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?”
Jim Leyritz's comment is (characteristically) ridiculous and irrelevant. One more reason he annoys the crap out of me, I guess.
ReplyDeleteMo Vaughn's mom makes the same defense that David Justice made on ESPN radio: since it didn't improve the performance on the field, it doesn't count. Right, since illegal activity only matters when you get results. For every Vaughn or Justice, you can find players who DID successfully return from an injury after the alleged use - Pettitte, Gagne, etc.
Exactly. I was going to annotate the comments, but then figured I would just let them stand. And I love Mo Vaughn and his parents were actually an inspirational story (both schoolteachers who kept him on the right path growing up), but yeah, I thought it was a perfect contrast right after Andy's saying only did it to get back on the field (or "wasn't even playing.")
ReplyDeleteI'll add more as I find them.
Maybe its like the kid who cheated on the SAT, but then denied it and offers as proof that he didn't get into Harvard.
ReplyDeleteWhy would anyone take HGH for two days? If HGH doubles your recovery time, then Pettitte would have been injured for four days instead? I don't get it...and I don't believe it.
ReplyDeleteMo Vaughn supposedly used to recover from an injury...right? So he wouldn't have used it WHILE he was playing.
I also believe that the list of players was carefully suggested. I know it wasn't a "list", but I can't help but think this thing wasn't edited to not crush the game today, and to suggest that the little bit of drug testing they do is somewhat working (thus, no current mentions).
Funny, I just posted about the whole HGH thing not making any sense to me either. I really have no idea.
ReplyDeleteAs for the list, who knows. But why put Clemens on if you were trying to limit the damage? I can think of only a small handful of players - ARod, Jeter, Papi, and Pujols - about whom a drug allegation would be a bigger deal.
Clemens was more likely to retire this year (and my guess is that Pettitte falls into the category, as well).
ReplyDeleteIf you were Mitchell and wanted to make a point that pitching was just as guilty as hitting, I'd say naming Clemens is huge...Bonds-esque, actually. You get the whole point across without implicating someone who is not going to be a big part of the game, but makes this a pressing issue to resolve...
For example, if Ryan Franklin is the only major pitcher on that list, it becomes a hitters were much more guilty than pitchers. You throw Clemens on there, and BAM...a hall of famer lock (like Bonds would have been) is now in question...You don't have to name 50 pitchers now, just one or two...and he's retiring anyway. Also, they apparently had 8 pages of receipts or something like that on him.
The Clemens section is mostly about how another guy kept sticking needles into his butt. Seriously.
ReplyDeleteYou've seen this, right?