I don't even care if anyone took steroids. As much as I don't like Barry Bonds, it is obvious that steroids alone didn't make him the best hitter ever.

Well said Jon.

You, sir, are a wise man.

Amen. Bud Selig and Co. chose to ignore steroids throughout the '90s because it was good for business. I say let 'em live with the blot.

Agreed!

Makes AROD look very good.

I'm sure the league would appreciate such apologetics. They'd like nothing more than to be let off the hook for (presumably) overlooking a problem because they were making money.

1 Do you care if high school baseball players take steroids?

I have a major problem with baseball encouraging the usage of steroids (by not policing against it), reaping the benefits of it, now playing the role of the righteous as all of this comes out.

Barry Bonds is the perfect villain/scapegoat in this. If this report is able to show that Bonds wasn't the only famous, successful player that used (Pujols? Deadspin is vindicated!) perhaps Bonds won't be singled out so severely. And it sounds like the conclusion of the report will be to (rightfully) place the majority of the blame on Baseball and the Player's Association. So with the exception of the millions of dollars this wasted, and the unusual amount of attention it received from Congress, I'd have to say this is all a good, cleansing process. Not it's time to move on. No suspensions, no asterisks, no revisionist history. Play ball.

Well said Jon. What I'm finding is that the people who are most appalled by the steroid saga are casual fans or non-fans. How can you be turned off to baseball because of workout supplements but gladly watch ostentatious thugs play football/basketball? This is just tabloid water cooler stuff.

Jon, you are always the voice reason and the rational. You probably don't even own a mobbin' torch!

8 I can't think of anything good coming out of HS kids taking steroids to improve athletic performance.

7 - " such apologetics"

What do you mean?

7
Actually, I take back the word "apologetics". That isn't quite right. I mean instead "encouraging everyone to forget the past and move on".

Funny. I posted 14 before reading 13 , partly because I suspected 13 would be forthcoming.

12
Less traffic on the roads.

8 You just crushed the iceberg.

14
Is Jon really encouraging everyone to "forget the past"? Move on, yes. Forget, no.

(6)
Agree , I'm glad that Arod and Griffey aren't named. They were guys who just could mash when many of their contemporaries were cheating.
Pujols is kind of a Shoeless Joe Jackson moment. Say it ain't so.
I'm glad Andruw didn't get named, but I remember him playing for Greenville Braves years ago and jacking one completely out of the park in Huntsville,Alabama.
I wonder if this could give teams grounds to void contracts,like Nomah for example. Maybe
we could plant some clear in Pierre's locker.

18 - I'm doing the opposite of encouraging people to forget the past - but I wasn't clear that that was what D4P was suggesting.

3 hehe, you see what he did there

8 - I certainly don't give steroid use by high schoolers my seal of approval, but I also think it has very little to do with Barry Bonds. I have met a fair amount of people in my life (more than 5 less than 10) who have taken steroids recreationally; not to get better at sports, but just to look better, have more sex, feel good about themselves or whatever. I don't know how many high school students out there are thinking: "My heroes Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Roger Clemons do it, I should too!" The juice is out there and high school athletes make decisions for themselves, so do professional baseball players. Steroids aren't good for you, and when abused can cause anti-social behavior, but that is a pretty perfect description of alcohol too. It just isn't a big deal for me.

1 Steroids definitely made Bonds the holder of the two most sacred homerun records in the game. It's a fraud and a tragedy, and it sucks.

The Big Hurt is looking good today.

What is a big deal for me is the relentless snowfall outside. Sigh, winter is here in a big way.

It's good to find out that Beltre and Gonzo are not on the list. I was expecting to see Piazza!

26
LuGo deserved at least an honorable mention.

Is ESPN going to unveil the list in bracket format?

Addendum to 23 . Steroids also made Eric Gagne the holder of the 84 consecutive saves streak, and also the provider of the most glorious moments for the Dodgers during some very bleak years for the team.

It's not quite a say-it-ain't-so moment, because I think deep down we all knew what the reason was for that 10 mph jump in his fastball right before he was moved to the bullpen. Albert Pujols, on the other hand...

The only "say it ain't so" is Pujols for me.

Though, nice to see Big Hurt, Piazza, Beltre, Griffey, A-Rod, Andruw, and others aren't on it.

From what I've gathered, this report doesn't merit being taken as the final word as to whether someone did or didn't do stuff.

And LuGo, too. Even if he was kind of a jerk last season.

I'm interested to see how accusees will respond. Will they proactively "issue statements" vehemently denying the accusations? If so, will they put teeth behind their denials by filing lawsuits? Will they refuse interviews or any other public statements for the next 10 years? Will they accept interviews, and issue their denials then? Or, will some of them actually come clean and apologize?

Fun times ahead.

31 Absolutely true, at least as far as exonerating players goes. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

31 Did and didn't? I suppose there's potential for error, but I would imagine the names in the report ought to be pretty accurate, given the reputations at stake. I could understand the danger of reporting false positives, so I imagine there are more names out there.

Then again, "ought to" and "are" are two different things.

31
Nor could it have, in the absence of direct admissions from players. Everything else is speculative. Even positive drug tests are often explained away, whether legitimately or not.

Im just bummed Lenny Dykstra's name hasnt popped up. I love talking about Lenny Dykstra.

35 - The Howard Bryant story about the interview and fact-gathering process was I think rather damning on the process.

What does this do to Roger Clemens Hall-of-Fame candidacy? Bit early to tell, but all the talking heads that are keeping Bonds out of the HOF already, should do the same to Clemens.

39 - Rephrase: What would this do to...?

28 Barry Bonds is the No. 1 seed in the BALCO region.

Juan Gonzalez is listed twice here: http://tinyurl.com/2hg9kd

Must've REALLY goofed up.

39 If McGwire and Bonds get that treatment, so should Clemens.

more suprising are the names not on the list

I'm confused. Is the official list out yet? How do we know for sure whose names are/aren't on the list?

Am I the only one that thinks the "leaked" list from this morning is completely made up??

It consists almost entirely of the usual suspects, guys that have already been busted, guys that have had a history of injuries and several oddballs who have some sort of name value (Rocker, Garces, Kile). And many of those names are misspelled.

It could prove to be totally true in about a half hour, but it seems like a list any one of us could have created in two minutes.

What is the speculation on punishment for those named? Will Nomar start the season with a suspension, effectively handing the 3B job to LaRoche?

Jon, I agree that we should not bother with the asteriks. But we should question the hall of fame credentials of the guys on this list. Sheffield, Pudge, Pujols, and Bagwell are no longer locks in my eyes. Clemens and Bonds should be voted in no matter what in my opinion. It will be very interesting to see how the voting unfolds for these guys over the next 10 to 15 years. It really angers me when they lie about it. On the other hand, I tend to quickly forgive any of the players like Giambi who come clean by telling the truth.

42 Juan Gonzalez's name also listed twice here:

http://www.baseball-reference.com/awards/mvp_cya.shtml

No real point. Just making a joke on a sad day. Nothing to see here. Move on.

I'm just glad D4P made people look up the word "apologetics" and find out its real definition.

46 OK, you got me. I created the list off the top of my head and circulated it around the internets. Happy?

47
Depending on the level of evidence this report represents, I doubt there will be any substantial punishments from MLB. If there are, they will be heavily challenged by the MLBPA.

That list is said to be incorrect. So we should probably just wait to see who's on the actual list when it's released before we start sighing with relief, glee and what have you.

50
Have you ever began one of your baseball history talks at the library with "I'm not here to talk about the past"...?

For those tuning out the Mitchell report, there's a Colletti radio interview with Joe McDonnell posted on 570klac.com from last night... contains a nice 3 minute diatribe defending OBP Juan.

One of things that has always bugged me is how baseball gets hammered by the mainstream media and the NFL gets a pass on PEDs. Shawn Marion (sic? don't really like the NFL) gets caught and it's a one day story. You will never convince me that it's not as rampant or worse in the NFL.

54
I only talk about apologetics if I'm there to discuss C.S. Lewis.

57
Does your library carry "The Screwtape Letters"?

38 I just read that (or, still reading it between doing work). I must have missed it the first time. So much for certainty.

55 - Seems like Colletti now knows his audience.

56
Shawne Merriman is in the NFL, and was suspended for 4 games last season.

Shawn Marion is in the NBA, and is the Matrix.

Otsuka (23.9 VORP, 5.3 WARP) and Calero (17.3 VORP, 2.2 WARP) were both non-tendered yesterday.

One or both of those guys could help our bullpen this season and would be a better alternative to trading someone like Ethier for bullpen help.

55- Furry takes a hit. "He's a pretty good shortstop. Defensively."

56 I agree entirely. An alien from Mars could read the newspapers and say, "Boy, steroid abuse is sure a problem in baseball, track, and bicycling. At least the 300-pound behemoths in the NFL are all completely legit."

58
13 different editions in English, plus one in Russian and one in Spanish.

NL West non-tenders:

Dodgers: Hendrickson
Padres: Morgan Ensberg, Jason Lane, Jack Cassel, Ryan Ketchner
Rockies: Darren Clarke, Sean Barker
Giants: Scott Munter
D-Backs: none

Re: Pierre

"I have more information than anybody else has. I know that."

64 Drug abuse seems worse in the NFL. Maybe it's not as big a deal to hit people harder and injure them more than it is to hit baseballs harder and break records.

62 Is Otsuka injured or something? I seem to recall him being pretty good.

Even if he is injured, it seems he'd be worth gambling on with a minor-league deal -- if he'd accept such a deal.

67
Re: All players

"I systematically ignore a large portion of information that a lot of other people look at. I know that."

It seems that with the contracts guys have received in the last few weeks, Guillen, Gagne etc, that baseball was/is not really worried about this report. How good is game over feeling about his timing?

70 I disagree with that statement -- at least, I disagree with your choice of the word "systematically." I believe that there is no system by which he ignores information. I believe that it is random. If there were a system, the Dodgers would either be a lot better or a lot worse than they are.

69
I would imagine Otsuka will have enough suitors to make a minor league deal unlikely. There was talk this week of the Padres possibly bringing him back, thus punctuating their great trade with Texas (getting Young & Gonzalez) by also getting back the best player they gave up in the deal.

72
The "system" I envision is "new stats" that "Baseball People" typically deride.

61 Shawne Merriman is in the NFL, and was suspended for 4 games last season.

And right on the heels of that, Merriman got to star in a cool commercial for Nike all season long.

I love the NFL, but the doouble standard between pro football and MLB or the NBA is really sickening.

Otsuka would be an excellent gamble provided his health checks out but why would the Rangers have non-tendered him if he is healthy?

73 I guess that's not surprising. I just assumed that there had to be some black mark on him -- why would Texas non-tender him? Just because they're Texas?

67 70 The part that rubbed me the wrong way was that his "value will be accentuated with power hitters around him in the lineup- especially in LF." Dis make no sense.

76 They didn't feel his salary was worth it when they have no chance anyway is the only reason I could see.

Just make PED's legal.
Across the board.

It could have positive effects:
One, the games would be better as the players would be in better physical shape.

Two, it might discourage youngsters from putting their entire dreams into such difficult goals as being a pro athlete. If the downsides of being a pro athlete are that you have to take drugs (that could possibly hurt your body) in the future in order to make it, maybe more kids would give up on that and pursue something more meaningful to society.

I dont see the harm in making PED's legal. I also dont think there's enough evidence to state that PED usage always leads to poor health. There's a ton of things that lead to poor health, and since its America and we have rights to pursue our own happiness, we are allowed to do those things as long as they dont hurt others.

What's the genesis of the theory that mixing speed and power is a winning strategy? He seems quite thrilled with the prospect of having five players hit 20 home runs, and two players steal (between them) 90 bases. Goes so far as to say that he doesn't think many (implicitly, any) other team have done that before. So, what makes it a good idea? I understand trying to recreate good teams; I don't think much of it, but I get the point. But I don't get the theory of, "We'll make this team like no other in history! It'll be terrific, because, um, everybody who ever played this game was wrong, I guess. . ."

80
There does not seem to be a consistent and identifiable logic behind why some drugs/foods/etc. are legal and some aren't.

80- Admit it: you just want to find out if the whole lactation thing is real.

40 It's already started in the NY Times: "Clemens, who retired last season, has been considered one of the best pitchers in baseball history. Information and evidence from McNamee could raise questions about whether Clemens should be elected to the Hall of Fame."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/sports/baseball/14mitchell.html?em&ex=1197694800&en=6adaa7fdd3f9dc4b&ei=5087%0A

62
Either Calero or Otsuka would be nice additions to the bullpen. I don't know what the Dodgers' level of interest is, but for reference sake, both players have two years of arbitration eligibility left. Calero made $1.6m last year and Otsuka made $3m.

I'd prefer Otsuka over Calero, in large part due to Calero's fly ball tendencies which wouldn't play well in Dodger Stadium.

The names are coming up in about 15-20 minutes...
if i see Griffey's name I will be crushed...I was givin all of his rookie cards when i was a kid, some signed.
He has always been to me, the Anti-Bonds.
His All-Out play caused him so many injuries, diving into walls, trying to get out of rundowns.

If Grif would have stayed healthy HE would own the record, not Bonds. Bonds became a defensive blob late in his career, Grif has suffered because he never stopped playin with all his heart.

I don't care what stats yall show me, Griffey will aways be the best all-time player to me.

79 That still doesn't make sense. If you're the Rangers and you don't really want to pay him, give him a contract and then trade him.

Instead, he's a free agent (if I understand correctly) and the Rangers get nothing.

What's the genesis of the theory that mixing speed and power is a winning strategy?

Systematically ignoring a large portion of information that a lot of other people look at.

81 It falls under that Kruk/Phillips postseason key of "scoring in so many different ways." 8 guys with .350+ OBP's is implied to be a flawed strategy.

80

As long as you extend your support to legalizing marijuana the NBA Players Association is in full support of your idea

Did Tsao hook up with another organization yet?

I wouldnt extend the idea to marijuana, since I'm fairly certain it wouldnt qualify as a "performance enhancing drug".

Drug--yea sure it is.
"Peformance Enhancing"--no.

I'd only allow PED's to be legal.
Not drugs that hurt performance.

81 Seeing as power sort of cancels out speed, I would think it's actually kind of a dumb idea.

According to the guys on mlb's baseball channel just now, something like 39 of the 76 names on the leaked list were incorrect.

