell had no subpoena power to force people to testify.) The New York guy was only part of this report because his cooperation was part of his plea-bargaining agreement.

In a way, it's unfortunate that the report named names, because it was so narrow. It causes the knee-jerk reaction of, "Look, these are the steroid abusers!"

But that's not what it says. It was merely connecting the dots to show how these things spread, using testimony from a few insiders.

56 et al - there's definitely an x degrees of separation here. they have a few sources - notably radomski - and then followed up on some of the "known" allegations - such as roger, pettitte, tejeda, and so on and that seems to be how they compiled the list. it does not seem like they went beyond this method to generate names - so if you got peds from someone else you were not "caught"

The list of conclusions and recommendations are great, in a sort of "DUH" kind of way, but the list of implicated players is total BS. Give me a break. An ex-trainer with an axe to grind is the only "proof" of a player's use of steroids, and that's enough to assign blame?? Rediculous. BS.

63 Hah, I just said the same thing in 66 about it being unfortunate that it named names due to its limited scope.

Not to mention that Andy and Clemens are the two names to be leaked in advance? Hello, conflict of interest. BS.

43 William... this is not a legal issue with the general public (press included) but a MORAL one. The 'legality' is not the damming factor. People believe that PED use was 'Cheating' and gave an unfair advantage.

Pettitte (and others) will be smeared by this regardless of the legal issues. Big Mac is NOT in the HOF even though he retired long before 2004.

Here is the best legal answer I can find on HGH:

When Congress bootstrapped anabolic steroids into the Controlled Substances Act by passing the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990, steroids were already covered under 21 USC § 333(e), a part of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. That law, passed in 1988, made it a felony to distribute steroids (without criminalizing their personal use). When the Control Act effectively took steroids out of that section, Congress filled the void by sticking hGH in there. So, while hGH is not scheduled, 21 USC § 333(e) prohibits the distribution or possession with intent to distribute hGH for any use in humans other than for recognized medical reasons and pursuant to a valid prescription. Violations may be punishable by imprisonment of up to 5 years (10 years if to a person under 18 years).

Stolen from SAS from RLYW:

"Mitchell had testimony from a couple of New York sources, who not surprisingly had names of many New York players. Did Mitchell make an equal effort to gain testimony from Boston steroid sources? Or sources in any other city for that matter? If Mitchell had more Red Sox players' names, would he have been less likely to include any names in his report? These are fair questions given Mitchell's position with the Red Sox, and Mitchell's responses to the questions would have little credibility because he is inherently compromised, even if only in subconscious ways. The fact that he didn't recognize this and decided to accept the job demonstrates, if anything, a complete ignorance to the conflict of interest, making his judgment all the more suspect."

65 That story sounds familiar.

71 How could it be a moral issue if HGH wasn't on MLB's banned list? Until the law or the sport mandate otherwise, HGH is fair game.

49 Again, this is NOT a legal action. No one is going to jail, or even court, for PEDs or HGH (Bonds is on trial for lying).

Pot and Heroine are both controlled substances.
Are you telling me that if someone said 'you shot lots of Heroine' that it would be no more damming then if someone said 'you smoked lots of Pot'?

73 [& all other morons]
Yea...im sure a guy who negotiated peace in other countries went out of his way to personally attack the yanks and protect the Sox. Damnit, why r u yankee fans so dumb???!!!

73 While that kind of comment is red meat for Yankees fans (or those of anyone mentioned in the report), no one could be compelled to talk to Mitchell. The only trainers who spoke did so as part of plea bargains; the rest (and the report says he tried to speak with over 500 non-players) probably wanted to keep their jobs.

73 I can't blame Mitchell for bias...basically, Radomski proximity to New York is what resulted in more Yankees being named. Of course, it would be naive to assume that there aren't Radomski's in other cities...they just happened to not get caught.

Would this report as a PUBLIC document still have served the same purpose had the names been "redacted"? As a private document, used only for MLB's internal debate on drugs, it may be instructive to have anecdotal evidence linking specific teams and players to the problem. As a PUBLIC document, the only value in naming names is to sexy up the issue for the 24-hour news cycle, blogs, and random water cooler chatter. If you have shaky legal evidence linking a player to this issue, then you have shaky grounds to try him in the court of public opinion as well. If I were the union, I'd make a HUGE HUGE stink over the naming of names on these grounds.

78 You're denying that those are reasonable questions?

This isn't just from a Yankees standpoint. Mitchell works for the Red Sox. It's at the very least reasonable to question whether he fully investigated the Sox, as hard as he went after other teams. Read Bryant's article.

Also, can someone contact Ken about the latest moron troll?

77 calling people "morons" doesn't prove anything, loser, or come close to forming any sort of argument. why are you posting here? get a life.

I'm not saying Mitchell attacked the Yankees. I'm saying:

1) He had a conflict of interest.
2) In the average baseball fan's eye, as evidenced by our favorite bandwagon fan, the New York area teams will be judged as less moral simply because a New Yorker was investigated.

Both are just more reasons why this thing was stupid.

Since this whole steroid business started, my position has been "leave well enough alone." What is done is done. No point in pulling off the scab when the wound is healing. There is a good testing policy in place now so move forward. But nooo... hypocritical politicians, media and some fans had to have their pound of flesh instead of admitting their complicity in the mess. I'll never understand this way of thinking.

