Juiced

Former Senator George Mitchell's drugs-in-baseball report has hit the streets, and the names come as no great surprise to me. ESPN and other sports writers are treating the mention of Roger Clemens's name with distaste. Not, of course, for Clemens, but for George Mitchell. Surely Clemens, an old man with a bionic arm and a bull's neck, can never have juiced in his lifetime.

ESPN couldn't wait to trot their legal analyst onto the set to say that Mitchell's 20-month investigation contains no real proof, and that the word of former team trainers is questionable. After interviewing the legal analyst, ESPN went on to a football story, and an NBA story. They ended their newscast with a hokey sequence about funny news conferences from head coaches. In other words, they buried it.

Sportscasters never fail to make me laugh. ESPN tops the list as the biggest sycophants, and all other sportscaster and writers take their cue from the network.

The sports writers should be ashamed of themselves. Are they trying to tell us that there is no proof whatsoever of drug use in baseball, and that they never heard whispers of it while they covered teams around the country? What a joke. Jose Canseco came out two years ago with his tattle-tales, Jason Grimsley was busted by the FBI for purchasing HGH, Troy Glaus was caught with drug receipts, Barry Bonds has been indicted by the Feds, and Jason Giambi admitted juicing and apologized for it.

You have to ask yourself, how is it that sports writers have not been unearthing these stories for the past ten years? The answer is simple: sports writers kiss the ass of every athlete they come across, because if they do not, they won't get 'access.' Gaining access also means keeping mum about the dirty laundry that they might trip over in the locker room.

The players that have been juicing should be ashamed to be on this list, but the sports writers should be equally embarrassed. Once again they have proven to be the most cynical people to ever hold a pen. I place no value in anything they say regarding sports. One minute they're defending Marion Jones to the hilt, the next minute they're holding the Kleenex while she cries in shame on the courthouse steps.

Egotistical to the hilt, shameless liars, incompetent reporters. Anything they say about the Mitchell report must be taken with a massive grain of salt, because all of them are in The Club of big league sports. They hob nob with players past and present. Indeed, many sports "analysts" on the tube are themselves former players. ESPN's John Kruk has come out as saying that he wished baseball had kept this quiet and dealt with it internally. I'll bet you do, Kruk. Half the guys on the list are your pals (not that we would ever know it; it should strike fans as remarkable that sports analysts never admit a full disclosure statement when defending a former teammate).

The rest of the baseball off season will be a wash, as the sports reporters desperately try to bury this story. Their line will be that the fans don't care because attendance is up and the game is doing well. So what? This house of liars and cheats needs to be cleaned up, and the sooner the better. Besides, I'm not sure if I buy the argument that the fans don't care. Last night, Roger Clemens would have been a shoo-in for the hall of fame. Today, an ESPN poll has 46% or fans saying he shouldn't get in.

Another analyst on ESPN has said that many more players than the ones in the report are probably juicing, so what are you going to do, get rid of them all? I say, "Sure."

It'll never happen, but I wouldn't mind it in the least. Fire everyone in MLB over the age of 23. Bring in college kids and minor league prospects. Begin the league anew, and end this miserable baseball generation, the worst in the sport since the Black Sox scandal.

By the way. Here's the list. Strange we never saw most of these names until now. Enjoy the ride down Juice Lane.

Lenny Dykstra

David Segui

Larry Bigbie

Brian Roberts

Jack Cust

Tim Laker

Josias Manzanillo

Todd Hundley

Mark Carreon

Hal Morris

Matt Franco

Rondell White

Andy Pettitte

Roger Clemens

Chuck Knoblauch

Jason Grimsley

Gregg Zaun

David Justice

F.P. Santangelo

Glenallen Hill

Mo Vaughn

Denny Neagle

Ron Villone

Ryan Franklin

Chris Donnels

Todd Williams

Phil Hiatt

Todd Pratt

Kevin Young

Mike Lansing

Cody McKay

Kent Mercker

Adam Piatt

Miguel Tejada

Jason Christiansen

Mike Stanton

Stephen Randolph

Jerry Hairston

Paul Lo Duca

Adam Riggs

Bart Miadich

Fernando Vina

Kevin Brown

Eric Gagne

Mike Bell

Matt Herges

Gary Bennett

Jim Parque

Brendan Donnelly

Chad Allen

Jeff Williams

Exavier "Nook" Logan

Howie Clark

Paxton Crawford

Ken Caminiti

Rafael Palmeiro

Luis Perez

Derrick Turnbow

Ricky Bones

Ricky Stone

The following players were cited under "Alleged Internet Purchases of
Performance Enhancing Substances By Players in Major League Baseball."

