Yankees baulking at HGH-user Andy Pettitte?
Did Andy Pettitte balk with the HGH use? Or do the Yankees now baulk at Pettitte's compensation?
A baulk in baseball constitutes an illegal action and may be a procedural balk, or a punitive balk. It appears that Pettitte balked when he admitted last December that he used HGH twice. Now Pettitte admits he used the illegal PED more than he previously let on. Balk.
Yankee management should not be very happy about Pettitte's duplicity. Does this speak to his honesty or to the health of his elbow (for which Pettitte says he injected HGH, despite no scientific evidence that HGH repairs worn-out elbows)?
Monday, the man in whom the Yankees placed all their eggs in one basket last December, arrives in camp carrying far more baggage than anyone anticipated and, because of this, Hank Steinbrenner and the rest of the high command can only hope and pray Andy Pettitte isn't in fact a basket case.
While Pettitte might be acclaimed as "St. Andy" by the blathering bureaucrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for what they feel was the forthrightness in the sworn testimony he gave them regarding his involvement with human growth hormone, I can assure you he is now regarded as something else by Yankee officials. How about disingenuous for starters? Or duplicitous?
And the Yanks:
The fact is, Hank Steinbrenner has a right to feel Pettitte duped him when on the eve of the winter meetings in Nashville, the quiet and sensitive 35-year old lefty called GM Brian Cashman to inform him he was ready to accept the Yankees' standing one-year, $16 million offer. At the time, there was elation all around, especially from Cashman, who used Pettitte's "I shall return" proclamation as the incentive for walking away from a deal for the Twins' Johan Santana - a deal he never wanted to make. With Pettitte taking up $16 million in payroll, the Yankees could no longer afford Santana, Cashman argued, and Hal Steinbrenner, Hank's partner and the primary financial expert in the business, agreed.
Thus, the Yanks ended up without Santana, and with an expensive, not-entirely-honest pitcher who seems to be self-treating a sore elbow. And now Pettitte took HGH not once, but 3 chronological series
I'm told that in addition to Hank, VP of scouting "Stick" Michael and team president Randy Levine, who handles all the big contracts, wanted to go ahead with the Santana deal anyway. In the end, Hank reluctantly deferred to his brother and Cashman and the baseball people. But when he did, he had no idea of the scope of Pettitte's involvement in baseball's steroids scandal. He knew Pettitte was going to be mentioned in the Mitchell Report, but he had no reason to believe it was going to be any more than in the context of using the same trainer as Roger Clemens. He didn't know Pettitte was going to admit to having taken HGH at least three times and that the last time he took it, he got it from his father, Tom, who got it from a trainer at a gym in Pasadena, Tex., near Pettitte's home in Deer Park called 1-on-1 Elite Personal Fitness.
Here is the upshot: Steinbrenner was partially duped by Pettitte...now what?
In short, Hank Steinbrenner didn't know Andy Pettitte, whom he welcomed back for $16 million last December at the expense of pursuing a deal for Santana. He didn't know he was this much of a participant in the baseball steroids investigation and was this much involved in a gym that could become a part of a federal investigation now that this is all coming out. He didn't know any of this because Andy Pettitte didn't tell him.
Had Hank known this, do you think he would have been so willing and eager to bring Pettitte back?
"I'm not going to comment on that right now," Hank said to me in a phone conversation. "All I know is, we never had that conversation."
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