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Cup of Coffee

Cup of Coffee I'm sure that Sports Illustrated will now run countless stories about how Roger Clemens is a fraud and, by extension, how the 1998-2000 Yankees championships should be vacated.

This entry was posted by SBG on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 7:33 am and is filed under Cup of Coffee. It is one of 3092 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post.

65 comments to Cup of Coffee

  • Banjo
    December 14th, 2007 at 8:21 am

    I wouldn't count it out. We're in for a healthy dose of faux outrage until the next big thing comes along - and besides even negative stories about NY, Clemens and the like will sell a lot of 'effing magazines.

    It was a master PR stroke by Bud - he's going to take a couple of body shots on the front end, and then will be heralded for his gutsy ability to take the problem head-on.

  • zooomx
    December 14th, 2007 at 8:30 am

    Ok... I slept on this topic overnight and here are my thoughts:

    1) Team accolades like world championships etc, should stay intact. Steroids were a wide-spread problem throughout baseball and you basically cant make 10+ years of baseball go away on the record books.
    2) Individual records stand except where PUD use was proven during a season in which a record was broken. Career records stand, (as much as I hate it)
    3) Individuals who used performance enchancing drugs should be banned from the hall of fame. Of course, they need to be investigated and proven, without being judge on hearsay. But, Barry Bonds, whether he "knew" he was taking PUD's or not should be banned from the HOF. If they have proof on Clemens, he should be banned as well. Sorry, but integrity of the game is more important to me than honoring a CHEATER! Not saying Roger is a cheater yet, but it doesn't look good for him right now.
    4) As much as the Mitchell Report is based up hearsay, he does make some great suggestions. Most of them (including an independent testing entity) should be used going forward.

  • zooomx
    December 14th, 2007 at 8:32 am

    I think I meant PEDs or is it PUD...I am acronym challenged

  • Jeff A
    December 14th, 2007 at 9:54 am

    I've changed my mind on this before, and I may again, but where I am right now is that we should let all the records stand, and judge players' Hall of Fame status based on what they did on the field. There are two basic reasons for this:

    1) We will never actually know who used PEDs and who did not. The Mitchell Report gives some information on this, but the fact that someone is named in this report does not mean they must automatically be guilty, and the fact that someone is not named certainly does not prove innocence. We may gain more information, but we will never really know.

    2) PED-aided or not, these players played in real games. Barry Bonds hit real home runs which contributed to real wins and losses for his teams and their opponents. Roger Clemens struck out real batters which contributed to real wins and losses for his teams and their opponents. It's the same for everyone else. What these players actually did resulted in real championships being awarded. We cannot go back in time and pretend games were not played and home runs were not hit, nor can we know what might have happened if things were otherwise.

    Again, I recognize there are arguments on the other side. This has not always been my opinion, and it may not always be my opinion. It's not as easy a question for me as it apparently is for certain pundits. But for now, I'm saying let's simply judge what the players actually did in games that actually counted.

    • Algonad
      December 14th, 2007 at 10:10 am

      I agree with Jeff A. If we are to take a hard line on cheating, we'd have to go back and take out the records of any player that used a corked bat, scuffed a baseball, used a foreign substance, etc.

    • AMR
      December 14th, 2007 at 12:12 pm

      Any proven cheating should be mentioned on a player's HOF plaque.
      Same opinion I have about Pete Rose.

      • SBG
        December 14th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

        An alternative is to paint the plaques of known cheaters red. That would really stick out in the Hall.

      • Rhubarb_Runner
        December 14th, 2007 at 1:09 pm

        Don't be lumping Pete Rose in with these guys. The PED-iphiles were only cheating themselves. Pete's actions were of a much larger scale (on a much smaller scale, if that makes sense. no, it doesn't)

        • SBG
          December 14th, 2007 at 1:44 pm

          So, Pete has to have it spelled out and everyone else gets the red plaque? No fair!

        • frightwig
          December 14th, 2007 at 3:45 pm

          The PED-iphiles were only cheating themselves.

          I'm not sure what you mean by that. If some players are taking illegal substances to give themselves a competitive edge, while others (presumably most) are not, doesn't that compromise the integrity of the game?

          • Rhubarb_Runner
            December 15th, 2007 at 7:35 am

            By taking PEDs, the players are attempting to better themselves and improve their teams' chances of winning. Betting on baseball games puts in doubt a player's intention of helping their team to win. The Black Sox are an extreme example of this.

            • frightwig
              December 19th, 2007 at 1:57 pm

              By taking PEDs, the players are attempting to better themselves and improve their teams' chances of winning.

