Mitchell Report Open Thread

Say it ain't so, Mayor!

(Should this wild speculation have been posted in the other thread?)

And didn't Jeff Kent say that Babe Ruth might have used PEDs?  

he was number 1/8...lol

Also, A-Rod did them too.  

(In case sarcasm doesn't come through that well on the internet, the Clemens thing was a joke, but the A-Rod part was not.)

I did receive one tip on this topic - my guy says the Yankees are in for a bad day (but Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera are not in the report).

Brady Anderson, Manny Alexander, Rick Ankiel, Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Aaron Boone, Rafaeil Bettancourt, Bret Boone, Milton Bradley, David Bell, Dante Bichette, Albert Belle, Paul Byrd, Wil Cordero, Ken Caminiti, Mike Cameron, Ramon Castro, Jose and Ozzie Canseco, Roger Clemens, Paxton Crawford, Wilson Delgado, Lenn y Dykstra, Johnny Damon, Carl Everett, Kyle
Farnsworth, Ryan Franklin, Rich Garces, Jason Grimsley, Troy Glaus, Juan Gonzalez, Eric Gagne, Nomar Garciaparra, Jason Giambi, Jeremy Giambi, Jose Guillen, Jay Gibbons, Juan Gonzalez, Clay Hensley, Jerry Hairston, Felix Heredia, Jr., Darren Holmes, Wally Joyner, Darryl Kile, Matt Lawton, Raul Mondesi, Mark McGwire, Guillermo Mota, Robert Machado, Damian Moss, Abraham Nunez, Trot Nixon, Jose Offerman, Andy Pettitte, Mark Prior, Neifi Perez, Rafael Palmiero, Albert Pujols, Brian Roberts, Juan Rincon, John Rocker, Pudge Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Scott Schoenweiis, David Segui, Alex Sanchez, Gary Sheffield, Miguel Tejada, Julian Tavarez, Fernando Tatis, Maurice Vaughn, Jason Varitek, Ismael Valdez, Matt Williams and Kerry Wood.

Now we know why he was so good.

Well, he died because of his own drug abuse.  The truth is never "kicking" someone.  It reveals why they are what they are.  It's still sad case, but he chose his lot in life and unwittingly killed himself, leaving his children fatherless.

In September 2007, Cincinnati Reds catcher Ryan Jorgenson also was
suspended for 50 games based on non-analytic evidence that he had violated the joint program.

Not exactly news, but his name is in the report.

All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?

If you dig at all into baseball's long history you begin to understand that there's a great many competing influences on the stats--the balls are wound tighter, the mounds are moved, the leagues are integrated, the players juice... It's never been as clear-cut as the laudations to baseball's timelessness would have you believe. I can't help but think that a great many people who would decry the assault on baseball's pure record book would hold up the counting stats of 1030 as gospel. It's never been that easy, and these revelations only make things harder. But the continued effort to better understand the game still manages to shine a light into the murky depths of history.

If, for example, steroid use was widespread in this era (akin to the All Drug Olympics) a simple league and era-correction, such as ERA+, would be sufficient to provide context. Things aren't that easy, of course. But as we continue to gain more information, and as really smart people continue to pool their efforts to devise better ways to understand the game, I'm confident we'll be able to establish a solid understanding of the records and the history.

If educational efforts fail there may continue to be a great many who are outraged at 73*70*61*60. This will be a tragedy not because of the death of a mythical purity of the numbers, but because of the lost opportunity to reveal their constant fluctuation.  

As another great steroid user once said, "I guess what I'm trying to say is, if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change. "

This shit is Shakesperean.

Then the Yankees hired McNamee, Toronto's strength coach, to be Clemens' personal trainer, and he starting winning Cy Youngs again.

All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?

Possibly another problem created by ESPN's conflict of interest as a sports news source and a presenter of sports entertainment.

Most likely still an idiot, I suppose. At least I'm a Reds idiot.

I take comfort in the fact that over the past three to four years I have watched less and less ESPN "news" and have read more and more of what I crave online.  (This is not to say that I don't have to sort and sift through a lot of stuff written and posted by the same broadcast media heads-- and other online quacks.)

I really like a news program on PBS called Washington Week.  Each week (tonight!) a panel of journalists with little-to-no obvoious agenda sit around a table and drink water from sepia-toned glasses and discuss the events of the three branches of our federal government.  Nobody shouts.  Nobody grandstands.  Nobody specualtes much beyond what the moderator (Gwen Ifel) asks them to.  I watch for a (commercial-free) thirty minutes and I feel much more informed and "tuned in" than with any other thing I read or watch during the week.  ...I wish there was a similar program featuring sports journalists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Schaap

(From Newsday)

"...Former Yankees and Mets pitcher C.J. Nitkowski considered taking steroids after the 2001 season but decided against it, based partly on a conversation with McNamee.

Nitkowski, who played baseball at St. Johns and met McNamee through campus connections, said he had just hired McNamee and was working out with Clemens and Pettitte in Clemens' gym when he privately asked McNamee about steroids. Standing far enough away so no one else could hear, McNamee "educated" him on the effects of steroids, both positive and negative. But, Nitkowski stressed, McNamee did not encourage him.

"I was really giving it serious consideration," Nitkowski said. "I already asked a lot of questions in the clubhouse. He just separated fact from fiction, told me what was true and what was just clubhouse talk. He weeded through all of that for me, but at no time was he like, 'Hey, you need to do this because this is going to help your career.'"

Nitkowski, now playing in Japan, said he still plans to employ McNamee in the wake of the Mitchell Report. McNamee cooperated with Mitchell to avoid being pursued by the federal government for his involvement with illegal steroids. He declined to comment Thursday."

check out this newspaper front.

notice the man at the bottom who stole the wallet. notice the man painting a holiday greeting on his store front.

http://www.klewtv.com/news/12485091.html

Think about it- just this week we at Red Reporter have posited two names from that team only to have an entirely different 1990 Red actually show up in the Mitchell Report.

And wasn't Glenn Braggs known for his mighty pythons?  And wasn't Rob Dibble known for being a half-crazed hot head?

..Look at all these rumors
I can't take it no more
My best friend said
there's one out now
about me and the girl next door