82 I called him a moron. Forgive me.

7 Every single former Sox player is implicated when NOT on the Sox.

As others have noted, Mitchell's conflict of interest wouldn't have lasted one minute in any court. Being hired by the commish and being paid, but "on leave" from one of the teams, even if there is all semblance of being fair and balanced, is simply far far far too questionable to stand up in any legal situation.

That being said, I doubt Mitchell really shielded any Sox players, I simply think he had 0 real power and didn't dig all that deep. He used two sources basically, and one of those sources doesn't actually have any evidence to back up his claims. Both of those sources happen to come from NY. A large majority of the names listed happen to come from teams in direct competition with Mitchell's employer. None of the players implicate his employer at all.

Even with all of that, I still think Mitchell was on the straight and narrow, which just underscores how much of a shame this "report" is. He couldn't force anybody to talk, he used two sources and circumstantial evidence, a large # of the names listed were ALREADY named previously, and almost none of the players could actually be punished due to the flimsy evidence.

64 And more tears.

82 I don't see a problem with me posting. I'm giving my opinion. You can't make this a Sox-Skanks issue.

75 Because it's 'cheating'. NOT my opinion. But look at the general public. You don't think a players reputation is tarnished if he is tied to HGH, even if it was not illegal at the time?

The problem with this report and its release to the public is that it produces a mythology about steroids and baseball in which the main characters are now set in stone. There was no legal basis for the naming of these names, but by mass-mediated communication the mythology becomes ubiquitous. If anyone has the stomach for reading Roland Barthes "Mythologies", he breaks down how the whole process of mythologization works.

Wikipedia's entry on his book states, "Barthes refers to the tendency of socially constructed notions, narratives, and assumptions to become "naturalized" in the process, that is, taken unquestioningly as given within a particular culture."

I would argue that this is what's happening to Clemens and Pettitte here. Particularly Pettitte. Bonds is a man with direct legal links to this issue. Giambi is also an admitted user, as is (apparently) Sheff. There are others. Pettitte has been linked by this report to performance enhancing drugs with only the most circumstantial evidence, if you can even call it evidence, yet he is lumped in with the legally damned.

His name is all over the headlines today. Mass-mediated communication channels have now fueled the mythologization of Pettitte as a PED monster, and he will never be able to extricate himself from it. It's over. That's why the names should have been redacted for public use.

mike
you nailed it.

Ken.... ooooooooooooooh Ken?
M-E-T-S-S-O-X
Please remove this gentleman from our 'Skanks' blog.

88 He used the Sox as an example and a fiiting one at that since Mitchell has ties to the organization. Ignoring the facts doesn't make them untrue. Yes, the main source was in NY. It's not much of a stretch that players going through NY are named. The question posed was, did he really try and find the full depth of the problem or did he feel that the NY source counted as a "full investigation"?

89 I am not interested in uninformed opinions though. If HGH wasn't banned, it isn't cheating to use it. Cheating, after all, is breaking the rules. If there is no rule, you can't break it.

I think other teams need to do the moral thing and, when it comes to the luxury tax, just say NO to Steinbrener's 'Steroid tainted' money.

93 I think he was ineffectual and was luck to have a NY-based source drop into his lap. It's not like Mitchell tracked Radomski down.

94 William, you are preaching to the choir. I suggest you tell it to the media outlets that have Andy's face plastered all over their product.

97 That's what the media does...if we can't get them to stop citing wins to determine who is a better pitcher, then do you really expect other sophisticated distinctions?

from NYT:
Chad Allen
Manny Alexander
Rick Ankiel
Mike Bell
David Bell
Gary Bennett Jr.
Marvin Benard
Larry Bigbie
Barry Bonds
Kevin Brown
Paul Byrd
Ken Caminiti
Jose Canseco
Mark Carreon
Jason Christiansen
Howie Clark
Roger Clemens
Jack Cust
Brendan Donnelly
Lenny Dykstra
Bobby Estalella
Matt Franco
Ryan Franklin
Eric Gagne
Jason Giambi
Jeremi Giambi
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus
Jason Grimsley
Jose Guillen
Jerry Hairston Jr.
Matt Herges
Phil Hiatt
Glenallen Hill
Darren Holmes
Todd Hundley
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Tim Laker
Mike Lansing
Paul Lo Duca
Nook Logan
Josias Manzanillo
Gary Matthews Jr.
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Bart Miadich
Hal Morris
David Naulty
Denny Neagle
Jim Parque
Andy Pettitte
Adam Piatt
Todd Pratt
Stephen Randolph
Adam Riggs
Brian Roberts
John Rocker
F.P. Santangelo
Benito Santiago
Gary Sheffield
Scott Schoeneweis
David Segui
Mike Stanton
Miguel Tejada
Ismael Valdez
Mo Vaughn
Randy Velarde
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White
Todd Williams
Jeff Williams
Matt Williams
Steve Woodard
Kevin Young
Gregg Zaun

Knobby???????

This report represents Giambi's first public, explicit admission to steroid use. Couldn't the Yankees use this as grounds to void his contract? (I don't think that the Steinbrenners would do this, since Selig had blackmailed Giambi into cooperating with Mitchell after Giambi had shown up MLB in an interview.)

Selig has had 3 days and hasn't read the whole report? That's disgraceful.

If GSIII was still lucid, he'd be calling for Selig's resignation. I wonder what Hank's response will be.

i'm really surprised that they would allow this report to be released with such little input, IE, 2 trainers from new york teams. there doesnt seem to be any standard for evidence either. did anyone bother to read where they give the 'evidence' for brian roberts?