              That's pretty close to the Pete Rose defense, when his supporters said, "But he only bet on the Reds to win."

              If that's the argument, why shouldn't players take PED's to better themselves and help their teams win? And if it adds some extra motivation, why shouldn't players (or managers) bet on themselves or their teams to do well?

              • ubelmann
                December 19th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

                That's pretty close to the Pete Rose defense, when his supporters said, "But he only bet on the Reds to win."

                Close, but there's still a substantial difference to me in that even if Rose was only betting on the Reds to win (I doubt this anyway), he was selectively betting on the Reds to win, which puts in doubt his intention of helping his team win on nights where he didn't bet on the Reds to win, where he was implicitly giving insider information to his gambling cronies that he didn't think the Reds were likely to win that night.

                [Note: I don't agree precisely with RR's position here. I do think that gambling and PEDs are different types of cheating in that gambling does put in doubt whether or not the players are out there trying to win, whereas PEDs are another manifestation of athletes using everything in their power to win. From a fan's standpoint, I feel that gambling (if unchecked) threatens to make the contests completely non-entertaining, whereas contests with drug-enhanced players, seemed to be largely the same product we had before drug-enhanced players. This is not to say that PED use is acceptable, but its most direct harm is on fellow players rather than fans.

                So, in my book, gambling and PED use are unacceptable but different. (Also, if we're talking about Pete Rose specifically, there's the matter that had Pete Rose been gambling from 1900-1910--I'm quite sure some of the players in the HOF from that era gambled on baseball--he'd probably be in the HOF, but he was gambling well after it was no longer part of the culture of baseball. If we're simply talking about inclusion in the HOF, it seems like you can draw a reasonable line that excludes Rose but would include PED users from 1985-2005. Whether or not you want to draw the line there is a personal preference, but I think you could do it while holding a consistent set of values.)]

              • frightwig
                December 19th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

                I do think that gambling and PEDs are different types of cheating in that gambling does put in doubt whether or not the players are out there trying to win, whereas PEDs are another manifestation of athletes using everything in their power to win. From a fan's standpoint, I feel that gambling (if unchecked) threatens to make the contests completely non-entertaining, whereas contests with drug-enhanced players, seemed to be largely the same product we had before drug-enhanced players. This is not to say that PED use is acceptable, but its most direct harm is on fellow players rather than fans.

                Except that when some players are using illegal PED's and some are not, and even the users may be going on and off the drugs, you have that 'selective application' problem, as well. When the Twins are facing Roger Clemens, if fans (or the opposing team) can't trust that Clemens isn't pumped up on roids or that he's facing a 'clean' lineup, the integrity of the competition is compromised. Cheating of any kind can threaten to make the contests completely non-entertaining, even when (maybe especially when) it's so widespread that it's supposedly become part of the culture of the game.

                If players on PED's are only doing everything in their power to win, then by logical extension the clean players are not trying their best, just as we might infer that Rose didn't try his best or knew that his team was at a disadvantage if he didn't bet on the Reds to win that day. Does that seem healthy for the game, if we accept that line of reasoning?

                Andy Pettitte defended his HGH use based partly on his supposed intentions--he said he just wanted to heal faster so he could get back on the field to help his team. I've seen reporters attempt to take up that line of rationalization in defense of him and Clemens. Now RhuRu has laid out a similar argument to draw a distinction between Rose and steroids users. I guess we're geting to the point where a lot of media and fans will openly accept that steroid use, though wrong, isn't so bad as long as we like the players in question enough to assume that their motives were good, or at least understandable within the context of an era, but I'm not really comfortable with it.

              • SBG
                December 19th, 2007 at 4:02 pm

                Just so long as we add the caveat that all rationalizations should not be applied to Barry Bonds, because unlike everyone else, he had mean and selfish motivations.

              • frightwig
                December 19th, 2007 at 5:58 pm

                steroid use, though wrong, isn't so bad as long as we like the players in question....

                See, Bonds is fair game because everyone knows that nobody but Giants fans really likes him. Of course we know that he's singularly mean and selfish, too.

              • ubelmann
                December 19th, 2007 at 9:42 pm

                When the Twins are facing Roger Clemens, if fans (or the opposing team) can't trust that Clemens isn't pumped up on roids or that he's facing a 'clean' lineup, the integrity of the competition is compromised.

                When teams faced Gaylord Perry, he was most often cheating by doctoring the baseball. He even wrote a book about how he did it. He's in the HOF today.

                Does that seem healthy for the game, if we accept that line of reasoning?

