NEW YORK — Seven MVPs and 31 All-Stars

noreply@blogspirit.com (Carmen) — Wed, 28 May 2008 18:30:00 +0200

NEW YORK — Seven MVPs and 31 All-Stars — one for
every position — and that still wasn't the worst of it for the
long-awaited Mitchell Report.

That infamy belonged to Roger Clemens, the greatest pitcher of his era.

Seven-time
Cy Young Award winner, eighth on the all-time list with 354 victories,
an MVP and All-Star himself and once a lock for the Hall of Fame,
Clemens now has another distinction: the biggest name linked by former
Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to illegal use of steroids and
other performance-enhancing drugs.

In all,
Thursday's 409-page report identified 86 names to differing degrees,
but, while he vehemently denied it through his lawyer, Clemens was the
symbol.

Barry Bonds, already under indictment
on charges of lying to a federal grand jury about steroids, Miguel
Tejada and Andy Pettitte also showed up in the game's most infamous
lineup since the Black Sox scandal.

"If there are problems, I wanted them revealed," commissioner Bud Selig said. "His report is a call to action, and I will act."

Doping
was widespread by stars as well as scrubs, the report said, putting a
question mark if not an asterisk next to baseball records and
threatening the integrity of the game itself.

Eric
Gagne, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Troy Glaus, Gary Matthews Jr.,
Paul Byrd, Jose Guillen, Brian Roberts, Paul Lo Duca and Rick Ankiel
were among other current players in the report.

Some were linked to Human Growth Hormone, others to steroids. Mitchell did not delve into stimulants.

"Those
who have illegally used these substances range from players whose major
league careers were brief to potential members of the Baseball of Hall
of Fame," Mitchell wrote. "They include both pitchers and position
players, and their backgrounds are as diverse as those of all major
league players."

No one was hit harder than Clemens, singled out in nearly nine pages, 82 references by name.

Much of the information on him came from former New York Yankees major league strength and conditioning coach Brian McNamee.

At 45, Clemens has not said whether he hopes to pitch next season.

The
report was unlikely to trigger a wave of discipline. While a few
players, such as Bonds, are subjects of ongoing legal proceedings, many
of the instances cited by Mitchell were before drug testing began in
2003.

Mitchell said punishment was
inappropriate in all but the most egregious cases, and Selig said
decisions on any action would come "swiftly" on a case-by-case basis.

"We
have approached these cases by looking at the period of time during
which the conduct occurred and what our policy looked like for that
point in time," said Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president
for labor relations.

While the records will
surely stand, several stars could pay the price in Cooperstown, much
the way Mark McGwire was kept out of the Hall of Fame this year merely
because of steroids suspicion.

Mitchell said the problems didn't develop overnight and there was plenty of blame to go around.

"Everyone
involved in baseball over the past two decades — commissioners, club
officials, the players' association and players — shares to some extent
the responsibility for the Steroids Era," Mitchell said. "There was a
collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal
with it early on."

Mitchell recommended that
the drug-testing program be made independent, that a list of the
substances players test positive for be listed periodically and that
the timing of testing be more unpredictable.

"The
illegal use of performance-enhancing substances poses a serious threat
to the integrity of the game," the report said. "Widespread use by
players of such substances unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes
who refuse to use them and raises questions about the validity of
baseball records."

Jose Canseco, whose book "Juiced" was cited throughout, was mentioned the most often — 105 times. Bonds was next at 103.

A
total of 16 Yankees, past and present, were identified. Players were
linked to doping in various ways — some were identified as users, some
as buyers and some by media reports and other investigations.

"According
to McNamee, from the time that McNamee injected Clemens with Winstrol
through the end of the 1998 season, Clemens' performance showed
remarkable improvement," the report said. "During this period of
improved performance, Clemens told McNamee that the steroids 'had a
pretty good effect' on him."

McNamee also
told investigators that "during the middle of the 2000 season, Clemens
made it clear that he was ready to use steroids again. During the
latter part of the regular season, McNamee injected Clemens in the
buttocks four to six times with testosterone from a bottle labeled
either Sustanon 250 or Deca-Durabolin."

