Clemens's "investigation"

This is pretty hilarious. Peter Abraham puts it perfectly:

There are two possibilities here:

1. Clemens didn’t do it and he’s fighting the good fight to clear his name.

2. Clemens did do it but he’s going to deny, deny, deny and hope the waters are cloudy enough to still get in the Hall of Fame.

You have to assume it's number two, but whatever; the HOF is almost certainly the issue. Anyway, am I the only one who finds this quote from his lawyer a little odd?

"We are convinced the conclusions in Mitchell's report are wrong and are investigating the findings ourselves."

If the descriptions of needles being stuck into Roger's butt are simply lies, wouldn't you say things a bit more forcefully than you are "convinced" that the "conclusions" are wrong?

Merry Christmas All

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Go Sox. Go Pats. Go Celts.

A new high/low at 38pitches

Schilling's most recent blog post is actually pretty good - I have to say I agree with most of it (a first!). In it he defends a previous post in which he suggests Clemens should clear his name or give his Cy Youngs back. Commenters - 703 of them - went insane, trotting out "innocent until proven guilty" - 57 times total. (For comparison, "shut up" appears 30 times, "blowhard" 5 times.) His response is spot on:

You can argue the innocent until proven guilty angle all day long, and legally you would be right, but like just about every single one of you I make opinions and judgments on people without seeing a court decision handed down.

Damn, sometimes the guy actually makes sense. Anyway, that's not the reason I'm posting now. It's because his response already has 390 comments. And #3 has perhaps the best single sentence I have ever read in my whole life:

I’m not trying to be critical or anything but maybe some of our baseball greats just need to approach the whole mitchell report with a grain assault.

Man, that is just awesome. He's right: what we need is a grain assault. Thank you calio4life for making my week. Happy Holidays, and Merry Christmas, all.

Non-PED-related post

Driving by Fenway at 6am this morning I noticed all the stadium lights were on and there was a big crane inside. Does anyone know what they're doing? Adding still more seats?

Random thoughts on the Mitchell Report

I haven't read it all yet - I've been reading random sections - but I actually think it's a pretty reasonable document. I'd have liked to see more blame put on Selig and Fehr, who really let this mess get as out of hand as it did, but I don't thing there's anything even remotely "witch-hunt" about it. The media coverage of it is another matter (my guess is a large percentage of Americans think there's a section titled "The List"), but it's not really a newsflash to say "the media sucks". And what were the alternatives? There's "do nothing" and there's "Congressional investigation"; neither are appropriate in my mind. Anyway, a couple scattered thoughts, in no particular order:

- I can think of at least one upside to this whole thing: it makes the whole PED issue less tainted by questions of race. My guess is that huge discrepancy in the polls on how blacks and whites see Bonds's treatment (and even innocence) may shrink somewhat. You can't really argue that only African-American superstars are being targeted anymore...

- Lots of people are asking the question of whether Clemens should sue baseball for libel and/or slander. Most ignore a sorta important fact: if the statement is true, it's not defamation. It's really that simple. If Clemens took PED's the way the Mitchell Report says, then a lawsuit simply will not work. [It should be noted that the reverse is not necessarily true: if the statement is false, it still might not be defamation. You have to prove malice, etc etc. So Schilling's argument - basically that not suing is the same as admitting guilt - is complete BS.]

- I simply don't understand HGH. There's no evidence it helps with anything - i.e., maybe it's not a PED at all - but yet players clearly believe it does. Maybe there benefits not covered in the medical literature? Maybe a placebo effect? Also, some websites are saying HGH wasn't considered a controlled substance (and wasn't banned by baseball) until 2005 - is that right? If so, then why were players so secretive about it? None of this makes sense to me.

Fun quotes in the aftermath

Jim Leyritz: "Look, the bottom line is if Brian McNamee gave Andy Pettitte two to four shots of HGH, Andy Pettitte wasn't using a performance enhancing drug. We are not talking about abuse.

Dave Justice: “Mac is lying, and he knows he’s lying,” Justice said Thursday in a telephone interview. “He was going to go to jail, and they told him: ‘Look, you get a free pass, but we need names. Tell us about everything you know.’ That’s what he did. I’m not saying everything’s a lie about everybody, because some of the stuff he said was pretty convincing because he offered details. But with me, he’s lying.”

Andy Pettitte: ''This is it -- two days out of my life; two days out of my entire career, when I was injured and on the disabled list,'' he said. ''I wasn't looking for an edge

Mo Vaughn's mom: “The one year they claim he did this was the year he didn’t play any baseball, so I don’t see how it makes any sense,” she said by telephone. “Why would they insinuate he was (using performance-enhancing drugs) when he wasn’t even playing?”

And the nominees for best enhanced performance are...

Let's face it. It's news worthy. I am surprised X didn't post already considering his favorite has already been leaked. I wonder how many names will be listed prior to the 2 PM announcement. MLB trade Rumors has a good post that will follow all the action. Watch, as 2 PM rolls around the most notably name will be Manny Alexander.

UPDATE (12:56 PM): Pettitte and Clemens named in Mitchell report

UPDATE (1:27 pm): I really should have done more homework, Deadspin published a list at 11:16 AM this morning. They acknowledge that it is not entirely accurate.

It's back on...

Rumors of a deal forJohan hit the rumor mill again today. Twins are leaning toward a deal with Jacoby. Still, nothing has been done and frankly no new news is being reported. But I thought I'd start another thread, just in case this heats up quickly. Plus it is a great excuse to post this awesome picture.

That was fun... this is now

Evidence of more "blocking and tackling" work done by boy-genius. Offering arbitration to Gagne sounded risky to the Fenway faithful, but if Gagne jumped ship it would net us sandwich-picks (if I've got this crap correct). After last season, I think everyone in Green Monstah territory would agree that a sandwich pick is better than Gagne at this point.

Tim Brown is reporting the Brew Crew is close to inking a deal. Gagne would fill the hole left by Francisco Cordero who signed with the Reds for a 4-year deal. God speed good sir. I hope his career bounces back, because I honestly have no reason to hate him other than the fact that he ALMOST become the next Bill Buckner. I don't blame Bill and I wouldn't have blamed Gagne, but still I'm not going to miss him.

This might be the craziest thing this offseason

Check out this picture. Johan is already a Yankee. And he now throws right handed and appears much more fair skinned than I remember.