Official Fire Jay Mariotti Mitchell Report Thread
*EDIT* Sorry...link works now.
I know this isn't what we're all about here at FireJay, but this is a pretty significant event, and I think some discussion could be fun and interesting. For those of you who haven't seen the Mitchell report yet, you can do so here. A bunch of the players cited can be found in boldface type from like pages 180 through the 200s.
Several of the names on the list made me laugh out loud.
Glenallen Hill....that one should have been obvious, but it never occurred to me.
Larry Bigbie.....he was perpetually terrible, yet next to David Segui he seemed to be the most enthusiastic guy about using steroids.
Probably the funniest one for me to see was Jim Parque. As a White Sox fan, I've seen quite a bit of Jim Parque....a diminuitive, skinny pitcher who threw really hard for a person his size.
Although the Mitchell Report is long, if you read it closely, some things are actually pretty funny....like how Benito Santiago ran away in fear of a drug test and the excruciatingly unnecessary story of Roger Clemens having some guy inject steroids into his ass.
Thoughts? Any players on the list particularly funny or shocking to anyone?
18 comments:
I didn't mention this, but I was listening to George Mitchell speaking live over MLB.com, and he mentioned that the most prominent complaint from MLB players was "this guy is taking my spot."
How much would it suck to be the guy left off an MLB roster because Ryan Franklin was juicing?
I think my favorite moment of reading it so far has been the memo line of Matt Herges' check...
"Thanks!"
Hahaha....somehow I missed that.
In Glenallen's defense, he needed the roids to give himself the strength to fight off the spiders.
WHAT? ROGER CLEMENS IS IN HERE? AND GARY SHEFFIELD? YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME
"Oh, my goodness gracious! Of all the dramatic... of all the dramatic things I've ever seen! Roger Clemens standing right in George Steinbrenner's box, announcing that he is a steroid user!"
Sorry, I've been using that one all day in text messages and the like. Needed to get it down in print, because Suzyn Waldman is a walking joke.
tomservo22,
I just wanted to respond to you, and make sure you saw it. I'm definitely coming from angle of "pursue criminals equally."
I definitely understand the idea of chasing the distributors. But in this case, that doesn't make an example of anyone who matters. Clubhouse attendants and Victor Conte aren't character people care about.
The people really matter are getting off. People aside from Bonds (who is an idiot for allegedly perjuring himself).
But my thing is this, if they brought all of these men before a grand jury to determine the legality of their actions, would these 80 men perjure themselves or would they be forced to come clean about their dirt?
If there is enough evidence to bring down any - black, latino or white, even Jose Guillen who was just acquired by my team - bring them down. Make them examples.
On the Vick thing, he's an idiot as well. But that judge showed no sense of mercy for a man who had already lost more than in three months than 100 Americans could ever hope for. Just compare that to Martha Stewart for a moment, who had the potential to serve a max of 20 years to Mike Vick's potential five.
Martha got six months jail time and six months house arrest. Vick? Two years when he had no priors.
There's something severely wrong here.
Concerning the crimes and punishments in baseball, I just hope Selig resigns.
And I hope somebody FIRES JAY MARIOTTI. He's the worst columnist in America.
I think the funniest name to me so far (being an Indians fan) is Tim Laker. If he needed juice to be that good, think of how bad he'd be sans steroids. Even my wife, who knows next to nothing about baseball, watched plenty of Tribe games with me and realized that he was terrible. To quote the infamous Ty Webb "You're ah...you're not good."
Haha....yeah...kind of pathetic to see how bad some guys were despite cheating. Larry Bigbie being one of the chief cheaters (::sniff:: he corrupted my beloved Jack Cust!) was pretty funny for the same reason.
victordamone - Seriously, won't someone fire him already?
Ha...just read Laker's section of the report. It even takes a minor potshot at him by noting that he spent most of his career in the minor leagues. Priceless.
