RUMOR

[Buehrle>Wood]

Everyone’s guessing about who the blacked-out names in the Jason Grimsley report are, and it has been a fun parlor game so far. But we all knew eventually the names would get out. And we’ve been digging around … and some sources have given us some names.

 

How reliable are these names? We feel pretty confident in them, but we can’t go 100 percent, since the information is secondhand. We’ll say this: If Bud Selig issuing a press release naming the names is a 10, and picking a player at random out of the Baseball Encyclopedia is a 1, we’re at an 8.

 

So. Let’s do it then. Remember: Betting lines are for entertainment purposes only.

 

First: The person who told Grimsley about the positive test in 2003. That’s former Royals general manager Allard Baird.

 

As many people have guessed, one of the “former players” who were sold out by Grimsley: Sammy Sosa. Our source(s) couldn’t confirm if the other was Rafael Palmeiro.

 

Nothing new or exciting about that name. Then it starts to get interesting. We’ve heard amphetamine rumors of Miguel Tejada, but we can’t confirm that. What we can confirm? The doozy.

 

Grimsley says that a former employee of [redacted] and personal fitness trainer to several Major League Baseball players once referred him to an amphetamine source. Later, this source — not the trainer — provided him with “amphetamines, anabolic steroids and human growth hormone.” This trainer? His name is Chris Mihlfeld, a Kansas City-based “strength and conditioning guru.” (And former Strength And Conditioning Coordinator for the Royals.)

 

Does Mihlfeld’s name sound familiar? If it doesn’t, he — and we assure you, this gives us no pleasure to write this — has been Albert Pujols’ personal trainer since before Pujols was drafted by the Cardinals in the 13th round of the 1999 draft. We have no confirmation that Pujols’ name is in the affidavit … but Mihlfeld’s is. If you read the document, it doesn’t say the trainer/Mihlfeld supplied all the HGH and what-not; it just says the trainer was the referrer.

 

Yeah. Sigh. We just report what we’re told, folks. Ever hope your source is wrong? This is one of those times.

 

(UPDATE: OK, we’ve taken our head out of the microwave long enough to update you a bit. Here’s a “diary” Grimsley wrote about his quick recovery from Tommy John surgery. (At MLB.com!) He thanks Mihlfeld for helping him with his recovery.

 

We repeat: We are not claiming that Pujols has taken HGH. We are simply pointing out that Milhfeld is reportedly mentioned in the affidavit, and that he has connections to be Grimsley and Pujols. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to go back to our silent screams of pain.)

 

http://www.deadspin.com/

[Kalapse]

f***. I swear to god if Pujols did anything, I'm done with baseball. I've believed in that f***er since day one, once he started defending Bonds I thought perhaps something was up but I couldn't bring myself to believe it. I swear if he let me down this time I'm not sure I can continue following the sport.

Edited June 9, 2006 by Kalapse

[fathom]

f***. I swear to god if Pujols did anything, I'm done with baseball. I've believed in that f***er since day one, once he started defending Bonds I thought perhaps something was up but I couldn't bring myself to believe it. I swear if he let me down this time I'm not sure I can continue following the sport.

 

Right now, Pujols is only considered "involved" due to his association with the trainer. Baseball has an absolutely clusterf*** on their hands, as the three most prominent home run sluggers of the last 10 years have all been associated with steroids (Sosa, McGwire, Bonds).

[Flash Tizzle]

You talk about the WORST possible scenario for baseball. Pujols has practically been the poster child for a post-steroids era in MLB. This would bring the sport to its knees.

 

Although I wouldn't necessarily believe this account. I'm sure there are numerous players which personal trainer Chris Mihlfeld has worked with.

[Kalapse]

Right now, Pujols is only considered "involved" due to his association with the trainer. Baseball has an absolutely clusterf*** on their hands, as the three most prominent home run sluggers of the last 10 years have all been associated with steroids (Sosa, McGwire, Bonds).

I'm well aware of what the article said on Deadspin, he has not been implicated at all, he just has ties to a trainer who happened to be supplying players with the s***.

 

I'm just saying if Pujols is on HGH I'm not so sure I can watch the game anymore, Albert is the saving grace right now, he's the 26 year old who's well on his way to kicking Bonds' ass and returning the record book to a relatively clean nature.

[Buehrle>Wood]

IMO, it'd be worse for baseball to see guys like Pujols and Alex Rodriguez(Note: A-Rod has never been connected to anything, but he fits the category of young stud trying to save baseball) get caught than to see Bonds, McGwire, or Sosa go down.

[Goldmember]

i might seriously break down and cry IF albert had been found to be taking/have taken steroids/hgh...

Edited June 9, 2006 by Goldmember

[Rowand44]

Lets just hope the Pujols acquistations are false. Pujols being involved would just kill baseball, absolutely destroy it.

[fathom]

ARod's the guy in the best position to challenge the home run records.

[Kalapse]

ARod's the guy in the best position to challenge the home run records.

This is true simply becuase he's already way up there from years of kicking ass but Pujols is that guy where you don't really know how great he can truely be just yet, I don't expect A-Rod to hit 75 HRs in a season but I'm not going to rule it out for Pujols.

