Never mind that there was no criminal penalty attached to anything Mr. Clemens is accused of...

The US has legalized perjury?

[1] Wow, talk about quoting out of context. Cutting off a single word made all the difference.

Apparently the economy, unemployment, two wars, terrorism and illegal immigration are under control, and Congress and federal investigators can once again devote their time and energy to the issue most vital to our national welfare: the use of performance-enhancing drugs by major-league baseball players.

Yes, this trial prevents Congress and federal investigators from doing ALL of those things.

With the recent announcement that a federal grand jury has indicted former pitcher and seven-time Cy Young Award winner liar, fraud and otherwise complete ####### Roger Clemens for perjury, Americans can once again breathe easy. Apparently the economy, unemployment, two wars, terrorism and illegal immigration are under control, and Congress and federal investigators can once again devote their time and energy to the issue most vital to our national welfare: the use of performance-enhancing drugs by major-league baseball players confiscating cash from entitled, arrogant pricks who believe they are above law

FTFY

And let’s disregard as irrelevant the judgment of baseball analysts such as David Ezra (author of “Asterisk: Home Runs, Steroids, and the Rush to Judgment”) and J.C. Bradbury (author of “The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed”), who have studied PEDs and Mr. Clemens’s performance and found no statistical evidence that, even if he took PEDs, he gained any advantage from them.

Wow, what horseshit. How embarrassing to have your name attached to such a ridiculous conclusion. In the Wall Street Journal no less. Yikes.

Apparently the economy, unemployment, two wars, terrorism and illegal immigration are under control, and Congress and federal investigators can once again devote their time and energy to the issue most vital to our national welfare: the use of performance-enhancing drugs by major-league baseball players.

I hate this argument, too.

Wow, what horseshit. How embarrassing to have your name attached to such a ridiculous conclusion. In the Wall Street Journal no less. Yikes.

Huh?

confiscating cash from entitled, arrogant pricks who believe they are above law

Funny, I thought of the members of Congress when I read this, not Roger Clemens.

So perjury is fine. Steroids are as enhancing as sugar cubes. Thanks for the revelation, Mr. Barra. You must've been wearing kneepads when you wrote this - an "R" on the right and "C" on the left.

all you fvcks are dewshes

I hate this argument, too.

Really? I think it's pretty relevant - federal elected officials should really be able to find more pressing matters.

Of course, I've hated Clemens ever since the entire Blue Jays-Astros trade fiasco. Clemens wanted to "get back closer to home" and then a trade was worked out with Houston. Of course, once that happened, Clemens demanded a huge contract extension as a condition of accepting the trade.

I don't care if it's about the money, but I ####### HATE it when someone claims it's NOT about the money and then acts in direct opposition to that claim. Wakefield wasn't about the moeny. Neither was Griffey's stint with the Reds. Clemens, on the other hand, basically lied his way out of Toronto.

Really? I think it's pretty relevant - federal elected officials should really be able to find more pressing matters.

Yes, our elected officials should find a better use of their time than chasing steroids. The DOJ, however, should continue to hammer perjurers, even if they testified in a dog and pony show. I don't really want government lawyers picking and choosing which congressional hearings are legitimate enough to give liars a pass.

I don't really want government lawyers picking and choosing which congressional hearings are legitimate enough to give liars a pass.

Rep. Charles Rangel disagrees with you.

how come no one who goes before congress gives them something back?

or pleads the 5th like follows:

-> congressman rangel, due to your own actions being investigated, i am unable to answer the question and invoke my rights to remain silent.
-> congressman vitter, because of your own illegal actions involving prostitutes, i am unable...

or even just the *public* comments that are so hypocritical?

I assume once Clemens is acquitted, McNamee will be charged with perjury.

I don't think it's a terrible thing(what Clemens and many other current and former MLB players are doing to their body)...and this scenario was going to play out from the very beggining since Clemens doesn't want to admit to anything. Sure, he may not have used, regardless of what his peers and teammates say, but the court of public opinion has him pegged as a "cheater" and this sham of a trial will do nothing change that. Clemens and his team will dig up every completely non-relevant piece of dirt they can find on McNamee(sp?), like how many times he cheated on his high-school girlfriend, and these daggers will comprise 97% of their defense. McNamee will tell the worlf what he did to Clemens, and the the jury will render a meaningless verdict. The best lawyers money can buy will probably over-come whatever B-Mac(jaja) says and Clemens will feel vindicated, at least in his own world. And ubkess ESPN and the media go out of their way to paint Clemens in the best possible light, and use every propoganda trick in the book, the outcome of the trial will mean....absolutely nothing.