80 I think making it basically mandatory to take drugs that have known harmful effects to become a professional athlete is a very, very bad idea.

93 - It definitely sounds like an idea that was tailored to circumstances, rather than an idea that was thought through.

How does Colletti decide that speed contributes to victory anyway, other than it feeling like it should?

5 bux says mlb.com crashes today....

By the way, WNBC pulled the list they reported.

It looks like Otsuka, who didn't pitch after July 1, wants some level of security (i.e. multi-year contract) and the Rangers didn't feel comfortable paying for an injury-risk at 36 years old.

http://tinyurl.com/2rhb5f

There is also info in there about the Rangers not being able to have Otsuka until after May 1 since they non-tendered him, but I'm not sure if that is true anymore.

was it a coincidence there was a flurry of FA signings the last 2 days? with the report coming up and what not?

89 - Why don't GMs use Boston as an example? Their lineup last year featured 7 people with OBPs over .367, including 4 people over .380. The lowest BB total for any regular was 48. The lowest ISOpatience was .054 by Lowell, who hit .320. Lugo and Crisp had lower OBPs but Lugo drastically underperformed (a phenomenon we are all familiar with) and Crisp isn't going to start next year (neither is Lugo if he can't get it together). The World Champions, the model franchise ect, are building around plate discipline, why doesn't ESPN or Ned mention this?

Chris Donnels, say it ain't so!

I pulled the list off MLB.com very quickly. The report is 409 pages.

It has lots of photocopies in it.

why doesn't ESPN or Ned mention this?

Because Ned wants to continue being paid for what he does, rather than expose his imcompetence.

maybe this is naive, but i really don't see the point of naming names in the report. what good will it serve? are we to think that all these guys did juice, and ONLY these guys? obviously, some players were missed; that, plus the asterisk issues, it just seems that specific names only makes it more tragic and singles out players.

what if andruw did juice, but mitchell missed it? is he a lock for HOF (if he has the numbers at career's end), but pujols and clemens aren't, because they were named?

if the point is really to clean up baseball, pointing fingers doesn't help.

Phil Hiatt, Paul LoDuca, Adam Riggs are other Dodgers.

Todd Hundley!

Larry Bigbie!

Paul Lo Duca!

Former Dodgers Lo Duca, Chris Donnels, and Jeff Williams are listed

Rotoworld is citing the Report as saying LoDuca wrote personal checks to the proported steroid dealer.

89 Because putting a lot of slow guys who like to work the count and mash the ball isn't a good story. When Boston wins three more championships in the next few years, Jacoby Ellsbury will get most of the credit.

105 No, that pretty much covers it.

Mitchell report (PDF):

http://files.mlb.com/mitchrpt.pdf

110 I think their big defensive improvements get more love from ESPN than their high OBP's.

The page numbers don't lineup with the PDF pages.

Dear MLBAM,

Way to suck.

Thanks,
Andrew Shimmin

Couldn't they have just listed all the witches- I mean players- in one convenient appendix?

App. page 259 has a thank you note to Radomski from PLD on Dodger Stationary.

Nook Logan in there I'm told.

Nook Logan! Nooooooooooooo!

I guess we'd all been suspecting Gagne without wanting to admit it to ourselves...but the inclusion of Lo Duca seems addedly depressing...that pre-trade line-up had been my favorite Dodger team since 88...

Paul Lo Duca. Heart and soul.

Bill Plaschke weeps today.

Kevin Brown!
Eric Gagne!

F.P. Santangelo!

Man, I was sorry to see Larry Bigbie in there, though I don't know why, or why I'm surprised. Sounds like he was very cooperative, at least!

When will the Mitchell Report Rebus be released, Bob?

I'll be reading the Mitchell Brothers report next.

There is a new thread for all this chatter above.

Are people getting these names by scrolling through the report...?

118 I was hoping not see him myself.

That WNBC list from earlier today was totally bogus.

No wonder Lo Duca was so eager to sign that deal with the Nats.

I am.

I don't know if Right Thinking People will consider HGH and anabolic steroids to be equally problematic, but there's no way in Choi media coverage of this report is consistently going to make clear that some folks are in there for HGH while others for steroids.

At least none of the players wrote in the memo section of the checks "Steriods", even though you have to wonder about Larry Bigbie writing "Supplements" and Matt Herges writing "Thanks!".

123
In my case, yes. The "PgDn" button is getting a lot of use today.

from page 218 of the Mitchell report:
Paul Lo Duca and Gagne were teammates with the Dodgers from 1999 to 2004. Although he is not sure when, Radomski recalled that Lo Duca called Radomski and told Radomski that Gagne was with him and wanted to buy human growth hormone. Gagne then came onto the phone and asked Radomski a question about how to get air out of a syringe. This is the only time Radomski spoke to Gagne. Radomski said that Lo Duca thereafter placed orders on Gagne's behalf.

Radomski said that he mailed two shipments to Gagne, each consisting of two kits of human growth hormone. One was sent to Gagne's home in Florida; the other was sent to Dodger Stadium. Federal agents seized from Radomski's home a copy of an Express Mail receipt showing a shipment to "Dodger Stadium, c/o Eric Gagne - L.A. Dodgers Home Club, 1000 Elysian Park Ave., Los Angeles, California 90012" dated August 9, 2004. A copy of this receipt is included in the Appendix and is shown below. Radomski said that this was for one of the shipments of human growth hormone to Gagne.

:(

LoDuca bought his steroids with checks (PDF Page 387). I wonder what else he pays for with checks.

I think FP Santangelo was the one name in the report that actually made me laugh out loud.

Jack Cust! Albeit without any evidence.

Started skimming through the report and saw Jeff Kents name, my heart skipped a beat until I continued reading. Turns out he was just being quoted. Good stat for the baseball card...MVP, All Star, quoted in the Mitchell report.

128
That's great. I'm going to write "laundering for tax evasion purposes" or in the memo of my next check.

118 - You could make a pretty compelling case for Depo as the guy who tried to rid the team of the taint of steroids (Lo Duca, Mota) and at the same time save the rotation. When is that apology article from Plaschke coming? What, never you say?

118 - Thank goodness for Tiger Woods.

131
I can see the next Visa commercial. The line is going real smoothly with everyone paying for needles and pills with their Visa card, and up comes Heart & Soul writing a check and everything comes crashing to a halt.

Here's an excerpt re: Bobby Estalella:

Estalella's apparent use of performance enhancing substances was noticed by club officials. After the 2003 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers considered signing Estalella as a free agent. During a three-day meeting of Dodgers officials in late October 2003, assessments were made of many players, including the possible use of steroids by some players. Ellen Harrigan, an administrator in the Dodgers' scouting department, kept detailed notes of the discussion. Among the comments she recorded was an observation by one of the participants that Estalella was a "poster boy for the chemicals.

The Dodgers had a book on who was using?

130 - But HGH wasn't banned at this time, was it?

geesh, lo duca sounds like a drug dealer in this report

136 I suggested it earlier today in another thread. DePo made some cryptic comments about that time that I at least interpreted as getting rid of the juiced.

142 I recall something to that effect, too.

So, trading LoDuca wasn't just about getting Penny.

81 - There's actually some logic to it. I mentioned it the other day, a home run is the second least likely outcome of a plate appearance (behind only a triple). One can logically conclude that it makes more sense to have players who can score from first on a double, or from second on a single (and let's face it, we've seen quite a few guys the last few years that have to stop at third).

It's also a good idea when you consider that most of the guys in the Dodger line up are line drive hitters rather than home run hitters.

It's all about how you build a team. If you have a team where you don't expect a lot of home runs, then you have to look at other ways of scoring runs. Nothing wrong with having speed on the base paths. But, then, I'm a big fan of scoring runs anyway possible.

135 - You'd think they would use paypal or something. Or maybe, I don't know, cash? I mean it isn't like we are talking about millions of dollars. The checks are for about 2,500 bucks. Surely an MLB player could get together 25 hundreds. These are obviously not the brightest criminals in the world, or maybe they just didn't think anyone would ever investigate.

Just printed the report with the (perhaps foolish) idea of reading the entire thing. My god, it's three inches thick!

You could make a pretty compelling case for Depo as the guy who tried to rid the team of the taint of steroids

On the flip side, Depo did resign Gagne...

Has anyone caught Pujols' name in the report?

I'm scrolling through, haven't seen it yet.

Kent Mercker?!? I move that his April 8, 1994 no hitter against the Dodgers forever be marked with an *

147 - Baby steps. It isn't like Depo could have gotten rid of Gagne without a lynch mob forming.

Any umpires on the list?

148 Quick keyword search for Pujols came up with no results.

147 Yeah, I was thinking about that, too. Maybe getting rid of Gagne would have been too much too soon and could have cost him his job. Even though he lost it anyway.

The one piece of good news is, I now have Paul LoDuca's autograph.

I guess I'm saddest to see Gagne's name in there, although I'm not really shocked at its inclusion.

Lo Duca's reputation takes hit after (deserved?) hit. I'm not sad at all to see his name in the report.

From p. 193:

Donnels said that he told Dodgers athletic trainer Matt Wilson that he was considering using performance enhancing substances. Wilson told him to "look it up on the computer" and said "I don't need to hear anything about it."

This is getting ugly. The Dodgers are all over this report.

143 A strategic leak here or there, and DePo could have turned the tables on the firestorm that followed that deal. But he didn't. Says a lot for him as a man if that was what he was about.

148 I searched the PDF and it came back as no results for Pujols.

148 - a search says no

leaked lists were wrong

151 - That made me laugh.

Who knew Mo Vaughn's real name was Maurice! Say it isn't so!

LoDuca gets absolutely destroyed in the report!!! Wow.

LoDuca gets absolutely destroyed in the report!!! Wow.

No Milton Bradley either. Or Sammy Sosa.

Very interesting notes included from Dodgers front office: suggesting LoDuca, Gagne and K. Brown were juiced.

Hurray DePo!!

157 - That assumes that DePo had knowledge of all this.

LoDuca comes across as the team pusher. Not a flattering portrait at all. Gagné was one of my favorite Dodgers, but has gone down in my estimation. More disappointed than surprised.

I liked Rondell White's note on the checks - "Bought something". Duh!

This may have already been posted, but a quick keyword search of Los Angeles Dodgers turned up these names on the PDF. I did this kinda fast, so there may be errors.

Todd Hundley
F.P. Santangelo
Chris Donnels
Todd Williams
Phil Hiatt
Adam Riggs
Paul Lo Duca
Kevin Brown
Eric Gagne
Matt Herges
Jeff Williams
Ismael Valdez

... We didn't exactly get off light, did we?

I'm rather disappointed to see Gagne and Lo Duca on the list. Those guys were two of my favorites. Though, really, I guess the indicators were there, looking back.

This is a depressing day for baseball.

I didn't think I'd have DePo nostalgia today. But if true, man, he really didn't get a fair shot.

I have the complete list on True Blue LA.

168 No Beltre. I can continue to believe that 2004 was entirely based on him not being able to swing at sliders down and away!

168 Can you imagine how bad Hundley would have been if he wasn't using.

I read elsewhere that Gary Bennett, who I believe is a current candidate for backup catcher with the Dodgers, is in the report.

With all those Dodgers on the list, we should've had some better teams during the Steroid Era.

Oops, just saw that note from the front office. Interesting, to say the least.

161 - Some people call him the Space Cowboy.

Maybe that's why Ismael changed the spelling of his last name from Valdes to Valdez.

Nomar on the real list?

177
If I could type the waaa waaa sound, I would.

179 No.

177 oh sure, steer well clear of trying to figure out how to spell "pompitous" why don't.

177 oh sure, steer well clear of trying to figure out how to spell "pompitous" why don't.

Agree this makes Depo look much better in hindsight...those mid-season trades seemed incomprehensible at the time. And yes, if he had traded or failed to re-sign Gagne, he would have been figuratively (or perhaps literally) lynched for it.

David Justice: irony?

Nothing like double posting a bad joke with a glaring typo.

I blame Kirk Radomski.

184 those mid-season trades seemed incomprehensible at the time

Not by all of us!

171- Direct link to the TBLA list.

http://truebluela.com/story/2007/12/13/14334/529#readmore

187 It was a great trade without this "revelation."

This is a fantastic day for baseball. Today is a day of reckoning, waking up from the stupor that was the last 15 years. I haven't read the entire report, but from what I have seen, it is honest and impressive. The recommendations seem spot on.

Gary Sheffield is also on the list. Other interested names:

Lenny Dykstra
David Justice
Troy Glaus
John Rocker
Matt Williams

The report just verifies with what many thought about the steroid usage, while you have the stars who want to get any advantage they can, you come across both position players and pitchers who were at the edges of staying in the game.

To me the biggest losers were the players who perhaps never made it because a Paul LoDuca or F.P. Santangelo was using and denied them their one shot at the big leagues.

This intrigue on THE TRADE is my favorite part:

notes of an internal discussion among Los Angeles Dodgers officials in October 2003... Steroids aren't being used anymore on [Lo Duca]. Big part of this. Might have some value to trade... Florida might have interest... Got off the steroids... Took away a lot of hard line drives... Can get comparable value back would consider trading.

I meant "interesting" names!

How many Red Sox on the list? Just wondering since Mitchell is on the Board of Directors.

193. In retrospective, it seems so obvious with LoDuca, with his dramatic drop in power after 2001.

187 I still think it had a lot more to do with getting a pitcher like Penny and avoiding payroll hikes for LoDuca and Mota but if you believe this played a role, so be it.

192
I agree. People who think that sub-par performance is evidence that a player didn't use roids ignore the fact that roids don't make you a star per se, they only (might) make you better. Thus, they can mean the difference between being in the league as a bench player and not being the league at all.

The passive voice in there -- steroids being used "on" Lo Duca as opposed to "by" Lo Duca -- is interesting. Realize there are just meeting notes, but still jumps out at you.

I also just want to say again, that this is a an essentially random sample of evidence based on the spots where Mitchell managed to get some cooperation -- it really should not be considered a comprehensive report of the scope of steroid/HGH use in baseball during the covered time.

David Pinto is live-blogging the press conference:

http://www.baseballmusings.com/archives/024224.php

"Update: Mitchell is asking the commissioner not to discipline players named in the report. He wants closure on the issue. That's a good recommendation."

No Hee Sop on list?

193 What page (PDF page) is that on?

"Update: It appears that the report agrees that HGH doesn't do much, and probably does more harm than good (pages 9 and 10)."

So...when is Kuroda going to sign?

