* Author profile: Dale Tafoya

In today’s Modesto Bee.

Odd that anyone would want to be associated playing a role in the steroids era, but according to the piece,

What you may not recall, though, was Canseco and McGwire during their stay in Modesto. Canseco was here in 1984, McGwire the final month of ‘84 and all of ‘85. They overlapped for only the end of ‘84 while the Motown A’s nailed down a California League title.

McGwire and Canseco were young, ambitious and would have done anything to make
a name for themselves in baseball. Sadly, we found out later how far they went.

Like if they had played their ball in another city, they wouldn’t have gotten involved with PEDs? Modesto is a hotbed of the steroids community? And after all is said and done, the best Tafoya can come up with is, “Did Modesto have a role in the steroids era? Possibly.”

And possibly not.

* The next Clemens Report

“Weighing the Committee Record: A Balanced Review of the Evidence Regarding Performance Enhancing Drugs in Baseball”

Is that like FOX News is “clear and balanced?”

The official press release:

Minority Report: No Easy Answers in Clemens Steroid Use Case

Details Don’t All Add Up For Pitcher or Trainer, Investigators Find

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 25, 2008 — Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., Ranking Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, today released a staff report analyzing the body of evidence that prompted the Committee to refer the question whether Roger Clemens lied to Congress when he denied ever using steroids or human growth hormone.

New information has emerged, since the Committee’s high-profile hearing, about differences in testimony given by Clemens and McNamee on secondary issues such as whether Clemens attended a barbeque at Jose Conseco’s house or whether Clemens received vitamin B-12 injections. Further investigation also has revealed differences in the stories of Pettitte and McNamee about how Pettitte came to use human growth hormone to help him heal from an elbow injury.

According to the report, some of the information gathered by the Committee bolsters the case for referring the Clemens matter to the Department of Justice for further investigation. For example, McNamee’s angry reaction when Clemens’ teammate, Andy Pettitte, revealed Clemens had told him about using human growth hormone seemed critical. But other details could undermine the credibility of Brian McNamee, one of Clemens’ key accusers.

The report also lends credence to Clemens’ version of how he came to sustain a buttocks injury while with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1998. According to the report, team records show Clemens received a B-12 injection in July 1998, as Clemens stated. The team doctor confirmed giving the injection. And the injury – according to a physician’s exam and a subsequent MRI – turned out to be a bruise, not an abscess caused by a hurried steroid injection, as McNamee claimed. In fact, three of the four teams for which Clemens played acknowledged B-12 injections were administered during his time with those teams.

“Did Roger Clemens lie to us?”

Davis said. “Some of the evidence seems to say he did; other information suggests he told the truth. It’s a far more complicated picture than some may want to believe. Memories fade and recollections differ. That’s human nature, not criminal conduct. My concern is the integrity of sworn statements made to Congress. At this point, the Justice Department is best equipped to investigate that central question and reach a fair conclusion.”

The Committee minority is also planning to provide copies of additional investigative documents to the Justice Department relating to the probe into Clemens’ truthfulness. The documents, requested by DOJ to further its investigation, include staff notes of conversations with various individuals with knowledge of events about which the Committee received conflicting testimony.

# # #

You can read the entire report as a PDF file here

Clemens and Canseco: Together at Last?

An entry in the NY Daily News‘ “Subway Squawkers” blog connects the dots between Roger Clemens and Jose Canseco through excerpts from Juiced.

As this evidence has not yet been released to the public, I don’t yet know how damning this is. What I do know is what Canseco wrote about Clemens in his book, “Juiced.” And one wonders why Clemens’ attorneys would bring up Jose in the first place, given what the player wrote about Roger - and so-called “B12 shots” - in his book. To put it mildly, Jose (and “Juiced”) doesn’t exactly help their case.

The writers — Lisa Swan and Jon Lewin — go on to give examples such as this one:

Check this out - Canseco writes on page 211 of the hardcover edition of “Juiced” about how steroid use was so “open” in the locker room that:

“…the trainers would jokingly call the steroid injections ‘B12 shots,’ and soon the players had picked up on that little code name, too. You’d hear them saying it out loud in front of each other, ‘I need to go in and get a B12 shot,’ a player would say, and everybody would laugh.”

