WaPo: Boswell: Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz a showcase for great players who did it right

I think the Boswell Museum has kept its doors open a little tooooo long past its closing hour.

Eventually, your wins, like your sins, will find you out.

In San Diego tonight, Greg Maddux will try to win his 350th game. Later this year, he may pass Roger Clemens’s total of 354. But whether Maddux hits either number, the verdict is in. It arrived in the Mitchell report. The greatest right-handed pitcher since Walter Johnson is no longer the tainted Clemens but the mesmerizing Maddux.

Just as Barry Bonds’s 762 homers will always be a smaller number—arithmetic be damned—than Hank Aaron’s 755, so Maddux already has forever outdistanced Clemens.

Searching for silver linings in a steroid age is hard work. But there are some. Perhaps none is brighter than the realization that Maddux, and two of his former teammates, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz, all of them presumptive Hall of Famers, will now be among those who move up most dramatically as we reevaluate the stars of the past 20 years.

Newsweek: Starr: The Benching of Barry Bonds

Starr: Jaundiced liver pool-8 - MLB-7.

Back in 2000 the average team hit a whopping 190 home runs. In 2006 teams still averaged 180. Last year that total dipped to 165, and this season, if the current pace continues, the average will be 147—with four teams hitting fewer than 100 homers. But it’s not just home runs that are diminishing; it’s all kinds of hits. While hitters tend to heat up along with the weather, the average team batting average in the American League is currently just .256 and in the National League .258. That is a decline of 14 and 8 points, respectively. Which helps explain why Monday night, in the five A.L. games on the slate, just 27 runs were scored, or three fewer than the Texas Rangers put on the board in their best outing last season.

Personally, I have been enjoying this new beginning, the start of the post-Bonds-and-Clemens era. Major League Baseball is proving once again to be every bit as unpredictable as the NFL. Putative contenders like the Mets, Yankees, Indians, Braves, Tigers, Rockies and Padres have been somewhere between disappointing and disastrous, while teams like the Marlins, Orioles, Rays and Twins that were expected to trail the pack are off to respectable starts. (And everyone should appreciate the healthy effect of the Torre tonic on the Dodgers.) Coming off the most wretched off-season of the modern era, baseball is enjoying a remarkably promising year. Why would anybody want to swallow a poison pill right in the middle of it?

Det News: Parker: Like him or not, Tigers need Bonds

Life with snarky Parker…

Bonds, baseball’s all-time home-run leader with 762, should pick the American League team he wants to be designated hitter for, give it a blank contract and have it fill in the numbers.

And that team could easily be the Tigers. They desperately need a left-handed bat in their inconsistent lineup, which has been shut out five times in the first 34 games. Last season, the Tigers were blanked three times.

The only thing Bonds—who earned $15.5 million last season with the San Francisco Giants—should ask for is an attendance clause. If he fills the seats, he should get a bonus. It would be hard for a team to pass up that offer, even with Bonds’ alleged-steroid-use baggage.

...Whether you like or dislike Bonds, he hasn’t been convicted of anything. He should be allowed to play like everybody else who has been tarnished by this scandal.

If Bonds is unemployed because he wants too much money, that’s one thing. But if it’s not about that, it’s simply not fair.

GM Bob Watson says Roger Clemens not welcome on Olympic team

Million man marching orders?

“From my standpoint, we don’t need that type of distraction,” Watson said.

In addition to his duties as vice president of on-field operations for Major League Baseball, Watson is general manager of professional baseball operations for USA Baseball and works to select manager Davey Johnson’s roster.

A former GM of the Houston Astros and New York Yankees, Watson said he didn’t anticipate being overruled by higher-ups.

“I have not talked to the commissioner. I have not talked to (MLB chief operating officer) Bob DuPuy, nor have I talked to his agent, but I just think the distraction that he’s carrying right now, from my standpoint, we don’t need that,” Watson said.