196 Interesting that Florida was interested in LoDuca before DePo ever got hired or Choi had an AB with the Marlins.

199
I think most people (rightfully) consider this the tip of the iceberg.

I am hurt by Eric's name on this list only because in my many many years as a Dodger fan, he is among my top 5 favorite players and to this day, at his best, was the most exciting player I ever saw on a game by game basis.

205 - not really, Lo Duca was pretty darn good for a stretch there, I'm guessing a few teams were interested in him (even if he was juiced).

197 Whoa! I was simply responding to 184 who said the LoDuca trade seemed incomprehensible at the time but now seem more reasonable, when in fact I have always liked the deal.

I don't care if steroids played a part in the deal, I only care that it made the Dodgers better.

If you meant to refer to 184 , my bad.

193 Also weren't the earlier Lo Duca references re HGH, but this is talking about steroids?

202 It's on page 257. I found it.

John Rocker's on the list. Well, my respect for him just took a beating.

Is it possible to have negative respect for a person or is zero the floor?

166
what effect did steroids have on Gagne's curve and change?

207
I remember following Gagne from his major league debut in Florida in 1999. He was one of my favorites as well.

212 - negative respect is disrespect, no? I mean, disrespect can be deserved, no?

Mitchell says the criticism he got over his Ireland finagling was far more harsh than any he's received over this report. Sounds like a challenge to me!

As I said over at BBTF, Todd Hundley appears to be the Dodgers' "Patient Zero."

Steroids are theoretically valuable to relievers because they aid recovery, allowing relievers to not only pitch daily if necessary, but to do so more effectively than if their bodies had to recover naturally.

There may be other theoretical benefits as well.

Harold Reynolds got a new job! Good on him. I bet he's not hitting on his co-anchor anymore, for a variety of reasons.

Funny - The Evans-led Dodgers knew Lo Duca was juicing and that that was why his power had been sapped. They were thinking of trading him to Fla.

Take that Plaschke! It wasn't all DePo's fault!

Reynolds, whom I do not believe to have read a single word of the report, says Mitchell did a fantastic job.

Noted.

Where does this rank in terms of bad eras in baseball history?

1. 1910-1929 - Gambling, highlighed by Black Sox throwing 1919 World Series.
2. 1901-1947 - Denial of inclusion of African-American and others on the basis of race.
3. 1980's Cocaine Era
4. 1972-1994 -Labor unrest highlighed by cancelled season and World Series/
5. 1990-Present - Performance Enhancing Drug's

I vote in this order, denying Blacks the right to play MLB and gambling are at the top, PEDs is third.

Where is Reynolds' new job?

223- Co-anchor on the lame MLB.tv post report show.

Juan Gonzalez, two-time American League Most Valuable Player, is not "named" as such, but there is a lengthy story about him linking him to use.

You may read the story by searching for the phrase "on the evening of october 4."

This phrase appears over and over in the report:

In order to provide Xxxxxx with information about these allegations and to give him an opportunity to respond, I asked him to meet with me. He did not respond to my request.

221 He also has said that "War and Peace" is a good read and he enjoyed the uncut version of "Greed."

Clemens -- not a Hall of Famer.

227 - I have only seen a shorter version of Greed, but I felt it did the job. War and Peace, on the other hand, is good for the first 1,200 pages before it becomes tedious.

So if it turns out that primary benefit of HGH is that it helps athletes to recover more quickly from an injury -- are people OK with that? Is it "cheating" if it doesn't make you better/stronger than you already were, but just gets you back up to your normal level more quickly?

I want to reiterate my joy at seeing Roger Clemens's name.

There, I just did.

WHAT! No JP?
shocking!

230
It's only cheating if it's against the rules. And maybe if it's illegal, though that gets fuzzy.

230 I'm not OK if was forbidden under the rules of MLB or illegale under state/federal law.

226
Xxxxxx wasn't there to talk about the past maybe.

222 - I'd have the cocaine era at the bottom of the list.

John Kruk on ESPN: if this is true about Clemens, then there is nothing different between him and Bonds, other than personality.

Yeah, John, if you'd been paying attention, you'd have figured out that a lot of people don't like Bonds because he's a jerk. Jerks get many fewer passes than nice guys.

230 That sounds like it enhances performance. So, yes.

230 Yes. Increasing rate of recovery is cheating. Would Gange have been able to throw at "max effort" on three consecutive days if he hadn't been on HGH?

It sounds the worst for the Mets clubhouse. Wasn't Steve Phillips the GM for some of this time? Now he gets to provide commentary?

230 I'm not okay with it. It helps you recover from workouts faster and they have awful long-term health effects.

Look, the use of steroids is wrong. I'm just scanning the Mitchell Report (pdf.) and finding out that Mr. Heart and Soul was a user. Daniel, I'll admit to you that unlike the terribly bright people who post here, I'm more emotional, less "researched" than most. But I have seen first-hand the effects of steroid use. It provides a significant boost to muscle mass for those who work out. When I was a sportscaster, I got in trouble because on air I said the effect of steroids seemed to be similar to sticking a hose up your backside and turning the air on. Guys who were using who were already big got much, much bigger.

I hear you, Daniel, I really do. It just doesn't seem right. Too many people are willing to write off steroid use as "not that bad" when it comes to health and the integrity of the game. I think it's terrible on both fronts.

End of rant.

Now that the report has been published it appears that players such as Pujols and Varitek are not in the report, and therefore falsely accused by the "leak list"?

233 , 234 , etc. Let me rephrase. If you were in charge of making the rules, would you ban a substance if its only benefit was to help athletes recover from injury more quickly?

236

I don't think I'd regard Clemens as a "nice guy" either, so you're talking no difference at all.

---

I love how Jeff Kent was named on the report, but only for his erudite quote:

Major League Baseball is trying to investigate the past so they can fix the future.

No mention of whether Kent had any comments about trash cans.

168

I saw Chris Donnels in a High School alumni game after he got released. He struck out twice, against High School pitching. Must have been off cycle.

I found this on DodgerBlues (from their "a" of the moment feature), which seems to jive with what I remembered reading back then. Can't find the LA Times article that he mentions though. But the Drew and Kent signings were supposed to be in part influenced by their supposed clean reputations.

3.5.05 - Paul DePodesta
So, Paul DePodesta assembled the current mess of Dodgers with steroid use a major consideration. He wanted a clean team, he told the LA Times.
So he lets go of Steve Finley, one of the healthiest guys in baseball? He dumps Shawn Green, who probably wouldn't go so far as to even take a multi-vitamin? He lets go of Alex Cora? Dave Roberts? Paul Lo Duca? The only juice these guys were on was apple juice. Yet he picks up Jose Valentin—who many have their suspicions about. What a load.

Chris has pulled out and posted the thank you note from Lo Duca to Radomski (note -- doesn't say for what he is thanking).

http://tinyurl.com/2mljsh

On CNN Headline News they are saying that Clemens is denying he has ever used PED's and is contacting a lawyer (presumably to talk about suing somebody for lying about him). Which raises the issue, if particular players have no physical evidence against them, and it's just somebody's accusation that implicates them, should they have been named in the report?

I wonder how many ballplayers and/or agents are sitting in front of their computers right now performing searches of their names/names of their clients.

230 - I'm going to have to think about that. My gut instinct is to say, "no." Because you're artificially getting back to your base, it's not like you take a day off and are ready to go again.

There is also the off season training element to HGH, which I think is the more important use. The ability to recover quickly after training means the possibility of more intense training (beyond what a guy could normally do) which could, conceivably give a player using an unfair advantage (off season work outs 6 days a week vs 4-5 days a week).

240 I'm actually closer to your opinion than you think. I'm just trying to gauge opinion in a theoretical world -- forget your personal experience with steroids or HGH. If someone invented a substance, and it was scientifically proven to simply help an athlete recover more quickly from an injury, would you ban it or not? Assume it had no long term health effects.

192 I don't know, it's hard to imagine FP Santangelo denying someone else a shot at the majors.

Though it's hard to imagine just how bad he would've been without steroids!

225 Speaking of Gonzaleses... where's Luis in there?
(Not that this is a list of everyone who took steroids... just those who were caught/talked to the investigation/etc.)

247 Is that the same lawyer who Barry Bonds hired to sue the authors of "Game of Shadows" for libel? A lawsuit that never seems to have appeared.

So, is LoDuca now Enlarged Heart and Soul?

252
It seems standard practice to announce that you're outraged and are contacting your lawyers, but to never actually file a lawsuit.

The ones who should be suing are the guys like Pujols and Nomar, whose names appeared in that bogus WNBC list.

(And who, thanks to me, are believed to be steroid cheats by everyone in my office. I think maybe I need to contact my lawyer.)

MLB.tv's wardrobe is provided by Three Button Suits and Ugly Ties 'R Us.

Jon, I know you took a shot at this re:History above but I would be interested in your thoughts and what's really in play here. Ownership throwing (mostly) players under the bus, no punnishment. Is this to gain congressional support to leverage the players union? Any other conspiracy theories?

253 My favorite post on bbtf: "Plaschke was right: chemistry was important in the Dodgers clubhouse."

254 - usually because the lawyer looks at the facts and says something along the lines of, "you have no case, if you try to bring the case, you'll likely lose, and then may be responsible for the legal fees of the defendant."

11 Jon, you are always the voice reason and the rational.

Rational or rationalization. A thin line.

Yes, much of the time he is. However his offering today was more a pleasant sheen, a narcotic, offered from one fiend to another to help maintain their love of the game...their heroes...their memories. Guilt free, and winning the crucial battle against dissolution.

Oh yes, they'll tell you with worldly sophistication that they "became dissolutioned long ago". Well, they haven't. And never will. The mind is willing, but the heart won't allow it. And you are your heart.

257 I don't think so, Congress has the trump card on MLB and the owners due to the antitrust exemption, certainly the Player's Union will have a lot to say in the next few days (if not hours).

Can I be Bob's heart, instead?

Congress is pretty busy not doing other things. I think there's going to be a good long wait before they trying not doing anything about this.

262
I don't have a heart. I just have a lump of coal there.

So, does Canseco get into the Hall of Fame for his contributions to the game?

264 - you really should look at upgrading to a fuel cell, you know, for the sake of the planet

260 - I don't understand. If I see good and bad in the game, always have, and always will, I'm benumbed?

I mean, if some people want to reject baseball, they have my complete blessing. But the game had a flawed history before I was even born - why would what happened today change my view of it?

Is the list at True Blue complete? If so, I am really pleased to not see Pujols.

At least the report got this blog off of condiments.

257 - I'm at work, so I'm only dashing in and out of this, but I haven't heard anyone mention MLB taking any responsibility for this. If that is the case, that would disturb me.

242 No, because of the slippery slope and the financial aspect. Stamina and ability to perform day-after-day is part of the challenge of being a professional player. Who decides if the injury deserves an HGH waiver? Let's face it: even the healthiest ball player has nagging injuries, bumps, bruises and sore spots. Even if you can regulate what gets HGHed, you'll still have to deal with drug-seeking players looking to gain the slightest edge.

Think about the "arm"adillo Bonds wears at the plate. It helps him hang over the plate, but he's got a medical waiver for it, so its legal. The probelm is it's huge and is it really necessary to protect an elbow injury with a hockey pad? Also, who paid the doc who signed off on it?

270
From the AP:

"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."

270 As I understand it, Mitchell says it was a "collective failure" and does blame baseball to some extent. Selig has a presser scheduled for 1:15 Pacific and I don't think MLB has made or will have made a statement before then.

Fehr scheduled to speak later in the day.

Page 131 of the report --
Several Dodgers officials participated in the (October 2003) meetings, including special scouting advisor Gib Bodet, senior advisor John Boles, general manager Dan Evans, team physician Frank Jobe, athletic trainer Stan Johnston, manager Jim Tracy, advance scout Mark Weidemaier, senior scouting advisor Don Welke, and director of amateur scouting Logan White.

So does Tracy love LoDuca in spite of the rampant speculation of his drug use, or because of it?

But now I see this:

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."

Even if you can regulate what gets HGHed, you'll still have to deal with drug-seeking players looking to gain the slightest edge.

Not if there's no edge to be gained. Then you just have to ignore it, and let the players figure it out for themselves. It'll often be like taking antibiotics for a head cold, but, so what? Durability is variable, and has always been part of the game. But is it a skill? Is baseball better because you never know if one of the players is going to pull up lame for six weeks?

Perhaps LaDuca was buying everything for one of his horses? Doesn't he own a couple of race horses? Have the horse ever been tested? Has anyone ever looked at unsual increases in their race time?

I'm grasping for very thins straws, I know.

277 LoDuca

Looks to me like they investgated one ring somewhat, and dipped into a few others, and I am inclined to believe there were many more. Players hear the buzz about what is going on, and at some point don't they begin to think I may have to try this stuff or I'm going to lose my job. The Players Assc. intentionally or not tries to protect the players by enforcing brotherly silence, rather than opposing use.
It almost parallels the way the PA has protected the elites huge contracts, perhaps at some harm to the journeymen, although recently it seems everyone is getting plenty of money.

So I don't really have any other thoughts right now, other than that the report seems to validate the notion that use was pervasive and no one person should be singled out for infamy.

If I have any other thoughts, I'll pass them on.

Perhaps LaDuca was buying everything for one of his horses?

And maybe he planned to flood the Silicon Valley in order to gain a monopoly in the microchip market.

274 Clearly Lo Duca was Tracy's hook up for some "special" supplements. How else can you account for some of his managing?

260
i think he meant rationale

the report seems to validate the notion that use was pervasive and no one person should be singled out for infamy

Agreed.

279 - I'm thinking, as a ball player, if I was getting involved in PED's, I would not be talking to my teammates about it, I wouldn't be talking to anyone about it. The stuff would be delivered to a PO Box in a different name, paid for in cash. The last thing I would want would be to be part of a ring.

But maybe I've just watched too many movies.

276 Recovery from exhaustion/exertion is an edge.

Anyone know how many players have officially tested positive? My understanding is that the M.R. has listed guys based on hersy, pharmacy reports, a paper trail of some kind... The list is at, what, 60 players? Seems low. I'm only speculating but it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to acquire the juice using greater discretion than some of these guys did.