Canseco then described what was really in the so-called ‘B12 shot’: “a combination of steroids - in most cases Deca and some form of testosterone.”

Etc.

 

The Clemens Report: “The gift that keeps on giving”

According to a Jan. 29 column by ESPN’s Tim Keown.

The upshot:

The bulk of the report is a skull-crushing dissection of nearly every start the man ever made. It is placed in the context of run support and other factors I think are supposed to make you believe Clemens is just a guy trying to make his way in the world, through the good and the bad, just like you and me.

And, therefore, not a steroid user.

In other words, A+B=Clemensisnotasteroiduserandneverhasbeensoleavehimalone.

Others to weigh in on the entertaining document include:

• Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci: “Do all the numbers prove that Clemens did not use steroids? Of course not, not any more than the sudden spikes in any career prove something fishy was going on.”
• Wallace Matthews in Newsday: “Like his previous three attempts at self-acquittal, this one, too, will blow up in Clemens’ face. Provided anyone is still awake at the end of the report.”
• Zachary Levine, a.k.a. “The Unofficial Scorer,” for the Houston Chronicle’s Web site: “I’d hoped to have a steroid-free week here on the blog, but 45 pages of sleep-inducing reading this morning changed that in a hurry.”
• ESPN radio’s Mike Greenberg offers an opposition viewpoint, to a degree: “Whatever he thinks he can do and could possibly do to defend himself, I don’t know why anyone would have a problem with it. I don’t know that this particular thing makes any difference to me, but I certainly don’t have any problem with it.”
• Joe Sheehan, Baseball Prospectus: “There’s no new information contained here. It’s not an analysis, not a study, not an investigation. It packages the facts of Clemens’ career, makes a handful of salient comparisons, and calls it a day.”

The consensus upshot of these and similar pieces is that the report only proves that the pitchers used as examples — including Clemens — had good seasons and bad seasons; it doesn’t prove anything one way or another about possible PED use.

Save a tree; don’t bother printing it out.

Countdown to destiny

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s investigation into the use performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball

Canseco’s new career: film entrepreneur/blackmailer?

José Canseco, the former major league slugger and admitted steroid user who exposed other players in his 2005 best-selling book “Juiced,” offered to keep a Detroit Tigers outfielder “clear” in his next book if the player invested money in a film project Canseco was promoting, according to a person in baseball with knowledge of the situation.

That was the lead in today’s NY Times story about the latest in the increasingly strange publishing saga of Canseco and his follow-up to Juiced.

Canseco said he tried to contact Ordóñez several months ago to talk about his books but did not hear back from him. Canseco refused to say whether Ordóñez would be named in connection with performance-enhancing drugs in his second book. “You are going to have to buy the book to see that,” he said.

You can’t buy this kind of advertising.

Canseco said in news accounts in 2006 that he was working as an executive producer of a documentary movie to be based on “Juiced.” The movie, originally scheduled for release in late 2007, has not been made. The job of an executive producer often includes fund-raising. Canseco said he was also working on “Vindicated” and a novel during this time….

Canseco’s book agent, Brett Saxton, has said the book contains some “huge” new names of players who used performance-enhancing drugs, in addition to those named three years ago. Last July, Canseco told WEEI Radio in Boston that he had unspecified derogatory information on Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees.

Last week’s Only a Game featured a skit about the new special investigation committee Bud Selig had appointed to look deeper into the PED situation. One mock-caller was based on A-Rod wanting to make sure his name wasn’t on the list and wondering why Canseco wasn’t being prosecuted.

Canseco update:

The publisher-to-be-named-later for Vindicated has been announced. And the award goes to:

Simon Spotlight, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, who expects the book to be released in time for opening day.

According to an item in today’s New York Times,

Jennifer Bergstrom, publisher of Simon Spotlight, said Bret Saxon, Canseco’s book agent, called her last Tuesday after Berkley decided not to go forward. Bergstrom asked to see the manuscript exclusively, and within 48 hours of reading it, Bergstrom had signed a deal. Asked whether the book would be controversial, she said, “Absolutely.” She added that the problems with the earlier deal that fell through “surprised me a little bit, but it didn’t scare us.”