"Roberts and Larry Bigbie were both rookies in 2001. According to Bigbie, both
he and Roberts lived in Segui's house in the Baltimore area during the latter part of that season.
When Bigbie and Segui used steroids in the house, Roberts did not participate.
According to Bigbie, however, in 2004 Roberts admitted to him that he had
injected himself once or twice with steroids in 2003. Until this admission, Bigbie had never
suspected Roberts of using steroids."

Thats f-n EVIDENCE ?!? This coming from a senator.

I don't care how you sugar coat it, there aren't any red sox named, and i just don't think its possible that none of them had anything to do with it. The drugs unfortunately seem to follow LoDuca and Clemens everywhere, and Clemens played there too. And like someone said earlier, there is simply no way they are the only trainers that had PEDs. This report is an embarrassment.

90 Great point, Mike. Not that anyone including the self-righteous Selig gives a damn.

I can't wait for the MLBPA conference.

Selig wont confirm the cost of the report...that's odd a day whose theme is full disclosure.

60 Clemens won the Cy Young in 1997. According to the report, he began taking steroids in 1998. So his "bounce-back" was certainly not completely chemically induced. Pettitte used HGH only when recovering from an injury.

Yes, these players broke some rules -- just like hundreds of players not named in the report.

I would not be at all surprised if Piazza was a user as well.

104 That is the press conference that I want to see. I hope that Fehr comes with his knives long and sharp for Mitchell and Selig.

104 That is the press conference that I want to see. I hope that Fehr comes with his knives long and sharp for Mitchell and Selig.

81 "You're denying that those are reasonable questions?"

Sure, they're reasonable... if the report was an investigation of each team and not of the steroid issue in general.

He wasn't investigating the Yankees or the Red Sox or the Mets. He was investigating steroids. The only people who cooperated were those who were busted and forced to do so as part of a plea agreement. One of them was a trainer with ties to the Yankees. That's how you get from point A to B.

And maybe I'm naive, but I doubt Senator Mitchell would risk his reputation --- one that's been earned with some pretty great work throughout the world --- to protect the Red Sox.

109 But hasn't Mitchell damaged his reputation by authoring a report so incomplete? Think about it...without Radomski, anyone of us could have authored this report by using news databases.

109 There's no way to prove whether he did or did not fully investigate every possible source. That's why the conflict of interest is a possibility. See 83 .

On a related, but divergent note, did the Yankees schedule the Arod press conference to deflect bad new or bury any scrutiny of the deal?

110 I didn't read Game of Shadows (I have a life and the SF Chron provided the Cliff's notes), but it seems along the same lines.
I was in a bathroom once and on the wall it said, "X-Player juiced here" and I was totally convinced.

113 The wall "read" not "said". Talking walls, now THAT'S ridiculous.

110 No, because the report makes it explicitly clear that it couldn't be more "complete" because of the refusal of so many involved to cooperate. As far as I can tell, he did what he could with what he was given.

But it's only incomplete if you assume it was created solely to name names. It was actually created to give an idea of the scope of the problem, and I think it would be truly incomplete if that was limited to "many players" instead of actual names.

Anyway, blame the media for lazily saying that the report says "[Player X] used HGH." The actual report says no such thing about any players. It has quotes, it shows connections, but it never states anything. It presents the evidence and lets the reader decide.

109 so you think no one on the red sox did steroids, while everyone on the yankees did?

i dont think he passed over any evidence or hid any red sox names, but im sure with the amount of data that the yankees trainer was provided there wasnt much need to really do any deep dives into other teams. maybe it was his subpoena power, maybe it was a deadline, maybe it was pure lack of interest, but this certainly seems like a report that is based mostly if not entirely around NY.

(btw the yankee trainer taught my friend at st. johns, and had the reputation of being a notorious name dropper and a scumbag)

I have a couple of thoughts.

1) I hope people realize that most of these names are from one source and there could be many more Radomski type guys around baseball supplying different people.

2) I found it strange that there were basically no Mets named considering the guy worked for them. This tells me that he was potentially protecting those who he is close to while satisfying the investigation with the other names.

110 Cooperation? You mean Mitchell wanted players to admit guilt? Why would anyone offer testimony when there is no standard of due process.

The purpose of this report was to name names so Selig could grandstand (see, I care, I took down Roger Clemens). Any consulting company could have offered recommendations about how to proceed in the future. Instead, this report was designed to rehash the past, place blame on the players and relieve Selig's conscience. I am sorry, but in any other industry, if widespread corruption was reported, the CEO would be forced to resign. Selig should step down if he really wants the game to move on.

111 If we're going to take it to that level, why not throw out there that maybe he didn't investigate the Yankees enough. Maybe he was a shill for the Royals, who aren't mentioned at all (at least regarding steroids).

But again, this talk of individual teams and players isn't particularly relevant because it wasn't an investigation of the teams in MLB or the players. It was a report designed to determine the scope and size of the steroid issue, but more importantly to create a plan for moving forward.

117 There were Mets from when he worked there (pre-1995), including Hundely and Carreon, just off the top of my head.

117 For number 1, I would bet every dollar I have (~7) that there are more people like Radomski. Mitchell either felt that the sources he had were enough to write the report or was pressured by Selig to get it done.

119 please read 118

thanks,

the management

121 we've all been there. your boss telling you to wrap up a project before its done. you send it off 75% complete because its in working order, but isnt the best job you coulda done.

119 Are you really trying to deny the mere possibility that a guy who works for the Red Sox and has a long economic and personal history with the team may have felt conflicted when investigating the possible illegal actions of said team?

