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I watched a bit of the drama online yesterday, but honestly, I could only take about 45 minutes of it.
I did follow along on a few of the blogs while it was happening, and I caught the highlights later in the day like many of you did.
Some random thoughts from it all…
+ The congressmen who were attacking McNamee seemed way out of line to me. Congressman Burton seemed intent on shaming McNamee, not at getting at the truth. The way he called Clemens a “baseball titan” almost made me gag. Same can be said for Congressman Shays, who was basically namecalling and browbeating McNamee. I have no interest in defending McNamee, but it seemed clear that those bozos had an agenda, and that it was all about making McNamee look bad. Apparently Henry Waxman agreed with me, going so far as to apologize to McNamee at the conclusion of the hearings for it.
+ For the most part, Clemens was stumbling over his answers like a blindfolded parent walking through a messy toy room. It was hard to watch. I felt that McNamee was much more believable than Clemens, and all of the media outlets I have listened to in the past 12 hours have confirmed that I’m not alone. This morning on Mike and Mike, Bob Costas said that he already believed McNamee more than Clemens, and that for him yesterday’s events “moved the needle” away from Clemens even more. (no pun intended on the use of the word ‘needle’.)
+ Pettitte’s testimony was the star yesterday, and as was reported earlier, it was not good for Roger. Pettitte will be taking some hits over the next few days and weeks as well, however, as he is now admitting that he lied to the Mitchell Report about the extent of his HGH use. He now says he took some again in 2004, HGH that was given to him by his dad. Media folk are already using this to play the “hypocrite card” because of his faith, and there’s really nothing he can do except take his lumps, ask for forgiveness, and try to learn from this.
+ Seems to me that a lot of people told half-truths to the Mitchell Report. Both Pettitte and McNamee have now admitted under oath that they did not tell all of the truth because they were trying to protect people. McNamee hid the physical evidence he had so as not to embarrass Clemens, and Pettitte protected his dad by not mentioning the 2004 incident. Both men, however, were not comfortable lying to Congress and risking perjury, so they told all. (or did they?)
+ I liked a quote I heard this morning that was attributed to McNamee’s lawyers. When he asked them how he had done, they told him he did good because “he gave answers, not speeches”.
+ I bet the nanny thing is going to hurt Clemens as more and more info comes out. McNamee remembered the color of her bathing suit at the party (creepy much?)…if he was so sure about that, could he really be mistaken about Clemens being there? He even recalled conversations they had about the party. Why would he lie about trivial details like that? I just don’t see it.
(last one, i promise)
+ Clemens has prided himself on his work ethic and discipline in maintaining his shape and fitness. Steroids or not, it is clear that he has put in a lot of work, and it is very commendable. But if I could say one thing to him right now, it would be this: “Keeping us with these lies for the rest of your life is going to be harder than any workout program you have ever done. The thing about the truth is, it does not require much effort to maintain. That’s actually the great thing about the truth; it does the work for you. But these lies, they will take work, and they will drain you emotionally, physically, and spiritually every day of your life. Always remember, it is never too late to let them go and embrace the truth.”
Oh one more thing, I’ve never been more ready for baseball to start.
Though I know none of you were out there with baited breath waiting for my 2 cents on the Mitchell Report, I still feel like I should offer something up. The problem is, I don’t have much of an opinion on it. 86 players cheated in different ways and for different reasons. A few of them were outspoken Christians; namely Andy Pettite, Paul Byrd, and Brian Roberts.
Am i surprised that these Christian men were on the report? Not at all. Most Christians I know have cheated at something before. Maybe it was the foot wedge they used on the golf course, a shortcut they took at work to avoid tedious paperwork, going over the speed limit for a good (or bad) reason, or peering over at somebody else’s cards while playing poker.
Am i saying that cheating is okay because we’ve all done it? Of course not. I’m just saying that I wasn’t surprised. I’m guessing you weren’t either.
Kudos to Byrd, Pettitte, and Roberts for addressing the issue right away instead of waiting. Whatever their reasons for using the stuff they used, whether they were legitimate, illegal, or otherwise, I hope they learned something from it all. I guess I can say that about the whole league, not just about these guys. Sadly, I think the only thing that most players learned was that if you are going to do this stuff, don’t pay with a personal check and leave the clubhouse attendant out of the transaction.