..."The other thing, too you’ve got to remember his last three or four outings, he had to take injections in his elbow. He had to take injections in his groin area. He wasn’t the healthiest guy on the team,” Watson said. “So there’s some young guys who are throwing the ball well, and I think we could put together 12 pitchers, sadly to say, that would be throwing better than he was at the end of the year last year.”

Big League Stew: Why Frank Thomas belongs in this year’s All-Star Game

“Send the Big Hurt to the Big Apple”...(inabigspotinabiggame.dietcoke)

Thomas’ on-the-field accomplishments, of course, would alone deserve such a career honor. He won the AL MVP in both 1993 and ‘94 and might have been awarded a third in 2000 if Jason Giambi hadn’t been juicing. As of this writing, he has a .302 career average and 516 home runs. He was the first player to hit over .300, score 100 runs, drive in over 100 RBI and take over 100 walks in seven straight seasons. Ask yourself this question: Were there any scarier sights for a pitcher in the ‘90s than Thomas’ hulking frame looming over a 3-1 count?

Yes, Frank had a phenomenal career — and it’s possible it could continue past ‘08 — but this campaign is motivated by more than just Thomas’ impressive numbers. It’s also rooted in the fact that over the past few years, we’ve scolded suspected star after suspected star for possible steroid use. Yet we’ve done absolutely nothing to reward and applaud the players who have actually spoken out against it.

Part of the reason for that inactivity is that there haven’t been many of that latter category. Yet Thomas has been the only one to shirk the clubhouse code of silence and the players’ unbreakable lockstep formation with its union. Think about it: When’s the last time you saw a column lauding Thomas for taking a very public stance against performance-enhancing drugs?

Houston Chronicle: Clemens apologizes for ‘mistakes,’ still denies drug use

Well...that wraps that up. Now, who’s he gonna pitch for!?

In his first comments since a tabloid linked him to extramarital affairs last week, Roger Clemens on Sunday acknowledged making ‘’mistakes’’ in his personal life. For those mistakes, he apologized to his family and the public, but the seven-time Cy Young Award winner remained steadfast in his denials that he has used steroids or human growth hormone.

‘’I know that many people want to know what I have to say about the recent articles in the media,’’ Clemens, who has raised his four children with his wife, Debbie, in the Katy and Memorial areas, said in a statement to the Chronicle. ‘’Even though these articles contain many false accusations and mistakes, I need to say that I have made mistakes in my personal life for which I am sorry. I have apologized to my family and apologize to my fans. Like everyone, I have flaws. I have sometimes made choices which have not been right.’’

While not admitting to any specific mistakes he has made, Clemens did remain adamant that he never used steroids or HGH. He has been fighting to clear his name since Dec. 13, when he was implicated in the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the report former Sen. George Mitchell prepared for Major League Baseball.

‘’I believe my personal life has nothing to do with the accusations of steroid and HGH use,’’ he said in the statement. ‘’I have already made clear that I did not use them.’’

MLB: Report: Clemens could drop lawsuit

Pulls dustclump off needle...sets up Roky’s “Don’t Slander Me”.

The lead lawyer for Roger Clemens’ defense said on Friday that he may recommend that the seven-time Cy Young Award-winner drop his defamation law suit against Brian McNamee, his former trainer.

“He’s getting pummeled,” attorney Rusty Hardin told the Associated Press about his client.

“That’s always a decision the client has to make. That’s not the lawyer’s decision,” Hardin said. “I’ve never seen somebody get beat up like this. In some ways, I think we’re on uncharted ground.”

Richard Emery, one of McNamee’s lawyers, was quoted as saying that he would be surprised if the law suit is dropped.

“It’s much too rational a move for them to make,” he said. “Everything about the way they’ve handled this case is irrational, so I wouldn’t expect them to act rationally now.”

N.Y. Daily News: Source: Roger Clemens flew women around country, bought them jewelery

I’m Roger, fry me.

