Andy Pettitte did his best to pour himself into a life away from Major League Baseball. He coached youth baseball teams and participated in various church projects. He became involved in every aspect of his kids’ lives.
The thing he struggled with, the thing he never really could wrap his mind around, was that he was finished with Major League Baseball. He was still pitching at a high level when he walked away after the 2010 season.
As much as he wanted to be one of those guys who went out on his own terms, he was never completely satisfied with his decision. He’ll tell you he loves his life with his family, and I’m sure he does.
He’s a man of honor and a man of faith, and he desperately wanted to be closer to his family. He also believes God gave him incredible athletic gifts and saw part of his mission as using those gifts. His ministry was to live a very public life a certain way, to be the right kind of man.
...But his return means the Yankees just got smarter and tougher. They got an infusion of character and poise, too. In fact, if you were to make a list of all the intangible things good teams have, Pettitte would check off almost every box.
...Yes, he has admitted to using human growth hormone. He said he was injured and scared in 2004, and he made a terrible mistake. When you think of Andy Pettitte, I’m guessing performance-enhancing drugs are not the first things that come to mind.
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1. Tippecanoe Posted: March 16, 2012 at 06:31 PM (#4082536)The random cliche generator apparently realizes that he's too tall to be scrappy or gritty.
What? Oh, okay, fine, he'll come back for one year.
Huh? Oh, geez, fine, two years, but that's it.
Isn't this the guy who was caught using performance-enhancing drugs? How come he's lionized and a guy like Mark McGwire is treated by the media like some kind of leper????
Hired a better public relations firm.
Also, McGwire has been spotted hanging out in Hooters with Hellboy and "Satan" Reinsdorf.
Because this is a parody, right?
Why, it's as if Pettitte never left the Yankees to pitch for the Astros.
Using HGH? Check.
Lying about it repeatedly? Check.
Why, it's as if Pettitte never confessed to using in 2002.
It was a pack of lies.
Thank goodness for Glenn Greenwald is all I can say, and too bad he doesn't have a wider audience.
Yeah, I wonder why that is? Could it be that it's because you and the rest of the media constantly obsess about his "Christianity" and use it to excuse the same thing you villify others for. Or, put another way, we learned this from watching you!
You guess wrong.
Yeah, that was odd.
That a mountain of crap like this can be passed of as journalism tells you everything you need to know about what is wrong with the industry.
Who are these "Astros" of which you speak?
Who, happy-go-lucky fatass David Ortiz?
Poise. Ya gotta admit, he lied with great poise. Didn't let getting caught in the first lie faze him one bit.
That's the role in which he's been cast (*), and it's not changing.
(*) You have to be dumb and simple to play the part, and he's certainly that.
Isn't Pettitte also white?
No, he's a street-smart fish out of water in a world he never made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Elr5K2Vuo
Quoted because it was an absolutely fantastic post. (none of this qft, if it's worth quoting for truth, it's worth more than three letters)
Baseball more or less declared Papi's link to the list as a false positive or a suppliment positive. See their presser.
Stick to the boxing Joyce Carol Oates/Jack Chick stuff.
No, they didn't. They acknowledged that some of the names on the list were probably false positives or supplement positives, but they never made any specific statements about which ones. Moreover, players subsequently have been suspended for supplement positives. That's what strict liability means.
The fact is that we don't know why Ortiz' name was on that list and we likely never will. He is exonerated in your mind because you want him to be. Other players are not because you don't want them to be.
I am pretty much as anti-steroids as you are going to get around here, but that is insane. There was no strict liability at the time of the test, indeed there was no liability at all. There was no mechanism for getting a TUE, no list of MLB approved supplements, and no reason for any player to care whether they used a tainted supplement, or prescription which would cause them to fail a steroids test.
To treat potential false positives the same pre- and post testing smacks of either bias or ignorance.
I only meant that since there is strict liability now, I don't think much of a retroactive tainted supplement defense either. YMMV and I'm sorry I didn't state that more clearly. Also FWIW, there apparently is not, and never has been, an MLB-approved supplement list. Rather, there is a list of suspect supplements that players are advised to avoid. I was similarly misinformed on that point, but Ron straightened me out in a previous thread.
To treat potential false positives as if they were confirmed false positives would seem to smack of something as well. Which was my point.
Even without the PED's I doubt he would. A short career DH with no counting stats? Come on
Marry me.
Take it to the Nolan Ryan thread.
DB
The "story" in the NYT was single-sourced, with the "source" unnamed. That ain't evidence. That ain't journalism either.
Reason number 986 to hate that "newspaper" (reason number 985- they don't publish point spreads).
Why do you even bother to read the Times, anyway, since obviously you can get all your news and point spreads from the fair and balanced Boston Herald.
Neither was the appointment of a member of the Red Sox front office to oversee the "official" PED investigation.
Hey, whoa, them is fighting words...I think.
Neither was the appointment of a member of the Red Sox front office to oversee the "official" PED investigation.
OK, now I know for sure these are fightin' words!
His career really isn't that short. He's at 7,300 PA right now and unless he really craters this year should be able to get over 8,500 which, while on the low end of HoF is not outrageous. On top of that he's got a post-season record that is shiny and pretty and will help him.
I don't think he gets in or gets close but I bet he hangs around for a few ballots Rusty Staub style before dropping off.
He's definitely a player who the backlog could knock off sooner than later though.
He's only at 1750 games. That's very short for a HOFer.
He has a nice peak, but not an all-time great one. He doesn't have enough bulk outside of his peak.
He's not close, and the only way he hangs around on the ballot (barring some incredible finish to his career) is if the simpleton voters become fixated on his postseason performance.
On the HoF, Papi's basically had Boog Powell's career up to this point. Several superstar hitting years for WS contenders (and two WS winners), very little defensive value, not a ton of career length. Papi had a bit more in-season durability than Boog, but Boog had 13 seasons as a major contributor, while Papi's had 11. Papi will hopefully surpass Powell over the next few years, but it'll take a near-miraculous non-decline phase for Papi to get close to the Hall.
A 1B/DH from the sillyball era with barely 1000 runs, 400 HRs, and less than 1500 RBIs? That's not gonna cut it. Hall of Fame 1B/DH with under 1500 runs and rbis are war-credit guys (Greenberg and Mize), questionable selections from the 20s (Kelly, Terry, Bottomley, Sisler), and Orlando Cepeda. I guess it's conceivable that if Cepeda got in, Ortiz could, but there are a whole bunch ton of sluggers who could be elected if Orlando Cepeda is the floor. And Cepeda played in a far lower-scoring park and era.
Yeah, I've always assumed Oritz would take over Mattingly's role as the good but underqualified guy who hangs around on the ballot because he made sportswriters' hearts flutter.
I think he used the "I don't know what was in my flaxseed oil" defense.
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