Because Lyle Alzado says so?

This has been another episode of "I wish I'd written this."

They always get their...er...mother-in-law

Prosecutorial over-zealousness, much?

SAN FRANCISCO – Twenty federal agents raided the home of the mother-in-law of Barry Bonds' personal trainer on Wednesday.

Madeleine Gestas and her daughter Nicole Anderson, the trainer's wife, are the target of a tax investigation that the lawyer for Greg Anderson said is aimed at pressuring the trainer to testify at Bonds' upcoming trial.

Bonded

Less than a year ago...

Bonds is an albatross for this team, that's for sure. But they only have themselves to blame. Forget about the recliner in the clubhouse. On the left field wall, directly behind where Bonds lumbers about on defense, is a sign that reads "a giant among legends," showing Barry's face along with Mays and McCovey. That's like retiring his number before he's...you know...retired. And there was an unbelievable campaign -- complete with between innings commercials and stadium workers wearing badges -- to get fans to "vote Barry" for the all-star game. I've never seen a team work so hard to get a single player elected. This year's game is being played in Frisco, but it was weird. Unseemly. Maybe the other members of this old, washed up*, never saw a pitch they wouldn't swing at team, don't mind. But between the constant losing, this attention on one player -- albeit, the only one with an on-base percentage higher than a mediocre .350 -- has to get old after a while.

And now?

My friend Scott Ostler of The San Francisco Chronicle recently joined a preseason tour of the Giants’ ballpark and found virtually no trace of Bonds and his home run records, in either the clubhouse or the stands. And except for a few collector jerseys, Bonds has vanished from the Giants’ store, like one of those generals who used to vanish from the May Day photographs in Red Square. Barry Lamar Bonds has become a nonperson.

Happy Opening Day!

Pins and needles

They can't get a stimulus package passed [UPDATE] or just about anything else, but they will focus the full force of the Senate's investigative powers on finding out what's in seven year old vials, needles and gauze pads.

I've been infuriated by Congress, but I can't recall being grossed out by it.

Of course, any evidence in it will not be usable as there was no protocol in handling them, lo, these many years. Just ask Lance Armstrong. But they will be used as innuendo to further sully a great pitcher's reputation. Thanks Senator Mitchell.

At least we're not picking up the air fare.

The Mitchell proceedings

Selig, Fehr, and Mitchell testify today. Let the games begin. But I will once again point out that the U.S. government is bringing it's full weight and power against two individuals for allegedly using illegal substances to enhance their ability to play baseball. Now, I never liked Clemens. Like a lot of Yankee fans we rooted for him in pinstripes and we wanted him to win because we wanted the team to win. But we winced when the Yankees signed him and winced more at his antics.

That said, the Dept of Justice compelled the man's former trainer to finger his boss. The DoJ, unable to prove McNamee's insertions, instead compelled him to talk to Mitchell's investigators. So, the DoJ is letting Mitchell and Congress to bring the charges the DoJ, for all of its investigative powers, wouldn't.

Technically, the deals requiring McNamee and Radomski to cooperate with Mitchell probably don't violate grand jury secrecy laws, because those laws bind prosecutors, agents, and grand jurors, but not witnesses like McNamee and Radomski. And technically, those deals might not have violated DoJ policy on uncharged third parties, inasmuch as Clemens and other players weren't actually named in official filings or in a federal courtroom. But using plea bargaining leverage to require witnesses to divulge to Mitchell the names of people the Justice Department never intended to prosecute surely violated the purposes of both grand jury secrecy law and DoJ policy.

With the authority granted prosecutors to make life-altering accusations goes the obligation to prove them. Here, the U.S. Attorney's Office made no individual assessment of the strength of the allegations by Radomski and McNamee against dozens of players. It never winnowed the provable cases from the mere rumors or unprovable assertions. Instead, prosecutors forced flipped witnesses to reveal everything they knew or had heard to Mitchell and walked away from the responsibility to prove any of it.

Don't know about you, but that bothers me.

PEDs and HGHs

Ok, I haven't really weighted in on the Mitchell Report revelations with more than a brief nod. I plead guilty, but with the extenuating circumstances that there wasn't really anything in it that we didn't already know. Use is fairly widespread, but use is limited to marginal players for the most part.

Expect for Andy Pettite. That did surprise me. But Pettite's misdeads involved a couple of injections of human growth hormone with the intent to speed recovery from an injured elbow, "to help the team," according to his accuser. And someday, Steve Goldman may get his wish and someone will explain to the public the uses and effects of HGH so they'll no longer be naturally lumped with steroids.

Of Clemens, those of us who watched him decline with the Red Sox than suddenly turn it around with the Blue Jays and the Yankees had our suspicions. And we found pretty cynical the press coverage that relentlessly accused Bonds of juicing but chalked Clemens' anti-aging to his "incredible work ethic." If the reports are true, like Bonds, he used the stuff to lengthen a career that was clearly on the wrong side of the bell curve. And like Bonds, if the report is true, Clemens was right when he said that steroids "worked pretty good" for him (and, if true, those Red Sox fans who vilified Dan Duquette for letting Clemens walk owe the former GM an apology).

And when Andy Pettite did the right thing and admitted his HGH use and apologized, it certainly lent credibility to the report. It makes sense that the same trainer who supplied (and injected) him was probably doing the same for his workout partner. In fact, it's likely that it was his buddy's idea to give them a try in the first place.

At the same time, though, the Mitchell Report accusations against Clements rely on one guy with a Federal plea deal. There are no receipts, no delivery statements. So I don't blame Clemens for his "vigorous" denials. Unlike Bonds, there are no BALCO timetables to be decoded. And unlike Pete Rose, there are no betting slips to hang him with. For Clemens to admit that the report is true, there would be calls from the peanut gallery for him to return four of his Cy Youngs. That's a steep price to pay even if failing to admit and apologize may make him a villain in the eyes of many of the writers who vote for the HofF.

