The Pink Flamingo :: Say It Ain’t So

I’ve been playing with this one for several days. The baseball fan in me is agonizing over the Roger Clemens issue. Then, last night, I caught Darryl Strawberry on O’Reilly discussing Clemens, steroids, and Clemens saying he did not use them. My initial thought was he needs to go the way of Shoeless Joe if he is guilty. I listened to Strawberry last night and realized that Clemens has a decent reputation. Have we become so jaded with sports that we automatically assume someone is lying? Perhaps Clemens is a man of honor. Strawberry says he is, and Strawberry is a man of honor.

Today the headlines are screaming about Curt Schilling and his opinion of Clemens. According to the Sports Network, he feels Clemens needs to either clear his name, or give it back. My gosh I agree. I think all of these people mentioned in the Mitchell Report need to do the same thing. I’ve noticed that Clemens has hired an attorney to help clear his name. I hope so. I’m not a huge fan of Clemens. I’ve not been a huge fan of anyone since MY MAN Johnny Bench retired. I don’t have a ‘dog in this hunt’ so to speak, except for the fact that I LOVE BASEBALL. My heart is breaking over this. I know Schilling is right.
Sports News Network

“…Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling said Roger Clemens should give up four of his Cy Young Awards and more than 150 victories if he doesn't come clean and clear his name from the steroid allegations stated against him in the Mitchell Report. The comments by Schilling came a day after Clemens denied accusations made in the Mitchell Report that he used performance enhancing drugs. Clemens was considered a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer prior to the Mitchell Report, but Schilling now says on his blog, 38pitches.com, that the seven-time Cy Young Award winner's numbers should end before the 1997 season when he had 192 victories and three Cy Youngs. Over the weekend, Clemens' former teammate and training partner Andy Pettitte admitted to using human growth hormone.

"So as a fan my thought is that Roger will find a way in short order to organize a legal team to guarantee a retraction of the allegations made, a public apology is made, and his name is completely cleared," Schilling said on his blog. "If he doesn't do that then there aren't many options as a fan for me other than to believe his career 192 wins and three Cy Youngs he won prior to 1997 were the end. From that point on the numbers were attained through using PED's (performance-enhancing drugs). Just like I stated about Jose (Canseco), if that is the case with Roger, the four Cy Youngs should go to the rightful winners and the numbers should go away if he cannot refute the accusations."…”

Curt Schilling has other ideas. On his blog he comments on life, the universe, the Mitchell Report and Clemens. We need to put Schilling in context. He is a Republican. Enuf said.

“…First off on the Senator himself. I’ll take the word of the many reputable people I have heard talk about Senator Mitchell and after reading the report I don’t think I’m wrong. People wanting to point to his apparent ‘extreme bias’ based on his position as a senior member of the Red Sox organization are on a wild goose chase. I would argue that most of the people calling his character into question are doing so because they can’t relate to someone possessing integrity and an unbiased opinion in his position. Meaning those people are saying “If it were me I’d be unfair and taint the report to read in favor of the Red Sox”. (The conspiracy theorists out there are having a field day with Senator Mitchells relationship with Boston and his integrity, I don’t have any issues with either and I think if you look at his reputation and record you can safely say this man has made a living out of doing some pretty damn good stuff.)…”

Schilling goes into the personality, life, and character of Jose Canseco. I’m going to state up front that I have a tendency to view Schilling. I still have that image in my mind of the man pulling off this heroic pitching effort and the bloody sock. Schilling is “old school”. He may be one of those multi-millionaire ball payers, but he is also a throwback to what ObiWan would call a more graceful age of honor. I also need to state up front that I never liked Canseco. Perhaps some of that goes back to the fact that he played for the A’s and I have a very tainted view of the A’s after the destroyed my beloved Big Red Machine in the 1972 World Series.

Schilling wrote the following about Canseco.

“…Jose Canseco? Not sure where to start… My impressions were that he was an extremely shy guy, incredibly nice and caring. He was very much into the Miami community and giving back as well.

About 15 years later I am not sure those things don’t still ring true, but what’s happened over the past few years has made me think other things about him. I heard him on WEEI this past weekend and he was lying. He was stating that I lied in front of Congress and that I was reprimanded afterwards. Neither of those is true. …

As far a Jose goes, my opinion on what he’s done is, I guess, rather convoluted. On one hand Jose lied about every aspect of his professional career as a player. His entire career, all of it, is a sham. He never belonged in the big leagues and anything he ever did in the major leagues is a hoax. He made it clear that he would not have been the player he was had he not cheated. His statistics should be erased, his MVP given to the runner up and he should go down as the guy who broke the silence on a horrible period of the game, period. He was never in his life a major league player.

The problem I have, and the opinion I have, is based on the fact that he lied his entire career, every single day of it. He cheated his entire career, and lied about it. He spent his entire career on the record claiming he didn’t use PEDs, yet only when his life was in shambles and only when it served Jose Canseco the most, did he ‘come clean’. Only then did he become this bastion of truth and honesty. Is that not the scam of scams? He made his hundred million or so, and when he was no longer good enough to compete up here, only when cheating stopped being enough to keep him competitive, only then did he scream ‘blackballed” and vow to get his revenge. Only then did he tell the truth, or his version of the truth.