If you have the money, may as well spend millions in an attempt to change public opinion and "vindicate" yourself. HOWEVER, if Clemens and his team are willing to pony up the cash(probably going to cost them a few million, and hell, of course they are willing and have probably tried already), they may be able to convince McNamee to make a fool of himself on the stand. A year in prison is nothing when you have ten million waiting for you courtesy of Mr. Clemens once he gets out...sorry for the tangent, but I think we all know this trial is a joke, and nothing will be revealed other than one side claiming one thing, and the other doing the same. In the end, nothing changes...most of the baseball community had already given Clemens an un-removable scarlet letter...

Apparently the economy, unemployment, two wars, terrorism and illegal immigration are under control

Maybe the DOJ should be doing more about terrorism and illegal immigration, but I don't think we really want them getting too involved in the economy or the wars. As for unemployment, let's see... prosecutors, judges, clerks, paralegals, court reporters, bailiffs -- that's a whole bunch of jobs. Even the jurors get paid.

How much more (badly needed) stimulus spending would there be if the government re-allocated the money they were spending on prosecuting Clemens?

17. Enough to build a bullet train from Seattle to Miami AND give everyone in the US a laptop.

As for unemployment, let's see... prosecutors, judges, clerks, paralegals, court reporters, bailiffs -- that's a whole bunch of jobs. Even the jurors get paid.

I was going to say, frivolous prosecution is pretty much the only way that the Dept of Justice can really do much of anything to combat unemployment.

I may be wrong about this but haven't PEDs been banned since the early 1970s when Bowie Kuhn ordered that baseball regulations follow federal law, under which such things are controlled substances. What you didn't have before was a system of random testing for them..a team could call for an independent arbitrator to decide to test if a player was suspected...needless to say no team ever did.

And would the economy be better served by having the feds distracted with a sideshow instead of trying to improve it in their typical bull-in-a-china-shop policies that both sides of the aisle inevitably enact? Or maybe go on a long recess...evidence shows the stock market does better when Congress is out of session.

dear mr anderson,

can you please show me how using steroids enhanced the careers of manny alexander, alex sanchez and larry bigbie, paxton crowford, jc romero or ryan franklin - to name a few.

thank you verra much

p.s. can you show how steroids enhanced the career of roger clemens in 1998 - i mean can you show some difference between any months that he supposedly got these shots and his previous year?

I may be wrong about this but haven't PEDs been banned since the early 1970s when Bowie Kuhn ordered that baseball regulations follow federal law, under which such things are controlled substances.

You might want to do a little research on what Bowie really did, what he really had to authority to do, and how arbitrators ruled in specific case where he tried to discipline players. And also into when anabolic steroids became scheduled drugs under the Controlled Substances Act. MLB's drug policy (for whatever that's worth) has indeed prohibited all illegal drug use since 1971, but anabolic steroids were not illegal drugs until 1991. Amphetamines, OTOH, have been illegal at least since 1970. And of course, Kuhn's reaction to Ball Four was to drag Bouton into his office and demand that he admit that he'd made up all that stuff about greenies.

And would the economy be better served by having the feds distracted with a sideshow instead of trying to improve it in their typical bull-in-a-china-shop policies that both sides of the aisle inevitably enact?

You don't honestly believe that tying up one USA and a a few of his assistants for a couple of years is really going to distract the entire federal government from much of anything, do you? Sadly, there just isn't enough work to keep the entire apparatus busy, even if every single major league player is using.

can you please show me how using steroids enhanced the careers of manny alexander, alex sanchez and larry bigbie, paxton crowford, jc romero or ryan franklin

Well, Manny Alexander turned into Manny Ramirez, Alex Sanchez turned into Alex Rodriguez, and uhh... Paxton Crawford turned into a big-ass ranch in Texas.

