George Mitchell

[PHIL HERNON]

If anyone watched the press conference, in defense of George Mitchell, he was just doing his job that MLB hired him to do.He is not the "bad guy" here, MLB is. His job was to find out how extensive steroid use was in MLB. He has no opinion on what should happen to these players as far as hall of fame induction goes, does not want them prosecuted, just wants MLB to learn from his results. He was asked if legal action should be taken against the players and he said no way, what would that do? He does not believe in going after users, never has. He wants MLB to move on and just be aware of its problem. He was paid to do a job and he did it. This is how he came across to me.

 

[PHIL HERNON]

In fact

MLB should have taken care of this "in house" and not drag the US government and our tax dollars into their family squabbles. If my employee is accused of taking illegal drugs I am not calling my congressman and dragging his ass up to capital Hill. I mean come on MLB, quit squealing on the hand that feeds you. Everyone does it and you have known this for decades. Are you just upset that the NFL has surpassed you as Americas game? This will not endear you to the fans, it may just make it worse.

 

[mrsoul]

i have to agree. he is not leading the witch hunt, he was only gathering information.

 

[bigheinz]

I sow it and i agree with you, even Bush is saying that they have to make some changes but no body is talking about punishment....

But i think it is a witch hunt, money for the media, and people that wants to be noticed and get famous destroying the image of others. It is bull shit to me, if they want a fair game, so open a drug free MLB division.....lets see if they going to sell the tickets.

 

[Kaiser]

If my employee is accused of taking illegal drugs I am not calling my congressman and dragging his ass up to capital Hill.

Instead, you'd simply ask him why he isn't sharing with you.

 

[rAJJIN]

Who released the names? MLB or this Mitchell fella?
I think it could have been handled without the Name dropping.

 

[MAINEVENT]

MLB should have taken care of this "in house" and not drag the US government and our tax dollars into their family squabbles. If my employee is accused of taking illegal drugs I am not calling my congressman and dragging his ass up to capital Hill. I mean come on MLB, quit squealing on the hand that feeds you. Everyone does it and you have known this for decades. Are you just upset that the NFL has surpassed you as Americas game? This will not endear you to the fans, it may just make it worse.

Thats what Ive been asking......what does pro sports have to do with our government. Take care of this 'in house' in and spend our tax dollars on something that needs to be improved....like health care and public schools for instance.

 

[PHIL HERNON]

MLB

Who released the names? MLB or this Mitchell fella?
I think it could have been handled without the Name dropping.

They paid him to
1.Investigate
2. Find names
3. Release names to MLB

He did what he was paid for. MLB wanted it "prime time" for every one to see how they are squeaky clean. Believe me, MLB wanted big names exposed to show that it was out of their control. Now, they have to ante up and change it or they will be exposed for what they are. Wait until no one shows up for games when pitchers throw 80MPH and hit 300 FT HRs.

 

[PHIL HERNON]

Names

I did not see George Mitchell mention one name.....did anyone?

 

[Kane]

I did not see George Mitchell mention one name.....did anyone?

No he didn't. He gave MLB the report on the investigation that he was hired to do and MLB released the names. He recommended that there should be no punishment for any of the players.

The thing is, how are you going to punish someone for something they did before it was against the rules. That's retarded!

 

[Ryce]

the fact of the matter is the MLB had a testing policy in place years ago. It might not have been up to the standards that congress liked but they did have one. Fact is Bud Selig had to ignore the steroid problem in order for baseball to come back from the brink which is where it was after the stike of 1994. Baseball was in the gutter and everybody knew it. So as a commissioner if you knew steroids were going to help your sport recover, you had to answer to a room full of owners on what you planned to do to help bring the game back from the bottom..what would you do? would you turn a blind eye to steroids if you knew that a few juiced up players would help bring your sport back from financial failure to the second most popular sport in america????

Of course you would. And that what bud selig did and I dont blame him. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in 1998 saved baseball. Plain and simple. Barry bonds is merely another cog in the wheel. What happend was that greaseball Jose Canseco got mad at MLB for blackballing him and he wanted revenge. Plain and simple. All you see today is a result of Jose Canseco. Maybe even a portion of Gear Grinder and Raw deal can partly be attributed to him.

When he came out and made his comments and his book came out it was just an easy soap box for congress to get on. again becuase of the failing war in iraq, flounder economy etc. It was a way for the congress to say to its constiuents in an election year that they did something.

Bud Selig knew what was going on as did all the GM's, but they turned a blind eye becuase they had no real proof and frankly didnt care. When you got million and billions of dollars on the line are you can bite the hand that feeds you??? No.

