Steroid Nation

Met batboy Radomski finds evidence of Rocket fuel delivered to Roger Clemens's Houston pad

The New York Daily News reported that Metboy Kirk Radomski found receipts for packages of HGH shipped to the Rocket's Houston launching pad.  The new evidence further complicated Clemens's steroid/HGH defense. (Update:  ESPN reports Metboy Radomski found the Clemens receipt under a broken TV:  "My TV broke and I said, 'Damn, I got to get it off the dresser,'" Radomski said Wednesday. "And it was right there.")

Confessed drug supplier Kirk Radomski has provided documentary evidence to the government showing that he shipped drugs to the Texas home of Roger Clemens, who is under investigation for perjury after telling Congress he never used steroids or human growth hormone.

According to sources with close knowledge of the investigation, Radomski has discovered shipping receipts for a package of two kits of human growth hormone that he sent in late 2002 or 2003 to Clemens at the pitcher's palatial mansion in Houston. Radomski is believed to have also provided the government with new information and receipts for drug shipments to other players.

However, the beneficiary of the HGH might not have been the Rocket, but rather Debbie Rocket, Clemens's admitted HGH using wife.

Radomski, who received a five-year probation sentence in February after cooperating with government investigators, recently informed the feds about the materials. The Justice Department is continuing its investigation in New York as well as in Texas and Florida.

The Clemens package was addressed to William Roger Clemens, in care of Brian McNamee, according to the sources, who said that McNamee did not sign for the package.

According to the sources, the timing of the shipment to Clemens' home coincides roughly with the dates when Clemens' wife, Debbie, used human growth hormone in preparation for her participation in a pictorial in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. They also expect the evidence to corroborate McNamee's claims that Clemens was behind his wife's use and was present when McNamee injected her just after the drugs arrived at the couple's home.

Clemens denied use of PEDs including anabolic steroids and HGH, however admitted wife Debbie used HGH to prepare for a Sports Illustrated expose photoshoot with the Rocket.

Clemens has denied under oath using human growth hormone, or having any prior knowledge that his wife was going to use HGH. The Daily News was the first to report in February that Debbie Clemens received at least one injection of the drug from McNamee.

Reached Tuesday by The News, Clemens' lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said he wasn't aware the government had been informed of new shipping receipts .

As Hardin says the Rocket can deny almost anything because he never tested positive for a PED under baseballs anemic PED testing back in his day.  However the receipts do suggest that McNamee was truthful when he testified that Clemens was pumping his wife up, and was aware the ex-trainer injected the female Rocket with some extra juice.

Jockeys and horsemen come down on horse steroids

An ad hoc group of horse racing jockeys and others called for several reforms in the racing community yesterday.  Formed after the Kentucky Derby dramatic death of eight Belles, the group called for the banning of anabolic steroids as well as several other measures.  To the WaPo:

A committee organized by the Jockey Club last month after the death of filly Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby issued its first recommendations yesterday, including the elimination of anabolic steroids in the training and racing of thoroughbreds.

The seven-member committee, which included prominent breeder Stuart Janney III as well as leading veterinarian Larry Bramlage, also pressed for the ban of shoes called "toe grabs" -- which are believed to cause extra pressure on a horse's front legs -- and reforms for the design and use of whips.

While the recommendations are not binding, committee members said they have broad support from industry groups that could enact the changes, which are targeted for implementation by Dec. 31.

The announcement of the recommendations came two days before a House subcommittee on commerce, trade, and consumer protection is scheduled to hold a hearing examining breeding, drugs and breakdowns in racing.

Much heat coming down on the horse racing industy.  Interesting that Big Brown, the Kentucky Derby winner, will be back on the juice.

Balk? Did MLB officials -- Fehr and Selig -- fib before Congress

ESPN reports that California House member Henry Waxman is none too pleased with Bud Selig and Don Fehr's 2005 testimony before his committee investigating steroid use in baseball.]

Henry Waxman, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, is disputing the validity of testimony given by MLB commissioner Bud Selig and union chief Donald Fehr regarding drug testing during a March 2005 hearing, The New York Times has reported.

Waxman has grown skeptical of statistics provided by Selig and Fehr that showed a significant downward trend of positive tests results from 2003 to 2004, the report said.

"It's clear that some of the information Major League Baseball and the players union gave the committee in 2005 was inaccurate," Waxman said in a written statement. "It isn't clear whether this was intentional or just reflects confusion over the testing program for 2003 and 2004. In any case, the misinformation is unacceptable."

