In the wake of U.S. Senator dismissing the concept of innocent until proven guilty, a Fox news station in Denver dispenses with the notion of the being able to confront one's accusers:Look, if someone put a gun to my head and asked me if I thought Clemens took PEDs I'd say yes, but stories like this one are simply ridiculous. Why are these people given anonymity? Because they're engaging in baseless speculation -- gossip -- and nothing more, and they have no interest in subjecting their accusations to further scrutiny. Does that make them wrong? No, but it doesn't add anything to the story, and it adds color to any claim by Clemens that he's being railroaded. Simply put, if these guys had any actual first hand evidence they'd be in front of Congress or talking to George Mitchell, not playing silly games with a local TV reporter, so their comments should be given little or no weight.The court of public opinion believes Roger Clemens used performance enhancing drugs, but what about former baseball players. I spoke with 3 men, who asked to remain anonymous for this story.
All of them come with excellent baseball credentials, and have no axe to grind with Clemens personally. Their combined careers span 5 decades. Two of these men were all-stars. Two of these men finished in the top 10 for the Cy Young award. Two of these men pitched in the World Series. One of them is a former single season homerun champion. All of them played 10 years or more in the majors. For the purpose of this story, I will refer to each man as players X,Y, and Z.
None of these men know for sure if Clemens was injected multiple times with H-G-H by his former trainer Brian McNamee, but they certainly have their doubts that Clemens is telling the truth. “I wasn’t surprised by the allegations,” said Player Y, “I think he did take H-G-H.”
Player Z added, “Clemens had to have something in him, even if it wasn’t H-G-H. Clemens claiming that it was a B 12 shot is a bunch of B.S.” Even though all 3 of these men believe that Clemens used performance enhancing drugs, all lauded Clemens rigorous workouts. “Clemens was an animal during the off season, “said player Y.
Of course, if we knew who these players were, maybe we could get somewhere. To that end, thank God for the clever lads over at BTF, who are doing a pretty good job of narrowing down the suspects.
UPDATE: Justin Zeth of Sporting Gurus is the man who lead the charge to identify the anonymous players in the BTF thread. He comments below thusly:
Unless Goodman [the author of the Fox piece] was deliberately misleading in
his information--which is possible--he didn't do much of a job of protecting his
sources. Based on what he gave us, we know that Z is Andy Messersmith; Y is
almost certainly Don Robinson; and X is either Dante Bichette or Andres
Galarraga.
I believe the ball is in your court, Mr. Goodman.
3 comments:
Ahh, the Constitution. Why use it when instead you can piss all over it and make it say anything you want it to?
I guess the members of congress are too busy with special interests groups to actually read it, and the media doesn't have to, because the 1st ammendment gives them right to do anything they want without repurcussion.
I think John Marshall just rolled over in his grave.
Journalism is dead.
Long live journalism.
Unless Goodman was deliberately misleading in his information--which is possible--he didn't do much of a job of protecting his sources. Based on what he gave us, we know that Z is Andy Messersmith; Y is almost certainly Don Robinson; and X is either Dante Bichette or Andres Galarraga.
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