Fascinating

[Balta1701]

What I find fascinating about this stuff is that the guys who admit to using steroids or HGH pretty much get a free pass. Granted, the're not the high profile types like Clemens, McGwire, or Bonds, but still some big names. Pettite was made to look like an angel at the hearing, yet he admitted to using HGH two times in 2001. Later it came out that he also used HGH in 2004 - and he got it from his Dad. So he has some credibility issues as well.

 

Assuming he used HGH, Clemens had to know there was a possibility that eventually he'd be outed. Why not formulate a better defense than denial and defiance beforehand? Say you used to recover from an injury, and the public forgives. Lie, even if all the evidence seems to implicate you as a user, and the public gets offended.

 

If I'm a MLB player, and I've used HGH, I'm getting my story ready now for when I am eventually outed. I might even make a statement on my own admitting that I used for a short time for whatever reason. If Jim Thome came out and said he used HGH on the advice of a doctor or trainer to recover from a back injury, I don't think people would be outraged. Everyone uses drugs or medicine at some point to recover from illness or injury.

I don't like it...but I'll bet you that if Clemens had come out and said that the Mitchell Report was true, word for word, and he had started juicing in 1998, apologized, and asked the HOF voters to take in to account that he'd never done anything before hand, He'd probably still make the HOF under the absurd "He was a HOFer before he starting juicing" argument we hear all the time about Bonds.

[Soxbadger]

Middle Buffalo,

 

Interesting points.

 

The difference with Clemens and Bonds is that they have a myth to protect. They have the best lawyers money can buy, and their lawyers have told them simply:

 

You have 2 options,

 

1) Fall on your sword, admit to susing HGH or something 1-2 times and call it a day.

 

2) Deny, deny, deny.

 

Both Clemens and Bonds chose option 2, once you have chosen that option you can not go back. There will be no, "Oh Bonds decided to come clean and tell the truth, so its all forgiven." Once you pick option 2, you are in it to the end, win or lose.

 

And when you look at the people Bonds and Clemens are, there is no question as to why they chose option 2. They are fighters, they never give an inch, that is what has made 2 of the best baseball players in the history of baseball. But that same mentality is what led them to fight the US govt, every opponent, every obstacle in their life, they have almost down the line triumphed. To them this is just another game, another battle.

 

As long as neither of them confess, neither of them will ever really be guilty. Their fans will always believe them a conviction cant even change that.

 

Just as an off beat side comment,

 

The Black Sox were acquitted at trial...