"It
is very unfair to include Roger's name in this report," said Clemens'
lawyer, Rusty Hardin. "He is left with no meaningful way to combat what
he strongly contends are totally false allegations. He has not been
charged with anything, he will not be charged with anything and yet he
is being tried in the court of public opinion with no recourse. That is
totally wrong."

"There has never been one
shred of tangible evidence that he ever used these substances and yet
he is being slandered today," said Hardin, who called McNamee a
"troubled man."

Former Mets clubhouse
attendant Kirk Radomski also provided information as part of his plea
agreement in a federal steroids case.

"Former
commissioner Fay Vincent told me that the problem of
performance-enhancing substances may be the most serious challenge that
baseball has faced since the 1919 Black Sox scandal," Mitchell said.

Rafael
Palmeiro, who tested positive for steroids, was among the former
players named. So were Kevin Brown, Benito Santiago, Lenny Dykstra,
Chuck Knoblauch, David Justice, Mo Vaughn, Wally Joyner and Todd
Hundley.

Mike Stanton, Scott Schoeneweis, Ron Villone and Jerry Hairston Jr. were among the other current players identified.

"We
identify some of the players who were caught up in this drive to gain a
competitive advantage," the report said. "Other investigations will no
doubt turn up more names and fill in more details, but that is unlikely
to significantly alter the description of baseball's 'steroids era' as
set forth in this report."

One player mentioned but not expressly accused was McGwire.

His use of Androstenedione during his 1998 home run race with Sammy Sosa set off baseball's first concerns about steroids.

Testifying
before Congress in 2005, McGwire refused to talk about his past, and
refused as well to cooperate with Mitchell. The report recounts all
that without making any accusations.

Sosa, who testified with McGwire and denied knowingly using steroids, also was spared by Mitchell.

The report took issue with assertions that steroids were not banned before the 2002 collective bargaining agreement.

They
had been covered, it said, since management's 1971 drug policy
prohibited using any prescription medication without a valid
prescription, and were expressly included in Vincent's 1991 drug policy.

"Steroids
have been listed as a prohibited substance under the Major League
Baseball drug policy since then," the report said, although no player
was disciplined for them until the 2002 labor agreement provided for
testing.

Mitchell questioned whether players
were tipped off about testing. He said a former player, whom he didn't
identify, claimed he had been given two weeks' notice of a drug test by
Gene Orza, the union's No. 2 official, in September 2004. Orza did not
respond to a message seeking comment.

Mitchell
is a director of the Boston Red Sox, and some questioned whether that
created a conflict, especially because none of their prime players were
in the report.

"Judge me by my work,"
Mitchell said. "You will not find any evidence of bias, special
treatment, for the Red Sox or anyone else. That had no effect on this
investigation or this report, none whatsoever."

Giambi,
under threat of discipline from Selig, and Frank Thomas were the only
current players known to have cooperated with the Mitchell
investigation.

"The players' union was largely uncooperative for reasons that I thought were largely understandable," Mitchell said.

Union head Donald Fehr made "no apologies" for the way they represented players.

"Many
players are named. Their reputations have been adversely affected,
probably forever," he said. "Even if it turns out down the road that
they should not have been."

Certainly a lot
of people read the names. The report was downloaded 1.8 million times
off MLB.com in the first three hours after it was posted.

About
two hours after the report was released, two congressmen at the
forefront of Capitol Hill's involvement in the steroids issue asked
Mitchell, Selig and Fehr to testify at a House committee hearing next
Tuesday.

California Democrat Henry Waxman and
Virginia Republican Tom Davis — the leaders of the panel that held the
March 17, 2005, hearing at which McGwire, Palmeiro and Sosa testified —
want to know "whether the Mitchell Report's recommendations will be
adopted and whether additional measures are needed," they said.

Also, a Congressional subcommittee will hold a hearing on Jan. 23 relating to steroid use in professional sports.

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NEW YORK — Seven MVPs and 31 All-Stars