I'm thinking, as a ball player, if I was getting involved in PED's, I would not be talking to my teammates about it, I wouldn't be talking to anyone about it. The stuff would be delivered to a PO Box in a different name, paid for in cash

The fact that players were evidently so cavalier about the whole thing reflects/suggests:

1. Usage was so pervasive and accepted that they didn't feel they had to hide
2. Players felt so protected/coddled/entitled/etc. by owners, trainers, MLBPA, etc. that they felt the risks of being punished were miniscule

286- It would be, if it worked that way. Cellular regeneration isn't that quick, though, even with HGH, is it? Too bad doctors don't read anything, or we might have a better idea. I assume the players would notice if it really made day to day recovery easy; they don't seem to.

288 - that's a reasonable conclusion.

288 Continued-

3. Maybe they're not that bright.

When the Brewers and Nat's come to town next year with LaDuca and Gagne get booed?

So Prior should be dirt cheap right now?

285 You are apparently smarter than most of these guys.

288+291 Sounds about right to me.

293

Or dirt. If he was breaking down with the juice how good will he be without?

As a Dodger fan, this report is incredibly depressing. The whole organization, including the minor leagues, was rotten with PED users between 1999-2004.

Only the Mets, with Radomski, come off as bad as the Dodgers.

ToyCannon wrote quite a little story at TBLA.

http://www.truebluela.com/story/2007/12/13/151121/72

It will be interesting to see if any jaded accusee feels singled out enough to finger all the players he knows of who used but didn't get implicated in the report.

Yes! More Dodger fan fiction!

I am guessing they must not have much info on Pujols since ESPN is not talking about him at all.

Well, maybe it's more like "Dodger Fan" fiction.

275- the sad thing to me is the pervasive and conspicuous nature of it all. case in pt, dodger officials clearly had discussions regarding several of their star players and steroids. and teams knew what other teams knew about each other's players and discussed the issue, it appears, quite nonchalantly. it's as if steroid use was nothing more than another checkpoint on a scouting report.

it's not enough to blame particular players or bud selig. clearly each team went along with the ruse.

(btw, long time lurker, first time poster. today was obviously a big day and finally brought me out of the woodworks.)

Mitchell says the owners and MLB didn't get aggressive until 2002 but that the players' union rebuffed pre-2002 efforts.

The players' union, Mitchell writes, was "uncooperative." Right after Mitchell sent a memo to each players, the union followed up with a memo saying not to cooperate. Orza refused to be interviewed. I think that the right thing for a player to do would have been to cooperate as to your own involvement but not name anyone else.

Fernando Vina is on the list. He works for ESPN. I want to see a really awkward interview.

Maybe Steve Phillips can interview him.

He's talking right now about how he had a family to feed and couldn't take the risk of stirring up issues that would hurt the team when he was a GM.

304 Yeah, just like I'd like to hear loud mouth Ralph Barbieri interview his KNBR colleague FP. That would be entertaining.

Kruk wants a first time 2 year suspension and a 2d offense and your done rule.

Gammons seems like he is going to cry.

Gammons seems like he is going to cry

I'm not watching him, but gimme a break.

These guys aren't heroes: they're just baseball players. A lot of them are probably jerks, just like the rest of us.

I'm shocked Shawn Green wasn't listed

The WNBC list that was linked earlier has been replaced by a real list. No note made of their reprehensible publication of the wrong one. But they did get a twenty minute head start in being wrong, so, score.

Random interruption, I'm anxious for some info. I have a few months to figure this out though.

I've booked a trip to Paris in June to see Radiohead on consecutive nights. All tickets are general admission. The venue is Paris-Bercy. On the fan website, they say you can stand or grab a reserved seat once inside. On the venue website, I can't find capacity for the show or a standard seating chart. It's in French, I don't read French, but I've clicked on everything and I can't find seating info. I think it just doesn't exist.

http://www.bercy.fr/infos_pratiques/acces_bercy

1. Has anyone on DT been to a show there?
2. Does anyone on DT speak/read French and would be willing to look at the site and make sure I'm not missing something?

Good karma if you can help. I don't want to get stuck in the back with a bad view and sound, and I don't want to spend all day in Paris waiting in a big line. I need to get a stategy together.

P.S. The fan site message board is garbage. No help there.

I was thinking how any player who got their stuff from other countries would probably never show up on this list.

309 It's weird because there's no huge surprises amongst the big names on here. I think the only important players that at least didn't have some suspicion on them were B-Rob and maybe Glaus. Other than that, he should have seen this coming.

Gagne and Paul should have just gone down to Mexico. What morons.

314
Yeah. It's not as if we, today, all of a sudden learned that a bunch of baseball players were using steroids. We've known it for a long time now. The emotions have had plenty of time to numb themselves.

314

Even B-Rob shouldn't count ... all the evidence (as per the report) is tht Bigbie said Roberts admitted to it once in passing that he took steroids once or twice in 2003. Sounds sketchy to me.

312- In the press release section, the pdf says capacity is between 8k and 17k. I don't know how that works (where do you put the other half of the seats when you decide not to sell them? Why did you decide not to sell them?), but, there it is. It says they get 1.5 million spectators a year over 120 dates, so that's an average of 12,500 per show.

I saw this list on msnbc.com of what purports to be all of the names in the Mitchell Report:

Chad Allen
Manny Alexander
Rick Ankiel
Mike Bell
David Bell
Gary Bennett Jr.
Marvin Bernard
Larry Bigbie
Barry Bonds
Kevin Brown
Paul Byrd
Ken Caminiti
Jose Canseco
Mark Carreon
Jason Christiansen
Howie Clark
Roger Clemens
Jack Cust
Brendan Donnelly
Lenny Dykstra
Bobby Estalella
Matt Franco
Ryan Franklin
Eric Gagne
Jason Giambi
Jeremi Giambi
Jay Gibbons
Troy Glaus
Jason Grimsley
Jose Guillen
Jerry Hairston Jr.
Matt Herges
Phil Hiatt
Glenallen Hill
Darren Holmes
Todd Hundley
David Justice
Chuck Knoblauch
Tim Laker
Mike Lansing
Paul Lo Duca
Nook Logan
Josias Manzanillo
Gary Matthews Jr.
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Bart Miadich
Hal Morris
David Naulty
Denny Neagle
Jim Parque
Andy Pettitte
Adam Piatt
Todd Pratt
Stephen Randolph
Adam Riggs
Brian Roberts
John Rocker
F.P. Santangelo
Benito Santiago
Gary Sheffield
Scott Schoeneweis
David Segui
Mike Stanton
Miguel Tejada
Ismael Valdez
Mo Vaughn
Randy Velarde
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White
Todd Williams
Jeff Williams
Matt Williams
Steve Woodard
Kevin Young
Gregg Zaun

Selig is saying that he'll implement all the recommendations that he can unilaterally, and will talk to the union about the rest. Not sure if that's a good idea, to simply say, "ok, we'll do what they say" without considering whether the recommendations have any unintended consequences.

319 - Chad Allen.

Proving that this whole thing is just a figment of Tommy Westphal's autistic imagination!

I was surprised by Andy Pettitte. He seems like such a Mike Huckabee type.

Field of ped dreams.
Not only in baseball, but in all pro sports.
There's just too much money involved.
Here, take some of this and your paycheck will double!
Everyone else is doing it.
Come on pal, just do it.

If you go here:
http://www.bercy.fr/billetterie/ticketnet/1013/Radiohead
and click on "Soyez alerte", there is a seating chart. Seating seems to be general admission.

Howard Wasserman -- of this blog http://sports-law.blogspot.com/

-- answering questions at washpost.com at 1:45 Pacific.

http://tinyurl.com/2tuoqu

And you can bring all the four and under children you want and not pay for them!

You would think that someone with so much to lose wouldn't write checks from their personal accounts.

Maybe HGH makes your brain jelly.

My wife had surgery today (my earlier post was from the waiting room). She's fine; nothing serious. But in the recovery room, while heavily medicated, she asked a question. Apologies if this has already been asked upthread.

"If Marion Jones got her medals taken away, what's going to happen to these guys?"

I told her the IOC had rules in place and heck if I knoow if MLB did but what will happen is probably nothing.

Still, pretty good question from a non-baseball fan under medication, no?

322- There's a great rule five violation I'd link to, but you can find it by googling somebody's name and "bariatric surgery."

I'm not numb to it exactly. But, for many of the reasons I like this blog, I can't really express what I think.

324 Thanks! I really appreciate your looking at it. I see the end stage formation from your link. They play basketball there also, it must be a sizeable venue, but I still can't find capacity for concerts or sports anywhere.

I'll google around and see if I can find it out. They also have a contact email address for VIP suites. Maybe someone will email me back with capacity info.

Dylan Hernandez has a quick-hit story up on the Dodgers' myriad PED users. Strangely, it mentions everyone but Sheffield:

http://tinyurl.com/2j5abu

289 I assume the players would notice if it really made day to day recovery easy; they don't seem to.

A false assertion. Players took it to recover and/or increase the effectiveness of their weight training. I'd say that's players taking note of it.

It would be, if it worked that way. Cellular regeneration isn't that quick, though, even with HGH, is it?

HGH is a red herring, really. You asked if quicker recovery to baseline would be cheating, and I think it would be. Injury and fatigue is part of the game.

That said, HGH provides advantage. It's production is stimulated by excercise ( among other factors like GHRH, sex hormones and deep sleep). It provides for increased rates of lipolysis (fat breakdown), musclar hyperplasia (growth through cellular division), and protein synthesis.

Let's examine how those three effects affect an athlete in training. The first is of no use to anyone except Roger Clemens and professional body builders. The second is a clear and simple cheat. Most muscle growth occurs by muscle cells increasing in size, not by cellular division. By taking a supplement you're artificially raising the level of HGH beyond a naturally (read: diet and excercise) achieveable level. Threfore, you're stimulating cell division beyond a naturally achieveable rate. The third is also a cheat. Strenuous training causes microtraumas to the existing muscle tissue. These tears are thought to be the cause of delayed onset muscle soreness as well as the basis upon which muscle cells hypertrophy (get bigger). Add in an increased rate of actin and myosin production due to increased, and omnipresent level of HGH and you have a muscle that can recover more quickly from microtrauma and grow more quickly due to the greater availability of the components of the sacromere.

326 To the show in Paris? I wish the wife would go with the kids, she won't do it with them just yet.

I'm going with my sister, her graduation and birthday gift. She turns 40 in January and earns her BA in May.

She's not a Radiohead fan but has never been to Paris.

Hee Seop Choi is vindicated in a small way. After the trade with Lo Duca, everyone ridiculed Choi to death. It turns out that Lo Duca was a cheat, and Choi could not compete in a steroid league.

288

Your point is truthful indeed. I'm sure some guys didn't have a problem with it and didn't hide it. I don't think we can assume all users were open about using an illegal drug.

Damn... I must have deleted my last sentence...

More sacromeres means a bigger, more powerful muscle cell.

Players took it to recover and/or increase the effectiveness of their weight training. I'd say that's players taking note of it.

They took it, and said it didn't help. Looking at the recovered evidence in the Mitchell report, Ankiel took it for about two months. Do you think he just switched suppliers, do you think he decided it wasn't doing anything, or do you think he decided it was cheating to keep doing it?

totally off topic, but entirely worth the diversion:

"We discovered that people are not like Neo in The Matrix, dodging bullets in slow-mo," Eagleman said.

http://tinyurl.com/yrp5tm

339 - actually, it may help explain "being in the zone".

331 According to Wikipedia, the capacity is 7,000 to 18,000, depending on the event:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_Omnisports_de_Paris-Bercy

Given the seating chart, I'd guess about 13-14,000 for the concert.

I took my mom to Paris for her 80th birthday last May. We did not go to a Radiohead concert, though.

338 And yet Paul Lo Duca went around slinging it to everyone who crossed his path. That's the actions of a man who thinked it helped him.

Caffeine "provides an increased level of lipolysis." It matters how much HGH works, not just whether it does.

342- Maybe he was getting a finder's fee.

270 The Commissioner is speaking now, quite unimpressively as usual, about supposed action MLB will take. (It's live on ESPN.)

The real news of the day is that Lisa Leslie is returning to the Sparks next year. When the Sparks use the first pick in the draft on Candice Parker the Sparks will have the frontcourt of doom.

343 - HGH turns babies into men. I'd say that's pretty effective.

Commissioner Selig:

His hair piece is among the worst on the planet.

Perhaps he kept his hands in his pockets when Bonds hit 756 because he didn't want the crazy glue and stapler to fall out while he was on camera.

How can an owner also be commissioner, isn't that a blatant conflict of interest?

I'm ashamed he's a tribe member.

343 Besides... Lipolysis is the least concerning of HGH's effects. Who cares how fat a player is.

345
Everything seems to involve lactation today doesn't it?

346- Ergo it turns men into supermen? Salt makes steak good; way more salt does not make it even better.

332 Dylan Hernandez might not be aware of Sheffield's time here.

The ESPN guys are talking about all the hearsay allegations in the report. Unfortunately, the evidence concerning the Dodgers does not fall into that category. Lo Duca and Herges come off like evangelists for HGH.

Has anyone figured out where Mitchell got the October 2003 Dodger front office notes in which Brown and Lo Duca were discussed?

345 The liberal in me is very much in favor of gender equality and a WNBA that will thrive. I want to applaud you for mentioning this.

The fact that I'm among the millions who could really care less doesn't make me proud. But it makes me honest.

I feel the WNBA is doomed.

350 Nice Strawman.

This is sort of a tail chasing exercise since there probably isn't a way to know how much HGH works for making baseball players better. It would be impossible and illegal to study. So, I'm going to appeal to authority: Will Carroll says that HGH doesn't really help!

253- It's not a strawman. Chemistry is chemistry. Unless your argument is that HGH is magic.

352
Oh yeah, it is totally doomed. They cannot get anyone to go see it live or on television.

353 was too chippy. Sorry.

350 - It's responsible for human growth, therefore it's responsible for human growth. Unnaturally causing human growth where and when it shouldn't occur to gain competitive advantage is cheating.

Unnaturally causing human growth where and when it shouldn't occur to gain competitive advantage is cheating

Doesn't weight-lifting do that?

The cheating comes from something being against the rules, and maybe from it being illegal.

352 /356 - building a league takes a generation. Look at how long it took the NFL and NBA to become powerhouse leagues. If you look back at their history, there are teams from the first 20 years that no longer exist - not moved and changed names, just folded.

I think the WNBA can make it, but it's going to take a generation or two of girls growing up watching (with their parents) and believing that it's a real possibility that they make it.