                I just wrote:

                So, in my book, gambling and PED use are unacceptable but different.

                Unacceptable. As in, not healthy for the game. I don't claim that PED use is good for the game, but there are degrees to everything, and I personally feel that PED use is less of a threat to the game than gambling was. It should still be eliminated, because it's still bad for the game, but I don't think it's quite as bad as gambling.

                I guess we're geting to the point where a lot of media and fans will openly accept that steroid use, though wrong, isn't so bad as long as we like the players in question enough to assume that their motives were good, or at least understandable within the context of an era, but I'm not really comfortable with it.

                I believe there's a big difference in terms of HOF-eligibility between someone who took PEDs 10 years before MLB had a PED policy and someone who gambled on baseball 50+ years after the Black Sox. Probably a significant fraction of players in the HOF who played before 1919 engaged in game-fixing to some degree. Are we going to go on a witch hunt to throw those guys out of the Hall? Of course not.

                This is a problem that obviously should have been addressed at least twenty years ago, but it wasn't. Baseball officials were complicit in creating an environment that encouraged cheating. That doesn't make it right, and that doesn't mean we should embrace PED use, but management's implicit acceptance of PED use becomes a mitigating factor.

                If we're going to keep anyone out of the Hall over performance-enhancing drugs, let's start by banning Bud Selig. Then we can talk about which players we should keep out.

              • Rhubarb_Runner
                December 20th, 2007 at 7:03 am

                Now RhuRu has laid out a similar argument to draw a distinction between Rose and steroids users. I guess we're geting to the point where a lot of media and fans will openly accept that steroid use, though wrong, isn't so bad as long as we like the players in question enough to assume that their motives were good, or at least understandable within the context of an era, but I'm not really comfortable with it.

                I ditto Herr Ubelmann. I did not say that PED was acceptable, but I believe gambling is less acceptable than PED usage.

  • SBG
    December 14th, 2007 at 12:20 pm

    It doesn't hurt to link to old articles here once in a while. Someone in the Nation wrote, in response to the Texans decision not to draft Reggie Bush, "I don't have that much of a problem with the pick." Someone else wrote, "Houston screwed up, big time. There is no upside to this pick. They will constantly be scrutinized over this choice. Isn't it far more likely that they can improve their win total with Bush than with whatshisname? And think of the pressure on him now. Not to mention the fan appeal. Bush will sell tickets, whatshisname won't." A third person wrote, "He got drafted by the Saints? I predict he will have an injury plagued career, and will never get a chance to live up to the potential he has."

    I'm one of those three people, by the way, which you can bet means I'm not the second one.

    • frightwig
      December 14th, 2007 at 12:52 pm

      Nobody wants to be in Moss' pants right now.

      Btw, not to pile on or anything, but the Vikings did OK by drafting another RB in the 1st round this year. OK, maybe that is piling on. Sorry, Moss.

      • brianS
        December 14th, 2007 at 6:45 pm

        did I read correctly that Mario Williams currently is first or second in the league in sacks?

      • Moss
        December 14th, 2007 at 6:51 pm

        Nobody wants to be in Moss' pants right now.

        Come again??

        Many think Bush will be plenty good. Mrs. Moss is a Texans fan and hated the "pass" right off the bat. Moss just heard today that the Texans' pick is close to leading the league in sacks. Didn't know that.

        Moss was all in favor of Adrian Peterson. That was a can't miss too. He was the exception that proves the rule. Recall, though, that Chester Taylor was not a 1st-rounder, but 6th. Good RBs can be had in a variety of manners.

  • SBG
    December 14th, 2007 at 1:00 pm

    I saw the mother of all throwback jerseys today. I was walking in the skyway and this guy had on a Red Army hockey sweater with a CCCP on the front. It was number 20 with the Russian name in cyrillic letters on the back. You don't see that everyday in Minneapolis, MN.

    The guy had the red one.

  • Algonad
    December 14th, 2007 at 1:10 pm

    Here is an article where an economist looks at how often a player has outperformed his age-specific expected OPS by more than one standard deviation. Not so surprisingly, 17 of the top 18 have happened in the past 20 years.

    http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/06/04/rocket-science-clemens-and-%E2%80%98roids/

  • SBG
    December 14th, 2007 at 2:07 pm

    Ray Ratto on steroids and the Hall:

    I know that Cap Anson is in the Hall of Fame, and he was instrumental in the creation of the color line, which is way worse than PEDs. So this discussion ends up being an excuse for people with no institutional memory or understanding to claim a moral superiority they're not really equipped to display.