Which in the end gets us here. Say what you want about Jose, and there are things I disagree with and think he’s wrong about, but I have yet to find someone he’s named who’s NOT been guilty or tried to clear their name. The view I have on that is maybe a bit too simplistic but I look at it like this. If Jose had named me in his book, it would have taken about 20 minutes for me to issue a press release vehemently denying the allegations, which would have been as closely followed as possible by as large a legal action as I could have possibly taken to sue for slander, libel, defamation of character and anything else I’d have been able to legally do. It’s either that, or I’m guilty…”

Can a pitcher in the American League ever get the chance to hit a home run? I think Schilling just did. The other thing I’ve noticed his how literate and what a good writer Schilling is. I am extremely impressed. Schilling concludes with the following:

“…So there is my long winded opinion. It’s only mine, so don’t put words in anyone else’s mouth for me. This stuff is not fact, it’s what I think and feel, and I don’t speak for any other players either. I have no desire to talk to the media about this issue beyond this post. Bottom line for me is that your beliefs and perceptions are going to be shaped on your opinions of the players before this report was issued, and most people are not or do not choose to forgive or be flexible with players they don’t know or don’t like, but openly embrace ‘their guy’ for coming clean or worse yet “there is no way he is guilty’. No one named in Jose’s book that he claims has used has taken the effort or made the commitment to clear their names, and with the exception of Dave Justice, Roger Clemens, every person named in the Mitchell Report has either already been caught, or admitted to using since the report was issued. I am hoping that every person that was named and did use admits to it, admits it was a mistake (where applicable), and asks for forgiveness (if they want it) and moves on.

At the same time I pray that ANYONE in this report that is innocent, steps up and clears their names, now, today. No one has, and through today no one has done anything but issue a crafted statement in someone else’s words denying their guilt or association in any of this.”

PowerlineBlog has a wonderful commentary on Roger Maris, Barry Bonds, and steroids.
He references a column by Clark Griffin.

“…When a father shows his teenage son how much he respects the star baseball player, and the son sees the great wealth earned by these athletes not much older than he is, he will think of following those players in an effort to attain the same adoration and wealth. If anabolic steroids are condoned in MLB, an aspiring player must begin steroids use early, probably in junior high, so that they can compete in high school and get drafted or awarded a scholarship for college, the doorway to professional sports. This is because that player recognizes that his contemporaries are "juicing." and that if he doesn't juice, then he will probably lose at an early age. In this group of susceptible and impressionistic users there are suicides, significant health problems and continued illegal drug use. Baseball and all sports leagues now have an obligation to cleanse themselves of steroids for many reasons, the effect on adolescents being the most important one. To do so, an independent testing organization must administer tests on a continuing basis year-round as is done in the Olympics by the World Anti-Doping Agency. To do any less is a disservice to fans and their families and risks considerable damage to the game itself….”

MORE ON CLEMENS

“…"He will find himself in sports-marketing purgatory," said David Carter, executive director of USC's Sports Business Institute. "No one will want to embrace him, but he has to do what he can to rehabilitate his image. That will be a messy process." And this could be the messiest element of all: Fans might have to decide some things about themselves. "This is not a popular opinion, but the fans are to blame for almost all of this," Carter said. "They say, 'I can't believe Barry Bonds,' but then it's, 'Ooh, seats behind the dugout. I'll be there.' "Fans continue to finance the game. They don't say, 'We're not going to take it.' If they did, it would have such a severe impact that sponsors and networks would have to rethink everything. It begins with fans spending money, and fans obviously aren't that interested in solving the problem. They saber rattle, but they've never changed their consumption patterns." Dallas attorney Randy Johnston, whose specialty is legal malpractice cases, believes the Mitchell Report could shock fans into action. "People are tired of the filth," he said. "They may continue to watch baseball, but some people will have lost their joy in the sport forever. Some will make peace with it. But nobody will be unchanged. It will affect everyone's view of the game."…”

DENIES ALLEGATIONS
Clemens is denying everything.

“…Roger Clemens denied allegations by his former trainer that he took performance-enhancing drugs, calling them "a dangerous and destructive shortcut that no athlete should ever take." The accusations against the seven-time Cy Young Award winner from his former trainer, Brian McNamee, were contained in last week's Mitchell Report. Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell said McNamee said he injected Clemens with steroids in 1998 while with the Toronto Blue Jays, and steroids and human growth hormone in 2000 and 2001, while with the New York Yankees. "I want to state clearly and without qualification: I did not take steroids, human growth hormone or any other banned substances at any time in my baseball career or, in fact, my entire life," Clemens said Tuesday in a statement issued through his agent, Randy Hendricks. "Those substances represent a dangerous and destructive shortcut that no athlete should ever take.

"I am disappointed that my 25 years in public life have apparently not earned me the benefit of the doubt, but I understand that Senator Mitchell's report has raised many serious questions. I plan to publicly answer all of those questions at the appropriate time in the appropriate way. I only ask that in the meantime people not rush to judgment."

Another McNamee client, Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, said last weekend that he took HGH twice while rehabbing from an injury in 2002. Mitchell said McNamee told him he injected Pettitte with HGH two-to- four times that year. Baseball players and owners didn't have an agreement banning steroids until September 2002. They banned HGH in January 2005….”

I want one thing. If these people are innocent, their names need to be cleared. As MLB did not get their act together until September of 2002 and did not ban HGH until January of 2005 these substances were not “illegal” so to speak. I don’t think much can be done about that other than keeping these players out of the HOF. BUT – anything after those dates – well, they need to go the way of Shoeless Joe FOR THE GOOD OF THE GAME.

But – there is something even more important than the good of the game, and that’s the health of young people. It is quite obvious there are kids who would never make it into college ball, or the minors, let alone the Majors if it weren’t for illegal substances. Something must be done to prevent these kids from “juicing up” and then in later years suffering the devastating health consequences of their desire to be stars. Sure, there’s money, lots of it, but what good is money when you’re dying of cancer?

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary's Thoughts, Adam's Blog, Leaning Straight Up, Cao's Blog, The Amboy Times, Big Dog's Weblog, Conservative Cat, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate's Cove, Celebrity Smack, CORSARI D'ITALIA, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

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