I feel more or less the same way about MLS. Though I'd put more money on the WNBA celebrating it's 50th anniversary over the MLS.

354 See... Basketball players, and tall people in general have a genetic predisposition to start producing HGH early and in great quantities. That's not a cheat, it's just that thier built that way.

358 - No. Excercise is a natural stimulant of HGH. Sticking a needle in you posterior isn't.

Mike Piazza may feel vindicated in a small way towards Clemens after that possibly 'roid fueled beaning and bat throwing incident. I lost all respect for Clemens after that.

270.
In my estimation, MLB has very little blame for the problem. What can they do? They are slaves to the union. The only testing they have now is because congress threatened to step in, which is why I am glad they did step in. MLB has signed away too many of it's rights and baseball has become one of those rare few places left in America where the Union is flat out of line. But, if someone does see MLB as the main culprit in these things, clearly they should see the Union as at least equally culpable.

I can't wait for the future when people have bionic arms. This will make this talk of steroids and HGH look even more foolish.

There are inherent limiting factors. HGH can't make me thirty feet tall, not matter how much I take, or how little I care about what else it does. The limits are the important thing. If HGH use, even abuse, makes a player imperceptibly better at the game, then it isn't important to me whether it lets him recover more quickly from an injury. I'd be terrific if a blown out shoulder could be fixed over the weekend. It would distort all future career numbers, disadvantaging all previous players relative to the ones to whom it was available, but it wouldn't be an outright bad thing. I think that isn't a worthless distinction. If it makes somebody better at the game (the way steroids seem to have), that's problematic. But if it really is only good for coming back from injuries, then I don't object to it.

I don't say that this is what it does; I don't know. I will say that I don't think it outlandish to suppose that this might be what it does.

364 - and I'm reminded of the blurnsball episode of Futurama:

Bender: these humans wouldn't have lasted a minute in the old Robo Leagues

All the yelling about PEDs and who used them is starting to remind of "The Monsters Have Landed on Maple Street."

oh, hey, Bob... do you know where i might be able to find a list of works that will be falling into the public domain in the next couple of years?

364 I can't wait for this future:

http://tinyurl.com/2v5nwg

369- My grandmother gave me that around this time sixteen years ago. I was thrilled to get it, but it wasn't a great game.

204 Not sure, but I hope soon. My guess is that the initial reports are true: he has indeed decided on signing with us. But, he (and his agent) are probably keeping quiet so they can squeeze out a few extra bucks.

I also expect Colletti to swoop in and sign a non-tender or two. There are a few bullpen arms that might be worth a shot.

359 I think the MLS will last longer than WNBA without it being close call.

Soccer (futbol) is a world-wide sport and it can eventually catch on with the masses in the states.

Female sports just doesn't have mass appeal on a professional level anywhere that I know of.

Therefore, I think a men's soccer league succeeding in the states is more likely than a female basketball league.

As always, I could be wrong. I would like to see the WNBA thrive as long as I don't have to watch it myself. Now if my daughter was playing, that would be an entirely different story.

368
There is no such list AFAIK.

The "public domain" is quite nebulous. Nobody checks in. And nobody checks out.

369 Nice! I used to love that game.

365 - See... That's a strawman right there. No one is saying that it will make someone 30 feet tall. Eventually your organs would fail (see: pituitary gigantism). What we are saying is that it has a demonstrated ability to make people stronger (see: body builders) through well recognized biological pathways, and that it's use for the purpose of gaining athletic advantage is cheating (if against the rules/laws).

i love how dodgers.com has the bragging story of "no current dodgers listed in mitchell report."

it then goes on to state that 15 former players were, including LoJuica.

370 It's a lot better at age 10. Robots + baseball = awesome.

375- How much stronger and in what way? How much of that strength is transferable to baseball skills?

I miss Pierre-talk

377- I was eleven. Baseball and robots were two great tastes that just didn't taste great together, for me.

379 Ain't that the truth. Maybe if he were juicing there'd be something to say about him.

Like: "Are you sure that isn't really flax seed oil?"

370 I think my granny had it waiting for me under the tree 16 years ago as well. The battles were cool, but having to wait through a com v. com season game was the worst.

374 I must've spent an entire holiday break playing that game. I never could figure out why the Boston franchise had only cyborgs. I guess they figured the cybords' high OBP could outweigh an inability to defeat a tank in battle.

378 A site could be opened to get a good answer to that one. "Ask Jason!" or "Ask Barry!" or "Ask Mark!" or ...

I guess I'm done. I don't like to be boring.

History is what happened, not what I wish it would be.

Someone clearly hasn't spent enough time editing Wikipedia pages.

380 Ah, I misread that as you were age 16, not 16 years ago.

I don't like to be boring

Just in your wardrobe.

I need a Kuroda decision to move on with my life.

I had a dream last night that the Dodgers traded Ethier for Ben Sheets straight up. My first reaction was thinking I needed to get to a computer to see what Dodger Thoughts had to say.

389

Good dream, but that doesn't sound like a good trade.......... for the Brewers.

Agreed.

389 I think you're more likely to find Ben Stein in your sheets.

370 I have that game but I haven't touched it since like 6th grade.

Custom team of nothing but motorcycles. Win battles without getting hit 99% of the time just spinning. I'd intentionally get into battles running the bases and blow up their fielders for a forfeit, but that quickly got old.

I have had similar dreams. For good or bad DT is now a part of my subconscious.

384 Yeah. Without the research on the Effects of high dose HGH on athletic performance, it's just a bunch of shouting into a well.

394 This is a bad thing?

Plaschke:

"The renowned leadership of catcher Paul Lo Duca?

A sham."

389 - Reply hazy. Try again.

381 Maybe they extracted HGH from Pierre's body. Hence his small head and weak arm.

394
Nothing against DT, but I'd rather have Elizabeth Shue in my dreams then DT.

397 Who renowned it, Bill?

397

This I have to read. I can see Plaschke with the Kleenex as he's writing it.

"But first [baseball] has to feel our pain."

Speak for yourself, buddy. I'm not the one playing favorites with guys in the Dodger Clubhouse.

363 Amen. Even though MLB exploited the situation to help repair fan interest after the disastrous era of labor wars, the union would not have let them do anything about the drug problem anyway. The reserve clause was a disgrace, but the union's behavior over the past 30 years has been disgraceful as well, particularly since Marvin Miller's heir, Donald Fehr, has been running things. Since Miller has said nothing to indicate he would have done anything differently, I shed no tears when he was denied HOF honors. I admit that the jury was rigged, and that the selection of Bowie Kuhn was risible.

401
Plenty of us were big La Duca fans long before Bill used the story to sully Depodesta.
Aside from Gagne, Paul La Duca was the fan favorite up until the time he was traded.
I don't see how any of his involvement in this changes anything. As a Dodger he played with spirit, with skill, and treated Dodger fans very well.
Evidently he cheated, and it is possible he had to cheat to get his chance. Who here would not have done the same thing? If LaDuca had not given Gagne the juice would we have ever had our Gagne moments. Would you take back those moments because Gagne cheated?
I'm not a big fan of La Duca because he turned out to be jerk based on how he acted after he left the Dodgers. While with the team he was a class act outside of the clubhouse.

I agree that we should not paper over the past or pretend that unfair advantages don't exist. I don't understand why that should be taken to imply that we not change the record book. Quite the reverse. When you find out a 100 meter sprint was wind-aided, or that the sprinter was juiced, having the record stand constitutes a pretense that it happened legitimately. For the record, knowing that somebody cheated counts. Period. And that goes for Gagne, Bonds, Clemens, et al.

The energy spent on debating whether a substance that improves recovery time is unethical has been disturbing. It is a hypothetical because HGH is almost certainly harmful in the long run. If it wasn't, adults would produce more on their own, for it would have had an evolutionary benefit. The people here knowledgable in biology have proven that HGH's pathways and effects are hopelessly unknowable with today's science. I hope an effective test will be found soon, but I assume the main problem is that injected HGH is indistinguishable from the natural product---so that some arbitrary level will have to be chosen as illegal. Anyone know if this is true?

Evidently he cheated, and it is possible he had to cheat to get his chance. Who here would not have done the same thing?

That's going too far.

405 - A race is against the clock. But when a cross-section of all participants in a game are involved, to an extent that defies any parsing, you either have to throw out the record book or just leave it as is.

Individual race results are thrown out, not entire careers.

It is a hypothetical because HGH is almost certainly harmful in the long run. If it wasn't, adults would produce more on their own, for it would have had an evolutionary benefit.

Non-sequitur. As an example, my insulin production and reactivity levels would have been just fine 60 lbs. ago. The body does all kinds of things that are counterproductive as a result of normal aging: lenses harden, muscles atrophy, brain cells don't function as well, arteries harden, etc. That's scarcely proof that we shouldn't take measures to reverse those problems.

Alyssa has weighed in.

410
Alyssa suggests some kind of special recognition for players who didn't use steroids.

And who are those players again...?

410
lol

Grow up, Alyssa.

I agree with Jon, there is nothing we can do about the past. What has been done has been done, we cannot go back and correct something in the past. We can only go forward and hopefully MLB and our kids will learn from the mistakes of those who we rooted for and emulated. As for the record books, the games were played and the numbers amassed, whether it was done ethically or unethically. For those who were named in the Mitchell Report, they will be forever judged for what they are, as only that individual can be held accountable and reponsible for their own actions. For those that played the game in a morally correct condition, they'll unfortunately be clouded by suspicion nonetheless. The period from 1990 to about 2005 will forever be known as the 'Steriod Era' in MLB history. Whther one agrees with the Mitchell Report or not, it is creating dialogue to hopefully eradicate PED's from sports at all levels.

408 It isn't just the clocked result that is thrown out in track and field. Medals are redistributed. Legitimacy requires that we not honor those known to have cheated. We do not insist that first we must know whether the competition cheated as well.

328 The real answer is that Marion Jones isn't a billion dollar a year industry. It's in nobody's financial interest to deal with the problem too harshly. That is why Selig kept his head in the sand for so long. Way back when baseball was little more than the corner soda shop, no one was bigger than the integrity of the game. Now, baseball is McDonald's and everyone is. This is one of the trade-offs we have to accept in the modern game.
The silver lining is that fans can still just try to enjoy the game for the game's sake. Ignore all the hype, the home run contests, the Fox strike zone report by Menin and enjoy the game.

413
Why does it end in 2005? You really think testing is preventing people from still taking drugs? Maybe a small number are more weary of it, but the ones that want to cheat will cheat.

Just look at the NFL. Do you really think there is no steroid or HGH use in that league? And they have had testing for awhile.

Trainwreck has the perfect name for the day.

Because that's what this is like, watching a trainwreck.

Darn. A 350 game winner, the all time home run leader and the all time consecutive save leader. And LoDuca. phpphtt At least the pitchers and the hitters were doing it, so that makes it a little bit fair.

Sorry if someone else has made this point, but changing the record book in a team sport leads to a very slippery slope. Where do you stop? What about people who cheated just a little, for a limited period of time? Should we develop different diacritical marks for cifferent degrees of guilt? As the not-so-great Chief Justice White said, "to state the proposition is to refute it." How do you reinterpret the past? Should we try to analyze the results where Bonds was batting against Gagne, as opposed to someone who may or may not have been "clean?"
I am not absolving anyone of guilt, least of all Bud Lite, but just stating my view that this whole search for reactions is a totally sterile exercise, and we should just move on for lack of any other productive action.

I wondered about guys like Donnels and Hiatt who were knocking the hide off the ball in AAA but couldn't stick in the big leagues. Maybe steroids turns a AAAA player into a AAAA and a half player.
On a more sober note, I know a guy who seriously abused steroids along with other substances and had a kid who had profound birth defects. His wife eventually checked out of life and he lives in a world of guilt. What's it say about our celebrity culture that guys would risk that for fan love , hollow records and some bank.
Give me Ruth ,abusing beer and hot dogs any day.

The NFL just says thanks Shawn Merriam we will see you in 4 weeks.

Why is basbeall so different? Is it the individual records?

Wow, everybody really was doing it. It's like the Simpsons episode where the dog actually does eat Bart's homework.

Perfectly said, Jon. I agree 100%.

421
Records are part of it and people in general just seem to not care about football players doing steroids, because it is practically a given they do. They have been caught in the past and will continue to.

Almost like people are offended that baseball players have to take drugs.

421
Also, a lot of people think football is a sport for barbarians, while baseball is the intellectual game. I bet there is more intellectual arrogance in baseball fans compared to the other major sports.

414 - But in this case, we know members of the competition cheated as well. Show me how you're going to redistribute baseball stats when pitchers, batters and fielders all cheated simultaneously. If Bonds didn't hit those home runs, how do you account for those runs?

Just because someone's in a record book doesn't mean you have to honor him. That's a choice. I won't honor Gagne's streak - that doesn't change that it happened, or that I enjoyed it while it was happening.

We're living, thinking creatures, each and every one of us. We can interpret. We're capable of perspective. I have an asterisk in my mind next to the entire pre-Jackie Robinson era. I'll have an asterisk next to the current era. That's my personal choice, and it works for me. Your personal choice is not that different, and it will work for you. Neither of us baseball to impose it for us.

Who even looks at the baseball record book, and of that group, who looks at it without also looking at baseball history books? Drug use in baseball is not in danger of being forgotten.

When I wrote "No asterisks" up top, I was referring to the record book. Probably should have made that clearer. But I stand by what I wrote - what I learned today doesn't change what I experienced yesterday.

421 Chapter and verse has been written about why there is a difference in viewpoints.

Maybe later on, I can post my thoughts but lets just say that in general, numbers resonate more in baseball than just about any other pro sport.

426 - missing word

"Neither of us needs baseball to impose it for us."

OT:

My wife and I found out today that we are expecting a boy!

Just wanted to pass that on

429 Yay! Congratulations!

Nice Kev!!! Yeah!!

429
Congratulations!

Now having read the full Plaschke, I think he misses the point entirely.

The players cited in it are probably just examples of what a thorough, intrusive study with perfect detection would have found. It is manifestly unfair to focus on, say, Gagne or even Bonds. Thus, if the report is being read as the black list of cheating players, as Plaschke does, it is being misread.

Surely there are more trainers than those cited who routed drugs to players. The proportions are probably off, but the analogy to this report is if we assumed that the only illegal aliens in the US are the ones the feds catch.