Rick Ankiel

David Bell

Paul Byrd

Jose Canseco

Jay Gibbons

Troy Glaus

Jason Grimsley

Jose Guillen

Darren Holmes

Gary Matthews Jr.

John Rocker

Scott Schoeneweis

Ismael Valdez

Matt Williams

Steve Woodard

The following players were linked through BALCO:

Benito Santiago

Gary Sheffield

Randy Velarde

Jason Giambi

Jeremy Giambi

Bobby Estalella

Barry Bonds

Marvin Benard

Photo: AP

Most Valuable Prescription

I went on the record a couple of weeks ago and said that the Rick Ankiel comeback story was a great thing for baseball. In fact, I thought it was a great thing for life: the story of a pitcher that loses his stuff, then re-tools himself as a superb hitter. As Charles Krauthammer pointed out, it's a real life version of The Natural.

With everything I've seen from baseball in the past ten years, how could I have been so stupid?

All of Ankiel's greatness now comes crashing down with the news that he used human growth hormone (HGH) all through 2004. That year was early days for his comeback quest, when he was just so-so at the minor league plate. Then Ankiel got good. In only 23 games this season, he's hit 9 home runs, 29 RBIs, and owns a .358 batting average with 22 runs scored.

Those are impressive numbers. The problem with baseball today is that anything impressive must be looked upon with deep suspicion. Too many times we have found out that these guys are cheating via the pharmacy. It places every player under suspicion, because time and again, we find out that the players are juiced.

According to the Daily News, Ankiel purchased 8 shipments of HGH between January and December, 2004. Ankiel's defence will be that he quit using HGH before Major League Baseball banned the substance in 2005. This sounds shady. It may just be coincidence that Ankiel stopped purchasing HGH moments before the league banned it, or it may be he heard the news on the wire and got out while the getting was good.

It's not like he was dealing with reputable physicians. The pharmacy where he purchased HGH is under investigation for illegally distributing prescription drugs. This brings up an interesting question that no one has yet asked: if Ankiel stopped purchasing HGH from these Florida quacks in 2004, what's to say he didn't start buying them somewhere else in 2005? Or '06? Or yesterday?

There is no sure way to test for HGH. ESPN had a spot the other night where a doctor said you'd have test a man within minutes of his taking HGH in order to find the stuff. A 100% test for HGH does not yet exist, which is why Ankiel was discovered the old-fashioned way: paperwork. His name appeared on some reports recently obtained by the Daily News. They saw that he purchased Saizen and Genotropin, two forms of HGH. Then they exposed him.

La Russa
Ankiel's manager, Tony La Russa, must be ready leap from a cliff. First he has to go through the whole Mark McGwire fiasco. Then he sends Ankiel down to the minors because the kid lost his stuff. Then he brings Ankiel back on a wing and a prayer, hoping he'll do well as a fielder. And man, does he ever. At a press conference, La Russa was reduced to tears just thinking about the recovery this amazing player had made, right before his eyes.

And now this. If La Russa is not a cynic yet, then he is not a human being.

Today, another player got hit on the nose by a different publication. Troy Glaus. This one hits close to home, as the Blue Jays are my club. SI.com reports that Glaus received steroids from an allegedly illegal internet drug distributor between September 2003 and May 2004. SI.com points out that their information deals only with the receipt of the drugs, and that they don't have evidence of actual use.

So if the allegations are true, Glaus is either a steroid dealer, or a juicer. Wonderful.

The dates of Glaus' steroid purchases is interesting. They match the time that he was out with a bad rotator cuff and shoulder surgery. It's not a stretch to imagine that he wanted the juice in order to help him through the recovery process.

Jose Canseco released a book a couple of years ago. In it, he fessed up to his steroid use, and said that while he was in the bigs, approximately 80% of the league was juicing. He was lambasted by sportswriters, players, and fans as a dirty rat.

It's turning out that he's likely the most honest man this league has produced in decades.