As a White Sox fan, I agree that Jim Parque being in there is particularly hilarious. After seeing him I was really hoping to read about how him and Sirotka were injecting each other with all sorts of chemicals.
Outside of that, how about Nook Logan? The guy is terrible. And his name is Nook.
I'm surprised Albert Pujols wasn't in there. Apparently he and Grimsley were pretty close and shared the same trainer.
You know, I'm seeing writers bash the report for naming so many players based on flimsy evidence. And I understand the concern- being tarred by that brush without reasonable corroboration will no doubt be very unfair to some players.
But I bet that if the report hadn't named any players, lots of writers would be ripping it for just that-- for "protecting cheaters" or what have you. I think that if baseball is going to take the issue seriously (and that's a big "if") then it's probably only going to happen if it gets a big black eye, even if it's an unfair one.
The big winner here is Alex Rodriguez. Not only does this story overshadow the finalizing of his new contract, he comes out of it as one of the big time superstars who wasn't juiced. They'll still hate him here in New York though.
I agree that ARod is probably the biggest winner from this report. He did not get mentioned once, although Canseco did go on the record as being somewhat shocked that ARod wasn't in there. Also, where was Sammy Sosa? You would think he'd get more mention.
I also like alot of the suggestions Mitchell makes, even though alot of them probably won't get done cuz Selig is a douche bag. I particularly agree with the independent testing, as well as a specific board for dealing with drugs.
Finally, this is completely off topic, but I gotta say I love the site and the work you guys do here. I stumbled on to here a few months back when I was pissed off about a Jay Mariotti column and entered "Mariotti sucks" or something to that effect in Google. I come here every day now. In fact, I don't bother reading the online columns any more and just come here instead to not give the idiots that write those that one extra hit on their website. So, thanks!
It also bothers me that the warcry now is that the report is potentially flawed because of the lack of sources, with the main sources of information being men who have been cooperating with the government in the hopes of getting lighter sentences for their crimes.
So, baseball asks for a report on how bad the steroid problem was, and no one in baseball itself really wants to talk to Mitchell. Then when the report is released, they bash it for lack of sources. How utterly self-serving. And we get to watch Donald Fehr complain that the players named in the report might be unfairly maligned. The same Donald Fehr and the same player's union that fought drug testing tooth-and-nail for so long.
I suppose the cherry on top is Bud Selig standing on his pulpit and swearing that he'll right the wrongs and take action and... huh? What's that? Did he read the report? Uh, no, not yet.
/facepalm
Tonus, well put.
Steve, thanks for stopping by and please continue to do so. Please also continue hoisting 3s and riding Michael Jordon to a fistful of rings.
Victor, I'm tom_servo over on TBL. Thanks for clarifying yourself. We're probably not in as much disagreement as I initially thought. However, the burden of proof is on you in this case to produce one of the following things:
1) Evidence of a time or times that a white person did what Vick did, and got off easy
2) Evidence of a time or times that a white person did what Bonds allegedly did yet didn't get indicted
If you can't produce those, you can't claim that race is a factor in either case. And I very much doubt that you can, particularly in Bonds's case.
Larry B...I think I can provide an answer to #2. President Bill Clinton. Didn't he lie to a grand jury about bangin' Ms. Lewinsky? He got off (pun intended) with a Censure from the Senate.
I find that situation strikingly similar to Barroids, because everyone kept asking if cheating on your wife was illegal now, when in reality his crime was lying about it to a Federal Grand Jury.
Close, Andy, but not quite. Clinton never dealt with Federal prosecutors. The House voted to bring 2 charges, but the Senate acquitted him. The fact that he got off has more to do with his status as President of the US than his race. Of course, you can make the case that it's nearly impossible for anyone who isn't white to become president (Or at least it was, back in 1996) and connect race in that way. But still, had Clinton been black, I'm reasonably confident the outcome of his procedings would have been exactly the same. Again though, close. Just not quite equivalent.
Jim Parque basically shoots himself in face while attempting to level a defense. Nice try, Jim.
http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=11923
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