The Mitchell Report

Red Sox Nation · Post by **Red Sox Nation** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:11 am

Andy Pettitte admitted Saturday to using HGH on two occasions back in 2002.

"If what I did was an error in judgment on my part, I apologize," Pettitte said in a statement released by his agent. "I accept responsibility for those two days." Pettitte is admitting that former trainer Brian McNamee's statements in the Mitchell Report were accurate, even though he must know he's burying good friend Roger Clemens in the process. If McNamee was telling the truth about Pettitte's usage, then why should anyone believe he's lying about personally injecting Clemens with steroids?

Source: The Associated Press

Liquidhippo · Post by **Liquidhippo** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:25 am

If what Pettitte is saying is accurate, a lot of 'crusaders' owe him an apology. The chatter out on the internet has been absolutely brutal towards this man the last couple of days. If this is all he did, a couple days to treat an injury, back when it wasn't even a banned substance yet, the witch hunters need to take a step back and chill out.

(btw - not referring to anyone on these boards)

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Sun Dec 16, 2007 3:52 am

Originally posted by Liquidhippo:

If what Pettitte is saying is accurate, a lot of 'crusaders' owe him an apology. The chatter out on the internet has been absolutely brutal towards this man the last couple of days. If this is all he did, a couple days to treat an injury, back when it wasn't even a banned substance yet, the witch hunters need to take a step back and chill out.

(btw - not referring to anyone on these boards) I like what Tim Kurkjian said on ESPN: Guys who take cortisone shots to get back on the mound are considered tough, gamers, guys who will play through pain. If what Pettitte says is true, then he was doing whatever it took to get back out on the mound to help his team. Now I'll admit that taking HGH seems over the top, but it sure seems a lot different than the constant taking of steroids to gain an edge.

Neither is correct, but Pettitte did the right thing by coming forward and explaining his situation. America will understand his explanation. Clemens now needs to come clean with baseball fans and explain his situation as it doesn't seem the same as Pettitte's. But let's hear from him before pre-judging.

I think the Mitchell Report was as thorough as could be considering he was shunned from talking with the players and it looks like he was accurate with the players he's mentioned. Considering he basically had three sources from three teams -- two clubhouse assistants from the Mets and Yankees and the BALCO report from San Francisco -- you can just imagine how many players would be on this report if he had total access to all 30 MLB teams. To me, this report is very unfulfilled, but you can just imagine how rampant this use was when you consider that these three teams were likely similar to the 27 other teams.

kgrady · Post by **kgrady** » Mon Dec 17, 2007 8:20 am

Oakland outfielder Jack Cust, similarly to Brian Roberts, appears in the Mitchell report because Larry Bigbie said that he allegedly claimed to have used steroids. No direct evidence. No paper trail. No eyewitnesses. Cust denies any use of performance enhancing drugs in a statement posted on www.JackCustBaseball.com. Text is below:

STATEMENT FROM JACK CUST

I refute the malicious and baseless mention of my name in the release of yesterday’s Mitchell Report. I categorically deny the hearsay allegations and inferences contained in the report that allegedly took place almost five years ago. I am deeply frustrated to have any of the accomplishments I have worked so hard to achieve tainted in any way. I do not condone the use of steroids or any other drugs. I have never taken drugs and I have never failed a drug test.

As many of you know, I co-founded the Jack Cust Baseball Academy in 1998. Prior to that time and continuing to this day, I have been an adamant proponent of a healthy and natural lifestyle. My main goal in helping to create the baseball academy was to encourage baseball players of all ages to use hard work and dedication to help develop their skills. I have stressed to all athletes that using a program of dedicated workouts on the field and in the gym is the best and only way to improve upon their skills to become a better player. I have followed this strategy since my little league days where I began dreaming of one day playing in the big leagues. I am very conscious of my responsibility as a role model in my community and particularly with the young athletes that train at my baseball academy in New Jersey.

Jack Cust Jr. December 14, 2007

sportsbettingman · Post by **sportsbettingman** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:33 pm

De-juicing PED Mythology

Posted on January 21, 2008, 10:05am | Matt Welch

Speaking of steroids and baseball, there is a terrific and exhaustive new analytical site, called Steroids and Baseball, that aims to bust a little scientific method onto the widely held myths and claims about "performance enhancing" drugs and their effects on players and even The Children. The author, Eric Walker, is a longtime statistical analyst who used to work for Billy Beane's A's. His conclusion on steroids' actual effects on performance?

There is no evidence that steroid use has altered home-run hitting and those who argue otherwise are profoundly ignorant of the statistics of home runs, the physics of baseball, and of the physiological effects of steroids.

I whizzed too fast through Walker's "spliced power factor graph" to really understand it, but my less-mathematical forays into that study have produced similar conclusions. But what about the medical side effects?

[T]he risks of harm [PED]s present have been--whether from simple ignorance or from what could only be called political agendas--grossly exaggerated. The various potential consequences, individually or ensemble, are not grave, are not universal, and are almost all completely reversible.

Yes, but what about the children?

We first need to note that there is scarcely some runaway epidemic of usage. Current adolescent use rates for steroids are about 1.5% (bet you didn't know that) and dropping (bet you didn't know that, either). And those results are from multiple very large-scale scientific surveys. [...]

Not that many kids have an athlete as a "role model", and those that do seem actually cleaner than the others. The small percentage of users are motivated by utterly other considerations: beefing up for the girls, scoring the winning touchdown, achieving a visible masculinity that their own minds will never let them find, or just raising hell all over the place owing to some broad-effect deep-seated maladjustment. [...]

The idea that how we deal with professional ballplayers (or other adult athletes) could have anything to do with influencing kids to use or not use PEDs is puerile.

Those are just conclusions; it's the data leading Walker there that really turns your head. The whole site, complete with exhaustive links to various studies, is well worth a read for anyone seriously interested in understanding this amazingly obfuscated subject.

DOUGHBOYS · Post by **DOUGHBOYS** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:17 pm

Lance, How many beers before you're obfuscated?

sportsbettingman · Post by **sportsbettingman** » Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:48 pm

Originally posted by DOUGHBOYS:

Lance, How many beers before you're obfuscated?

"Oh...tree or four...better make it tree or four."

(More like 14 if I'm not eating!

)

~Lance