Roger Clemens hung out with several attractive women in his baseball career, including beauties in California and Boston and a former Manhattan bartender named Angela Moyer.

Clemens, 45, flew the women around the country on his private jet and bought expensive jewelry for at least one of them, a source told the Daily News Tuesday.

...Moyer, a 30-year-old Realtor who lives in the Harrisburg, Pa., area, worked as a bartender from 2000 to 2004 at Sutton Place, a yuppie East Side watering hole. That’s roughly the same time the pitching legend played for the Yankees. Moyer acknowledged she knew Clemens, but has declined to discuss the relationship. She was spotted driving up to her father’s apartment house last night, but said only “no comment” when asked about Clemens. She then sped off.

McCready, meanwhile, appeared at a suburban Nashville studio yesterday to begin recording the comeback album she hopes will revive her career, which has stalled as the result of legal troubles. “I’ve been playing poker and I invented a new game called ‘I win,’” McCready said with a laugh, still nervous from her time under the media microscope this week.

Holy Gordon Solied shorts! He also hit on Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake’s wife!

The Real McCoy: Baker and Bonds converse

I’ll stick with my 53rd and turd high-top Cons...thank you very much.

Later, a writer asked Dusty Baker point blank, “Did Bonds ask about coming back and playing for you?” Said Baker, “No, not at all. That did not come up from him or me.”

And will Bonds play baseball again?

“We talked about a lot of things, not much about baseball,” Baker said. “Hey, the longer he is out, the less likely he will come back. And the longer he is out, who knows, the less likely he may want to come back. I’m sure he has enough money and if you have enough money and your time is being occupied by what you like to do, maybe you enjoy that.”

...“Barry didn’t sound like he was missing the game to me, not at all,” said Baker. “Everybody misses the game, but there is some of the crap you don’t miss. In Barry’s case, he should have been the happiest man in the world. But he wasn’t. He had to read all that bad stuff about himself. You have to stop reading and don’t pay attention.”

N.Y. Daily News: Sources: Roger Clemens had 10-year fling with country star Mindy McCready

Hell...Guys do it all the time.

Roger Clemens carried on a decade-long affair with country star Mindy McCready, a romance that began when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer performing in a karaoke bar and Clemens was a 28-year-old Red Sox ace and married father of two, several sources have told the Daily News.

The revelations could torpedo claims of an unsullied character that are central to the defamation suit Clemens filed Jan. 6 against his former personal trainer Brian McNamee. Vivid details of the affair could surface in several media projects that McCready is involved with - including a documentary that begins filming today in Nashville, a new album and a reality show.

...Contacted by the Daily News Sunday through his lawyer Rusty Hardin, Clemens confirmed a long-term relationship but denied that it was of a sexual nature.

“He flatly denies having had any kind of an inappropriate relationship with her,” Hardin said. “He’s considered her a close family friend. ... He has never had a sexual relationship with her.”

Dallas MN: Steroid Distribution Ring was one of the Largest in U.S.

The Great Wall of China proved to be too much for Plano’s David Jacobs, a former Marine.

Hiking it in 2002 left him winded, feeling weak and embarrassed. It marked a turning point in his life, and he vowed to change.

He became a workout fiend. Then a training guru. And somewhere along the way, a self-taught chemist who produced high-grade anabolic steroids that would transform some of his customers into walking billboards for performance-enhancing drugs, Mr. Jacobs and people who know him say.

Authorities suspect that Mr. Jacobs, 35, and his associates supplied steroids to NFL players, professional bodybuilders and police officers.

Authorities also are pursuing possible links between Mr. Jacobs’ network and some of the pharmacies and anti-aging clinics in New York and Florida that serviced professional baseball players and other athletes. And one of Mr. Jacobs’ co-defendants admitted selling small amounts of steroids to the owner of the Houston weight-loss clinic recently linked to baseball legend Roger Clemens.