The sole point of the report should be to force action on the part of owners, the union and the league to protect the integrity of the game and the players' health. In that respect, the report is valuable if a little behind the curve -- since testing has already begun. But nothing serves the powers-that-be more than to make this report about individual players. Plaschke, always pandering to the crowd, walks right into that intellectual trap.

By the way...has LoDuca officially signed the new contract, or could this change things for him?

426 Bill James once said that the Hall of Fame should induct just about every player who played in the 1930's if you use their stats as a measuring stick to other periods of time.

Sure, he was being a bit sarcastic but his point was, you have to look at each period in its own context. Perhaps Ken Griffey, Jr. and Jeff Kent will get even more HOF love because they are not tarnished by this (as well as Bagwell and Biggio) but to think that this is any different then the Deadball Era, the first juiced ball era, the pre-integration era, the high pitching mound era, the astroturf era or now the PED/small ballpark era, is just ignoring baseball history.

How long until Sammy claims he only used roids for batting practice?

we need some new/different news.

426 You're right. I don't say this to suck up, I don't say this because I respect you and the site and the commenters. You are very right.

But.

I hate, literally hate, that this happened. This sport has been sullied, badly. Do I need to grow up because of that? I won't. Sports makes me young, reminds me of when I was young, I'm not expecting innocence from my heroes and I know cheating happens but this whole steroid thing... well, I'm rambling again but I just hate that it happened and I really, truly wish it didn't. It's awful.

And it's still my favorite sport. And it will be. And I'm looking forward to the season.

416 You are right, 2005, think that was the year harsher fines and penalties were agreed upon for positive testing, might be off? You are correct, it is only human nature to find a competitive edge. The prevalence of drugs in all sports will continueas long as there are users, the suppliers will be lurking.

No Hee Seop on the list because I think that Paul only gave shots to white players.

438 - SB, I hate that it happened too, but I hate other things more.

433 - Plaschke's main concern seems to be that because we all bashed the last batch of so-called users, we all better bash this batch of users. As if we all felt the same way about the last batch.

Is making sure we remember to keep Roger Clemens out of the Hall of Fame really the most relevant lesson from today?

The most useful part of the Mitchell report is that we all learn about multiples of 240.

As a side note, I know a pitcher for the Dodgers in the 1970 time range. His doctor in high school tried to give him steroids. He rufused, I think.

I think I finally get the vehemence you all feel about Plaschke. I don't understand what the point of the article was for today, other than to hop on a high horse and make broad declarations. As if he is the person who will talk me into being rational and moving on. I don't have any other words, but the piece was absolute garbage. How does he not feel dirty when he writes this kind of stuff?

I truly wish that Mitchell had found a way not to name names. I understand why he did it, but in doing so, it works against his basic point: that steroid use in the sport is pervasive.

By naming names, it sets up a tiered system, damning those who it names and seeming to clear -- at least for now -- those it doesn't. I know that it doesn't actually clear anybody of anything, but I fear that at least one reaction to this will be that "the list is as surprising for the names it doesn't include as for the names it does."

Not naming names would have set up a guessing game, of course, and it's probably best that that's avoided. Also, having facts to back up what he says necessitates that Mitchell names names.

Still, I can't help but wonder if some of the guys who are named are thinking about former teammates who happened to order from a different ring and wonder why their names aren't in the news.

Meaning: it is certainly possible that this is all going to get worse before it gets better.

406 It's not unknowable. It's just unknown because it hasn't been researched yet. I wish the MR had included dosing information.

409 All of the things you list are things that, in a primitive environment without medical science, would be counterproductive from an evolutionary viewpoint. They are in the same category as excess HGH production. Remember that in that light, the only reason for us to exist is to continue passing the genes along. Given enough time and no medical intervention, diabetics, the near-sighted, those with a predisposition towards hardening arteries, and those with execss HGH production would be selected against. We work to elimate all of these, including pitutitary disorders, to increase individual's odds of survival.

Remember: Medical science is not evolution. It is an opposing force allowing the weaker members of the species to survive and reproduce.

How will Houston feel about Tejada now? Any concern for continued regression?

445 - Meaning: it is certainly possible that this is all going to get worse before it gets better.

Corollary: this remains an open threat to the MLBPA.

429 Congratulations!

More props to David Eckstein for doing what he has done for so many years. And please don't add, "You mean be over-rated?"

429 Congratulations! Are you going to name him Mitchell?

429 Congrats! Any namesakes?

I'm with Nate--I find all this tiresome, and would like more news on Kuroda.

WWSH

449 That's exactly my point. There is no evidence that David Eckstein has not used steroids.

Well, apart from the fact that he's barely bigger than me, and I am a very small man. If I were any smaller, I would have to shop in the boys' department.

But the point stands. Before we give props to anybody for doing anything "clean," we need to remember that use of steroids in the sport is pervasive. All we know is that the guys named are named, and the guys not named are not named. Everything else is meaningless.

Hey, there's real David Eckstein news on the Griddle!

448 You're right, of course.

Baseball needs a truth and reconciliation commission. We need to write a "we will forgive" letter to MLB and to its players. Daylight is the best antiseptic, right? Getting everything out in the open, without the fear of anyone being punished, may be the only way to move on.

426 "...what I learned today doesn't change what I experienced yesterday."
For your sake, I wish that were true.

456 - Maybe you mean "for my sake," as in for your sake. Me, I can still feel the visceral pleasure of Gagne's curveball against the Yankees, of Lo Duca's 6 for 6 and sliding into the dugout, and put the new information about that on a different, more intellectual channel.

373 - bummer, I was really hoping there was some sort of list somewhere. I only ask because I noticed that Citizen Kane falls into the public domain in 2036 (weird wikipedia search string), and figured there might be a list somewhere.

Oh well.

As many of you have pointed out, the steroid/hgh thing is so boring i'm personally numb by it, I'm done with it too...

No. I meant for your sake. Are you telling me that the magic of those moments will still live forever in your memory?

Who would have guessed that the local talk shows missed the biggest LA story of the day.

http://tinyurl.com/yrbpfu

458
You're more than welcome to come down to the Central Library and peruse old Copyright Office registers and try to do the math and figure out which law is applicable to which type of work.

Also I know a guy named Augeas who needs his stables cleaned out.

452 Let's start of Citizen Kane thread.

"I remember a game back '06, I was sitting in the Reserved Level when Nomar strode to the plate. He was wearing Dodger blue that night, his bat twitching against the lights of the late night. Suddenly a roar rose as the ball climbed into the darkness. I yelled Nomah but he didn't respond. Yet barely a month goes by when I don't think of that night"

462 What a coincidence. I have two rivers that I need to re-route.

462 I once spent a day buying bootlegged copies of a '50s sitcom whose copyright expired.

461 That's great to hear on such a stormy day. Hopefully the happy-family bit keeps up tonight v. the Spurs.

"In Chavez Ravine, a stately pleasure dome Frank McCourt decree."

467 Is Jamie the first or second Mrs. Kane?

And who is Jed?

We're living, thinking creatures, each and every one of us. We can interpret. We're capable of perspective. We don't need baseball to impose it for us. We need baseball to take steps to address this problem for the future.

This has been another edition of "I wish I wrote that."

462 - yeah, I'm not that interested, though I see the Copyright office has a searchable database, but you'd think "expiration date" would be a search criteria.

464 - I'd actually rather help re-route the rivers.

470
Since most copyrights now are good for the life of the author plus 95 years, "expiration date" would be a tough field to search on, unless my idea for life clocks in people's palms is adopted.

460 - As long as the braincells cooperate, the magic of experiencing those moments will live forever with me.

471 And you can thank Mrs. Sonny Bono for that piece of legislation.

460
Yes
This is professional sports where the only goal is winning and entertainment, not sportmanship.
Todays players already have a ton of advantages over their counterparts. From Lasik surgery, TJ Surgery, liquid being squirted into joints so they stay lubricated, to helmets, to body armor. I'm not going to lose any sleep over some additional chemical additives and it certainly won't effect my memory of what I enjoyed. Knowing that Jimmy Wynn was hyped up on greenies didn't change my appreciation for how he could take a walk and hit so many home runs in the hardest park in baseball to hit a home run. Maybe I'm jaded but I don't expect the professional athlete to have any more of a morale compass then the culture they live in.

I'm a Virginia Tech grad. Over the last few months I've tried to remember the sheer joy of Michael Vick's 1999 season, and of Tech playing in the national championship. But I always come back to dogs, and a sad sense of loss. I feel that way today too about Gagne and Dukie. Not surprised--I expected to see LoDuca on there--but just that same sense of regret, something lost never to be found. I envy those who feel differently.

KABC local news just reported that Milton Bradley was on the list. I think I'm angrier about the made up list than the real one.

I was wondering what people made of the interview with Boras the otherday; specifically his comments that it was important in Andruw signing with the Dodgers that players like Loney, Kemp, Hu, Ethier, were going to be kept.

Did other people take that to mean that he sought and received assurances, as far as they can go, that the core of young talent with not be traded away? I thought it was good to hear anyway that Andruw and the Dodgers thought they had the talent to win in the next few years.

Just as long as you have your daily dose about something to be angry about.

Milton Bradley, Brian Roberts the list goes on & on... But like TC says I ain't losing any sleep over it.

477
That didn't get much play but it was an interesting comment. I know Kemp is not a Boras client so it wasn't like Boras was trying to project his own. Sounded to me like Andruw Jones was impressed with our kids and wanted them around. A Jones is going to be a Dodger for more then two years. Just a hunch.

A Jones is going to be a Dodger for more then two years

Is a Pierre?

They got the list right the second time through, so, maybe somebody in the Disney Corporation knows how to read.

480

It was funny when Boras was saying all those names and then...*Abreu!

*the only boras client out of the bunch.

That said, we are probably selling Abreu short.

440 paul lo duca didn't give choi any 'roids because they were traded for each other and thus were never on the same team.

457 i feel exactly the same way, with an added tinge of sadness for the present moment.

479 i don't remember seeing bradley's name on the list. is he on it?

A Jones is going to be a Dodger for more then two years. Just a hunch.

Thats fine. But like what D4P is implying, it really isn't that much of a net positive when Jones has Pierre starting to either side of him.

aside from eric gagne, i think the two names that disappoint me the most are rick ankiel and jack cust. i thought they were both nice feel-good stories.

483
Did you see the Abreu MLE? It showed him with an OPS over 800.

487

Yea that was surprising. If Team Boras can drill some more plate discipline into him, he could turn out to be like Orlando Hudson.

Just for fun since our outfield configuration might be Kemp/Jones/Pierre, I did a little research, and found that the last time the opening day lineup had an all African-American outfield was 1980. Without cheating can you name the outfield? Two of the three should be easy and when you think of who might be playing LF for us in 2008, the 3rd should also drop from your subconsious where you had it locked away lest the painful memories cause you sleepless nights.

486
They still are.

Anyone else watching the Broncos v. the Texans? If so, don't you feel like it's a Notre Dame broadcast or a Triple Crown race?

490 well, i think it's also reasonable to feel slightly less good about it.

489
Dusty Baker, Derrel Thomas, Reggie Smith?

491
He has the NFL Network! He's a witch!

491
Those Texan jerseys look really stupid.

Those memo notes from the Oct 2003 Dodger front office meeting are amazing.
Same with those notes from the Red Sox about acquiring Gagne.

Questions ;if the Dodgers had these suspicions, did they have any obligation to do anything about them?
Could they have done anything about them under baseball rules, other than eventually trading Lo Duca and Brown, and letting Gagne walk?
Doesn't reflect well on the Evans/Tracy regime; not to mention Plaschke's undying love for Lo Duca.

496 apparently plaschke's love of the high horse is greater than his love for lo duca. lo duca is now a "sham".

493
And I'm shocked you missed. Back to the rebus bus for you. I thought my hint was plenty good.

474 That may be the most discouraging thing I've read all day. Acceptance of cheating and dishonesty in professional sports diminishes all of us who enjoy sports. The world and professional sports will never be perfect, but that does not prevent us from striving for perfection and doing so within the rules of the game.

yeah I was not sure if they were Boras clients, but assumed they couldn't all be. I took at as another sign that Ned Co is committing to the idea of keeping the core young talent.

494 Careful or I'll turn you into a newt.

489
Is Curacao in Africa or America?

I've been surfing the web for any news of Kuroda but there isn't anything, but I'm sure it's in the bag right?

You know what I'll take the back I don't wanna jinx it.

502

[ http://tinyurl.com/3b3pyf ]

er, I'll take that back, that is. for 504

499
I'm sorry you feel that way. The divide between what I expect from profesional athletes and amateur athletes is as wide as the Grand Canyon to me. I've been reading about cheating major league baseball players for 40 years so it just doesn't bother me.
Every day when I'm being paid to work and I'm reading the internet or writing on the internet I'm cheating my employer of what he's paying me for. I can hardly think the worse of others who also cheat.

502
Curacao is in the Caribbean.

505 i may be wrong here, but i believe 502 was meant in a more rhetorical, slightly sardonic manner :)

Oops, looks like I layed an egg. Anyway the last African-American Dodger opening day outfield was:
Smith
Law - a dead ringer for Juan Pierre
Baker

And I guess it will stay that way for a while.

502
Sorry, I guess I broke Rule 7.

510 you could've just called them "black" without the geographical quibbles.

512
My point.
(Without the "rhetorical, slightly sardonic manner," of course)

511
No, I just can't be bothered to scroll up.

Yes, fine, but I'm a small enough man to ask what continent the Carribean belongs to.

513 Guy's got jokes. Guy's got jokes.

512
No, because I didn't want to include the Carribean blacks. For some reason I actually thought A Jones was African-American. I made the distinction because I remember when Delino DeShields bemoaned the fact he was the only black player on the Dodgers and Mondesi wondered what the heck he was. I wasn't trying to be politically correct, as I would normally use the term black or white but in this case I was looking for geographical distinction.

If you put a gun to my head, I would call the Carribean part of South America.

But it disturbs me not to know.

If Bob doesn't clear this up soon, I'm going to have to actually look it up I'm afraid.

Curacao would identify itself more closely with South America than North America.

I know Curacao belongs to the Netherlands, because Jones has held up the flag from the Netherlands before and Braves broadcasters used to mention it a lot.

Also, I remember Netherlands wanted Jones for WBC.

Politically, Curacao is part of Europe.

517 When I was a much younger and shorter baseball fan, I thought George Bell was African-American. The first time I heard him interviewed, I had a virtual question mark above my head.