See 118 . This was a witch hunt.

Here's another thought...by releasing these names, you have guaranteed that the MLBPA will not be cooperate with your attempts to revamp the drug polciy. So, why bother with names! Wouldn't Mitchell have been more powerful as an independent voice saying...forget the past, but do this to ensure the future?

124 nice.

As I've said before, I think there's basically zero chance that Mitchell tried to hurt the Yankees or protect the Red Sox. Most of the teams get away scot-free. It's just that he had these two guys, and only these two guys, to work with. And I'm not even sure it's a question of his not trying very hard; realistically, there was no way he was going to uncover steroid distribution networks on his own.

I also agree with those who say that the report shouldn't have named names. Since there will be no further investigation - "time to turn the page" - this group of players will bear all the blame. Everyone else will get a pass, when in fact no one has been exonerated. Our troll friend seems to feel that Clemens's sin is Piazza's redemption, and that's the way it's going to play in the history books - but there's absolutely no reason to believe that Mike Piazza did or didn't use PEDs. Pettitte and Knoblauch were named, but that doesn't mean that Jeter and Bernie didn't juice.

If you put asterisks (or some such) by the names of those players, it legitimizes the achievements of all the others at their expense. That's not right.

116 "so you think no one on the red sox did steroids, while everyone on the yankees did?"

Where did I even imply such a thing?

I suspect similar numbers of players on each team were doing it, maybe more for some and less for others. I find it particularly interesting how many players --- both admitted, named, and rumored --- have ties to the A's.

And Mitchell had no subpoena power; this wasn't a legal issue.

Too see how much this farce actually sadly impacts fans views, go take the ESPN poll and look at the #s. I'm sure its early and is mostly populated by Red Sox fans, but still, people base so much of their opinion and thoughts on what the media tells them to, that crap like this can really affect baseball and the Yankees. What a joke.

129 By the way, Zack - congratulations.

124 I would if he was investigating illegal actions by the teams.

But he wasn't.

127 And that first paragraph is why its such a shame. Either do it right and obtain full federal power to go after people involved, or don't do it at all. Publishing 500 pages or so based almost solely around 2 sources amounts to journalism, and bad journalism at that. But there is no denying the blatant conflict of interest, even if he walked the straight and narrow. Would you want the officer investigating your case of wrongful firing or whatever simply "taking a break" from being paid by the employer you are suing, no matter the appearance of dedication and fairness?

131 Players, teams- what's the difference?

130 Thanks! There was a reason I've been gone from these parts for awhile. Now I can go back to ignoring all my work again...

What I mean is, the Yankee organization looks really bad right now because of what the players did. If the report had thoroughly investigated another team as much as it did the Yankees (and a couple other teams), that team would also look really bad.

below is the link for the way espn compiled the names.
it is interesting that for the third grouping the list is titled "alleged internet purchases ..." yet the other two lists do not have the "alleged" disclaimer

http://tinyurl.com/375j56

136 It's kind of sad that Dan Naulty was the only person fingered by another play. What did Naulty ever do to deserve being ratted out by a peer?

133 He wasn't investigating specific players, either. He was investigating the steroid issue.

Look, if Andy Pettitte's name wasn't in the report, I doubt anyone here would be questioning Mitchell's credibility. But isn't it equally as interesting that it includes an e-mail from Theo Epstein asking about Eric Gagne and past steroid use?

That to me is a pretty nasty example of ownership/management not caring about the issue, since the Sox traded for him anyway.

138 Are you kidding? People have been questioning his credibility since he was appointed.

And not just Yankee fans.

Clemens takes the first shot at Mitchell and Selig. Pointing out that the source is in legal jeopardy and why is the feds compelling him to testify in a private business enterprise.

138 Well, since baseball is testing now, and he had good numbers this year in Texas, their concerns that were there in the 2006 off-season were alleviated. I don't find it so damning myself.

138 Howard Bryant laid out a pretty convincing conflict case.

Conflict of interest is a very common principle. More noble men than Mitchell have recused themselves from cases in which the appearance of a conflict existed (even less direct than Mitchell's). Also, I think we can assume that there are other noble people like Mitchell who don't have conflicts. Why Selig shoe-horned Mitchell into this investigation is beyond me.

FWIW: Happening now
We want to know what SportsNation thinks of the Mitchell Report!

Voice your opinion and discuss it all here with your fellow listeners during SportsNation on ESPN Radio! John and Orestes will be following the discussion and the best comments may be read on air.

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141 Link?

137 Probably slept with the other guy's wife.

137 yeah - poor guy.

138 people (especially many people on this site) have been questioning mitchell's credibility long before this report came out. sure it doesn't help our opinion of the report that not only is andy's name in the report but the "evidence" against him is flimsy and he is included for supposedly doing something that wasn't even banned at the time.
my issue, as well as many others judging by the comments, is the report relied only a few sources and thus led to only a specific group of players named hence the list is not close to comprehensive muchless exhaustive, so as a result, no names should have been included because we now have a list of "cheats" who are presumed guilty and everyone else will be presumed innocent.

135 Again: he didn't investigate the Yankees. These were the names he ran across.

I don't think there was any real impropriety, but Mitchell was a poor choice to lead the investigation. As Zack pointed out, at the very least he should have taken a leave from the Sox. Better would have been to recuse himself; better still would be for Selig not to screw it up in the first place, but that's asking a lot.