Mr. Jacobs, who had a top middleman who sold nearly $30,000 worth of steroids a month, is one of seven defendants who have pleaded guilty and await sentencing as early as next month.

“David is the kingpin,” said Jason Stern, an attorney who represents bodybuilders and is a former NFL agent. “I think this case could be the NFL’s BALCO.”

Livingston: Fans no longer seem bugged about steroids

The latest Livingston bramble…

Three of the principals in Friday’s night’s 6-4 Indians’ victory had connections to performance-enhancing drugs.

This is a story that also appears under the influence of heat and lights, even if they have to be provided at Congressional hearings, under oath. Without inquisitive reporters and aggressive lawmakers, baseball’s steroid use would probably still be growing, like the swarm of midges. Barry Bonds might still be employed and wearing a batting helmet the size of a duffel bag.

...So it goes, with the turnstiles spinning (31,467 at the Pro Friday night!) and not the alibis; with midges the dominant memory, and not the scars baseball will bear for years.

The Biz of Baseball: Brown: When the MLB Brass Receive a Pass on the Mitchell Report

Move over Reep Daggle!  Maury Brown is Perturbo!

It’s this notion that ownership was some benign factor in all of this that requires one to suspend belief. Either management knew of the PED culture, or if they didn’t… How inept can you be not to see it right in front of you? Either way, they are, as I said in November, getting a pass on the Mitchell Report.

How did Selig view the matter?

“I don’t use the word amnesty. I don’t think there is amnesty because I think that whatever they’re doing, they’re doing something as a result of what they did. And the club officials and the clubs will be treated in exactly the same manner,” Selig said at the annual meeting. “That would be unfair if they weren’t.”

Here’s your hall pass, boys. Now, try not to be so stupid next time.

Mr. Commissioner, you got your wish. You had your cake, and ate it too. You wanted to be the tough, no-nonsense commissioner, and you got that with help from the likes of Reps. Davis and Waxman. And, you were able to keep them off your backs by releasing a report that conveniently looked at the players, shoving Don Fehr and the PA into overdrive, while seeing only a passing reference to the ownership brethren having anything to do with matters. I can hear Jerry Reinsdorf now.

If I seem perturbed; I am.

Gimbel: A Call To All Baseball Fans…Protest The “Blacklisting” Of Barry Bonds

Mike Gimbel is back...and BASN has got him!

I have a special disgust for the owners of the San Francisco Giants. They made millions off of Barry Bonds. They were able to build a money making stadium based, to a great extent, on Barry Bonds. Where is their gratitude? Nowhere!

He was their star player who was loved by the fans in the Bay area, yet the SF Giants team owners shamefully released Barry Bonds after the 2007 season so as to do their part in the “blacklisting”! They deserve a Hall of Shame of their own!

Years from now, when Major League Baseball is forced to apologize to Barry Bonds for their actions, that apology will never make up for the crime that Major League Baseball is inflicting today on Barry Bonds and on the many fans who admire the athletic greatness that Barry Bonds has been as a player.

...To all concerned fans: Perhaps you could use the above as a petition circulated at stadiums or handed out at stadium gates. While ending the Iraq occupation and fighting for a moratorium on home foreclosures take precedence, I know that millions of you will still be in attendance at MLB games.

While there, couldn’t you also do your part in fighting against the shameful “blacklisting” of Barry Bonds, the greatest hitter in Major League Baseball history?

TSN: Fraley: Giambia, Gagne, etc. struck by the curse of the Mitchell Report

The Sporting News struck by the curse of the Spelling Police.com Report.

There was no need for commissioner Bud Selig to discipline active players listed as potential users of performance-enhancing drugs in the Mitchell Report.

Those players already carry a heavy burden: the curse of the Mitchell Report.

Whether it’s due to hubris, bad karma or mere coincidence, most players mentioned in the Mitchell Report are off to terrible starts.

