First, I had an epic, world-class dinner the other night in Westchester. I’m home visiting my family, and went out Saturday night to a place called Flames, a very highly-rated steakhouse in Briarcliff, NY. I just wanted to throw a shout-out to the whole crew at the restaurant. Owners Nick and Valentina were simply terrific, made me feel like I was a regular, even though it was my first time. The staff was attentive and informal, the food was flat-out perfect, especially the bone-in filet mignon I had as my entree.
I rarely mention my restaurant jaunts here, but this dinner was special, and my waiter, who happens to be a web/computer tech guy, deserved the limelight. Hats off, Dardan.
On to baseball….
Has Roger Clemens put his foot in his mouth? His stance, that McNamee lied, seems to have left him with no outs, other than to be telling the truth. He’s all-in, and he better have the best hand. If he doesn’t, he’ll be the next guy to be indicted.
…. now Clemens isn’t just saying McNamee lied when he said he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone. He is saying something much more serious than that. He is really saying that the federal government, whose agents heard McNamee’s story about Clemens and steroids the same as Sen. George Mitchell did when compiling his report for Major League Baseball, was selectively targeting Roger Clemens.
“[Clemens] is accusing the government of pressuring McNamee to pin the tail on the Clemens donkey,” Emery (McNamee’s lawyer) says. “And that did not happen. Earl was in the room with the government and the opposite of what Clemens is saying is what happened. They didn’t have Clemens as a target. They had steroid use as a target. It came as a surprise to them. McNamee reluctantly gave them Clemens because he had to tell the truth to stay out of jail, not lie.”
…. “He has put himself in a legal buzzsaw, and I have no idea why, even if he is innocent. I am shocked that his lawyer would allow him to take this position. I would never allow a client of mine to behave this way.”
That last quote is an interesting one. It’s interesting because I’d love to know how Lupica and the rest of his buddies at the News would have handled the Clemens situation if his lawyer had told him to say nothing, do nothing, and let them take the correct legal recourse. If Clemens would have covered up and gone all lawyer, where would he be now? How would this play out in the MSM?
But, this is how it is in the court of public opinion, right? You have talking heads on ESPN demanding the truth, not believing it, demanding more truth, questioning motives, and declaring that they have the pulse of the millions of baseball fans around the world that they, apparently think they represent. Clemens didn’t deny it fast enough. He didn’t deny it the right way, with enough humility, or clarity, or with his wife standing by his side. He should have lawyered up, he failed to figure out the right way to speak, he looks like he’s lying….
Now we have Lupica, being read by millions, watching the Clemens 60 Minutes interview with McNamee’s lawyer, so that everyone can know that McNamee’s lawyer thinks his client is right and Clemens is not. Really? That’s what we needed to know, that McNamee’s lawyer is ready to defend his client? Wow. That’s an interesting angle. Never would have thought that.
You think Clemens’ lawyer maybe thinks the exact opposite? Maybe?
[...] ??. Two things [...]
John:
http://steroids-and-baseball.com/
To quote:
Good ethics starts with good facts, and the claims on this point are, to understate the case, seriously overstated. In any event, we regularly allow adults to do things that are far riskier than even the most extreme claims about steroids: the claim by the leader of the National Hockey League that they test for steroids because they’re concerned about the health and safety of the players is, well, hysterical.
— Dr. Fost
The rationale of banning drugs to protect the health of athletes assumes that performance-enhancing drugs are harmful under all conditions. In the case of anabolic steroids, this assumption does not appear to hold.
— Dr. Yesalis
More
“Coercion” is the use or threat of force, or the threat of depriving someone of something he or she is entitled to. No one in American sports is forced to use steroids. Nor is anyone entitled to be a professional athlete. It’s an opportunity, often involving high risks, which everyone is free to walk away from.
— Dr. Fost
[T]he final decision to use steroids or to participate in the sport still lies with the athlete. Heavy weight training, a basic requirement of most strength and power sports, is itself a health risk that athletes are pressured to endure. Furthermore, this ethical dilemma is not peculiar to sport. If a scientist wishes to do laboratory research on virulent strains of viruses or bacteria, he or she must accept certain risks; the only way to completely avoid such risks is to not participate in this type of research.
— Dr. Yesalis
And still more:
There is no coherent argument to support the view that enhancing performance is unfair; if it were, we would ban coaching and training. Competition can be unfair if there is unequal access to particular enhancements, but equal access can be achieved more predictably by deregulation than by prohibition.
— Dr. Fost
Moreover, is there a difference between athletes’ using anabolic steroids and their using vitamins, aspirin, amino acids, or corticosteroids, all of which are allowed by most sport governing bodies? The use of fiberglass poles, synthetic track surfaces, lifting suits, and high-tech tennis rackets raises similar questions of unnaturalness.
— Dr. Yesalis
And so who are Drs. Fost and Yesalis?