Curacao is the largest island in the Netherlands Antilles. Aruba pulled out the Netherlands Antilles in 1986, but it too is still part of the Netherlands.

Curacao is a tiny island but the same M.O, from Wikipedia>>>The original inhabitants of Curaçao were Arawak Amerindians. The first Europeans to see the island were members of a Spanish expedition under the leadership of Alonso de Ojeda in 1499. The Spaniards decimated the Arawak with diseases such as smallpox and measles.

Interesting read non the less.

522
That surprised me too.

Politcally sure. But I am talking about continents.

We have seven of them. (Eurasia, shmurasia.)

All land mass belongs to one or the other.

And the Caribbean is not in Europe.

523

all of the Islands are small though. [ http://tinyurl.com/28xgb8 ]

I didn't realize how close Curacao was to Venezuela untill I read the Wikipedia page.

What young players did Boras specifically mention in that interview? And where did people see Abreu's MLE?

I always imagine everything in Curacao being a nice shade of blue.

529
http://www.truebluela.com/story/2007/12/11/154835/99
I pulled them from Baseball HQ.

526
Are we talking geological plates? Or do we just want to arbitrarily assign the islands of the Caribbean to a large land mass? Perhaps the other continents should hold auditions? Antarctica could use some company.

The Netherlands Antilles plays in CONCACAF for soccer purposes, although three states on the South American continent do as well.

All of the Caribbean states are in CONCACAF.

I believe every nation or state should be defined by FIFA. So Israel is in Europe.

499 I concur.
I think turning a blind eye to corruption of any kind is a recipe for self-deception and disaster in the long run. Are any of you people parents? "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" may make life easier in the short turn, but it's like a virus leading to the slow going-out of the light in the souls of us. There cannot be allowed to be any grey matter in right vs. wrong. This is as true on a family level as it is on a national and/or organization level.
I think MLB has got to introduce drug testing before Division Championship, League Championship and World Series games (similar to what FIFA does in soccer, and what the Olympics Committee does in the Olympics). Anyone testing postive would not be allowed to play, and forfeits all rights to financial (or other) benefits the winning team receives.

529. From memory he mentioned Kemp, Loney, Ethier, Hu and Abreu.

527
I heard that a scout was sitting on a beach when a home run hit by A Jones from another island landed at his feet.

Of course last years MLE champion for the Dodgers was Sergio Pedroza, so it's not the best system. Granted, it does work a lot better for players like Abreu.

526 According to Wikipedia, the Caribbean doesn't seem to belong to any of the seven continents:

"The caribbeans [sic] ... is a region of the Americas consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (most of which enclose the sea), and the surrounding coasts. The region is located southeast of North America, east of Central America, and to the north and west of South America."

I would have opted for Central America (not a continent either - part of the North American continent) but it seems not. As others have said, Curacao (and several other islands) are awfully close to Venezuela, none so much. mind you, as Trinidad - where they play cricket.

533

Really good point Connector, it's the never ending story of cops & robbers.

533
I did not have children because my moral compass is out of whack, so you can rest assured I will not be passing on my bankrupted values. I tend to let my outrage flow toward matters of little importance like war and the like and not toward how professional athletes desecrate a sanctimonious game.

Watched the last four episodes of "The Wonder Years" tonight.

Sad.

536
I post the MLE's because they are interesting not because I believe in them. After JtD had the great AA season, his MLE showed him with a 500 slug% and I got much to excited.
Still the Abreu MLE was very surprising to me.

539 is your outrage reservoir a non-renewable resource?

535 hah, really? that sounds so improbable it feels apocryphal.

532 I am willing to deem Andruw Jones from Antarctica if you are.

If the Dominican Republic is part of the Caribbean, did the Giants ever play the first all Caribbean outfield in 1962?
Felipe Alou
Matty Alou
Manny Mota

ToyCannon has reached peak outrage.

The only thing you shouldn't think about is what D4P's wife thought she saw in them. That way madness lies. For everything else, it's okay to think about it.

I've bought one of my Christmas presents for myself. I got a regional (Germany-Austria) Eurail pass.

Nothing beats Bavaria in the wintertime!

Here's some different news: If you've been waiting for Will Arnett to be cast as the voice of KITT in a remake of Knight Rider, wait no longer!

548
But the guy from The Graduate and Boy Meets World is still alive!

539 Around my house, my son pays virtually no attention to organized sports, in part because he thinks it's all messed up. When the Dodgers traded Piazza, he was 8, and he's never forgiven them, and pretty much stopped paying more than cursory attention. If I'm excited about a Dodger moment, I share it with my wife. We're more comfortable with gray areas.

One of the things I've learned from raising kids is that there is a strong innate morality. It's children who claim that X is "not fair." As we grow older, we learn that sometimes you have to swallow the injustice of the world -- unfortunately.

Kids play video games now where fairness is a feature programmed into it. In a way, the electronic world shelters them.

It seems like baseball has grown old along with me.

549
When I was trainwreck's age, I could rattle off all of William Daniels' credits.

548 Does Will Arnett smoke, like, four packs of smokes a day? He is the Phlegm Master.

532 - Isreal in Europe would go a long way to solving a lot of the world's problems.

507 - I want to believe that athletes at both levels are clean. Even though I know/suspect that many (if not most) at both levels are not clean. Perhaps it's a hold over from my playing days and being the first guy in, last guy out, to think that some one else passed me by because he was shooting up... well, I don't have words to explain it.

548 remake of knight rider? wherefore?

548
The Cardinal women prevail over USC in 5 games and move on to the finals of the NCAA volleyball championship. They'll face either Cal or Penn State.

Jon will have a grudge match against someone here.

A Cal-Stanford final would be interesting.

USC almost pulled off the upset. They were leading 14-13 and serving in the fifth game and then served it long to tie the score and Stanford scored the next two times.

551 have you ever auditioned for jeopardy?

"The Roles of William Daniels" has likely never been a category.

William Daniels made a pretty good living despite almost always playing the same character. Even when he got to be in a musical "1776", he played a guy who had a rod up his butt.

557 so, i take it that's a "no"? :)

My knowledge of the career of William Daniels is a public service, not something for profit.

My knowledge of [arcane trivia] is a public service, not something for profit

and we're all better for it.

William Daniels vs. William Windom in a wry-off!

555
That is interesting that it was so close. I saw the second game and Stanford was absolutely dominating that one. I just figured they would destroy them after that.

561
One of my earliest TV memories was sitting on my Mom's lap while the whole family watched "My World and Welcome to It." It took me many years to understand why it had a cartoon beginning and end.

550 Given the prevalence of and players' enjoyment in cheat codes for those video games, I'm not so sure about your premise. ;)

http://tinyurl.com/2724yt

In this WSJ blog post, there's this passage that I thought shed some light on the different perspectives fans and players:

I was disappointed, but I could go on. Why? A couple of reasons. One was reading "The Soul of Baseball," a superb book by the Kansas City Star sportswriter Joe Posnanski, recounting his travels with the late Negro League legend Buck O'Neil. Mr. Posnanski told how people kept coming up to Mr. O'Neil to vent their spleens about steroids, figuring he'd agree with them and act like what they expected him to be — a paragon of a better time. But Mr. O'Neil wouldn't do that. Instead, he'd say that every player he'd known had looked for an edge. Baseball, and the men who play it, are a lot more ruthless than we think. They have to be — it's a big part of why they've survived to play at the pinnacle of their profession.

That's invisible to us in the stands or watching TV — and that invisibility is one of baseball's secret strengths. To lifelong fans like me, the smallest details of the game are beautiful — the shadow of an outfielder growing long on green grass, the arc of a perfect 12-to-6 curve, the little crouches and hops of the infielders as the pitcher goes into his windup. That beauty also hides a lot of things we can't see and don't want to see.

With Contract in Hand, Rodriguez Knocks Boras

>> Rodriguez severely criticized his longtime agent, Scott Boras, for the handling of his opt-out, and blamed himself for nearly losing his chance to return to the Yankees.

"The whole thing was a mistake," Rodriguez said. "It was a huge debacle. For me, it was very stressful. It was a very humbling experience. <<

http://tinyurl.com/2ykgas

565
That was one of the things that really endeared me to the O'Neil book. I thought O'Neil would be a more self-righteous Bob Feller or Jim Bunning type. But he wasn't. He was just himself.

564 Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start?

Paul Pressey has a daughter who is old enough to be playing volleyball at Cal.

I think it's probably best for me to take a break from baseball for a few days. The Mitchell Report and all the self-righteous logorrhea it's created is making my head hurt. All over what a few guys put into their bodies, which, by the way, belong to them and not us. I'm a lot more interested in knowing what kinds of drugs Sen. Mitchell is on than I am in knowing what substances Jack Cust or David Segui may or may not have used. Days like today, I'm embarrassed to be part of the country whose citizens decided this man was fit to hold elective office. We've got ourselves another good old-fashioned witch hunt here, fueled almost entirely by rumor and hysteria, and like all other witch hunts in history, the society that participated in it and condoned it will probably eventually regret doing so. Eventually.

The most sane reaction to the report I've read so far has, interestingly, come from Burnt Orange Nation, a blog covering Longhorns football and basketball:

"MUSEUM DENOTATION GUIDE

* -- Attached to records held by players alleged to have used steroids.

# -- Attached to records held by players who accumulated statistics before African-Americans were allowed to play in the major leagues.

^^ -- Attached to records held by players who scuffed baseballs in any way.

% -- Denotes that a manger was accused of stealing signs on at least one occasion.

@ -- Indicates that a player allegedly used amphetamines of some kind.

$ -- Player or manager may have improperly influenced the outcome of a game or series.

GIFTS UPON EXITING THE MUSEUM

(1) On your way out, please pick up one of our complimentary mirrors and mail it to your local Congressman. Feel free to include a note about how pleased you are that they're happy to pander in front of the cameras to the parents of the poor children exposed to all these evils. If you're feeling spunky, we recommend further applauding Congress' excellence in balancing budgets, managing wars, and avoiding scandals of their own."

Here's a much more boring list to read.

2008 Dodgers with option years remaining
Abreu (2 years remaining)
Alvarez (3)
Brazoban (1)
Houlton (1)
Hu (3)
Hull (2)
LaRoche (1)
May (3)
McDonald (3)
Miller (1)
Orenduff (3)
Paul (3)
Repko (1)
Stults (2)
Troncoso (3)
Wade (3)

Note: an option year is used if at any point during the season a player is on the 40-man roster and in the minors (except for rehab assignments).

I did not include Billingsley, Broxton (2), Ethier (2), Kemp, Loney, Martin, or Proctor, who all have option years remaining but virtually zero chance they will be optioned to the minors.

Also, technically Beimel has an option year remaining but since he has 5+ years of MLB service time he has to agree to be sent down, effectively negating his option.

568 Congratulations. You're about to beat the game of Contra.

568
Exactly what I was thinking.

572 Good to know. I just found out I can download Contra onto my phone.

572 I'd love to post some Guitar Hero codes, but I'm pretty sure "yellow fret" and "orange fret" don't mean as much as that time-tested Contra code.

574 The sequence as posted might be missing a "B, A" sequence, though. Hard to remember exactly; it's been about 15 years.

576 My hands (on an NES controller) probably remember better than my mind, which is why I double checked here first:

http://tinyurl.com/7g5c5

Beating Contra without the cheat warrants you to be a game master. Like you're the Wiz.

578 Would you have to battle some guy wearing The Power Glove™?

575 Yo Bro Go Rob Bob

579 - now, there is something that I had pretty much blocked from my mind.

579
Yes, and you would have to play Mario 3 and you would know the cheats even though you had never played the game before.

ok, two things I had blocked from my memory, the power glove and the Wizard.

583 California! ... California!

582 I'd like to see The Power Glove™ boy do this:

http://tinyurl.com/38au6f

584
lol I knew what that was before even checking out the link. But that guy does use some tricks to do that.

Guitar Hero...the death of our culture.

We're too lazy to learn to play.

What next, simulate marraige? Births? Virtual funerals?

Am I the only one that finds Flanders insistence on a short term deal with A Jones counter productive? I'm thinking we all like A Jones, have no real CF in the system besides Kemp and beetlejuice...wouldn't 3 years of Torre and Andruw seem nice given he's only 30?

Two years, he hits 30+ hrs and hits the market again.

We're cryin in our beer.

585 I wish I were that good back in the day. I would've been a god at my school ... at least among my video-game-playing friends.

I love the Power Glove&trade

It's so bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCEsLHNT0Bc

586

Boras and Jones either wanted short term or long term, no in between.

584 - wow, just wow.

587 - yeah, that would have been something. I was just good enough to beat Zelda in less than 5 lives (think my personal best was 3).

I really want to play Super Mario Brothers now.

for those still interested, with just under 17000 votes, the Ethier/Jones/Kemp outfield won with 69.2% of the vote.

586 Something tells me the Dodgers will extend 'Dru's contract if/when he hits 30+ HRs in the first year of this deal. It seems like they agreed to a two-year deal and a handshake, wink-wink agreement for an extension if/when things go well for all.

As for the death of our culture, that's a little blown out of proportion, no?

586 Can't you do both? Getting immediate feedback and sounding good immediately sure beats the year it's taken me to get out a decent version of Louie Louie and Two Tickets To Paradise. You might as well ask someone who plays Call Of Duty to join the army for all the good Guitar Hero helps you with playing the guitar.

588 That made me laugh out loud. But who was that guy? What is this fellow:

http://tinyurl.com/33galo

586
I was told some people on World of Warcraft had a virtual funeral for one of the people they played with who actually died. But apparently, they told everyone where they were having it and to leave them alone and some people came by and killed them all.

Sorry, but I don't understand why every sabermetrically minded fan has to hate the Mitchell report. As he and others have said many times, steroid users put pressure on others to do something illegal and unsafe in order to keep up with the Jones'. And they basically encourage young athletes to do likewise. This isn't marijuana we're talking about, so I don't see why it's relevant that it's their own bodies and not ours that they're injecting the stuff into.

whats funny is, you can walk into Tijuana, literally get any drug or steroid that you want, and walk out unmolested.

this is hilarious.

597 Mr. T has no comment.

600 but what about Shaman Shatner?

593 How many times did you vote for the best OF option? My count ended at six (twice at home, twice at work and twice at my mom's) for EJK.

598 I personally hate it because it's naming names, not creating real solutions, and it's really just going to be used as a way to attack people that we already hate.

