I did not have sexual relations with that woman

What is "is"?

Question: have Manfred et al. already had this conversation with Gary Matthews, Jr.? (Note that Matthews has played in 133 of a possible 140 games this season.)

If Glaus refuses to attend, he's going to wake up with Celine Dion's head in his bed and some creepy Italian waltz playing in the background.

Sleep with one eye open, Mark Sweeney.

Troy Glaus, Rick Ankiel... please report to the principal's office. I repeat, Troy Glaus and Rick Ankiel, report to the principal's office. Thank You.

I wnoder if one will rat out the other, a la one of those "Game Theory" grid things.

The [Albany County] investigation, which has spanned two years, has resulted in the indictments of 22 people, with 9 convictions. As with many federal and local investigations of performance-enhancing drugs, prosecutors are focusing on the suppliers, not the users.

The district attorney’s office, however, has said that it was cooperating with the National Football League and had provided it with the names of a player, a coach and one doctor linked to the pharmacy.
...
It is not known if the district attorney’s office is cooperating with Major League Baseball. A spokeswoman for the office would not say yesterday if it had provided information about the investigation to baseball or to former Senator George J. Mitchell, who is investigating the use of performance-enhancing drugs by major leaguers.

A spokesman for Mitchell’s investigation did not respond to an e-mail message seeking comment.

NY Times (RR)

If Glaus refuses to attend, he's going to wake up with Celine Dion's head in his bed and some creepy Italian waltz playing in the background.

Who wins? The music-loving public.

Who wins? The Fonz!

Heyyy!

Glaus and Ankiel. LOL ..
Both will get a pass as neither are threatening any records.


odd question here but ..
Why are these names being leaked to two different sources?
And why only these two names? Both stories claim to have access to some form of 'Client list'. Apparently there are more names.
Yet, one name is leaked to the Daily News, the other to SI. Each story broke within 24 hours of each other. I could see if two competing news outlets were getting ready to go to print with the same guy, but this is different.

I remember right before 'Game of Shadows' was announced, they dropped Giambi's name, and then the next day it was Bonds. About a week later out came Sheff's name.
It was all preplanned to sell their book, of course, but here, I have heard no mention of a book.

One source.
Two names
Two different news outlets ...
24 hours

odd.

The district attorney’s office, however, has said that it was cooperating with the National Football League and had provided it with the names of a player, a coach and one doctor linked to the pharmacy.

If this is true, and it's an NFL team doctor, that would be the third NFL team doctor implicated in steroids scandals in three years. It's hard to believe that's not a bigger story. I think there's a growing body of circumstantial evidence that there is a huge, and possibly organized, steroid problem in football. So far, baseball takes all the heat, for whatever reasons, but I think it's possible that the NFL could be headed for a major scandal itself.

If this is true, and it's an NFL team doctor, that would be the third NFL team doctor implicated in steroids scandals in three years. It's hard to believe that's not a bigger story.

Shocking isn't it!

I think there's a growing body of circumstantial evidence that there is a huge, and possibly organized, steroid problem in football.

Growing body of evidence? Players have been juicing since the 70's! Coaches knew, for sure. Baseball too. Scouts? you name it.
Why the media won't touch the story is beyond me. Seriously. One of those Maridoits could make a nice hard bound 'retirement nest egg' for themselves. I bet they would only have to scratch the surface to turn up 'juice'. I wonder if EA Sports would drop John Madden, if the American public really knew what went on in those Raider locker rooms.

So far, baseball takes all the heat, for whatever reasons,

and in turn ..

'Baseball' dumped their entire dirty little secret on one man.

Why?
Because he was good!
Because he was going for records.

truly .. .. tragic.

And why only these two names?

The rest are all Yankees and Red Sox and they are waiting till those teams play their final series to ensure maximum coverage?

Since HGH wan't banned at the time, Ankiel isn't really in any more trouble than Matthews Jr. was. Glaus on the other hand probably has a 50 game suspension ahead of him. He got some serious $hit.

