To the class:
Please read this column, which was written right after the MLB Mitchell Report was released. Prepare to discuss this column.
What worked?
What did not work?
How would you have done it differently?
Did you like it?
Was it interesting?
We will discuss this in class ...
Original publication date: December 14, 2007
Depending on which members of the media you listen to, watch or read, the release Thursday of the Mitchell Report was either: 1. An anticlimactic overture, a foregone conclusion on what we already know about the Steroids Era in Major League Baseball, or 2. A monumental and historic day in the sport, one that will signal a sea change in the grand old game.
As with most things, the truth probably falls somewhere in the middle. If you watched or listened to former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell deliver his 25-minute opening presentation Thursday afternoon in New York City, you couldn’t help but be impressed. His presentation was clear, concise and filled with substance.
But my job today is not to dissect the Mitchell report. Far more famous baseball pundits will take care of that. Instead, today we will talk about the earth-shattering news in New York baseball land. That Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte were on “the list” – single-handedly thrown under the bus by former Yankee strength and conditioning coach Brian McNamee -- has to be the big story around here. For a longtime Yankee fan like me, news of Pettitte’s being implicated in the steroids scandal hurts to the core more than any other.
Delve deeper into the list of players implicated in the report after the 20-month investigation, and things get really interesting. There is a definite Pinstripe Tint to it. By my count, a whopping 16 current or former Yankees are on the list. Many of them were free-agent signings, which may make us pause to question some decision-making in the past.
But wait, the plot thickens even more. A lot of these names had a championship ring to them, so I went and did some research. What I found likely will cause Mets’ fans out there to simmer to a slow burn.
The year was 2000. The Subway Series. Certainly you remember it. It was, in fact, the last Yankee championship – 4 games to 1, in a series that was closer than that. Check out the team rosters for the 2000 postseason. I did. Here’s what I found:
On the Yankees, no fewer than eight (8!) “list” members adorned the roster. They were: Pettitte, Clemens, Mike Stanton, Chuck Knoblauch, Denny Neagle, Jason Grimsley, David Justice, Jose Canseco. The lone Mets “list” members? Backup catcher Todd Pratt and pinch hitter Matt Franco. How vital were these players? Oh, let us count the ways …
--The American League Championship Series Most Valuable Player was Justice. Winning pitchers in the series were Pettitte and Clemens. Stanton was the key lefty set-up man out of the bullpen.
--In the World Series, our man Stanton was 2-0 out of the ‘pen. In four games, he pitched 4.1 scoreless innings, struck out seven and walked no batters. Oh yeah: Stanton was also the winning pitcher in the decisive fifth game of the American League Division Series against Oakland. In the ensuing years since Stanton and Jeff Nelson stopped being that “bridge” to closer Mariano Rivera we always hear about, the Yankees have won exactly zero titles.
--The Yankees won four games in that World Series (obviously). Want to guess who were the starting pitchers in each of those four wins? Pettitte, Clemens, Neagle, Pettitte. Clemens was the only one to get a win, in Game 2 – remember the enraged Rocket hurling Mike Piazza’s sawed-off bat at the Met catcher? In retrospect, it makes you pause and wonder about Clemens’ mental state a bit more now, doesn’t it?
--The team’s starting second baseman, leadoff hitter and catalyst? Knoblauch. Starting left fielder? Justice, who had a key two-run double in Game 2. Middle reliever Grimsley and pinch hitter Canseco – the poster boy for steroids -- were bit players on the team, but they were issued rings just the same.
--And on the other side of the ledger for the Mets in the World Series, Pratt had two strikeouts and a walk in three plate appearances and Matt Franco struck out in his only plate appearance.
If you are a Mets fan and you’re still bitter about that 2000 World Series defeat, this certainly adds fuel to the fire. The Boston Red Sox once dubbed the Yankees the “Evil Empire.” After today, it seems more like the “Needle Empire.”
Some of the other Yankee names on the list are players the team actively sought through free agency or trades: Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Rondell White, Kevin Brown, Ron Villone, Glenallen Hill. Randy Velarde was more of a homegrown Yankee product, having played the first nine years of his career in pinstripes. Like Pettitte, his name being on the list stings a bit more because of that.
Now, being on this list does not prove these players were steroid users or abusers, but the implication is certainly there. Clemens’ lawyer, Rusty Hardin, called McNamee a “troubled man” in a statement released Thursday. We may come to find that McNamee called out Clemens and Pettitte as a way to save his own hide. We can only hope that’s the case.
In the meantime, I am left with this startling conclusion about my team: A lot of Yankee players in the past decade may have been using steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. It’s hard to believe the men in charge – Joe Torre, Brian Cashman, George Steinbrenner – were totally in the dark on that.
And as a diehard Yankee fan, that alone is one tough pill to swallow.
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