Maybe it’s just the law of averages at work, or an astounding set of circumstances. Or maybe these players excelled in the past because of extra help:

...To their credit, any players who used performance-enhancing substances were trying to better themselves. But in doing so, they only misled themselves and others about their potential statistics. Their teams now pay the price for the curse of the Mitchell Report.

NYT: No Longer With I.R.S., Novitzky Joins F.D.A.

So much for the Al Capone metaphors. Meet the new enforcer of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act.

Jeff Novitzky, the federal agent whose investigation into performance-enhancing substances has exposed cheating in professional sports, left the Internal Revenue Service recently and joined the Food and Drug Administration to focus on the distribution of illegal drugs, according to an F.D.A. official and two lawyers who were briefed on the change.

Novitzky has joined the F.D.A. Office of Criminal Investigations as a special agent with all the same investigative powers he had during his 15 years with the I.R.S., the lawyers said.

AP: Canseco meets with federal investigators

Jose Canseco reaffirmed Tuesday that Roger Clemens did not attend a party at his house that has become a focal point of a federal investigation. Canseco was interviewed by federal agents and answered a series of questions about a variety of subjects and about his knowledge of steroid use in baseball, said his attorney, Gregory Emerson.

The former AL MVP was questioned about his new book, “Vindicated,” and “some of the issues that have arisen earlier in the (Congressional) hearings,” Emerson said.

“He answered fully and to the best of his knowledge,” the attorney said. He said nothing new of significance was discussed.
...
Clemens says he did not attend the party, and Canseco corroborated that in an affidavit to Congress. Canseco stood by that affidavit during his interview on Tuesday, Emerson said.

“Roger was probably one of his closest buddies, has been to Jose’s house before,” the attorney said. “Jose’s absolutely certain Roger wasn’t there (at the party in question), and he remains 100 percent committed to that affidavit.”

ESPN:  Canseco to meet with feds on Tuesday

Another lawyer for Canseco, Robert Saunooke, has said Novitzky has described two photos to him—one of Clemens and an 11-year-old boy in Canseco’s pool and another of Canseco with the same boy. From the description, the undated photos in no way linked Clemens to the specific party in question, Saunooke said.

Well, wouldn’t that embarrass some people.  The article also notes that Canseco may be asked about “Max”, the mysterious steroid dealer who “told him that A-Rod had ‘signed on.’” Max, huh?  I think he was just clowning around.

Dale Murphy Introduces $1,000 Scholarship Award Through ‘I Won’t Cheat!’ Foundation

Dale Murphy, former Major League Baseball player for the Atlanta Braves, Philadelphia Phillies and Colorado Rockies, is offering a $1,000 scholarship check to the monthly winner of an essay contest through the I Won’t Cheat! Foundation.

I Won’t Cheat! is Murphy’s non-profit foundation that educates kids about the importance of not cheating in sports, school and life. “Our mission statement is ‘Injecting Ethics into America’s Future.’ We are having a lot of success helping kids make the commitment to do things the right way,” Murphy said.

“Dale has always cared a great deal about other people,” said Joe Torre, Manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. “Dale’s is a voice you can trust.”

CBS Sports’ Jim Nantz added, “When Dale Murphy speaks, everyone in sports should listen.”

Former world class La Quebrada Cliff Diver, Qualu Neuroglia Damage also added, “When Del Moiphy frell off that clif, it weely hoited my hed”

S.I.: Verducci: Now is the time to appreciate Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas

To be a ballplayer, especially a home run hitter, at the end of the century has become the historical equivalent of serving in the Nixon White House in the time of Watergate. Surely not all were corrupt, but our shorthand methodology of memory defines the players by the times. The Steroid Era, as we now know it, belongs to all, and maybe, whether by willingness or silence, that’s not as unfair as it first seems.

Sometimes, too, it is important to make distinctions, and try our best to run the whole mess through a giant sluice box and see if we can make something of real value shake loose. No one can pretend that is easy, given how cynicism has replaced faith (or perhaps more accurately, naivete) and science replaced sweat in this Age of Discovery. But now seems like a good time to appreciate Ken Griffey Jr. and Frank Thomas, two of the last remnants of value from that era.