Since HGH wan't banned at the time, Ankiel isn't really in any more trouble than Matthews Jr. was. Glaus on the other hand probably has a 50 game suspension ahead of him.

If it's about what the rules were at the time of the offense, then is Glaus really facing a 50 game suspension, or just 10?

yup, when bunning was doing his "look at how much bigger players are today than when i played, baseball is terrible!" i did a quick look at some linemen.

during the 1980s, the redskins line were known as the hogs because they were so huge. average weight, 285 lbs.

20 years later, the average weight for an offensive inemen in the nfl was 310+ lbs.


and football barely receives a word. i'm 99% sure that the nfl has a LOT more players doing hgh, steroids, etc. but nary a word.

So why haven't the MLB asked to meet with Bonds after years of allegations?

So why haven't the MLB asked to meet with Bonds after years of allegations?

You really think they haven't asked? You really think it would matter if they did?

“Rick Ankiel has stated he’s not violated any baseball rules. He has not violated any federal or state laws,” said his agent, Scott Boras. “He only has followed the course of treatment prescribed by his medical doctors during the course of his career.”

Hey, kids--see if you can spot the non sequitur in this passage!

From Jason Starks column today

Double standard No. 3: He's no football star

It may be too early to draw this conclusion. But we tried our best to measure the coverage of the Ankiel/Glaus Banned Substance Baseball Daily Double on Friday. The object was to see how it compared with the coverage last week of the two NFL figures who were snared in exactly the same net: Rodney Harrison and Wade Wilson.

The first thing we noticed: Of the 438 news stories that showed up on a Google News search for Ankiel and Glaus, their names made the headline of every one of them.

But when we did a Google News search for Harrison and Wilson, we were stunned to find their suspensions were actually lumped into quite a few NFL notes roundups. They weren't even the lead story in many of them.

Earlier in the week, we'd used ESPN Insider's invaluable Local story search to sift through the newspaper columns written about Harrison -- a Pro Bowler who was a major cog on two Patriots Super Bowl champs.

It was hard not to notice he wasn't exactly treated like he was the NFL's version of Rafael Palmeiro. We couldn't find one columnist who suggested he was an unprincipled cheater and should never be allowed to return, not that we believe that ourselves.

We did come across a few "we shouldn't be surprised by this" pieces. But much of what was written was shockingly sympathetic -- certainly when you compare it to the coverage of any star baseball player who has been linked to steroids or HGH, no matter how those baseball players tried to explain away those links.

Football's unwillingness to come down on cheaters is one of the reasons I've lost interest. Now football is the most popular sport in the United States so obviously I'm in the minority here. I also don't understand why steroids is an issue in baseball and not in football. It's cheating. It's wrong. And it should be wrong in both instances. Instead the empty sac talking heads in football glorify these guys and the fans eat it up.

Since HGH wan't banned at the time, Ankiel isn't really in any more trouble than Matthews Jr. was. Glaus on the other hand probably has a 50 game suspension ahead of him. He got some serious $hit.

I wouldn't want to be in Glaus's situation, to be sure. Nonetheless, I don't see how he has a 50 game suspension ahead of him. The CBA is clear; a player can be punished for:

1) Failing to comply with a treatment program
2) Testing positive (which includes refusing to take a test)
3) Conviction for use of a prohibited substance (which includes a guilty plea)
4) Sale/distribution of prohibited substances.

In other words, the CBA explicitly lists conviction. Not accusation, not leaks by prosecutors, not media reports, not even indictment. He cannot be punished because there's a story out there that he got steroids years ago, no matter how convincing it is. It might be the case that if he admits use, he could be suspended; even that isn't clear, but I believe that the CBA might be interpreted to allow that. (But, as IE notes in post 15, any punishment would likely be of the 10-game, not 50-game, variety.)

