Curt Schilling has posted a commentary on his blog 38 Pitches about those named in the Mitchell Report on steroids in baseball. On Jose Canseco:
His entire career, all of it, is a sham. He never belonged in the big leagues and anything he ever did in the major leagues is a hoax. He made it clear that he would not have been the player he was had he not cheated. His statistics should be erased, his MVP given to the runner up and he should go down as the guy who broke the silence on a horrible period of the game, period. He was never in his life a major league player.
On Roger Clemens:
Roger has denied every allegation brought to the table. So as a fan my thought is that Roger will find a way in short order to organize a legal team to guarantee a retraction of the allegations made, a public apology is made, and his name is completely cleared. If he doesn’t do that then there aren’t many options as a fan for me other than to believe his career 192 wins and 3 Cy Youngs he won prior to 1997 were the end. From that point on the numbers were attained through using PED’s. Just like I stated about Jose, if that is the case with Roger, the 4 Cy Youngs should go to the rightful winners and the numbers should go away if he cannot refute the accusations.
Baseball historians will likely view the Mitchell Report as a stroke of genius by the Commissioners Office. I emphasize that the idea was devised by the Office and not the Commissioner since Bud Selig doesn’t impress me as having the level of genius to craft such a plan.
The report is obviously a device to pressure both the Player’s union and ultimately Congress to react to the truth, with the ultimate endgame seeing Roger Clemens being called to testify, with or without immunity. This would be both the darkest and most amazing spectacle in baseball history.
Hopefully the players will react positively and will move the game towards a more level playing field by adopting most if not all of Mitchell’s conclusions.
A worst case scenario, even worse than the continuation of head-hiding-in-the-sand, would be for Congress to get involved. Congress has a proven track record of having the anti-Midus, Excrement Touch and screwing up everything they handle (see: Healthcare, Education, Social Security and the Tax Code). In the face of this, I encourage Curt and his fellow members to take charge of the union that they own and save the game from the fate of government control.
Scott
I agree with Schilling’s words regarding Clemens and the fact that our options as fans are now very limited. There is not a place in baseball for steroids and performance enhancing drugs. Cheating is cheating, however, I believe that the Mitchell Report only touched the very tip of the ice-berg. I dont think that the investigation was completed in full and therefore does not end the problems that steroids have brought to baseball.
In a discussion amongst fans last night I think we found some good points, supported by some wings and beer of course.
Baseball is not tarnished by this scandal as much as all of us first thought. It appears that there were so many players taking performance enhancing drugs that, unfortunately, it leveled the playing field. Clemens should not have to give up his Cy Young Awards and Barry is still the homerun king. This report solidified our biggest fear, this is a huge issue, not just tied to a few “super humans”.
We no longer have to take away these awards because how many pitchers who were throwing to him were on drugs? How many pitchers (on roids or not) were facing hitters that were users? If everyone was using, then how were there advantages for any one given player.
There is one problem though. What about the players who really were clean. They did not achieve any playing advantage however, I leave you with this. They have their health, they have their name, and they have the ability to play with those users without going down to their level. If we want to put together a report, lets release the names of the players who baseball should celebrate for keeping their talent raw…
Schilling is a cerified buffoon. Assuming one believes the Mitchell Report, and with respect to Clemens I believe it at least in part, Schilling is still demanding that Clemens prove a negative. Obviously there is no way for him to do that.
In the end, Schilling’s motives are pretty transparent. An Austin native, he has always been and always will be in Clemens shadow. Indeed, Schilling was on his way to being a bust before Clemens essentially beat him up and told him to be a man. Schilling is still rankled about that fact. Moreover, Schilling is also apparently bitter at the point raised by Randy Johnson that Clemens out pitched Schilling in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series only to have Rivera blow the game and that Schilling’s MVP, under the circumstances, is a bit of a joke.
Schilling is from Alaska, not Texas, but to this day credits Clemens for telling him to get his act together.
Clemens could sue over the mention of his name in the report and that has been made clear to every player who was named. It would then force the authors of the report, who have been indemnified by MLB, to prove their allegations in court. If Clemens is clean, he should sue if nothing else than to clear his name. If he doesn’t sue, that pretty much tells you all you need to know. I think that is all that Schilling is saying with regard to Clemens.
Actually it doesn’t tell you anything. For a public figure like Clemens, bringing a libel suit is an exercise in futility. I have extensive experience with this particular field of the law and if you look at the two most famous examples of public people who brought libel suits–General Westmoreland and Ariel Sharon, you will see my point. There is no question in anyone’s mind that 60 Minutes libeled Westmoreland and the Time libeled Sharon, however, Times v. Sullivan set such a high bar against them prevailing, that all the trials accomplished was the continued airing of the falsehoods that each of these media outlets levelled at these men (Westmoreland did get a very insincere “apology”, but only after he endured two months of a constant barage of stories about how he was alleged to have falsified NVA and VC body counts and in Sharon’s case, Time was forced to admit that everything they said about him being involved in the Sabra massacre was a lie but that they acted without malice and nobody but nobody paid attention to the fact that it was a lie as evidenced by the fact that after the trial Sharon was brought up on trumped up War Crimes charges in Belgium and Spain based on the false allegations printed in Time).
What is actually more telling is the fact that Clemens name does not appear in the affidavits used to raid Jason Grimsley’s house–despite leaks from Mitchell that his name would appear in the affidavits.
Look, I don’t doubt that Clemens probably took HGH or steroids at some point. With that said, Schilling is an imbecile and the Mitchell Report is a disgrace.
Last, while Schilling may very well have been born in Alaska, he went to highschool and spent his formative years in Austin (I know he went to junior college in Phoenix) according to a colleague here at work who lived near him in Austin.
My only problem with Schilling is that he is backing McCain.