...Back in 1994, just as the whole steroid mess was beginning to boil beneath the surface, we picked our 25-and-under all-star team. Most are done with baseball now: Mike Piazza, John Olerud, Carlos Baerga, Royce Clayton, Travis Fryman, Juan Gonzalez and Steve Avery. One is dead: Rod Beck. One is still pitching: Mike Mussina. And then there are three still swinging: Gary Sheffield, Griffey and Thomas. Sheffield, an offensive wonder in his own right, was ensnared in the BALCO investigation, claiming to have used steroids unknowingly.

Griffey and Thomas go on, still dangerous hitters, but also, as far as we know, baseball ambassadors to appreciate. They came through the Steroid Era having redefined what it means to be a bigger man.

Hey, when did Verducci start drinking from Madden’s antiquated fountain pen? 

N.Y. Daily News: Andy Pettitte needles media

Or as Boom-Boom Rebecka West once said..."Journalism is the ability to meet the challenge of filling a syringe.”

For the last four months, Andy Pettitte has blamed no one but himself for his performance-enhancing troubles.

Friday night, the Yankee lefty said the media sensationalized his tumultuous winter when he was named in the Mitchell Report, admitted his own human growth hormone use as well as his dad’s, and had to finger his friend and former teammate Roger Clemens as an HGH user.

“The whole thing was horrible for my kids, the way the media portrayed it,” Pettitte said. “It was so magnified. It was obviously a big deal, but it almost did more damage than it did good, the way it was so, I thought, sensationalized.”

AP: Major League Baseball players, owners reach drug agreement; suspensions rescinded

Baseball players and owners agreed Friday to more frequent drug testing and increased—but not total—authority for the program’s outside administrator.

All players implicated in December’s Mitchell Report on peformance-enhancing drugs were given amnesty as part of the agreement, which toughens baseball’s drug rules for the third time since the program began in 2002. Thus, the deal eliminated 15-day suspensions assessed against Jose Guillen and Jay Gibbons.
...
In the deal, the sides agreed:
— annual tests will rise by 600 to 3,600.
— as many as 375 offseason tests can be conducted over the next three years, up from the current limit of 60 per offseason.
— testing will include the top 200 prospects for each year’s annual draft.
— the IPA will issue an annual report detailing what substances resulted in positive tests, the number of tests given and therapeutic use exemptions by category of ailment.
— additional substances were added to the banned list, among them: insulin-like growth factor, gonadotropins, aromatase inhibitors, selective estrogen receptor modulators, and clomid and other antiestrogens.
— an automatic stay for an initial suspension will be expanded to players disciplined for conduct unrelated to a positive test.

N.Y. Times: Glanville: Way Inside (RR)

“The first in occasional series of guest columns by Doug Glanville, running throughout the 2008 baseball season.”...now, just get him a blog.

To those outside Clemens’s protective shell, he seems to be fighting ghosts. We must understand that he stopped listening to the outside world a long time ago, partly because ignoring those voices was integral to his survival. So if he seems out of touch, it’s probably because he is out of touch. To “clear his name,” he has cast shadows over his immediate family and his closest confidantes with implications of their complicity in tainting his golden-egg status. All for a principle of honor that I am sure he firmly believes in because, like most players, he has been reinforcing it in his own head throughout his career out of self-preservation.

Clemens fought a great fight on the baseball field, racking up unheard-of accomplishments that statistically place him among the greatest pitchers of all time. Yet his methods of obtaining that success are in question. Like all who have achieved “greatness,” he has found that the top of the mountain is a lonely place — not only from standing alone, but from listening only to your own voice.