Oh,. but don't worry, our congress people are making sure that the sham that is this whole witch hunt continues:
http://oversight.house.gov/story.asp?ID=1663

148 How is that responsive? I said that exact thing in 83 . My post was merely a hypothetical.

135 Hence the concern about an apparent conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety. I still can't believe that they were stupid enough to put out a report that focused on the Yankees or employed NY guys as their principal sources. If that's all they had they should have refused to disclose names when they decided to make this thing public.

This report cannot form the basis for discipling players; there will be open and internecine war with the MLPA if they attempt to use it for that purpose. Selig cannot be serious about that.

let the defaming begin/continue:

http://tinyurl.com/yrkcuj

(though he makes good points that selig (and fehr) should resign and that this document would not hold up in a court of law)

i wonder if this report will take some of the ridiculous focus off barry bonds?

149 Yes. Just what I wanted. Nevermind that (insert 1,000 other better uses for our Congress' time).

139 If his ties were to a team other than the Red Sox, I doubt anyone would care.

143 I read Bryant's article, and I'd agree with him if this was a report produced for, say, Congress instead of Major League Baseball. And I'd still contend that the conflict isn't particularly relevant because, as I keep saying, it wasn't about nailing players or teams. It was about discussing the issue itself. It would be totally different if the stated goal was, "Root out steroid problems with the Yankees."

And I agree 100% --- and said so earlier --- that it shouldn't have named names because he received so little cooperation. At the same time, no one would have been satisfied with a report with the names redacted or with generalities like, "Many players in the league were taking steroids. But let's not talk about the past and move forward."

As for why Mitchell, it's probably because he has credibility in Washington. This was created, in part, to keep Congress from meddling in this issue.

110 118 125 Here here! William, I don't think you and I have ever agreed as much as we do today.

BTW, this might have been lost in the last thread, but according to this link (http://tinyurl.com/2nahqw ), possession of hGH with intent to distribute has been against federal law since at least February 27, 1991.

117 I was thinking that because the Mets players were in the same clubhouse as Radomski, they probably used cash, not checks - and of course, cash leaves no paper trail.

107 I can't wait for Fehr, either.

153 I hate our government right now.

154 I think people would question him if his ties to the Mets or Padres were as extensive as they are to the Sox. I'm certain of that.

For at least the 3rd time, I don't think he attacked the Yankees.

120 Yes there were a few pre 1995 Mets, but its hard for me to believe that there are 9 players from the 2000 Yankees, but less than a hand full Mets for a whole decade.

155 Ah, thats very true about the lack of paper trail in the Mets clubhouse. I wonder if the investigators even tried hard to get Mets out of him or they were just happy enough with what he told them.

119 Let's see. 30 teams. 2 informants. Both from NY! Wow, what a coincidence. The statistical odds of that happening are 1:900

If Mitchell was affiliated with the Yankees, do you think the report would be the same (based on which informants were used)?

If someone totally outside of MLB did this report, and they wanted to make it seem fair and balanced, do you think the ONLY informants used would BOTH be from NY?

"..was a report designed to determine the scope and size of the steroid issue"

Really... so with a few thousand players who played over the last dozen years, how many players do you thinks used? 80? What percentage of players used? 5%? 25%? Now that this report is out, please tell me the scope of this problem.

Sheesh. All those "leaked" names that turned out to be not in the report. I'm glad Damon is actually not on the list.

And on another subject...is there any chance the Yanks will sign any of the four players they nontendered last night to minor league deals?

160 Apparently Rasner will be back. I'd like to see TJ Beam as well; he has some upside and was injured. DeSalvo too, because he might have some trade value like Clippard did.

155 It is shocking to agree with William so much, isn't it?

So now do the "take away Bonds' records away" Yankee fans understand why the records cannot change? Who is willing to give up the pennants and World Series because of Clemens and Pettitte? Raise your hand. No? no? alright. Point made.

Goldman: "Chamberlain should be reasonably successful in either the bullpen or the rotation, but he's not going to have a 0.38 ERA again in either role."

Blasphemy.

153 Hey, this is the Congress that just passed a resolution saying that Christianity is an important religion.

155 Possession WITH intent to distribute? Does that mean it's not illegal just to use (sort of how it's not illegal to be high on marijuana)?

129 I saw that! 64,000 votes at the time. The general public takes this report seriously.

and Raffy is NOT on the list!

I hate to play this game, but we are in a war we can't win in Iraq right now thanks to either incompetence, greed, or some of both, and yet we have Congress calling another stupid session that will accomplish, umm, what exactly?

154 If his ties were to any other team, I would still care. Selig has shown a repeated pattern of angling and maneuvering the mechanisms of baseball to the advantage of the owners, and more specifically his buddies...musical franchises (Expos, Marlins, Sox), his attempt to help Pohlad cash out through contraction, etc.

By putting someone like Mitchell who has had a direct relationship with the front offices of the game in charge, his credibility took another dive. I don't trust Selig further than I can throw him, and can't think of any scenario where a reasonable, logical person would have installed anyone other than someone with no ties to baseball as chief investigator in this case.

162 I demand that they take away Velarde's triple play.

159 Weren't the two guys connected? Did one lead to the other? In that case, there's nothing at all mysterious about it.

In any case, I think the conspiracy theories are silly. These are the guys who were copping pleas, and there wasn't any other source of info.

Don Fehr addressing the press in 5 minutes.

I can say, 100% honestly, that I wouldn't want a Yankee official to investigate this.

Steroids are a problem. Things should be done. I'm fine with that. But not in this manner.

