Bonds and Clemens v. Armstrong...everyone please rise...

Nothing in this world (quite possibly nothing) has me more infuriated and upset with sports than the whole steroids fiasco between baseball, its players and Congress. Appearing on his first television interview, key source for the Mitchell Report (the document which led to over 50 baseball players being accused of steroids) Kirk Radomski stated that he believes his friend Brian McNamee over the accused Roger Clemens. A small excerpt from the interview and column, written by ESPN's Mike Fish, says:

""I don't believe him [Clemens] at all," Radomski said. "I believe my friend."
That's his story and he's sticking to it. That's what Radomski, an admitted steroids dealer, presumably told a federal grand jury considering perjury charges against Clemens in Washington last week. That's definitely the theme in "Bases Loaded" (Hudson Street Press), a book scheduled for release next week chronicling his decade of dealing performance-enhancing drugs to baseball players...Radomski said that he educated McNamee about growth hormone. He also said he was the source of the performance enhancers McNamee used with his baseball clients. Radomski said he shipped HGH directly to Clemens' house in Houston when McNamee went out to train him."

Well, well...isn't that amazing, Radomski comes forward for his first major television interview about the scandals a little more than a week before the scheduled release of his book. Can you say motive to lie? Anyways, if you watch the entire interview, Radomski states that he knows Clemens took the steroids because he sent the drugs directly to Clemens' house in care of McNamee and that McNamee had questioned how to properly inject the drugs. Radomski states this without a shipping receipt to prove the drugs were shipped to Clemens' house and secondly, just because the trainer had a tutorial on Steroids 101 from Radomski, doesn't mean that Clemens was the one he was injecting with the Human Growth Hormone (HGH). This whole situation of accusing Clemens of doing this without any proof is plain ascenine to me. Read my earlier blog about the situation about being guilty until proven innocent.

Throwing another baseball player in the mix is former San Francisco Giant superstar Barry Bonds. Bonds has been at the forefront of this steroid witchhunt, leading to all of the talk about other players using steroids. Bonds' link to Victor Conte, a salesman at a company called BALCO who sold steroids and HGH-type products. has been the catalyst as to why reporters and the public are burning Bonds at the cross. Bonds has admitted to using a cream substance containing a steroid without any knowledge of the substance. But let's keep this in mind, Bonds has NEVER tested positive during any one of his random drug tests. There has yet to be a clear connection between Bonds and BALCO in order to find him guilty of perjury and/or taking steroids. Clemens and Bonds are in the same boat, in that each have been the most dominant players at their position, possibly ever, in the major leagues. What each of them face as well, is that they are looking at a public backlash from these accusations, costing them shots at the Hall of Fame, even though Clemens is top 3 in strikeouts in his career and possibly the most dominant pitcher ever and Bonds has hit the most home runs in the history of the MLB. All because of an accusation that has yet to hold any water in any federal court. Each player has been sacrificed at the feet of the MLB for the sake of drug testing, so that the MLB can say, "look we cleaned up our act by taking away everything from our top players ever, who put butts in the seats and turned around a business that had a strike in 1994. We won't let anything slide."

Now as an American citizen, I have been able to sit back and watch Lance Armstrong win seven consecutive Tour de France's, making me proud to be an American at that time. I was sitting their watching a man battle back from cancer to win the most grueling bikerace ever...seven times in a row. But hold on just a second, wasn't Armstrong accused of taking HGH and steroids? Wasn't his doctor during the races linked to steroids? Wasn't he discovered taking out a bag of trash, several miles away, filled with used syringes? Yes, he was. While researching, I came across this article, which brings to light the difference between the public raping of Bonds' and Clemens' integrity and the sainthood that was granted for Armstrong. In another excerpt, the author, Selena Roberts, writes that:

"As the world's most famous cancer survivor and a significant fund-raiser, Armstrong has cultivated a halo effect. This has deflected the negative fallout from tell-all books, the links to a crooked doctor, the dogged pursuit by antidoping czar Dick Pound and the suit he filed against a company for making BARKSTRONG pet collars, which are sold by animal charities.
Clemens, who has mostly overcome pulled groins, has no such protective aura. Yet he tried to splash on a coating of goodwill last week as he told Congress about his generosity, his charitable works and his love of everything but kittens. (Note to Roger: Add kittens.) He presented his p.r. case with the same gusto he used to attack his accuser, Brian McNamee, whom he sued for defamation last month."

Note the term "halo effect" when I talk about Armstrong. Armstrong came back from cancer to take control of an event unlike anyone in the history of the Tour de France. When reports from France first came in about Armstrong's link to doping, there was a national outcry in favor of Armstrong. Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's back up here folks. Clemens, who had been a MLB darling for a decade, fell under the Mitchell Report bus and he thrown there by Brian McNamee. Clemens and Bonds were both accused of illegally enhancing their performance in their sport by taking HGH. Sure, signs can point to it, people can say what they want, but I used to think it was all about hard, physical evidence that can be proven. Lance Armstrong was embraced as an American hero after accusations were cast against him, leaving me to wonder why? Just because he battled back from cancer means his reputation and integrity should stay in tact while Bonds and Clemens are left to take every bullet from every angle? That's not right and most of you know it. In another article written by Millard Baker, it shows how the syringes and gauz turned in by McNamee (Clemens' trainer) had been kept by the trainer for seven years. SEVEN. He poses the question, what motives would the trainer have, if Clemens did take steroids, in keeping those materials for that long? At the end of the article, Baker states that this case could be similar to the Lance Armstrong urine sample case, that shows a positive EPO test could not be used against Armstrong because they had not properly followed procedures in testing the samples, which were five years old.

Needless to say, this whole situation has me in an outrage and something needs to be done. People are so quick to accuse and sentence innocent people before anything can be proven. Don't get me wrong, I am all for a cleaner game of baseball and drug testing, even though some of the Hall of Fame greats used their own form of performance-enhancers, whether it would be spit on the ball to give it more curve or tar on the brim on the hat that could be rubbed on the ball for different effects. Hall of Famers have publicly come out and admitted doing it, but not a soul has made a claim to have them removed because their numbers were tainted, much like the players of today. Journalists claim this country is a forgiving nation and that if Clemens and Bonds would come clean, the U.S. would eventually forgive them. Well this country is also a judging nation, sticking their nose in business that they have no idea about. How is it two great baseball players can have their reputation assassinated while a cyclist accused of practically the same thing can earn his wings before he even makes it to heaven?

There is no justice anymore in this country and people want to be on every body's side. Individuals can't cope with being wrong, so when a majority of people jump on one side of an issue, the rest of these low-life hethons jump on that side as well without knowing any of the facts. And that is the problem we have here concerning two of the greatest players in the history of the MLB. The MLB went through a strike shortened season in 1994 and was in jeopardy of losing the game. But stars like Bonds and Clemens, pitched and batted the MLB back into the national spotlight and this is what they get in terms of defense from Bud Selig (MLB Commissioner). Let me say this American public, please, please keep your mouth shut until you hear definitive evidence and clear cut test results that can place steroids in these guys' bodies. If this is the way it is going to continue, so many more great players are going to fall into the pit, whether they did it or not. Whether it is guys trying to increase sales on their books (Canseco and Radomski) or trainers looking to make a name for themselves (McNamee), it will continue to snowball into an annual witchhunt. So please, take off the halo from Armstrong's head. While I commend everything he has done, how do I know he has done it clean? Just like how do I know Bonds and Clemens have done everything clean? That's just it...I don't, and neither do you.