...When the music stops for a baseball player, it is hard for him to accept that there is no longer a microphone amplifying everything he says. Suddenly, no one is listening, so he speaks louder. It becomes critical to have people around him he can trust. They will be the ones to let him know when he is off-track. If at that point he still ignores them, he shouldn’t be surprised to end up as the scrambled egg special of the week. Pass the salt.

ESPN: Jose Canseco, uncensored, in Los Angeles

Plus a swagerific pic of Canseco...where it looks like he’s set to star in “Quex-Ul: In the Zone!”

“Here’s the problem. If you let Major League Baseball police their own environment, they won’t do it. To them, they have to protect their players,” he said. “I never spoke with Magglio or his agent. Meanwhile, what does he do? He runs to Major League Baseball. For what? Protection. ‘Protect me, please. He’s coming after me now.’ He needs Major League Baseball to protect him, and what they’ve been doing all along is protecting their own.

“It’s like when Rafael Palmeiro [testified before Congress] that he never used steroids. I’m like, ‘Wait, I injected this guy. Something’s going on.’ What guy in his right mind would testify before [Congress], wag his finger at [Congress] like they were little children, and all of a sudden, a month and a half later, take steroids and get caught? No. He was caught way before that. But he was very close to accomplishing 500 home runs and 3,000 base hits, so Major League Baseball basically said, ‘We’ll allow you to accomplish that and hold back the results in exchange for testifying against Jose Canseco.’ Then what happened? Very simply, MLB got smart. … They throw the evidence to a reporter—they have reporters on [their] payroll—and the reporter leaks it out.”

“The whole thing doesn’t make sense,” Canseco said, once again addressing the Ordonez allegations. “If I’m trying to extort money from you, and you involve the FBI, how do you catch me? You engage in a conversation with me and have the FBI record it. It’s very simple. Why didn’t that happen? I tell you why, because they’re liars, liars, liars, liars and liars. That’s all they are. Major League Baseball and all of the players say, ‘If we get together and tell a huge lie, it’s thousands against one guy.’ But the truth stands.”

Record Net: Sprague admits use of Andro

Also, Sprague zarathrusted...like you wouldn’t believe! (no wonder he retired in 2001)

Ed Sprague, now in his fifth season as baseball coach at University of the Pacific, said he used amphetamines and Androstenedione and once hit a home run with a corked bat. When asked directly about steroids, Sprague said he couldn’t condemn all steroid users in baseball because he used Andro, which was banned under the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004, and amphetamines, a form of speed known in baseball as “greenies.”

“Well, amphetamines are illegal now, too, and I took those, so am I going to stand on one side and not the other side?” Sprague said. “I took Andro, and they banned that. So, am I the cleanest guy? No, but I tried to be as strong and as healthy as I could as long as I could for my career.”

...Amphetamines, which give players heightened energy and awareness, have been rampant in baseball since the 1940s. They were not banned by baseball until 2006.

“That was an ultimate part of the game,” Sprague said. “It was in the locker room forever. It was either a diet pill or a caffeine pill or whatever it was to give you more energy, and that was more prevalent than anything else. Is that a performance enhancer? Yeah, I guess it is if you’re dog-ass tired.”

AP: Indictment: Agents steered baseball players to doctor for performance-enhancing drugs

A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday charged that unidentified agents for baseball players steered clients to a California physician linked in media reports to supplying Troy Glaus and Scott Schoeneweis with illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

No players or agents were mentioned by name in the 11-count indictment returned by a grand jury against Dr. Ramon Scruggs and two of his associates at the New Hope Health Center in Costa Mesa, Calif. Schoeneweis is represented by Scott Boras, and Glaus by Mike Nicotera.

“I have no knowledge of this medical practitioner or any relationship that he has with any of our clients,” Boras said. “We have never referred any of our clients to a wellness center.”
...
“It was a further part of the conspiracy that, on occasion, sports representation agents for professional baseball players referred their client-players to defendants Scruggs, Danto and MacPherson for the purpose of obtaining anabolic steroids and other drugs which those individuals knew to be banned by Major League Baseball and therefore unavailable to the players through lawful medical channels absent the illegal prescriptions provided by Scruggs,” the indictment said.