138 Yep, that lifelong Red Sox and Nation hero: Eric Gagne

Perchance... are you a Sox fan?

ESPN polls are BS. Most people are such sheep anyway. Not too many people think beyond whatever the media feeds them anyway.

I think the reason there is no official "list" in the report is that the report is by nature a snapshot and is meant as such. It's not meant to say, "Here are PED abusers. That's all of 'em. Goodbye."

The report can't do that because it lacks credible evidence. There is no Palmeiro, but it doesn't matter because it also doesn't have a lot of other players that got caught. There are tons of minor leaguers for example that aren't named that we know about. The inclusion and omission of names demonstrates on its own that you can't take this seriously as a definitive, damning legal document, although that's what it will become in public opinion. That's my argument for redaction.

169 Exactly. I would have been like putting, say, Woody Woodward in charge of the Rose investigation. Absolutely inexcusable.

168 You are exactly right, and that is why I hate our government right now.

168 Politicians always have time and money to spend on more tv face time.

174 I brought that up, not to be about Gagne, but to point out that the exchange paints Epstein in a pretty bad light, that he knew enough to ask about it, someone told him that steroids were an issue, yet the Sox still made the trade.

Epstein: "Have you done any digging on Gagne? I know the Dodgers think he was a steroid guy. Maybe so. What do you hear on his medical?"

Scout: "Some digging on Gagne and steroids IS the issue. Has had a checkered medical past throughout career including minor leagues. Lacks the poise and commitment to stay healthy, maintain body and re invent self. What made him a tenacious closer was the max effort plus stuff . . . Mentality without the plus weapons and without steroid help probably creates a large risk in bounce back durability and ability to throw average while allowing the changeup to play as it once did . . . Personally, durability (or lack of) will follow Gagne."

Yet the Sox still traded for him.

That, in a nutshell, is what was wrong with management and ownership during the "steroids era."

"ESPN polls are BS. Most people are such sheep anyway. Not too many people think beyond whatever the media feeds them anyway."

I disagree. These folk are very prototypical of the informed Americans that voted for GW.. twice. Welcome to America.

Don Fehr on ESPN radio NOW!!

168 The next election is right around the corner. These people need some valuable face time in front of the cameras. Look, they're doing "stuff". If I wasn't being monitored right now I'd say so much more...

Will Carroll suggests Hughes's injuries last year might be a good thing because they delay his hitting his innings peak.

ESPN picked the most unflattering pic of Selig: http://tinyurl.com/25v42y

Also, you can watch the conference on espn.com

176 Yeah. Matt Lawton is not on the list, and we know he failed a test for steroids.

More fodder for the conspiracy theorists:

BOSTON -- The Boston Red Sox did not tender a contract to reliever Brendan Donnelly on Wednesday, hours before he was named Thursday in the Mitchell report about the illegal use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball.

Blood testing? Do we really want them taking blood from Joba before a start?

roger issued a "vehement denial" - pete has the statement up at lohud

169 That's all true, and well said. But I think the point has nothing to do with any pro-BoSox bias. What matters to me is his affiliation with Selig and ownership, any ownership. That's the appearance of impropriety that I think is most important; the specific Red Sox stuff is a red herring.

186 Honestly, would they have tendered him anyway? He was a total bust and an injury risk.

denial........ain't just a river in Egypt.......having said that Radamsky as the key witness for the Mitchell report is dubious at best.......the whole affair sucks.......ticket prices beer and peanut prices going up as we speak to pay for this debacle.........

supposedly jose canseco wasn't allowed in for mitchell's press conference.
i guess you really can't make some stuff up.
http://tinyurl.com/3d6f26

192 Castiglione: Why would you come to Senator Mitchell's press conference to sign a book deal?

Canseco: No hablo ingles

Hilarious!

I've just read the whole report. I'd not urge it on anyone (it is long, obviously) but would suggest comments be temperate from those who haven't. For one thing, as a few have noted already, Mitchell had no subpoena power and his access to BALCO information was limited by the ongoing proceedings there, as well. He is very much 'sourced' in Radomski, but the report has quite detailed reinforcement of Radomski's names (signed cheques, courier waybills). There's a fair bit of this, which is a reason it is long. Mitchell says: "During each of the interviews, the law enforcement officials warned Radomski
that if he made any false statements he would forfeit their commitment to recommend a more lenient sentence and he would face further criminal jeopardy. Before the interviews, Radomski had been debriefed extensively by federal prosecutors and agents. They subsequently confirmed that the information he provided to us in his interviews was consistent with the information he
had previously provided to them."

The other main source (for Clemens and Pettite, among others) is Brian McNamee: "Brian McNamee said that he was a direct eyewitness and participant in alleged illegal use by three players who he served as a personal trainer... His personal lawyer participated in each interview. Federal law enforcement officials and members of my staff participated with me in all of the interviews."

Mitchell also makes clear that the idea that before 2002 steroids or HGH were 'okay' in baseball is simply a myth, an error. The game always had it as a violation to use illegal drugs, or misuse prescription drugs (ie, get them with illicit prescriptions) for sport benefit. (I hadn't realized this part, myself.) Mitchell goes on at quite specific length on this point. Here's a quote:

"There is a widespread misconception that the use of steroids and other performance enhancing substances, such as human growth hormone, was not prohibited in Major League Baseball before the inclusion of the joint drug program in the 2002 Basic Agreement. In
fact, as early as 1991 baseball's drug policy expressly prohibited the use of "all illegal drugs and
controlled substances, including steroids or prescription drugs for which the individual … does not have a prescription."