Yes, our elected officials should find a better use of their time than chasing steroids. The DOJ, however, should continue to hammer perjurers, even if they testified in a dog and pony show. I don't really want government lawyers picking and choosing which congressional hearings are legitimate enough to give liars a pass.

The thing is that when the hearing ended, the feds had no clue which of McNamee and Clemens had committed perjury -- and, indeed, out of the two of them, it was McNamee who had already proven himself to be a liar in the investigation. Nevertheless, a conscious decision was made to waste money investigating that sh!tstorm and trying to prove that Clemens had perjured himself.

The other thing is that it's possible both of them perjured themselves. What if Clemens used in, say, 1995, before he met McNamee, but not subsequent to that? That means Clemens committed perjury AND McNamee made the whole thing up.

Or perhaps McNamee didn't tell the truth in every single one of his (material) statements to Congress - did they look into that?

This is an utter waste of taxpayer money.

#22 Thank you for sort of clearing up baseball's PED policy in the past. I am curious about how a person would buy anabolic steroids before 1991. Where they sold in drug stores like vitamins are today? Was it necessary to get a doctor's prescription?

As for saying Bowie Kuhn's "reaction to Ball Four was to drag Bouton into his office and demand he admit that he'd made up all that stuff about greenies" here is what Bouton says about the "quarter of a million dollar meeting". Keep in mind Kuhn had only read the first extract in "Look" magazine before throwing it away.

"Then he said he wanted to be more specific. What he really meant was that he didn't believe the things I had written.So he began to go over them one by one.
"How widespread is the use of greenies? Who takes them?"
"It's all in the book. Don Mincher says half the guys in the big leagues take them. I have no reason to doubt him. I know from personal experience that a lot of guys take them. And I've taken them".
"What did they do for you?"
"Not much. Like I say in the book, they make you think you are doing better than you're actually doing."
COMMISSIONER: Grumble, grumble, grumble
I should say here that I never had said greenies were bad for you (or very good). I merely said in the book that people take them. That was widely denied, of course, but
now the Commissioner has a committee of team physicians studying the problem. How can there be a problem that doesn't exist?

Several pages later we have Marvin Miller taking about how Grover Cleveland Alexander would sip bourbon in the bullpen and barely able to walk to the mound, go strike out the side. To Miller that was dramatic and made him a more romantic character. I am glad that I don't have anyone in my immediate family that is a serious alcoholic and I'm glad a drunk like Alexander didn't hit a batter in the head in those pre-helmet days.



Players like Manny Alexander, Alex Sanchez, etc did have major league careers. They made a minimum of $300,000 a year, plus licensing money and get a pension for very little service time. The vast majority of men in their 20s never get that. Perhaps PED usage enable them to get higher than 99% of their peers.

The thing is that when the hearing ended, the feds had no clue which of McNamee and Clemens had committed perjury -- and, indeed, out of the two of them, it was McNamee who had already proven himself to be a liar in the investigation. Nevertheless, a conscious decision was made to waste money investigating that sh!tstorm and trying to prove that Clemens had perjured himself.

The other thing is that it's possible both of them perjured themselves. What if Clemens used in, say, 1995, before he met McNamee, but not subsequent to that? That means Clemens committed perjury AND McNamee made the whole thing up.

Or perhaps McNamee didn't tell the truth in every single one of his (material) statements to Congress - did they look into that?

This is an utter waste of taxpayer money.

That's a great argument for investigating them both, not for ignoring te whole thing.

The other thing is that it's possible both of them perjured themselves.

Possible? I'd go with probable. Perhaps even likely. But provably beyond a reasonable doubt?

Ms. Baseball Chick:

If steroids didn't work, then why did so many players use them?

Perception.

If steroids didn't work, then why did so many players use them?

Why do they cork their bats?

Why do they take hGH, which is little more than snake oil?

Why do they dive head first into first base?

Just because a guy drawing a major league salary does it, doesn't mean that it makes sense.

Frankly, I think steroids probably do help, but for most players, simply not as much as all the pants pissers and hysterics are claiming.

I'm just curious -- If the economy was booming, world peace reigned, and illegal aliens were all cured of leprosy, would it be OK to prosecute Clemens?