So about the Congressional steroid hearings...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

(Sorry if someone else has started a thread about this topic, but I didn’t see one)

Why wouldn’t McGwire take a stand one way or the other? I’m a longtime Cardinals fan and it killed me for Big Mac to dance around the questions, neither confirming nor denying whether he had taken steroids. I want to believe he was clean when he hit the 70 homers in 1998, but I just can’t now. He wouldn’t take a position when asked if he thought taking steroids was cheating, answering, “That’s not my decision.” They weren’t asking him to decide for all of baseball, they just wanted an opinion!

He kept saying “I’m not here to talk about the past. I want to discuss the future.” What did he think he was there for? Curt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Frank Thomas outright denied ever using steroids, while Jose Canseco openly admitted it (not that he could really deny it after admitting it in his book).

Mark McGwire’s statement Thursday while (I presume) under oath:
“If a player answers, ‘No,’ he simply will not be believed. If he answers, ‘Yes,’ he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.”

Mark McGwire’s statement on Feb. 13 in a press release (not under oath):
“Once and for all, I did not use steroids or any other illegal substance.”

If he could deny it in a press release, why wouldn’t he deny it before Congress? I believed Bonds was juicing when he hit his now-record 73 homeruns and that Mac was the real single season homerun king. But now, shold we look all the way back to 1961 and Roger Maris again for the real record holder? Or should that crown belong to Sammy Sosa, who hit 66 the year Mac hit 70? Sosa at least had the stones to flat out deny any use.

Take a stand, Big Mac, one way or the other. What a chicken shit.

I caught most of the information after the fact, but don’t know if the players giving testimony were under oath. Anyone know for sure?

2

What? You mean this is about baseball? Damn. I thought we were going to find out which congressment were taking steroids. You know, to boost their “electorals”.

3

The grandstanding hearing is being held by the Committee on Governmental Reform. Its chairman, asked what governmental reform has to do with baseball, stated that his committee has the right to investigate anything it wants. I read the newspaper, and I know there are several reform issues much more pressing than steroids in baseball. Instead, they’re grabbing headlines by interviewing sports stars and giving free PR for Jose Canseco’s book of accusations.

Canseco himself dodged the committee by saying that he could not interfere with an ongoing federal investigation (on the Balco thing.) McGwire is expected to be called before that same investigation, so he could have claimed the same dodge.

I’m not sure of the time scale, but anabolic steroids were legal for a long time in MLB. During the McGwire-Sosa “race for the record,” McGwire admitted taking androstendiene, and Sosa admitted taking creatine. Neither are anabolic steroids, and neither were illegal. Both speed up the healing of muscle injuries. Performance-enhancing? I’m not qualified to say.

Now that you’ve brought Roger Maris into the stew, let’s remember that Maris had big patches of hair fall out during his big season. Was it just from stress, or was he taking something with hormonal side effects? :eek:

4

Well, we know which governor took steroids. Hint: it ain’t Mitch Daniels.

5

His press release was not under oath. His Congressional testimony was.

6

Steroids only shrink your testicles. Mitch must have taken something much stronger to have shrunken his entire body.

As for the OP, I believe that Canseco also plead the 5th. Sosa responded with an “I don’t know” to many of the questions as well. There’s no reason for any of them to give an answer - the congressional committee hasn’t come out with a reason for the hearings, a plan of any sort, and if they’re looking to improve the game and need as much information as possible (instead of just a scapegoat), they should have handed out immunities to everyone who stepped forward.

7

Seems to me that if Congress was actually serious about doing something other than grandstanding, they’d say “do something about steroids now or we’ll yank your anti-trust exemption.”

8

Oh yeah, I don’t think the hearings will accomplish anything but getting some politicians face-time, but I was dissapointed in Big Mac after his numerous denials only to clam up when he was under oath. He wouldn’t even outright take the 5th either. I saw it as a cowardly performance all around by him.

9

Interesting that you mention that, since it was discussed in some depth when the committee talked to Senator Jim Bunning (R, Kentucky?). He thought it made sense to remove the anti-trust exemption if MLB was observed not to be able to police itself adequately.