[fathom]

I'll say this....if Pujols is/was clean, it sucks that he's going to get thrown into this s***. However, the unfortunate thing in this 'roids era is that where there's been smoke, there's fire.

[chimpy2121]

i might seriously break down and cry IF albert had been found to be taking/have taken steroids/hgh...

 

You wouldn't be the only one.

[whitesoxfan101]

I'm not sure why anybody would be surprised, any name I find out is a star and ISN'T cheating would shock me. They are almost ALL cheating assclowns, everybody in baseball and the NFL (although they are avoiding the spotlight....for now). I hope this isn't true, but they are my boys over at deadspin and I would be shocked if this isn't accurate.

 

And as for those who underrate this story, I assume you said Bonds was innocent when Greg Anderson's issues came up. If this story is true, Pujols is an HGH freak, end of story.

[Rowand44]

I'm not sure why anybody would be surprised, any name I find out is a star and ISN'T cheating would shock me. They are almost ALL cheating assclowns, everybody in baseball and the NFL (although they are avoiding the spotlight....for now). I hope this isn't true, but they are my boys over at deadspin and I would be shocked if this isn't accurate.

 

And as for those who underrate this story, I assume you said Bonds was innocent when Greg Anderson's issues came up. If this story is true, Pujols is an HGH freak, end of story.

Way to have an open mind.

[greasywheels121]

I would be incredibly pissed to find someone like Pujols dragged into this s***.

 

But the one thing everytime one of these steroid allegations/problems come up, I just gain more respect/admiration for Frank Thomas.

 

He's the one guy that has been on the other side of this story for 16 years now.

[Gregory Pratt]

I'm happy to hear that someone isn't taking Albert's "natural skills" for granted. This article is my line of reasoning:

 

It's easy to understand the media's love-fest with Albert Pujols. The St. Louis Cardinals slugger crushes baseballs into the outer realms. And more important in the wake of the BALCO fiasco, he has yet to be tainted by evidence of steroid use.

 

Pujols has 25 homers in 51 games played, putting him on pace to break Barry Bonds' record of 73 home runs in a single season. Both fans and rival players breathlessly praise Pujols as they once did Bonds. St. Louis' marketing department is constantly churning with new ideas for milking the Albert cash cow. And within baseball's press boxes, writers and reporters check their e-mail, drink free sodas, and question, well, nothing.

 

Two weeks ago, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Pujols "is being touted as the first P.S. slugger, post-steroids." The paper also categorized speculation that Pujols might be juicing as an "errant rumor." The New York Times followed up with this Pujols quote: "My testing is proving a lot. It's working really good."

 

Is Pujols abusing steroids or human growth hormones? I don't know. But what's alarming in this era of deceit is that nobody seems interested in finding out. A little more than one year removed from congressional hearings that produced the most humiliating images in the game's history, baseball writers have a duty to second-guess everything. Instead, everyone is taking Pujols' test results at face value. Have we forgotten that Barry Bonds has never failed one of Major League Baseball's drug tests?

 

In Sports Illustrated's baseball preview issue, Tom Verducci, who has done great work exposing the proliferation of steroids in baseball, credulously praised the likes of Pujols and Twins catcher Joe Mauer. Verducci exclaimed that baseball is now "a young man's game, belonging to new stars who, certified by the sport's tougher drug policy, have replaced their juiced-up, broken-down elders who aged so ungracefully. It's baseball as it ought to be. A fresh start." In other words: Masking agents? What masking agents?

 

Last year, editors at the Post-Dispatch assembled a task force to investigate whether Mark McGwire had ingested performance-enhancing drugs. After a short stretch of fruitless reporting, the effort died. One would think that Pujols—a 13th-round draft pick who has put on 20 pounds of muscle since his debut in 2001—would at least warrant a gander, or perhaps a flight or two to his native Dominican Republic to check out the friendly neighborhood pharmacies. Yet the paper has lifted nary a finger in examining Pujols' background. "Albert isn't an enhanced thug like some of the other suspects," explains Rick Hummel, the longtime Post-Dispatch baseball writer. "He hasn't grown significantly and he's always had a lot of power. So what's there to look into?"

 

What's there to look into? How about this: For the past decade, baseball has been routinely pulling the bait-and-switch with its fan base. When McGwire and Sammy Sosa engaged in "The Chase" for the home-run record during 1998, we were told the game was being saved, that two great men with selfless hearts were doing the impossible. Oops, it was all a lie. Three years later, we were asked to suspend belief yet again as the 37-year-old Bonds, with a head the size of Jupiter, effortlessly broke McGwire's standard.

 

Why are journalists so soft in this area? One reason: fear of being shut out. Over the course of a 162-game season, beat writers and columnists work their tails off to develop relationships with players. You grovel. You whimper. You plead. You tiptoe up to a first baseman, hoping he has five minutes to talk about that swollen toe. You share jokes and—embarrassingly—fist pounds. Wanna kill all that hard work in six seconds? Ask the following question: Are you juiced?

