I suppose that, as a lawyer and baseball blogger, I’m supposed to be following the Roger Clemens saga’s twists and turns…I can tell you I caught enough of what went on yesterday to be pretty convinced that Clemens is in some very deep legal trouble. But that said, I just hate this whole story. I hate the millionaire athletes jamming needles in each others’ butts and the skeevy friends who sell them the stuff; I hate the holier-than-thou sportswriters looking to show off their ability to mount a moral high horse, especially the ones who didn’t say boo when this was all happening; I hate the apologists who keep trying to convince us that improved physical strength has nothing whatsoever to do with performance on the baseball field; I hate the grandstanding politicians who think they have nothing better to do than hearings on this nonsense; I hate the union reps and owners who turned this into a bargaining chip nobody was willing to pay for instead of a set of rules to be enforced for the good of the game; and I hate the media that saturates us with all this. I just want this to go away and get us back to the game on the field.
Surly Mets fan thought for the day: wouldn’t it have been a different world if Gooden and Strawberry had gotten into steroids instead of cocaine?
Johan Santana was in Mets camp yesterday. Let’s play ball.
17 thoughts on “Inclemens”
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…. I have to say I really do not care who was on what when… I just want to see baseball being played on the diamond… does it taint records, no… does it make me respect the players less… no… does it irritate the hell out of me, yes… does it taint the game… umm… the act of shooting up — no, the coverage of the shooting up — yes. Clemen’s dog and pony show — yes. McNamee talking the way he has — yes.
I’ve had enough, PLAY BALL!
While I am not “entertained” by Steroid-gate and I am rarely in favor of Congress getting involved in stuff like this; unfortunately baseball appears totally incapable of handling this issue in any decent manner. No one involved in baseball from the owners, players, agents, sports writers, and fans can be pleased with their ignoring of this issue while it was (and maybe is) happening. So now we have the Congress involved and the politicalization of the issue. This was all brought on because it was not address before.
That being said, PLAY BALL!
I listened to most of the hearings yesterday. I doubt Clemens will actually be indicted for perjury, because they probably can’t prove it. But that’s OK too. One thing Clemens knows: baseball buffs know their history, and they know it well, and they don’t forget it either. And boy am I glad that Dan Burton is not my representative.
February 14, 2008. Pitchers and catchers. Yes!
Re surly Met fan thought, that was exactly what went through my mind as Burton ranted about McNamee the “drug dealer.” Given what David Segui has said about the McNamee that is a tortured description to say the least. Clemens lost big yesterday, baseball lost bigger. Best hitter and pitcher of a generation have their numbers dusted.
More importantly, we have Santana, Let’s Go Mets…
One interesting angle on this whole dispute is how the general public assesses credibility. As a litigator, you are always interested in how the broader community weighs evidence and decides who is telling the truth. We may not like the analysis used by the “average” person, but that is the thought process that takes place in the jury room during real trials. As Clemens and McNamee each have credibility problems, this case makes for an interesting real-life study.
Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution defines the various powers of Congress. One of them is this: “To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court”. Crank, since you’re a lawyer, does this section provide authorization for hearings of this nature?
Nah, Congress already has power to hold pretty much any kind of hearings it wants. That provision means Congress can create lower federal courts.
I also hate the holier than thou response from the media and the public. Unfortunately, none of us knows how hard it is to be a professional athlete. It’s easy to sit on the sideline and condemn athletes for using PED’s but I’m sure it’s not that simple if you are actually competing. That’s why I just wish someone would just be honest about it.
I was relatively surprised by the partisan spilt of the Congresspeople. I expected some grandstanding by the Democrats, and that’s what happened. But I don’t really get why the Republicans were battling so hard to defend someone widely viewed as guilty. Granted, they do that when someone in the administration misbehaves, but there doesn’t seem to me to be any political gain in it in this case.
Regarding the partisan split, it is McNamee’s lawyer’s theory that Clemens will be pardoned by President Bush, who is his friend, and that the Repubs were sort of aligning themself with that possibility. My 2 cents; he took PED’s, but that doesnt alter the fact that he is the greatest pitcher of our era, arguably the greatest all time (I feel similarly about Bonds). Not the greatest person, the greatest pitcher.
What I want to know is when does the NFL do their version of the Mitchell investigation? You gotta believe that for every MLB player who was juiced there had to have been two or three NFL players, right? And since this is all about “the kids”, and there’s lots more high school football players in this country than baseball players, the hammer’s going to land on the NFL real soon. Right?
Right.
Great post Crank. I’m with you all the way.
Santana, April, baseball. Mmmmm, good thoughts.
Let’s play some friggin’ ball!
No doubt you are correct re NFL usage, Joe, But the NFL gets a pass for several reason.
1) They’ve had testing for years.
2) Every season several guys are caught and suspended, typically losing 25% of annual income.
3) They are supposed to be huge; massive players are typical, not odd like Bonds and McGuire.
4) Numbers obsession, the HR explosion captured attention. We have nothing similar in football. Does anyone outside of New England care what Brady and Moss accomplished re touchdowns? How many casual fans are even aware? Non sports watching housewives knew about the race to best Maris and Aaron.
The NFL also does not test for HGH. And it would be a lot more helpful to NFL players. Not testing, in my view, is tacit permission. I’d be surprised if virtually all NFL linemen are not using.
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If the Mitchell Investigation has proven anything, it’s that testing for PEDs is a joke. How many of the players named by Mitchell were known because they came up positive during MLB tests? A handful? So if the NFL snags 10 players a year it probably means at least a couple of hundred PED users got through, and the NFL (and the owners, and congress, and ESPN) has to know that.
But the NFL is the great untouchable money machine, and nobody’s going to screw with that, no matter how many kids get ‘roided out from following it’s lead.
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Much ado about little. The hypocrisy about how this affects the “kids” is stunning. Drunk driving and alcohol abuse do far more damage to kids than steroids ever will. Yet watch any sporting event on TV and you will no doubt view a Budweiser commercial followed by a Chevy commercial. What message does that send to the kids? Drink a sixer and let’s see how this baby handles? As the libertarian that I take myself to be, I beleive what a person puts into their own body is their own business. Baseball fans pay to watch balls go flying over their heads. Is how they get there really important? It’s like a Democrat getting a lap-dance and protesting because she’s a Republican. Her tits are out, what do you care?