Baseball news!

The Yankees and Alex Rodriguez completed the terms of Rodriguez's 10 year, $275 million contract.

...

...

You were expecting something else?

Oh, the Mitchell Report? Sounds like a pretty bad afternoon for Roger Clemens* and his reputation for being the hardest working man in baseball, but...eh.

I did find this passage pretty illustrative of who Mitchell blames and who he, basically, doesn't:

1. Bowie Kuhn and Baseball’s First Drug Policies

Baseball’s first written drug policy was announced by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn
at the beginning of the 1971 season.83 At the time, the problem of drug abuse, especially the use of marijuana, had gained national attention, and Congress had just enacted the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970.84

While focusing on prevention and treatment in the first instance, baseball’s original drug policy provided for the possibility of discipline for failure to comply with federal and state drug laws. Just a year earlier, pitcher Jim Bouton had published his memoir, Ball Four, in which he alleged that there was widespread use of amphetamines by major league players.85

The 1971 drug policy memo stated that the “unprescribed possession or distribution of
amphetamines or barbiturates (including ‘greenies’)” was a violation of law that could be the
basis for discipline.

83
Notice No. 12, Memorandum from Major League Baseball Office of the Commissioner
to Administrative Officials of Major League Baseball Re: Drug Education and Prevention
Program, dated Apr. 5, 1971.
84
Pub. L. No. 91-513, 84 Stat. 1236 (1970) (codified as amended in various sections of
21 U.S.C.).
85
See Jim Bouton, Ball Four at 81, 157, 171, 211-12 (Wiley 1990 ed.).

Might have mentioned that Bowie Kuhn tried to suppress the publication of Ball Four.

I also find it interesting that the dangers of steroids and HGH are mentioned, but nothing on the advantages of using. In fact, the report admits that HGH is not believed to benefit players' strength and conditioning.

One other thing. I firmly believe this whole thing would have been dealt with had the owners not unceremoniously dumped Fay Vincent as commissioner. He was the only commissioner the players had reason to trust. Not Kuhn, not Ueberroth, and surely not Bud Selig.

* If you can convict on the testimony of one witness and guilt by association.

The Mitchell Report

Tomorrow's the big unveiling. ESPN's Howard Bryant has been following the investigation for the past several months. His conclusion:

Some of the cracks in the Mitchell investigation's foundation -- Mitchell's inability to compel players to cooperate, for example -- were unavoidable, insiders say. Others were not, including the investigators' lack of familiarity with baseball's locker room and insider culture, and Mitchell's own apparent conflicts of interest.

Over the past 20 months, the investigation has exposed a raw nerve in an already-fractured industry. Now, in the days before its release, the contents of Mitchell's final report remain shrouded in mystery. The question is whether Mitchell's findings will heal or further harden baseball.

"I don't think any good came out of it, because it's all going to damage the game," said one American League trainer about the investigation. "Part of me thinks, OK, they blame the trainers. Then what? Or they blame the GMs. Then what? Or they name players. Then what?

"But the one thing it did is solidify the testing program and make everyone aware. I thought this all should have been done in-house, but it has made everybody accept it more, that there's no going back. Nobody at any level can say they don't know anymore. This is the world, and there's no going back."

The story is at times hilarious and depressing, and its hard to figure out what Mitchell will conclude and what he'll use for evidence. Interviews with trainers? The 2003 drug testing results, which the Players Union thought were confidential? What Curt Schilling might have let slip while next to Mitchell in the Red Sox Executive Bathroom? David Pinto summarizes and adds:

The Sports Network interviewed the people Mitchell interviewed to find out how the investigation was carried out. A quick summary:

• A number of people think Mitchell has a huge conflict of interest due to his relationship with the Red Sox.
• Various groups (GMs, trainers, strength coaches) feel they will be unjustly blamed in the report because their jobs have no protection (no union, no ownership).
• There was a sense that the investigators didn't know the right questions to ask. They also wanted speculation when facts were not available.

Here is one example of a complaint:

"The problem was, what did they want us to say?" said a team trainer who was interviewed by Mitchell's investigators in 2006. "They wanted us to speculate. And I wouldn't do that. They wanted me to say who I thought was using steroids. And when I said, 'I don't know,' they would say, 'Well, you work most closely with these guys. You work on their bodies every day. You weren't the least bit suspicious when you saw their bodies change?'

"This was the kind of stuff I was most afraid of, because they didn't ask me about specific people with specific information that they had. They asked me to guess. I said my guess was no guess at all, because what would happen to me if I said a guy was using steroids who wasn't? What if I guessed wrong? Then my name is out there, I get fired, and I'm easily replaceable."

There's good reason not to speculate. Bob Tufts, a player from 1981 to 1983 with San Francisco and Kansas City wrote me over the weekend to complain raise issue with the Mitchell investigation. He suffered from having his name associated with drugs:

The only issue with me was the cocaine stuff in SF and KC in my days there. As I told Murray Chass, I was told by a former club official and also a current federal judge that I was not able to get a job in 84 due to my name being associated with Blue, Aikens, Wilson and Martin. Due to this, it is best to tell the papers suing for names in the Radmomski files to shut up before you possibly damage another career.

In truth, I see very little good coming of the Mitchell Report. If names are named, a lot of reputations would be damaged, but it won't affect a player's career (though Hall of Fame entry may be affected for any stars named) or money. If names aren't named, the "fans" will think it's a white wash, and may think so anyway if team ownership isn't part of those named as culpable. And even if names are named, the good players will continue to be dogged by suspicion.