 

Steroids 2.0

Having trouble keeping straight how involved your favorite ballplayer is in the PED web? Thanks to Slate.com and the marvels of the social network movement, here’s a handy interactive chart. Remember when you couldn’t tell the players without scorecard? Now you can’t tell most of them apart without a specimen cup.

 

Review: Juicing the Game

From Mopupduty.com.

Up-shoot: “All in all a slow read but deeply investigates the people and forces that have made baseball in the last 15 years a Juiced Game.”

 

A breath of fresh air

In a recent “Inside Baseball” column, Sports Illustrated’s John Donovan gives fans something in which they can take comfort: The All-Clean Team.

The list includes:

• Alex Rodriguez
• Ken Griffey, Jr.
• Albert Pujols
• Frank Thomas
• Vladamir Guerrero
• Greg Maddux
• Pedro Martinez
• Ichiro Suzuki

He tosses kudos to a few more, including Jeter, Glavine, Smoltz, Vizquel, Randy Johnson and Lance Berkman(?).

Woe betide if any of these wind up being “dirty.”

 

Let the (Congressional) games begin

From NPR’s Morning Edition, this report of Congressional hearings on baseball and steroids. Eric Fisher, a writer for the Sports Business Journal, previews the testimony of baseball officials with Renee Montagne.

ESPN’s Bill Simmons speaks for many of us

when he asks in his column of Jan. 28 issue, “How do you put an asterisk on the best moment of your life? For him, and many Red Sox/Clemens fans, it was the second time he struck out 20. It came in a mediocre season against the Detroit Tiers and he movingly recreates the emotions he shared with his dad as well as a bunch of friends and strangers in a Boston bar.

“If Clemens cheated in ‘98,” he wonders, referring to the first accusation of PED usage,”how do we know if he was clean in Detroit?”

How do we reconcile oour own memories with everything we know now, after all the revelations?

Well I’m glad that’s all cleared up…

In a way I feel bad for Roger Clemens. In a sense, one of his comments on tonight’s 60 Minutes was right: America (or at least some of its baseball fans), have reached a point where it’s guilty until proven innocent.

To my mind, Clemens did not convince me of his innocence. I wonder if some sports broadcasting concern (ESPN, SNY) might higher an expert in body language to try to discern whether the Rocket was being truthful. I also wish I could see the unedited version of the segment.

I heard that Clemens had scheduled a press conference for tomorrow. I know we’ll all find out soon enough, but I wonder what the theory is behind that.

Stay tuned…

A-Rod on 60 Minutes: “I did not inject steroids with that woman…”

Hot on the release of the Mitchell Report, 60 Minutes aired a segment on Alex Rodriguez, the former and future highest paid player in the game. Among other revelations, the 2007 AL MVP says he has never taken performance enhancing drugs. Of course, everyone is pretty much skeptical of anything any athlete has to say lately. (”How can you tell when a ballplayer is lying? His lips are moving.”)

The story

What’s wrong with a little cheating between friends?

Nothing, according to Bruce Weber in the Dec. Sunday Times “Week in Review Section,” who offers several examples and quotes to back up his philosophy.

“Cheating in baseball is just like hot dogs, French fries and cold Cokes,” Billy Martin, the pugnacious former player and manager once declared, a sentiment echoed, in an interview, by the baseball historian John Thorn.

“Cheating is not merely countenanced in baseball,” Mr.Thorn said. “It is loved.”

Thorn, writes Weber, noted that “spitballs and hollowed-out bats are on-the-field maneuvers, organic manipulations of the actual rudiments of the game, whereas performance-enhancing drugs originate off the field, taking the outside world where it doesn’t belong.

“Any kind of cheating between the white lines is encouraged,” Mr. Thorn said. “People think it’s clever. But for most fans, baseball is both an emotional and a psychological refuge. When you shake fans up, tell them there was a subtext to a story they weren’t aware of, it makes them feel bad about themselves for being credulous. It’s like someone has dumped on the family scrapbook.”

 

The Mitchell Report “Mug Shots”

Courtesy of The New York Times.