*
Dr. Norman Fost : Dr. Fost was awarded an A.B. by Princeton, an M.D. by Yale, and an M.P.H. (Master of Public Health) by Harvard; he is not only a practicing pediatrician (and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin) but also a widely recognized expert in medical ethics, being Director of the Program in Medical Ethics at the University of Wisconsin (which he founded) and Chairman of the Hospital Ethics Committee; he heads the Child Protection Team, and is a former Chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics. Last year he received the William G. Bartholome Award for Excellence in Ethics from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
*
Dr. Charles E. Yesalis: Dr. Yesalis was awarded a B.S. and M.P.H. by the University of Michigan, and his doctoral degree by the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. He has been a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, a member of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Environmental Health at the University of Iowa, and is currently Professor of Health Policy and Administration and Exercise and Sport Science at The Pennsylvania State University. He has testified six times before the U.S. Congress and acted as a consultant for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Yesalis is the author and editor of four books on drugs in sport: The Steroids Game, Anabolic Steroids in Sport and Exercise, and Performance-Enhancing Substances in Sport and Exercise.
And yet each day and night, the George Mitchells, and the jackals in MSM spew their ignorance at unfathomable costs to reputations, livelihoods of some of our best athletes and the besmirching and trashing of the National Pastime by the very same individuals who purport to be its guardians. Welcome to Fascism.
I am SO happy that we are now focussed, courtesy of the media, on Roger Clemen’s buttocks.
Methinks Roger doth protest too much, but then again, anything that anyone says to stay out of jail seems slightly suspect to me.
I think Clemens sees Mcgwire and Bonds blackballed, and wants it on record that a case was thrown out (or he won). I really don’t think there’s anyway in hell that anyone can prove anything “beyond a reasonable doubt” with any of them EITHER WAY – so the column is exactly right, it’s all appearances, acting indignant and wielding lawyers looks like… something.
I would just like to see some “paragon of virtue” such as Cal Ripken get nailed unquestionably, the very same day that he saves 12 children from a burning building, thus earning further eternal sainthood and becoming untouchable. Then we can all go home and watch the damn game.
Wonder if he’ll wear a dodger cap into the HOF.
http://tinyurl.com/346l5s
Clemens told “60 Minutes” that McNamee never injected him with steroids, but rather with vitamin B-12 and lidocaine, the latter an anesthetic which Clemens claimed was “for my joints.”
Q: What is lidocaine, and how does it work?
Dretchen It’s a member of a class of compounds that work as local anesthetics, which means it’s injected close to where there’s a nerve area to decrease sensation and pain by deadening the nerve fibers.
Dombrowski: We’ve all had experiences with it. We’ve gone to the dentist and had a tooth numbed up, or a dermatologist to get a wart or mole removed. They inject it under the skin to make it numb.
Q: So would it make sense for a pitcher to inject lidocaine?
Dr. Dombrowski: If it’s your pitching arm, I could see injecting the shoulder to loosen up, throw some better heat. That’s not unreasonable.
Lidocaine would not do anything about joint inflammation.
Q: Can you get pain relief in your joints by injecting lidocaine into your, well, buttocks?
Dr. Dombrowski: No. Never. Unless Clemens was limited by hip pain or whatever in his buttocks, then no, that’s not what you do. You use big deep muscles for injecting steroids. But you would never treat shoulder or elbow pain in that way. If what he was injected with was truly lidocaine, his butt cheek would be numb. And that’s it.
Dr. Dretchen: Just a blind injection into the gluteus area, that would be a strange usage of the drug. When you go to the dentist, would you get an injection into your arm?
In his press conferense the next day Clemens said the Lidocaine was injected in his lower back (not buttocks) to deal with joint pain in his lower lumbars. It was just the B-12 was injected into Clemens buttocks.
Man, Clemens is really digging himself a deep hole… he’s really starting to make Bonds look good.
John,
Can anything be done to stop these “Playback” posts from infecting your blog?
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im not sure how clemens expects to win a defamation law suit
he is a public figure, and he has to prove that macnamee not only lied but had malice and forethought….almost impossible to prove
and john, i fuckin hate new york
im not sure how clemens expects to win a defamation law suit
he is a public figure, and he has to prove that macnamee not only lied but had malice and forethought….almost impossible to prove
and john, i fuckin hate new york
Malice and forethought and lying are one and the same in this case. MacNamee is not a media outlet publishing a story dependent upon the accuracy of sources. MacNamee is the source. What you are thinking only applies if Clemens is suing a media outlet for publishing MacNamee’s claims. Then Clemens would have to prove that the media outlet knew that MacNamee’s claims were false but published them anyway with as you said “malice and forethought.” But, again this is not the case here. Clemens is suing MacNamee not a media outlet and therefore it is assumed that any lie MacNamee made about Clemens behavior that MacNamee observed is by the mere essense of being a lie done with both malice and forethought by MacNamee.
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