Until Jorge Piedra gets as much hate as Barry Bonds, I'm not buying this as a "we all hate steroids" thing. Heck, this thing has made me feel sorry for Barry Bonds, do you know how terrible that is?

602
I voted at least 10 times.

601 Nice. Shatner was there, I'm sure. Unless Priceline© was in the middle of another negotiation.

Of course, I also set my hits record because I was the first person to get the complete list out, so I like that aspect of the report.

How long did it take to parse the names from the PDF?

The Griddle got an insane number of hits and I hardly did any work. Ken put up the main thread.

People must love the rebus puzzles.

Shimman

if you can recover sooner than normal then fatigue plays a far less role in things...hitting home runs is based on contact and bat speed. If HGH causes less or no fatigue because you are recovering quicker then you wont lose bat speed caused by fatigue and may hit more home runs. the same with pitch velocity, and the amount of innings and pitches a pitcher is able to throw at top form.

those facts alone are a form of Unnaturally making you better and therefore is cheating.

607 20 minutes, but I did miss a couple.

603. Fair enough. But there's so much laissez-faireness about steroid use by the sabermetric community, in addition to specific animosity directed at the Mitchell report. I just want to reiterate: they put pressure on players not using, which would almost be OK if it weren't dangerous and against federal law. And it bugs me that a lot of people whose commentary on this board I respect take the same stance they do at Baseball Prospectus that there have always been cheaters anyway so who cares. I find it to be a rather selfish view.

I'm a student in medical school. Say 10% of my peers were taking illegal performance enhancers that made their brains bigger, but there were side effects. I would find it infuriating if outside observers said "Who cares, they're doing it to themselves and it doesn't affect me personally." You know what else would really tick me off is if people said "Medical students have been cheating in school since time immmemorial so who cares."

I don't watch South Park much but I just finished watching the imagination series. If they had Superman on their side why did they need Santa? All kidding aside I loved the series.
My wife can't handle the show so I don't watch it often. She teaches 10 year olds and just can't handle the language of the kids. It kind of reminds me of the office in which I'm uncomfortable the whole time I'm watching the show but it still makes me laugh.

611 I agree, I think there needs to be a serious effort to get steroids out of baseball. There needs to be random blood testing at all times. But, lots of people did it, and villanizing a specific few just seems wrong. We just have to accept that a good percentage of the league was on the juice in the last 15 years, then try to improve that. There's too many guilty parties to do otherwise.

611
You make good points but if I was a patient I'd rather have the doctor whose brain was larger. I'm sorry for the side effects but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

571 Broxton (2)

The Bull has only 1 option left (not that it matters).

Called up in July 2005, then sent back to Jacksonville for the Southern League playoffs. Option #1

Sent to Vegas after Spring Training 2006, then re-called for good after Lance Carter sucked big-time. Option #2

611- At least ten percent of your peers are taking ADD medicine to concentrate with less effort.

611
In all seriousness I'm with 613 on this. I just didn't see the point in finding who did what when. I firmly believe that if McGwire had broken Aarons record instead of Bonds the Mitchell report would never have been created.
I'm all for testing and going forward. Going backward is for the vindictive and it is pointless. JMO

615
Thanks! I missed when Broxton was sent down in 2005. I did a quick search of minor league stats and incorrectly assumed when he was called up 7/29 that he never went back down.

Eight of you have emailed me, pldeging a total of $230 to DT. I will match this amount today

Thank you all,
Dodger fan in Hong Kong

617 Join My Opinion? OK--I agree.

597 That is both the funniest and tragic thing I have read in some time.

617. In a roundabout sort of way, I think the Mitchell Report was necessary to basically help Barry Bonds (aka the Ultimate Cheater according to the media) get a fair shake from the public. Now we have a respected, independent source saying for certain what we've been suspecting for years: steroids were a huge part of the game, and a wide cross-section of players were users. But if anyone read the report, or watched the press conference, they will have duly noted that Mr. Mitchell was indeed very forward-looking. He said what's done is done, there's no need to punish past transgressors, and what we really need to worry about now is improving testing. And he also brought up the fact that non-using players complained that they felt pressure to use, and he mentioned the widespread use among high school athletes. People act like he sat there and just read names of famous players that he caught!

Mr. ToyCannon, I'm glad you're all for testing. But the Mitchell report helps - not hurts - Bonds. And you sound like Mark McGwire got voted into the Hall isntead of falling way short.

A thousand people are going to read a four hundred page report. 200 million people watched their local news station read off the names.

612 - To answer your Santa/Superman question... it's the internal story of South Park, keep in mind, they also had Jesus and God on their side. In the SP World, Santa is the absolute man (there is a Christmas episode where he goes commando inside Saddam's Iraq.

This is one of those days when I'm really going to miss the Daily Show and Colbert Report

624
He is no match for ManBearPig.

602 - I voted a lot, like twice a day for the last week. But I was just making up for the Dodger fans I know that weren't going to vote.

611 613 614
My philosophy is: There is a lifetime balance sheet for each person: On one side of the balance are angelic/right actions (non-cheating on exams, giving one's employer 8 full hours of work in an 8 hour work day, giving charity, playing baseball without illegal substances, etc). On the other side are evil/wrong actions (cheating on exams, skimming money off of public funds, using performance enhancing drugs, etc). IMHO no mortal being is completely angelic, just as no mortal being is completely evil.

The beginning motive to increase one's performance of angelic actions might be fear (of the law, or whatever) but eventually the motive becomes one of love and respect (for one's self).
I agree with those who say scapegoating the players listed in the Mitchell Report is unfair. The onus should be on those who remained silent. What's that famous Edmund Burke quote? "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Plaschke has finally admitted that trading Lo Duca was the right move and basically apologized to Depo.

http://tinyurl.com/2ccn8k

p.s. to what I wrote in 630
If what Plaschke says is true, that management was unable to test players for drug use because of players' union rules, and if MLB management didn't take the union to task over that rule, then the onus for change falls on players union and MLB management.
That said, I wonder how much each team's owner/manager stressed to their players that drug use would not be tolerated.

By the time Gagne and Brown were at their Dodgers peak in the 2003 season, it was obvious to me that both players were probably on steroids

If it was so obvious why no mention of it back then Bill?

631
Funny how he mentions an employee looking the other way when players were asking about steroids. Didn't he kind of do the same?

Not a word in Jon's post in behalf of the players that followed the rules, and were thus manhandled and taken advantage of by the cheats.

History You couldn't have said it better, Blog maker. Word for Word I thought I wrote it myself.

From Plaschke:

I wrote that sending Lo Duca out during the middle of a pennant race was one of the worst trades in team history. If DePodesta made the trade based on steroid use, then I stand corrected.

He only stands corrected if the trade was based on steroid use? How hard is it to see that, on its baseball merits alone, the LoDuca-Penny trade was easily a net positive for LA?

635
He is an idiot and it is best to ignore his existence.

Like Simers, I think he types a bunch of stuff just so people will talk about him and know him. Which is really all a lot of these sports writers want.

It got him on television.

Does Plaschke even read his own paper?

LA Times: Steroid investigation deeply implicates Los Angeles Dodgers
http://tinyurl.com/2szmng

And when Dodgers officials decided to trade Lo Duca, the report suggests, one of the reasons wasn't his own use of steroids, but the fact that he apparently had stopped taking them.

Hopefully they'll be some news on Kuroda today (good news) like that we signed him...

My hope is that Selig knows what he is doing. I do not accept the idea that "everyone cheats," so I guess we should do nothing. Nor do I accept that this has to be, or is, a witch hunt. I believe Selig went to Mitchell to do the dirty work, and bring some of the ugly stuff out into the open, that he himself could not do. This in turn will back the Union into a corner. It is only the public "outrage" that gives him the ammunition he needs to now tighten the screws on the Union, and get a more stringent testing system in place, similar to other athletic bodies around the world.
So, when various players and blog commenters get upset over the methods of investigation" etc., that they "think" are supposed to be legal, they have probably missed the point and purpose of the investigation. It isn't a trial, and never was. It is just preparation, for the real work. I do hope I have not overestimated the mind of Selig.

In regards to LoDuca, I got off his bandwagon long before any talk of steroids. As soon as he opened his mouth about player strike issues he lost me forever. Same with Bret Butler.

Glad to see no mention of Piazza or Beltre.

Opportunity has made many people do the wrong thing. When it is easy and common to get and take drugs, that opportunity creates a decision process that makes some players choose between MLB $$ or their health.

For many of those that chose health, their spot in MLB that would have been theirs had the playing field been level, wound up outside of baseball. It is not about the record book that drugs have altered, it is the careers that drug users have taken from too many non-drug taking players that is the sin.

Camille Johnston has to be working overtime now to establish that all of this happened before her boss bought the team. And here are two things she must be looking at: Stan Conte tried to rid the Giants' locker room of Bonds' trainer, but Sabean wouldn't back him up. Where was Colletti? And what was Kim Ng doing during the late FOX era when Dodger juicing reached it's height? This isn't just going to be a historical argument.

If this was discussed in posts 250-600, I apologize, but is it possible the Dodgers come off as horribly as they do in the Mitchell Report because they were one of the most cooperative organizations? That there's more dirt on the Dodgers because the Dodgers willingly provided it when other organizations did not?

633 - I think highly of them and feel badly for those who were victimized by this. Who wouldn't feel that way? I thought that went without saying. It's not as if I was praising the users.

The idea that, based on this report, the Dodgers are more complicit in the use of steroids than other orgs is preposterous. It's like saying that just because a player wasn't in the report means he had a completely clean bill of health. And I think Terry may very well be right in 644 ; the Dodgers may actually deserve more credit for releasing internal documents that probably said much the same thing as other org's internal deliberations regarding players and steroids.

WWSH

633
And so who are all these entirely blameless people? Judging from the Mitchell Report, the only clean player in the majors is Frank Thomas as he is the only player singled out as such.

Go Big Hurt!

I couldn't tolerate reading to the end of that Plaschke piece--I mean, wasn't Donnelly on the list also? Where was Scioscia then? It's as bizarre and unfounded as the idea mooted around here earlier that DePodesta traded LoDuca because he was on a crusade to "clean up" the Dodgers.

In the absence of a testing regime, and with steroid use widespread, I must assume every org. saw their use (or rumors of their use) as another data point--sometimes good, sometimes bad. A lot of the material in the LAT material included notes on the negative sides of steroid use--i.e. increased risk of tendon/ligament injury. I haven't seen clear evidence yet that the Dodgers as an org. was actually directly facilitating their use, which would be a different matter altogether.

WWSH

646 Actually, I think it's even simpler. The Mets trainer rolled, he supplied Hundley, and the Hundley trail led to Dukie and the Dodgers. If it's another trainer who folds, a different trail results. But the Dodgers still have a PR mess on their hands right now, and it's worth wondering what the PR-obsessed McCourts will now do to deal with it. Saying "hey it wasn't us" may be enough--it's the truth--but if it's not enough, what next?

645
Evidently your now being held accountable for things you don't say as well as the things you do say. Maybe you need to write a manifesto that describes your stand on every issue related to this witch hunt.
I've read several posts where intelligent posters have decried how sabremetric baseball fans have dismissed the Mitchel report and they can't understand why. Well right back at you pal. I can't understand why any intelligent human being can look at the Mitchel report and not smell a big rat.
Everyone wants to blame the players, owners, and media for looking the other way. Well who the heck were the people paying the money to watch those home runs fly out? Who was paying the money to see the new fleshed out closer storming the gates? Who turned the cheek when it was obvious what was going on? If the fans had stopped going when things got strange(Sosa/McGwire/Bonds) then I could understand some of this outrage but they didn't stop going, they kept going and the audience grew. To say they didn't know what was happening is bogus. They didn't what to know what was happening but home run records that stood for 40 years don't all the sudden get crushed without reasons. Were all to blame so I just don't get why the players need to be singled out.
The Era is over, move on or keep whining about how you feel cheated. The choice is yours.

Please, Bud Selig, be a man of your word and act swiftly. 15 games for Nomah!

649 -- I disagree that the Dodgers have any kind of "PR mess." Anybody who could look bad is long since gone from the organization, and in fact things that happened during McCourt's ownership that caused PR hiccups, like the Lo Duca trade and not re-signing Gagne, now make the Dodgers look good. But most of all, just the fact that the Dodgers don't have any current players on "the list" leaves the Dodgers better off than quite a few clubs.

650 You know this whole thing is a joke when reporters start asking NFL defensive lineman (Michael Strahan) what they think about the Mitchell Report. This is almost like an inside joke or something. Why couldnt some RB have rushed for like 3,000 yards in a season or something?

650
Polite golf applause.

633
Polite golf silence.

653 Whoa, I'm gonna go get some coffee.....or something.

651
You were probably joking, but why would Nomar get 15 games? He wasn't named anywhere in the report.

D4P had been insinuating all summer that Nomar and A Jones are ex-steroid users. That should be good enough for a 15 game suspension.

New post up top.

611 - I'm a student in medical school. Say 10% of my peers were taking illegal performance enhancers that made their brains bigger, but there were side effects. I would find it infuriating if outside observers said "Who cares, they're doing it to themselves and it doesn't affect me personally." You know what else would really tick me off is if people said "Medical students have been cheating in school since time immmemorial so who cares."

That's a bogus comparison, though. Doctors are responsible for the health, and sometimes, life or death of others. You can't say that about professional athletes.

659 et al. I was just using a personal example to illustrate how I see it. My analogy applies to any field where there is competition between people for money, status, or even being able to hold a job down at all. I'm looking at it from the players' perspective, especially the ones who feel pressure to do something that might get them physically hurt or in trouble with the law. This is why we needed a respectable inquiry into the matter. The fact that Plaschke is an absolute moron whose guts I hate even more after his article today does not render the Mitchell Report useless to me. I just want to say one last time: Please actually watch the press conference! Senator Mitchell was very forward-looking! The point was not to incriminate specific people. Some in the media might have used the report to incriminate specific people, but Mitchell's "list" was just a means to the end, which was ascertaining the fact that illegal substance abuse pervaded baseball to a degree we did not imagine when all this stuff started. And please don't say we all knew all along; BP regularly pointed to low positive result rates as evidence that steroids weren't a big part of the game. Mitchell did not stand up there and just read names off a list. He acknowledged it was a very incomplete list, and he specifically said there was no point in dwelling on the past. But I agree with everyone that it's unfortunate that CNN or whoever else did in fact stand up there and read names off a list.