Team-wide or game-wide?
In looking over the Los Angeles Times report which revealed the six names Jason Grimsley dropped to federal investigators back in June in a performance-enhancing drugs scoop, I noticed a disturbing trend:
Four of the six names were Baltimore Orioles.
Sure, there were the biggies--Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite--but the ones that stuck out to me were Miguel Tejada, Brian Roberts, Jay Gibbons and David Segui. Tejada is a former American League MVP (in 2002 with the Oakland A's), while Roberts started in the 2005 All-Star Game. Gibbons, when healthy, is a solid right fielder who gives the Orioles lineup a reliable left-handed bat, and I remember Segui being one of the mainstays of a team fluctuating between success and mediocrity.
This now makes five, possibly six, Orioles allegedly connected to performance-enhancing drugs. For a refresher's course, examine:
August 2005: Rafeal Palmeiro, having recently become just the fourth player ever to hit 500 home runs and collect 3,000 hits in his career, was the highest-profile player to test positive under the league's testing policy. He served his 10 games, and struggled the remainder of the year before disappearing from the game.
His Hall of Fame candidacy all but erased, Palmeiro spent the rest of the '05 season claming he never knowingly took anything (the same defense Barry Bonds used in grand jury testimony). He even threw Tejada under the bus, saying a vitamin B shot he supplied to Palmeiro led to the positive test.
2005: Sammy Sosa was a member of the team. While most of the allegations surround his days as a Chicago Cub, his very presence left an unpleasant taint in the clubhouse. You know, that whole "guilt by association" thing.
June 2006: David Segui, having retired from baseball, admits he's one of the names in Grimsley's affidavit. He says he took human growth hormone on the recommendation of his doctor. While I admire him coming clean and admitting he used, I'm not sure I buy the doctor's note.
This week: We learn Tejada, Roberts and Gibbons were also named in the affidavit (if the report is accurate; some sources close to the investigation have questioned the validity of the Times' report).
So I can't help but wonder...if the allegations are indeed true, is this more an indication of the Baltimore Orioles baseball franchise, or of Major League Baseball as a whole? Were the O's just a perpetual steroid offender, or did every team in the league have multiple juicers?
Self-serving as my feeling might be, I think it was the latter. I happen to think every team, at one point or another, had several players using performance enhancers, be they steroids, HGH, or amphetamines. And, considering the current policy doesn't test for HGH, it's possible several guys on each team are still juicing to this day.
I'm not going to sit here and acquit the Orioles players being accused of juicing, but I'm not going to judge them, either. The fact is, without hard evidence, we don't know for 100 percent, absolute certainty who was or wasn't a user. The best we do is guess, question and speculate.
Maybe Tejada, Roberts and Gibbons used, maybe they didn't. Then again, we can say that about almost everyone in the majors. Some have questioned Albert Pujols this season, I've heard whispers about Ryan Howard of the Phillies. I myself have had my questions about Jason Giambi the past two seasons, since it was leaked that he admitted to juicing in a grand jury hearing.
The only people in baseball I don't question when it comes to steroids are Cal Ripken and Ken Griffey, Jr. Everyone else, as far as I'm concerned, is under suspicion.
No one is guilty, no one is innocent.
Everyone is under suspicion.
And it's a shame that it's come to that. As a baseball fan, I can no longer witness an outstanding feat on the diamond without wondering if the player in question is juicing.
A guy hits 50 or 60 homers in a season? Maybe he used steroids.
Some hotshot hurler just out of AAA hits 100 on the radar gun and baffles the best hitters in the world with a biting curve? Gotta be on HGH.
I hate it. But I also don't see it changing anytime soon, especially if Bud Selig and the MLBPA can't get together and once and for all ratify a policy that really forces juicers to come clean--so to speak.
I don't look at this report as an indictment on the Baltimore Orioles so much as one on baseball as a whole. Sure, the Orioles might've had several players on the juice, but if that's the case, then I guarantee you every other team had the same situation.