The report is also depressing on the apparent degree to which there was active subversion of drug testing by giving players way-ahead warnings of when they'd be tested again after a random positive, and the union appears (to my fast read) complicit in this.

I think it is a red herring to focus on allegations of Red Sox bias, or anti-Yankee or any such elements. The Radomski-focus, for me, just underscores how much wider the issue must have been, or must still be as he will not have been the only conduit: BALCO was very much off-limits, for example..

Is David Justice going to be brought back on YES?

Not that Canseco's word means anything, but:

"Castiglione: How about the credibility of the list?

Canseco: I believe they're going to leave off lots of players. That's what I believe."

From that awesome article linked above.

BTW, RLYW has a much better thread going on the "conflict of interest" matter.

195 i was just having that conversation - i don't know - guess it could go either way, but maybe not if the yankees/yes get calls about it.

194 Thank you, that is very interesting stuff.

194 Yes, steroids were prohibited under baseball's rules prior to 2002, but only in exactly the same category as marijuana or cocaine. It had nothing to do with their performance-enhancing properties, only its legality. I wouldn't even call it "cheating," just illegal drug use, period. If a player was caught, I believe the penalty was to enter a drug treatment program.

Someone asked if the report will take some of the focus off Bonds. I think it will, not specifically because a number of others are named (the fact of this is a surprise to no one) but because Roger Clemens is. Part of what made Barry the Evil One was his pre-eminence (and assault on Aaron's record). Add the Rocket who is as big as Bonds (so to speak) at the top (or bottom) of the heap, and focus gets widened there. As someone else said, Cooperstown becomes an issue there, too.

Having said this, Bonds is indicted for perjury, not steroid use. The focus on that will be unaffected, I'll guess.

Pettitte is going to be the one that stings a lot of people, I think (it does me). As best I can tell, his reported involvement is with HGH, and during a period when he was recovering from an elbow injury. Here's part of the passage, so everyone can stop guessing about what's said:

"From April 21 to June 14, 2002, Pettitte was on the disabled list with elbow tendonitis. McNamee said that Pettitte called him while Pettitte was rehabilitating his elbow in Tampa, where the Yankees have a facility, and asked again about human growth hormone. Pettitte stated that he wanted to speed his recovery and help his team.
McNamee traveled to Tampa at Pettitte's request and spent about ten days assisting Pettitte with his rehabilitation. McNamee recalled that he injected Pettitte with human growth hormone that McNamee obtained from Radomski on two to four occasions. Pettitte paid
McNamee for the trip and his expenses; there was no separate payment for the human growth hormone.
According to McNamee, around the time in 2003 that the BALCO searches became public, Pettitte asked what he should say if a reporter asked Pettitte whether he ever used performance enhancing substances. McNamee told him he was free to say what he wanted, but
that he should not go out of his way to bring it up. McNamee also asked Pettitte not to mention his name. McNamee never discussed these substances with Pettitte again. After the 2001 season, Pettitte, like Clemens, continued to use McNamee's services and to serve as a source of income after McNamee was dismissed by the Yankees. In a 2006 article, Pettitte "acknowledged an ongoing relationship" with McNamee. Pettitte was quoted as having said that he still talked to McNamee about once a week. "Mac has trained me professionally for a long time, and I'll continue to use Mac," Pettitte said."

"Simone :Clemens takes the first shot at Mitchell and Selig. Pointing out that the source is in legal jeopardy and why is the feds compelling him to testify in a private business enterprise."

Clemens? You mean Clemens' handlers. I doubt clemens can spell jeopardy.

Pete's latest post is awesome.

200 hGH use doesn't bother me, at least until I see an honest scientific rebuttal to what JC Bradbury has written at sabernomics.com on hGH and its alleged performance-enhancing effects - that is, all the studies say there are none.

I missed Fehr's conference; if anyone could provide a short re-cap, I'd really appreciate it.

I've an off-topic question. Did we ever sign the pitcher we drafted who could pitch both right-handed and left-handed?

As an on-topic point, while I certainly thing that what Pettitte did was not as bad as, say, Clemens or Bonds, that is the fan in me talking. Sure, HGH may not be a "performance-enhancing drug" as many of us might think of the term, but defending his HGH use as necessary or, to be frank, even conscionable behavior by a professional athlete is a bit of a slippery slope in my mind.

204 That ambidextrous pitcher is Pat Venditte from Creighton University. Looks like he did not sign. From Wikipedia:

On June 8, 2007, in the 45th Round of the 2007 Major League Baseball Draft, the New York Yankees selected Venditte with the 1345th pick of the draft. Venditte was surprised by the pick because he had told all major league scouts that he intended to return to Creighton for his senior year. The Yankees called him during the 30th round of the draft asking him how much it would take to sign him, but Venditte refused to set a price. Ultimately, the Yankees were unable to sign Venditte before the August 15, 2007 signing deadline. Venditte said that he was not quite ready to turn professional and wants to build velocity with his left arm and add another pitch with his right arm.

Venditte played 2007 summer ball for the Wisconsin Woodchucks in the Northwoods League. As the Woodchuck's closer, he had a 4-1 record, 9 saves, a 1.76 ERA, and a .154 opponents' batting average.

Mitchell requested us to "Judge me by my work," and "Read the report". Well, I've read through it. I'll give him this: dude's got a set of brass ones. $60 million for that? Wow.