 

After having been duped by the men they cover, America's sportswriters are playing dumb again. One year after being dismissed as a has-been, steroid-using fibber, Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi is the toast of New York. Recent articles in metropolitan newspapers have praised the steadfastness and resiliency that have led him to hit a team-high 14 home runs. But where, oh where, are the doubters? At the start of spring training in 2005, Giambi looked smaller than in seasons past. Now, he has muscles atop muscles atop muscles. Yet unlike the San Francisco Chronicle, which dedicated itself (journalistically and financially) to learning the truth about Bonds, none of the New York dailies have assigned an investigative team to the case. The closest we've come is Joel Sherman of the New York Post, who recently wrote a piece titled "Clean Machine—Giambi Says Fast Start Is Untainted." The article dies with this whimper of a quote: "The big thing I learned during all my problems was that I can only control what I can control. I can't stand on a soapbox every day. I am working my tail off."

 

I, for one, don't believe him. During my six years at Sports Illustrated, I fell for the trick and covered Giambi as the hulking, lovable lug who cracked jokes and hit monstrous homers. All the while, he was cheating to gain an edge. So, why—when MLB doesn't administer a test for human growth hormone—should I believe Giambi is clean?

 

Likewise, when I look at Roger Clemens, I wonder: Where's the investigative digging? Like Bonds, Clemens is a larger-than-life athletic specimen. Like Bonds, Clemens is producing at an age when most of his peers are knitting. Unlike Bonds, Clemens does not have journalists breathing down his neck. Instead, the hometown Houston Chronicle has covered his recent re-signing with the Astros as a time for unmitigated celebration. Forget combing through his garbage for vials—I just want the Chronicle to ask Clemens whether he's used. Is the Rocket cheating? Again, I don't know. But doesn't someone have to at least try and find out?

 

"A lot of baseball writers are drunks or cheat on their wives," says Jose de Jesus Ortiz, the Chronicle's Astros beat writer. "I would never question anybody unless I have evidence. It's unfair to feel that just because of Bonds now we're required to question everyone about their methods."

 

Is it unfair to pester individual athletes about steroids? Maybe. Is it the right thing to do journalistically? Without a doubt.

[whitesoxfan101]

I would be incredibly pissed to find someone like Pujols dragged into this s***.

 

But the one thing everytime one of these steroid allegations/problems come up, I just gain more respect/admiration for Frank Thomas.

 

He's the one guy that has been on the other side of this story for 16 years now.

 

He might be the only guy I am still sure is clean...him and Adam Dunn. Only the giant ex football players are safe apparently.

[Buehrle>Wood]

He might be the only guy I am still sure is clean...him and Adam Dunn. Only the giant ex football players are safe apparently.

Scotty Pods has had an increase in power lately...

[fathom]

He might be the only guy I am still sure is clean...him and Adam Dunn. Only the giant ex football players are safe apparently.

 

I don't assume anyone is clean. If you made me say one person off the top of my head who I don't think did anything illegal, I would say Paul Konerko. He might have the most unathletic looking body in all of baseball. And no, I don't think Pujols necessarily did anything bad, even if his trainer was involved. He seems like a good guy, and I'm not going to assume he's guilty yet.

 

Scotty Pods has had an increase in power lately...

 

I was actually suspicious of his 2004 vs 2005 stats, as well as many other players.

[Buehrle>Wood]

I was actually suspicious of his 2004 vs 2005 stats, as well as many other players.

Not to turn this into a Pods thread, but I doubt it. His HR numbers came at the expense of all of his other stats. I think his numbers were a change in hitting style.

Edited June 9, 2006 by Buehrle>Wood

[Kalapse]

You can't rule out any speedy little guys, steroids/HGH can be used for many reasons not just power hitting. Alex Sanchez anyone, hell Marion Jones?

[G&T]

What makes Pujols suspicious to me is that it is well known that he did not hit for power like this when he was drafted...but on the other hand, Hawk was talking about how Thome couldn't for power either. (A change in batting stance helped his power ability, according to Hawk in that story).

[Punch and Judy Garland]

Yeah anyone who follows prospects knows that power is sometimes the last thing to come. Albert is a line-drive hitter and not a guy who is obsessed with hitting as many homers as possible. I believe he could already have hit 60 homers or more in a year if he would have been willing to K more and hit 40-50 points lower. Like Frank, he has always stayed true to his form. There aren't many athletes who's word I take, but Albert is one of them. When he says he has never taken steroids, I believe him. Plus, this rumor (and I love deadspin and have no problem with them posting it as that is what blogs are for) is that its several degrees of separation from Albert and even if Pujols trainer handed the stuff out, I don't know that ALbert would partake.

[G&T]

Well I hope for his sake and for baseball's he didn't. But those under suspicion have a tendency to be found guilty. Don't forget, this was also a guy who defended Bonds just a couple weeks ago.

[whitesoxfan101]

What makes Pujols suspicious to me is that it is well known that he did not hit for power like this when he was drafted...but on the other hand, Hawk was talking about how Thome couldn't for power either. (A change in batting stance helped his power ability, according to Hawk in that story).

 

Using Thome as an example of how you can develop incredible power after coming into the draft without it may turn out to be a VERY bad example.....