This is what our national pastime has become. Sad, isn't it?
Four of the six names were Baltimore Orioles.
Sure, there were the biggies--Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite--but the ones that stuck out to me were Miguel Tejada, Brian Roberts, Jay Gibbons and David Segui. Tejada is a former American League MVP (in 2002 with the Oakland A's), while Roberts started in the 2005 All-Star Game. Gibbons, when healthy, is a solid right fielder who gives the Orioles lineup a reliable left-handed bat, and I remember Segui being one of the mainstays of a team fluctuating between success and mediocrity.
This now makes five, possibly six, Orioles allegedly connected to performance-enhancing drugs. For a refresher's course, examine:
August 2005: Rafeal Palmeiro, having recently become just the fourth player ever to hit 500 home runs and collect 3,000 hits in his career, was the highest-profile player to test positive under the league's testing policy. He served his 10 games, and struggled the remainder of the year before disappearing from the game.
His Hall of Fame candidacy all but erased, Palmeiro spent the rest of the '05 season claming he never knowingly took anything (the same defense Barry Bonds used in grand jury testimony). He even threw Tejada under the bus, saying a vitamin B shot he supplied to Palmeiro led to the positive test.
2005: Sammy Sosa was a member of the team. While most of the allegations surround his days as a Chicago Cub, his very presence left an unpleasant taint in the clubhouse. You know, that whole "guilt by association" thing.
June 2006: David Segui, having retired from baseball, admits he's one of the names in Grimsley's affidavit. He says he took human growth hormone on the recommendation of his doctor. While I admire him coming clean and admitting he used, I'm not sure I buy the doctor's note.
This week: We learn Tejada, Roberts and Gibbons were also named in the affidavit (if the report is accurate; some sources close to the investigation have questioned the validity of the Times' report).
So I can't help but wonder...if the allegations are indeed true, is this more an indication of the Baltimore Orioles baseball franchise, or of Major League Baseball as a whole? Were the O's just a perpetual steroid offender, or did every team in the league have multiple juicers?
Self-serving as my feeling might be, I think it was the latter. I happen to think every team, at one point or another, had several players using performance enhancers, be they steroids, HGH, or amphetamines. And, considering the current policy doesn't test for HGH, it's possible several guys on each team are still juicing to this day.
I'm not going to sit here and acquit the Orioles players being accused of juicing, but I'm not going to judge them, either. The fact is, without hard evidence, we don't know for 100 percent, absolute certainty who was or wasn't a user. The best we do is guess, question and speculate.
Maybe Tejada, Roberts and Gibbons used, maybe they didn't. Then again, we can say that about almost everyone in the majors. Some have questioned Albert Pujols this season, I've heard whispers about Ryan Howard of the Phillies. I myself have had my questions about Jason Giambi the past two seasons, since it was leaked that he admitted to juicing in a grand jury hearing.
The only people in baseball I don't question when it comes to steroids are Cal Ripken and Ken Griffey, Jr. Everyone else, as far as I'm concerned, is under suspicion.
No one is guilty, no one is innocent.
Everyone is under suspicion.
And it's a shame that it's come to that. As a baseball fan, I can no longer witness an outstanding feat on the diamond without wondering if the player in question is juicing.
A guy hits 50 or 60 homers in a season? Maybe he used steroids.
Some hotshot hurler just out of AAA hits 100 on the radar gun and baffles the best hitters in the world with a biting curve? Gotta be on HGH.
I hate it. But I also don't see it changing anytime soon, especially if Bud Selig and the MLBPA can't get together and once and for all ratify a policy that really forces juicers to come clean--so to speak.
I don't look at this report as an indictment on the Baltimore Orioles so much as one on baseball as a whole. Sure, the Orioles might've had several players on the juice, but if that's the case, then I guarantee you every other team had the same situation.
This is what our national pastime has become. Sad, isn't it?
posted by Jeff Cunningham at 7:54 PM
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