The most this story can do is create grounds for testing him ASAP, but the requirement is that they have "reasonable cause to believe that a Player has, within the previous 12-month period, engaged in the use, possession, sale or distribution of a Prohibited Substance." It's not clear that a story from several years ago would qualify.

Hey, kids--see if you can spot the non sequitur in this passage!

I missed it. Boras wasn't necessarily saying "because X, therefore Y"; he may very well have been making three separate statements, all relevant to the issue.

and football barely receives a word. i'm 99% sure that the nfl has a LOT more players doing hgh, steroids, etc. but nary a word.

Well, the important thing is that Ricky Williams isn't smoking weed and playing. My god, what a tragedy that would be.

In other words, the CBA explicitly lists conviction. Not accusation, not leaks by prosecutors, not media reports, not even indictment. He cannot be punished because there's a story out there that he got steroids years ago, no matter how convincing it is.

I agree with both your reading of this and the position that this is a good, fair, and reasonable policy for MLB to pursue. But didn't Jason Grimsley get a 50-game suspension on fairly similar evidence? Now, in Grimsley's case he was also released by his team and nobody else in MLB has gone close enough to touch him with a 10-foot pole, but isn't the precedent there?

But didn't Jason Grimsley get a 50-game suspension on fairly similar evidence?

I'm not sure how similar it really was. In Grimsley's case, a shipment to him was intercepted. He was caught signing for it and arrested. That's a little bit different than a paper trail showing a delivery to a home owned by Glaus several years ago. And of course, the Grimsley thing happened after the 50-game penalty for a first offense had been written into the CBA.

Grimsley asked for, and was given, his release, as soon as the story broke. Then the D-backs announced they wouldn't pay him. The MLBPA immediately said that they'd file a grievance over the pay issue (*). A few days after that, MLB suspended him.

In other words, yes, MLB did suspend him without a conviction, but the suspension was completely moot, since the only effect of a suspension is to keep the player off an active roster and to keep him from getting paid; neither of those was happening before the suspension. If a new team signed him, then the suspension would take effect (e.g., Mota) and the MLBPA could file a grievance at that point.


(*) The grievance wasn't filed because a settlement was negotiated between Grimsley and the D-Backs later that season; Wikipedia links to this story.

MLB did suspend him without a conviction, but the suspension was completely moot

But would such a suspension have some precedental value that might be relevant if MLB tries to suspend Glaus (granting I.E.'s point that the case against Grimsley was much stronger than the case against Glaus)? Did the fact that MLBPA didn't file a grievance over the suspension mean that legally MLBPA has essentially conceded that the Grimsley suspension was legit (albeit moot)?

Did the fact that MLBPA didn't file a grievance over the suspension mean that legally MLBPA has essentially conceded that the Grimsley suspension was legit (albeit moot)?

I'd be willing to bet that if the suspension was not moot, the MLBPA would have filed a grievance. If the MLBPA files a grievance under similar circumstances in the future, and MLB tries to argue that the Grimsley case created a precedent that the MLBPA had implicitly accepted, then the MLBPA will simply argue that the only reason they did not oppose the Grimsley suspension is that it was moot.

One thing that complicates the Glaus situation is that he has switched teams since the alleged incident took place. Assuming he has been clean since the Jays acquired him, does Toronto deserve to be punished for a misdeed that didn't take place on their watch? Or is this a case of "caveat injector"?

Well, the team isn't "punished"; it doesn't have to play with a 24-man roster for 50 games, and it doesn't have to pay a player not to play. The team simply doesn't have the player available. That could hurt the team, to be sure -- but there's no way around that except to not suspend players at all. Which would be pretty odd as an incentive.

Football's unwillingness to come down on cheaters is one of the reasons I've lost interest.

I don't understand this. How is football being unwilling when it is suspending players who get caught? A player gets suspended without pay for 25% of the season. What punishment do you think qualifies as coming down on the cheaters?