In looking at the report it seems that no player named was with the Sawx at a time when they are accused of using PEDs or hGH in the report. I'd be interested to learn two things: First, is that observation correct and Second, how many other ML teams can make that claim about the content of the report?

Simply as an observation, it appears that if the Radomsky section were redacted there would be nothing of any real substance in the report. Had the Albany DA not broken their case there would have been nothing of real substance for Mitchell to report. It appears then that MLB paid him $60 million to take depositions from those two clowns. Damn, now that's the kind of sugar Papa likes and I sure would like to get in on it. Hell, I'll do twice the number of depositions at half the hourly rate and get a report out with a transcript attached a lot faster than Mitchell did.

I guess I've been saying this since the report broke but I find it almost unbelievable that these people could be so obtuse as to employ only two guys from New York as their direct witnesses in naming names. I'm sure Mitchell is a good and honorable man but the appearance and perception of bias created by this choice is devastating to the utility of the product. Maybe I'm missing it but this just looks like a failure to exercise good judgment at best and something entirely reprehensible at worst. For the life of me I cannot see whose cause this helps.

Neither Sosa or McQuire is on the 'list'. No additional info was found on Raffy. Pettitte took HGH for 7 weeks to heal from an injury. Could he have gotten a prescription from a doctor if he had asked? Maybe it helped him get back a month earlier, but I can't imagine it aided his career to any great extent.

And Barry Bonds must be a pretty awesome ballplayer.

206 But does Mitchell have an opt-put clause in his $60 million contract? On your other point (2 New York witnesses) ... as I said before, he played the hand he was dealt, wsporter. No subpoena powers, so - as you saw - his report contains scores of identical sentences: X was invited to meet with us; he declined. The two dealers nailed by law enforcement were available to him, and both happened to be New York-based. Balco would have been nice, and he does what he could with it.

I suppose you could make a case that there should have been no Mitchell Commission called, or that it should have been delayed (till when?) or that Congress should have been the ones acting (ouch!), using subpoenas to compel testimony (with endless 'my counsel advises me not to answer that').

My sense, very early (obviously) is that the report will force the union onside with testing and control in a way it seems NOT to have been (do you have any thoughts on that part of the report?). That the report will serve as a tipping point for perception and MIGHT play a role in reducing chemical abuse. Not holdiong my breath, but I did see several quotes in there about jobs being taken away from 'clean' players ... and that's long been part of what I most disliked in the steroid culture.

203 If hgh doesn't help, the players paying thousands for an illegal product are doubly stupid, of course: risking real side effects for zero positive effects. But it doesn't remove the intent to have a positive effect, does it? Are you saying you are not bothered if someone tries to cheat and fails? No ethical issue at all?

207 If Andy could have gotten a prescription (does hgh help injury recovery time?) why didn't he? I have the same question about Paul (Flamethrower) Byrd and his health 'explanation' ... and his obliging dentist prescriber.

46 If I'm Pettitte, I don't "man up" for shit. I say, "The guy is lying, and as soon as you have a positive test on me let's talk about this again. Until then, the guy is lying and I'm done talking about this."

206 I honestly think you're falling for their diversion. The more people argue about a Red Sox bias, the less attention is paid to his more basic obligation to ownership.

210 Either way: Is there really not a single ex-congressman or woman, or independent agency, who could have done this job? Then these questions wouldn't even be raised. Man, take away the informant that he apparently lucked in to and I could have done this job with google and a day off.

211 I could have done it with Lycos ;)

And what about the reported fact the the union obstructed better testing and tipped players off before their second test? Are these players names just a smokescreen to keep the attention off Bud and Fehr. When asked about his part Bud just blew it off.

Bud is the guiltiest party here, with Fehr running a close second. Yet it is Andy and others who will get the collective scorn of public opinion.

No charges, no proof, no case. Just damned soldiers while the generals walk away. Disgusting.

If you want some insight into how truly disturbed Red Sox fans are, go to the ESPN MLB home page and on the botton right is a vote for whether Roger gets your HOF vote or not.

After checking the vote, make sure to look at the map of what states voted what. It also tells you where the vast majority of ESPN fans come from.

Disturbing.

214 This poll tells me little about "disturbed" Sox fans, and tells me more about the steroid injecting Clemens. In almost every state the issue is about 55% - 45% Pro-Clemens, except for MA and IL where it's about 55% Anti-Clemens.

Given a margin for error, it's about 50 / 50. For me (a New Yorker), neither Bonds nor Clemens gets my vote. Both cheated.

208 "I suppose you could make a case that there should have been no Mitchell Commission called..." Yes, I have been making that point for the last 20 months! Additionally, if that was the only hand they were dealt then their work was not finished and this thing should not have been published. It serves no functional purpose as is.

210 I do not believe there is a Red Sox bias. I believe there is an APPEARANCE of a Red Sox bias which leads precisely to the point you make. I'm not falling for it I'm calling them on it as are many others. If I remember correctly we agreed this was a probable outcome when this thing was announced 20 moths ago.

215

kudos to you my friend for thinking rationally rather than like some provincial heretic.

I can't even read the Post today...every hacl in sports has been frothing about this for months, and now they get to unload, double barrels, all their high and mighty BS. Mushnick actually has the temerity to say that even though they (writers? fans?) saw players getting huge and belting more homers (and yet curiously said nothing about it) it is entirely the fault of Selig & Co...

184 You say that as if there's a flattering pic of Selig out there...

210 And the more it sounds like sour grapes.

218 I gave up on the local rags a long time ago. They're only good for comics and sudoku, and I can find those online...