AJC : Braves’ prospect unable to clarify HGH charge {RR}

Schafer was targeted in an investigation that began in spring training. It was conducted by baseball’s new investigative department, which was created after the Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing drugs came out in December.

There was no positive drug test — baseball doesn’t recognize any test for HGH as reliable (though the World Doping Agency says there is one).

The official would say only that there are other “non-analytical” means of establishing guilt, including possession of a drug.

“I want so bad to clear things up, and I want so bad for Jordan to clear things up,” said David Schafer, a Florida businessman. “But unfortunately the powers that be say not to say anything. I want so bad to straighten this thing out, I just can’t say. ... I don’t know what to do. He’s in a bad spot. It’s not the way it seems.

I would say why I posted this, but my attorneys told me not to reveal anything.

LA Times: Conte says Mosley took steroids knowingly

BALCO founder Victor Conte on Tuesday said former world champion boxer Shane Mosley knew “exactly and precisely what he was doing” when he engaged in a doping program before his 2003 victory over Oscar De La Hoya.

Mosley last week sued Conte for slander and libel after Conte said he was planning a new book that would “set the record straight” on Mosley’s knowledge about using the designer steroids known as “the clear” and “the cream,” and the blood-doping drug EPO.

Mosley maintains in the lawsuit that Conte told him “all of the products recommended . . . were entirely legal and appropriate.”

But Conte said Tuesday that Mosley knew he was being given steroids.

The article goes on to mention another famous athlete who denied knowingly taking steroids and fell afoul of the feds for doing so.  Quick, guess who.  (Hint: the athlete’s last name is five letters long, the second letter is “o,” the third letter is “n” and the fifth letter is “s").

MLB: Braves prospect Schafer suspended

The most rewarding whatever...when you’re having more than one.

Jordan Schafer spent the month of March showing why many consider him to be one of the game’s top young stars. Now, the 21-year-old Braves Minor Leaguer finds himself staring at the embarrassment of a substance-abuse suspension.

Major League Baseball announced late Tuesday afternoon that Schafer has been suspended 50 games for using human growth hormone, a performance-enhancing substance that is in direct violation of the Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.

“We are extremely disappointed that Jordan has violated the Commissioner’s Performance Enhancing Drug Policy,” Braves general manager Frank Wren said in a prepared statement. “We are supportive of the program and will continue to educate all of our players. Earlier today Jordan asked to speak to his teammates to apologize for the mistakes he has made and for letting the organization and his team down. During his suspension, we will continue to support and counsel Jordan.”

...While preparing for Tuesday night’s game against the Rockies at Coors Field, many Braves players and coaches were wondering how MLB determined that Schafer was using HGH. Currently, there is no approved test for the banned substance.

But MLB would have had the right to deem Schafer guilty based on evidence they gathered via conversations with him, other players or even some of his non-baseball related associates.

Cohn: Canseco continues to revel in his role as informer, betrayer, creep

Cohn? Informer? Betrayer? Creep?...If Hal Holbrook is hiding in my basement...I’m outta here!

I recently have seen him interviewed on television, that smug face—it’s pudgy now, older, not as handsome as it once was. It’s as if his inner ugliness is taking over his exterior. I object to television people interviewing Canseco. They should shun him, treat him like the pariah he is. They interview him for the entertainment value, a crummy justification. If I were God, I would put a prohibition on Canseco—“You have transgressed and you never do another interview in your life.”

If Canseco’s agent were to phone me and offer an exclusive one-on-one with Canseco, I would reply, “Jose Canseco does not exist.”

Baseball players should avoid him, make him unwelcome in every clubhouse in America. I believe that already is the case. If I were God, I would consign him to the circle of hell for people who murder reputations. If I were God, I would condemn him to the silence and indifference he deserves.