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Yesterday Miguel Tejada’s brother died in a traffic accident in the D.R., which turned a bad day for Tejada into a nightmare. A potential investigation into his alleged perjury before Congress was announced early in the day at the Congressional hearings. Last time, Tejada testified that he’d never taken steroids, while the Mitchell report includes cancelled checks made out to Adam Piatt, who said he sold Tejada drugs in 2003.
An item of interest in all this is that Rafael Palmeiro said he tested positive shortly after also testifying in front of Congress that he’s never used steroids because, perhaps, he’d used a contaminated needle when being injected with Vitamin B12 by Tejada. Since this is the same defense Roger Clemens is using, there is some question how pervasive the practice of players shooting up other players with B12 is?
The more common the practice the more likely Clemens’ big defense will hold up, absent documentary proof.
I was hoping for a video link, which would have been more entertaining, but instead got comments filled with vitriol for Gammons because he didn’t break the steroids story back in the day. I’m not sure that’s fair, to single Gammons out anyway. Is it credible that he sat on actual evidence players were using?
What’s certainly true is that the press didn’t shrink from the story in general. Remember the uproar when the report found McGwire’s andro on the shelf in his locker?
Too bad the lyrics aren’t better.
This is an excerpt from a book by Todd Gallagher, called Andy Roddick Beat Me With a Frying Pan, answering abiding sports questions that, in this case, have nothing to do with baseball. But it reminded me of my summer at basketball camp, when I was in between the eighth and ninth grades, at Kutscher’s in the Catskills. Wilt Chamberlain was the big name at the camp, but my best time was spent chatting with Walt Frazier in the parking lot. Still, reading the linked story reminded me of something else.
“Jumping” Johnny Green was our guest coach and apropos his nickname someone asked if he really could pick a dollar bill off the top of the backboard.
“For a dollar bill, no,” he said, as if he’d answered this question a million times (and probably had, what with that nickname of his), “But put a $20 bill up there and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
Needless to say, the scores of 11 year olds that surrounded him in their basketball togs didn’t have a dollar between them, much less a double sawbuck.
Too bad.
A nice trend chart from the Baseball Crank shows that the longer you stay on the ballot the more writers support you for the Hall, though I can’t think of a good reason why that should be. I don’t take the Hall seriously enough to worry about the borderline cases. They make it or they don’t, and that’s fine.
I do find it hard to see why Tim Raines or Mark McGwire look like they should be in, if only there wasn’t the cocaine and the steroids. Based on the numbers both were very good ballplayers who were at best borderline when it comes to induction numbers. Given their questionable pasts the voters’ reluctance to enshrine them doesn’t seem that crazy.
December 21, 2007 – The New York Sun
Tim Marchman does a good job of explaining why patience is a virtue, even if you don’t have the time.
He does an even better job of explaining why the so-called steroid scandal shouldn’t really surprise anyone. And maybe even why our collective outrage is just a little, or a lot, hypocritical.
On the other hand, he seems to be as slippery as I aspire to be when it comes to being pinned down, so let’s not give him (or me) too much credit.
The point is we shouldn’t exhalt athletes or their achievements, but we needn’t damn them either. The one thing we know for sure is that the solid ground we thought we had when we were kids, not only wasn’t solid then, but is positively liquid now.
Over three seasons the White Sox were better (they won more games, many more games) with Scott Podsednik in the lineup than not, even though Podsednik’s replacements generally played better. Sox Machine may have discovered this paradox, and attempts to explain it. His conclusions aren’t flabbergasting but his approach hints at baseball’s majesty.
Now it gets interesting.