    Of course, Anson's racism was not only socially accepted at the time, but had nothing to do with his play. That's not to condone Anson, but to point out that this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. And yet, there's an underlying point worth considering. Steroids are rampant in the game. Steroid users are not unusual -- every team has or had (a lot) of them. That's baseball (and football, and track and field, and bicycling) in this era.

    • brianS
      December 14th, 2007 at 7:02 pm

      Of course, Anson's racism was not only socially accepted at the time, but had nothing to do with his play

      well, it DID have plenty to do with his financial circumstances (by artificially restricting supply of labor in the industry) and competitive success (same thing). I know there are lots of stories about barnstorming tours and winter ball in which white stars competed against black stars, amply demonstrating that many, many of the black stars merited positions in the Majors.

      steroid use has been a choice in a highly competitive environment. Some guys chose to use, some chose not to use. Likewise, some chose to train year-round, get personal trainers, dieticians, etc. and some did not.

      I'm having a hard time believing that PEDs made all that much difference at the margin. I care, but not that much. Baseball is not cycling or sprinting or shot-putting. Strategy, environmental conditions, matchups, variance in training practices and dumb luck play huge roles in baseball outcomes, arguably swamping the effects of PEDs.

    • SDfan
      December 14th, 2007 at 5:04 pm

      Well color me surprised.

    • Neil
      December 14th, 2007 at 5:12 pm

      Huh. Well... okay. Anything that makes it less likely that Punto starts is a somewhat positive move.

    • frightwig
      December 14th, 2007 at 5:22 pm

      This makes me laugh:

      Twins assistant general manager Rob Antony said the team told Lamb he will get a chance to be the every day third baseman, noting, “We don’t like to give anything away.”

      Let's see, the Twins sign a veteran 3B for two years plus an option, and his competition for the job would be the incumbent Nick Punto, whose putrid bat is the reason Mike Lamb was signed, or the recently acquired Brendan Harris, inexperienced and a reputedly poor gloveman, who Gardy does not know. Yeah, the race for that spot is wide open!

      OK, so I think the infield is now filled. Morneau at 1B, Mauer at C, Everett at SS, Lamb at 3B, and we'll probably see Punto and Harris sharing time at 2B next year.

      • ubelmann
        December 14th, 2007 at 5:56 pm

        I could see Harris and Lamb sharing time at 3B, since they are a L/R combo, and I don't think the Twins are going to like Lamb's glove at 2B much more than they like it at SS, but I could be wrong about that.

        I would tend to agree that the infield is filled, too. I wouldn't be surprised if the Twins view Casilla/Plouffe as the middle infield of the future, and I don't especially think they can contend this year, so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to bend over backwards getting a second baseman when there's not a great option out there. If the Twins get close to contending again in 2010, BS will probably look to pull a Castillo-esque trade to fill 3B, or something like that, since it doesn't look like we'll be filling that from within anytime soon.

        If the Twins do get Jed Lowrie in a trade with the Red Sox (not saying this is likely), it's kind of an interesting question where he goes. It's not difficult to envision Plouffe being promoted to Rochester this year based simply on his performance (his hitting isn't spectacular, but reports on his defense have been good, and the Twins tend to promote based on defense more than anything else), at which point you'd have a logjam of Plouffe, Casilla, and Lowrie, not to mention Tolbert, Buscher, and Macri hanging around to get 2B/3B playing time. Actually, even without Lowrie, there's a bit of crunch for infield playing time, so maybe Plouffe will just say put. It wouldn't be the worst option in the world.

    • Jeff A
      December 14th, 2007 at 7:24 pm

      Well, so much for my statement that Harris is at third and Punto at second. Unless something else happens, though, I suspect we'll still see plenty of Punto this year, either as the starting second baseman or as a "regular" utility man, if you know what I mean.

  • Andrew
    December 14th, 2007 at 6:48 pm

    Big game tonight for Drake. They travel to Iowa City to play the Hawkeyes. Drake beat Iowa State earlier this year by 35 points, and Iowa State beat Iowa by 9. So by the transitive property...let me see...carry the 3...yep - I'm figuring on an ass-whoopin'. GO! D! U!

    Edit: I embedded a flash movie from the Drake Athletics website, but it's an auto-play movie and I don't want to mess with people, so I removed it. You canclick here for it.

  • GreekHouse
    December 15th, 2007 at 12:14 am

    ESPN is reporting that the Twins signed Mike Lamb. I'm waiting for ubelmann to tell me what to think before I make up my mind, but my initial reaction is that he's pretty solid.