If Roger Clemens was/is using steroids, he’s got to be one of the few professional athletes who hasn’t paid a price — no exploding tendons, no deteriorating joints, no weirdly unexplainable injuries. Which leads me to believe he’s clean.
And say a word of thanks for Pedro Martínez’s time in a Red Sox uniform. When he was healthy, he was the best pitcher in Sox history. But unless he can come back from rotator-cuff surgery, it looks like he’s through.
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mike_b1
Dan, we don’t really know the impact of all the different PEDs (the proper term — “performance enhacing drugs” — because steroids are only one type of a much larger class) because no controlled study has ever been done on the impact of PEDs and athletes. On the other hand, we can expect Shaughnessy’s blistering (and proof-less) indictment of those reportedly named by Grimsley any day now…
Wes
Kudos to Pedro… Few here have generated as much electricity.
ben
With the events of recent years, its a mistake to make the assumption that professional athlete is not a user, particularly if they’ve been named. Roger Clemens is among the only professional athletes who’s accomplishments after age 35 rival those of Barry Bonds. It runs as counter to human physiology as anything you can find.
mike_b1
It runs as counter to human physiology as anything you can find.So does that monkey named George Bush being president of the United States, but no one’s accusing him of being on steroids (just of being drunk and stoned).
Anonymous
Dan,Latest report I heard (after Red Sox game last night) were that Roger stands accused of using HGH, not steroids. Which makes his defense of “I passed all my drug tests” irrelevant, since baseball reportedly can’t test for it. (The Tour d’France appears to test for things the other sports don’t accept as reliable?)Of course, the whole “ask the guy caught with juice to give up 4 names for lenient treatment” smells of the HUAC and hollywood red baiting. Grandma hated Burl Ives along with Dick Nixon, long before it was cool to hate Tricky Dick, for what they did to the Pete Seager and The Weavers. The stool pigeon says he “didn’t give up any names”, just answered about guys they asked about, but that could be nudge-nudge, ok, if you don’t want to offer names, we’ll read you the roster and you say stop when you think they did some stuff.Running counter to physiology is part of what professional atheletes are supposed to do — to exceed human norms. But some take it to even further extremes with PED’s. Slipperly slopes …Bill R.
Anonymous
We’re seeing some lousy, sensationalist journalism here.Picking through the various articles from yesterday and today, I can’t even figue out whose affadavit it is and what exactly they are suppoesed to have said, apparently passing something on 2nd hand.
JT
Dan –You’re being naive if you think just because someone didn’t get hurt means they weren’t on steriods. First of all, Clemens DID have a series of nagging injuries late in his tenure with the Red Sox, but that’s beside the point. Where does it say guys who use performance enhancing drugs inevitably get injured? That’s the kind of logic that had people believing for the longest time that pitchers wouldn’t use, because what did they have to gain?
Anonymous
Check this story from the AP:Prosecutor: Steroids Story ‘Inaccurate’By DAVID KRAVETS, AP Legal Affairs Writer7:24 PM PDT, October 2, 2006 SAN FRANCISCO — The federal prosecutor overseeing an investigation of steroids in baseball said Monday a newspaper report that five players, including Roger Clemens, had used illegal performance-enhancing drugs contained “significant inaccuracies.” San Francisco U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan issued a statement Monday, saying: “In view of the recent news reports purporting to identify certain athletes whose names had been redacted from the government’s search warrant filings in the Grimsley matter, and in the interests of justice, please be advised that these reports contain significant inaccuracies.” —————–I do hope this won’t prevent the CHB from submitting the indignant condemnation of Clemens he’s probably just now putting the finishing touches on.
Steve
A few months back I heard an interview with Grimsley – I can’t remember exactly when or where I heard it (Ed Schultz or WEEI) – in which he talked about his interviews with the FBI about HGH usage. He was naive (at best) – apparently he went into the first interview without speaking to a lawyer first, then decided he was not going to name names, but by then he had signed something and got squeezed hard. (I don’t believe actual torture was involved, but hey, with the current administration, how would we know?)The upshot was, in order to save his hide, he named some names.Under the circumstances, I think it would be best to examine the exact evidence against the accused very carefully. I wouldn’t leap to convicting these guys only on the basis of Grimsley’s say-so.I’d love to be able to get a transcript of that interview if anyone can find it.