Here’s 3 other things I thought about the Mitchell Report and its subsequent fallout:
1. Personally, I don’t believe Clemens for a second now that he is denying the claims. I just don’t. Does anyone? Why would McNamee lie about injecting Clemens over the course of many years? And now that Pettite has admitted that what McNamee said was true, we can take this question further: Wy would McNamee tell the truth about Pettitte, but lie about Clemens? Makes no sense.
2. I liked Bill Simmons’ point about the Clemens-Piazza bat throwing incident from the 2000 World Series. We never understood why he did that until now: Roid Rage.
3. Considering this document was constructed with only a handful of sources, I gotta believe that there were hundreds more players who tried this stuff at one time or another. Not only that, but it was both pitchers and hitters, stars and scrubs, young and old who were using it. When you think about it in those terms, maybe the steroid numbers (aside from HRs) aren’t nearly as inflated as we thought.
Via ESPN.com, here’s Paul Byrd responding to the San Francisco Chronicle’s report that he purchased almost $25,000 worth of HGH from 2002 to 2005.
here’s essentially what Byrd says in the video:
“I have never taken any hormone or any drug that was not prescribed to me by a doctor. I was prescribed a hormone, I did inject it, and I did have the temptation to take more of it that what was prescribed so that my fastball would reach into the 90s on a consistent basis. I never succumbed to any of those temptations, I never took any more than what was prescribed me. I didn’t start to throw the ball a lot harder…I was taking it for my well-being and for general life circumstances that were made known to me…I have never done anything that has disrespected the game…I don’t want to show up at a stadium and have people think I cheated…I’m one game away from the World Series and now I’m dealing with my medical history.”
ESPN’s Buster Olney, who refers to Byrd as “…a very religious guy, a very thoughtful guy…” says that there are still some lingering questions raised by the SF Chronicle story, such as:
+ If this use of HGH is approved, why did he stop taking it?
+ Why did one of the prescriptions come from a dentist?
+ How much does he think HGH helped him as a pitcher?
+ Were there other alternative treatments for the sleeplessness and adult growth hormone deficiency than HGH, something that has been linked to performance enhancing drugs?
I really don’t think this is much of a story anymore, but I wanted to put Paul Byrd’s response out there for everyone to see. Even if Byrd had used the HGH to come back from injury, it was before baseball had banned it, so it falls into a huge gray area.
Because Byrd appears to have legitimate reasons for taking HGH, and because he stopped taking them before they were banned, and because his stuff as a pitcher never drastically changed, I don’t see anything more happening with this story. Did the HGH help him recover from the injuries that he sustained over the time frame he was taking HGH? Probably, but we don’t really know.
I’ll track the story in case anything else happens, but I think we can move on…
“Religion can go over into every area, like whether I should cheat out on the field. I write about the desire to just make money at any cost. I share about my temptation to spit on the ball, put KY jelly on it or scuff it, to win more games and make more money. That’s a big temptation for me, being a guy who throws 82, who relies on movement. You have a pull, because you have a certain window up here that stares you in the face. Are you willing to take steroids? Because that’s available. People viewed that as me being weak. Like, ‘This guy doesn’t want to win.’”
According to Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, the writers who penned the SF Chronicle piece, “Byrd has never commented on athletes’ use of growth hormone, but he has publicly denied using steroids and said he believes they pose a problem for baseball. He also has said baseball’s problem with performance-enhancing drugs is not nearly as serious as critics say.”
As the story develops we’ll have more to say about it, but for now here’s my initial thoughts (I’m headed out the door for the day):
Paul Byrd screwed up. He joins the list of Christians that have screwed up that includes, well, EVERY Christian. This will be tough for him to deal with, but from I read in the ESPN.com interview, he should be able to get through it.Even if HGH wasn’t banned at the time, I don’t think it was right for him to be using it. But that’s something we’ll get into further as the story progresses.
I have compassion for him, while still thinking that he did something he shouldn’t have.If you’ve been in a spot like Paul is, where you’ve screwed up and folks are finding out about it, perhaps you can say a prayer for him that something good comes out of it all. If you want to pile on him, you are free to do that to i suppose.More on this as the story develops
I watched a bit of the drama online yesterday, but honestly, I could only take about 45 minutes of it.
Though I know none of you were out there with baited breath waiting for my 2 cents on the Mitchell Report, I still feel like I should offer something up. The problem is, I don’t have much of an opinion on it. 86 players cheated in different ways and for different reasons. A few of them were outspoken Christians; namely Andy Pettite, Paul Byrd, and Brian Roberts.
It was 4 days ago that 
