Posted on 12/14/2007 8:40:56 AM PST by meandog
On Clemens' stance regarding claims in Mitchell Report that he used and was injected with banned performance-enhancing drugs from 1998-2001: ``Roger Clemens adamantly, vehemently and whatever other adjectives can be used, denies that he has ever used steroids or whatever the word is for improper substances. ``He is really concerned and upset that he has been named in this report based on the allegations of apparently, reading the report, based on a trainer (Brian McNamee) that he has had in the past. ``That's not a standard somebody should be held out in public to have done something as serious as have used steroids in baseball.''
In a release by Hardin's office earlier Thursday, NcNamee is described as a "troubled and unreliable witness" and "a former trainer who worked with Clemenson the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees, (who) has repeatdedly denied these current claims, including in June of this year whe he was first contacted by federal investigators. According to McNamee, after a day of repeated denials to federal investigators, he changed his story under the threat of federal criminal prosecution. He says he was then forced by those federal prosecutorial authorities to tell the same story for inclusion in the Mitchell Report."
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
80 players were named. But 110 players failed the drug test.
why not be sure before you bury these folks.........know why ?
Clemens is a republican and was gonna stump .....
Pardon me for asking, but how is that relevant to anything I said?
A lot of people have castigated Judge Landis for being unduly harsh on Joe Jackson, et al., but let’s face it, we never saw another betting scandal like it until Pete Rose, who was also severely dealt with by Giamatti.
Selig is a coward. If he had any stones (or brains), he would flush this toilet, prove to the players’ union that steroids=lifetime ban, and in a couple years or so, a new crop of ballplayers will emerge, hopefully untainted, and baseball can get back to being baseball. Right now, however, unless the active players among this bunch are expunged from the game, there is simply no reason to believe it isn’t an ongoing problem.
I can’t wait to see the first lawsuit from players who didn’t do the “clear”, got cut from teams in favor of these cheaters, and saw their careers come to an end.
How did all those libel suits against Jose Canseco turn out after he wrote his book?
There will be no lawsuits over this. George Mitchell ain't a fool.
The only way to handle the issue is when the players who are clean stand up to their union bosses and demand testing.
I hear you. It is a long story for me, but...It started for me when I read Ann Coulter’s book “Treason”.
“Treason” is a book written by an openly biased author, so I took it with a grain of salt.
But what I read completely perplexed me. Ann Coulter’s version of what went on in the hearings (culiminating in the famous “Have you no decency” quote by Joseph Welch) was SO dramatically and diametrically opposed from what I had learned in school, read in articles, and watched on documentaries, that I literally felt that something was completely amiss.
Either Ann Coulter was lying, or the liberals that wrote the books I read in school, put the articles in magazines and newspapers, and made the documentaries were lying. There was no middle ground.
So...I located the actual government transcripts of the hearings.
And I actually read them.
You know what? Ann Coulter’s description of the events of that particular hearing (and others as well) was spot on. I felt like my anchor had been torn loose, and it was a bit disorienting.
The next book I read was “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers, and it changed my political life. I have never been able to view the political process in an even and unbiased way since then.
I have read at least a dozen books about that era since then, and there were some that really put the nail in it for me. Especially the books about the Venona Project. It verified for me 100% that Whittaker Chambers WAS telling the truth. And so was McCarthy.
Anyway, if I could suggest one book, I would recommend “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers. What is most stunning about it is the absolute identical patterns of smear and discreditation used by the liberals in the government and media then, and those used today. Just hideous, but it is the way all liberals operate today.
Is there anything at all besides one mans word against another?
Wait until the players who lost jobs to these cheaters start suing teams for damages (lost wages).
C'mon now bro, hate da playa, not da game.
So, is having lasek surgey cheating??
I don't think it was Congress. However, the fact that FedGov is present in baseball at all means that pro sports is an institution of the state, but unprotected unlike religion and the press.
1) Did Mitchell have the power of subpoenas?
No.
2) Were people required to sign affidavits before giving evidence or reqiured to take an oath under the threat of perjury?
Sort of. Brian McNamee, who is Clemens' accuser, agreed to cooperate with Mitchell as part of his plea bargain with the Feds. McNamee was given immunity with respect to his statements to Mitchell provided he was completely open and truthful. A Federal prosecutor was present at each interview to assure compliance with the plea agreement.
3) Where is evidence to back up these claims?
Although I can't recall whether McNamee provided documentary evidence specific to Clemens, Mitchell's report has an extensive appendix that contains documentary evidence to back up many of the allegations, including canceled checks, notes, FedEx receipts, etc. I also note all of the named juicers were given an opportunity to respond to the allegations and all but a handful refused.
4) Andro was neither illegal nor a banned substance when McGuire took it. I wonder if the concept of ex post facto means anything to any one?
Mitchell acknowledges that in the report. But that vast, overwhelming majority of the accusations refer to stuff that was illegal and/or forbidden by MBL rules at the time of use. He uses McGuire and Bonds as evidence that MLB, from the Commissioner's office right down the chain of command, buried their heads as the use of juice became widespread.
Carolyn
Mitchell’s advice to not punish the players may have reflected the reality of the situation — in which MLB may have been on shaky legal ground to punish anyone.
Actually a lot of these guys were named in Jose Canseco’s book a few yrs ago
Note that no one has sued Canseco....and the media who bashed Canseco earlier are now having to agree with him
Yep. Somewhere Canseco, like him or not, is laughing his ass off.
That runs along the lines of a conversation we had here on FreeRepublic a while back -- in which someone asked why pitchers didn't stand up and call for testing as a way to deal with over-sized hitters like Bonds, Giambi, etc. After giving it some thought, the general consensus was that this never happened because pitchers were probably using steroids as much as hitters were.
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