It’s relatively obvious that Dutch Leonard merely included Speaker in the allegations because he was angry at Speaker and wanted to hurt him.

I hate it when people like Dutch Leonard and Chris Truby throw out baseless accusations out of spite.

Bill has become the old curmudgeon.

Hasn't Bonds already waited five years? What is the appropriate waiting period? When it's over and he has a plaque in Cooperstown, is it going to read, "Nyah nyah, we made him wait"?

And on an unrelated matter, from this week's Onion horoscopes:
"Virgo: After 14 long years, you will be admitted to the Baseball Hall Of Fame when you finally come up with the $11.50 admission price."
But Jack Morris is a Taurus???

Bill has become the old curmudgeon.

That he has, but OTOH he's one of very few known writers who's actually had the sense to distinguish between the cases against Bonds and Clemens, and has done so with respect for the actual facts. It makes sense to vote for both of them if you don't care about steroids, or if you're a "steroid discounter". And it also makes sense to vote against both of them if your standard of evidence includes hearsay that was heard and soundly rejected at trial by a series of acquittals. But what makes little or no sense is to reject hearsay in other cases (Bagwell, Sosa, etc.) and yet accept it in Clemens' case. And that's what many of the "anti-steroids" writers are clearly doing. It's as if Clemens' trial didn't even take place at all.

And BTW as I'm sure it will be brought up, I was completely wrong in thinking that at least 5% to 10% of the "anti-steroids" writers were going to vote for Clemens on the basis of the trial and its outcome. It's as if they read the accusations against him and then shut their minds to any possibility other than assumed guilt. Not exactly a cheerful thought.

Roger was acquitted, but in high profile cases, that is often not the final word in the court of public opinion... see OJ for an example where the majority of people disagree with the jury and discount its findings.

The court does not dole out truth, it simply responds to a set of laws of which there are protections for the accused and the barrier to guilt is purposely high.

#5 Sure, but you'd think (well hope -- I know better than to expect evidence to matter to people) the actual evidence (or lack thereof) presented at trial would matter somewhat. Not so much.

I think the Bonds stuff from James was something he didn't really think through when he proposed this sort of crazy, zig-zagging, nebulous difference between Bonds and Clemens, but in somewhat classic (or recent vintage classic) Bill James fashion -- he's shoring up various levies of the argument here and there to avoid having to just say "Never mind, I was just musing and upon closer inspection/deeper thought, it really doesn't make much sense."

#7 But he's never minded that saying that he's changed his mind or that he hadn't completely thought things through. Or at least the James of 25 years ago had no problems saying stuff like that.

#6 agree, but the actual evidence produced at trial was not covered nearly as much as the evidence that people thought was presented in trial... i.e. what we read about for years coming up to the trial.

Also, James is wrong when it comes to Speaker. There is evidence in the form of what Joe Wood said in the Glory of Their Times Tapes.

But: It's directly contradictory to what he said at the time. Also, Speaker never got the chance to rebut the new version -- being dead.

All in all it's questionable how much weight you'd want to put on Wood's revised version, but it's not really true that there's nothing on Speaker.

#5 Sure, but you'd think (well hope -- I know better than to expect evidence to matter to people) the actual evidence (or lack thereof) presented at trial would matter somewhat. Not so much.

In fairness this was a bit easier to do for OJ, given the round the clock trial coverage and analysis for months on end.

Roger was acquitted, but in high profile cases, that is often not the final word in the court of public opinion... see OJ for an example where the majority of people disagree with the jury and discount its findings.

The difference IMHO is that the OJ jury had ample evidence to convict if they wanted to, Clemens jury simply was not represented with sufficient evidence to convict

what's depressing is that the MSM reporting evidences very little recognition of that fact (especially insofar as the Clemens case is concerned- and some reporters did indeed mention that the jury was given too little to support a conviction- but blamed the judge (or Andy Petitte)- which was simply wrong, even including what the judge threw out I was shocked by how little evidence the government had gathered- I went from thinking with 97.5% certainty that Clemens was a roider to somewhere between 50 and 75%...

10:

That's why there's a rule of evidence in law (and in a lay sense it applies in "real" life, too) that you just don't count everything as equal. You have to weigh and assess the evidence. You can have a 100 bits of evidence that promote guilty and only one that promotes not quilty and find not guilty beause it's the better and the weightier evidence.

If you justify your decision on the basis of any evidence whatsoever, then you can justify anything you decide to anyway you want to. That's pretty sweet. And pretty scary. And that's not a standard in law, and it shouldn't be in life either.

We don't know with 100 percenbt certainty whether Clemens is guilty and we don't know with 100% certainty that he's not quilty. We can only go with probablities, and these aren't even numerical probabilities. And we can only decide what will be binding in what setting.

That he has, but OTOH he's one of very few known writers who's actually had the sense to distinguish between the cases against Bonds and Clemens, and has done so with respect for the actual facts. It makes sense to vote for both of them if you don't care about steroids, or if you're a "steroid discounter". And it also makes sense to vote against both of them if your standard of evidence includes hearsay that was heard and soundly rejected at trial by a series of acquittals. But what makes little or no sense is to reject hearsay in other cases (Bagwell, Sosa, etc.) and yet accept it in Clemens' case. And that's what many of the "anti-steroids" writers are clearly doing.

Andy, McNamee's testimony was not "hearsay." McNamee testified as to direct knowledge that he had: he witnessed Clemens using steroids, and he heard Clemens make various statements about wanting to and using steroids. Etc. Hearsay does not mean "the witness testifying has little credibility."

Pettitte's testimony was not hearsay either. Pettitte testified as to direct knowledge that he had: he heard Clemens say he had used HGH - however unsure he later became that he had understood Clemens properly.

It's as if Clemens' trial didn't even take place at all.

Again, we learned nothing new at the trial, so we didn't need it to assess the facts. All of the witnesses stories were laid out under oath and in very, very specific detail per the questioning in the Congressional depositions. And the trial didn't bring forth new evidence. Though I guess that's a point to be made: they spent four years and tens of millions of dollars investigating/trying him, and could find no new evidence against him.

James has turned into Willie Mays with the Mets. Or maybe it's not quite that bad. But geez.

Hearsay does not mean "the witness testifying has little credibility."

The technical term for that being "perjury."

All of the witnesses stories were laid out under oath and in very, very specific detail per the questioning in the Congressional depositions. And the trial didn't bring forth new evidence. Though I guess that's a point to be made: they spent four years and tens of millions of dollars investigating/trying him, and could find no new evidence against him.

I think the real point to be made is that the voters in question had already decided that Clemens was guilty based on the Congressional depositions, without actually bothering to read or understand those depositions. They weren't expecting new evidence to be presented at trial, and they didn't think any new evidence was necessary since Clemens' guilt had already been proven. They obviously weren't going to have their minds changed by the outcome of some silly trial.

Andy's surprise at the voting stems from a belief that there would have been a difference of opinion on Bonds/Clemens among the subset of voters that actually are willing to think things through enough to be a "discounter" or to require a standard for suspicion that exceeds "he got better in his late thirties." Apparently, all the voters who think there is more evidence against Bonds than there is against Clemens either don't care about PEDs or don't care about evidence.

James has turned into Willie Mays with the Mets. Or maybe it's not quite that bad. But geez.

I watched Willie Mays with the Mets. Trust me, it's not quite that bad.