Congress stick thier nose in where it doesnt belong and just makes things worse. This mitchell report is just another glaring example of what happens when government goes too far and stick its nose into private business. Instead of worrying about real issues it goes after baseball and steroids.

pathetic.

 

[rAJJIN]

They paid him to
1.Investigate
2. Find names
3. Release names to MLB

He did what he was paid for. MLB wanted it "prime time" for every one to see how they are squeaky clean. Believe me, MLB wanted big names exposed to show that it was out of their control. Now, they have to ante up and change it or they will be exposed for what they are. Wait until no one shows up for games when pitchers throw 80MPH and hit 300 FT HRs.

Well then I absoloutley Agree with you Phil.
Sounds Like its Bud Selig that released the names and HE is the One that should be Lashed out at and Dealt with.
I didnt realize that. I thought this was Done by this Mitchell fella.
Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Eatbig2getbig]

This entire thing is a total waste of time and a freakin joke. Our gov'nt and the media have made this AAS issue a circus. I am sitting back and laughing cause if anyone thinks this is making a difference....yeah right. It will get even worse with our youth. All they know and hear is that Barry, Clemens, Canseco, etc. took 'em and they work.
The general public is becoming desensitized due to media overload. This "story" and AAS use/abuse....whatever, is soon not going to be exciting news as the general public is getting bored with these stories. I like to ask everyday average people about these issues whenever I get the chance....public opinion seems to be growing tired of all this. Even my doc yesterday made a comment to me that he was tuning all of this garbage out and said that no one will care in a few years. There are so many more important issues right now....it sickens me to see what a waste of time all of this is. I am proud to see my tax dollars being used for a great purpose.

 

[GymDudeVA]

And the cost of this report/investigation? $20 million.

 

[rAJJIN]

And the cost of this report/investigation? $20 million.

well if Im underderstanding right this would have been paid for by MLB correct?

 

[rAJJIN]

This entire thing is a total waste of time and a freakin joke. Our gov'nt and the media have made this AAS issue a circus. I am sitting back and laughing cause if anyone thinks this is making a difference....yeah right. It will get even worse with our youth. All they know and hear is that Barry, Clemens, Canseco, etc. took 'em and they work.
The general public is becoming desensitized due to media overload. This "story" and AAS use/abuse....whatever, is soon not going to be exciting news as the general public is getting bored with these stories. I like to ask everyday average people about these issues whenever I get the chance....public opinion seems to be growing tired of all this. Even my doc yesterday made a comment to me that he was tuning all of this garbage out and said that no one will care in a few years. There are so many more important issues right now....it sickens me to see what a waste of time all of this is. I am proud to see my tax dollars being used for a great purpose.

The media I can understand... But Congress or the Government??
They should have said do your own damn investigating. Id Like to think
they have more important things to take care of then worry if Barry Bonds Ever used steroids.

 

[hwood]

W

Surely Bush will let this get to far out of hand - if so he is a serious hyprocrite. Steriod use was huge during the periods of 1989-1998. During that time George W. Bush had a significant financial interest in the Texas Rangers. Conseco was with the Rangers and was very open about his use.
Palimero and Pudge Rodriquez were there at the same time as well.

 

[rotty]

MLB did pay for and they hired Mitchell to inverstigate it. My biggest problem is that they didn't really want the whole truth or names. I will argue the point too. If they did indeed want the whole truth they would have asked Congress to do the investigation and if Mitchell was still the guy running the investigation he would have been given the power to subpoena. Then he would have been able to drag people in to testify, anyone he wanted. In this investigation he asked many people to interview and in almost every instance was turned down. If Congress ran it you wouldn't have been able to turn it down, you could go and take the 5th or testify but there would have been a lot more people looking guilty which is exactly what baseball didn't want. They had to do an investigation to make it appear that they cared so Congress wouldn't get involved. If Congress got involved it would have gotten ugly. My biggest problem with the names on this list is that it is all hearsay from 2 guys that worked for New York teams and some of the people mentioned didn't even have a direct link to one of the 2 trainers. They were told by someone that this is who it was for. I think all the names should have been left out unless there was damn good evidence not just because one of these assholes said so

 

[gooey]

hmm

well these personal trainers will no longer get a single athlete to train for sports now. What kind of trainer tells about someones personal use of anything or about their personal life? U think that these professional athletes will be a lil bit more selective in who their trainer is and what happens in the clubhouse?

gooey

 

[Ryce]

well these personal trainers will no longer get a single athlete to train for sports now. What kind of trainer tells about someones personal use of anything or about their personal life? U think that these professional athletes will be a lil bit more selective in who their trainer is and what happens in the clubhouse?

gooey

The McNamee that trained Clemens and Pettitte was a former NYC cop. What a twist in irony!