Sometimes one wonders whether these guys intentionally cover up doping issues, or whether they are simply uninformed or inept.  Further --

The issue centers on the fact MLB had suspended drug testing for much of the 2004 season in response to the federal government's investigation of BALCO, The Times said. Selig and Fehr failed to disclose this in their testimony, which did reveal the number of failed drug tests processed in 2003 was about 100 but was reduced to about 12 the next year.

"In 2004, each player was tested on an unannounced, identified basis for the unlawful use of steroids," Fehr said in written testimony to the committee, according to The Times. "No player knew when he was going to be tested."

The information from 2003-04 came to light in former Sen. George Mitchell's report of December 2007 in a section titled "Allegations of Advance Notice of Tests," nearly 300 pages into the 409-page report.

The Mitchell report disclosed that the anonymity of the drug-testing program required by MLB's collective bargaining agreement had fallen into doubt after federal agents raided two companies involved in BALCO survey testing, resulting in the temporary shutdown of baseball's testing.

"In the course of these searches, the agents seized data from which they believed they could determine the identities of the major league players who had tested positive during the anonymous survey testing," the Mitchell report states on Page 281.

Further, it says: "Ultimately, the Commissioner's Office and the Players Association agreed to a moratorium on 2004 drug testing. While the exact date and length of this moratorium is uncertain, and the relevant 2004 testing records have been destroyed, [Deputy commissioner Rob] Manfred stated that the moratorium commenced very early in the season, prior to the testing of any significant number of players."

The suspension of the program "lasted for a short period," according to Manfred, the Mitchell report says.

Waxman's concerns come less than three weeks after the MLB and its players implemented a new, more regimented drug-testing program and nearly four months after his committee held hearings in which Roger Clemens and his former personal trainer Brian McNamee testified about performance-enhancing drugs and allegations by McNamee of their use by Clemens.

Interesting, a little deception to the congressman.  Will Waxman call a steroid balk?

 

"Bigger Stronger Faster": Documentary on steroids opens in theaters

We see more reviews on "Bigger Stronger Faster" hitting the 'net.  The LA Times looked very favorably on the film:

Sylvester Stallone, Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 1980s saw an explosion of butt-kicking in America, observes Christopher Bell in the raucously funny and surprisingly insightful prologue to his debut documentary, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster*." And as a 12-year-old kid from a loving but undeniably short and doughy family in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Bell and his brothers were particularly susceptible to the message. As he reminds us, the don't-mess-with-the-U.S. Reagan years were an overheated response to '70s downers such as the Iran hostage crisis. But for the Bell boys, it was simply a call to ripped, bulging arms.

What began simply as a documentary about steroid use in America, "Bigger, Stronger, Faster*" (The asterisk refers to the movie's subtitle: "The Side-Effects of Being American") turns out to be a surprisingly comprehensive and insightful look at a culture predicated on might and obsessed with achieving success at any cost. This, more than rampant steroid use among professional athletes, is what makes Bell's documentary so timely and ultimately so sobering. What Bell and co-writers and producers Alex Buono (who also shot the movie) and Tamsin Rawady discover -- through countless hours of interviews, news, movie and cartoon footage as well as home video of the Bell family -- is a country in which it's literally impossible to win if one plays by the rules, because winners almost always cheat...

"Bigger, Stronger, Faster*" works so assiduously to prove that the level playing field is a myth that at times the sheer number of examples threatens to overwhelm it; it would have worked at half the size. (Like the nation, it's a documentary on steroids.) Overall, though, it's a fascinating and unexpectedly profound and melancholy meditation on what we have become as a country and on the misguided obsessions that made us this way.

The Morning Call asks if steroids are as American as apple pie?

In Christopher Bell's new documentary ''Bigger, Stronger, Faster,'' there's a fascinating clip of U.S. Sen. Joe Biden denouncing steroid use during a packed congressional hearing on performance-enhancing drugs. Juicing your way to success, he thunders, is ''simply un-American.''

Bell has a different story to tell. In the doc, which opened Friday in Philadelphia, the filmmaker wonders if steroid use isn't quintessentially American. We are a nation, Bell points out, that's obsessed not only with body-image but with being the best at everything.

Pervasive cheating: American or simply human>

Now out: Official web site with theater locations.

 

Will his women pump up Roger Clemens's steroid levels? The Feds want to know

Women, wine, and Winstrol...sounds like fun.  Roger Clemens's fun might be stopping soon as women may lead to Winstrol as reported by the New York Times.

...significant than the defamation suit is the federal investigation into whether Clemens committed perjury in denying to Congress that he had used performance-enhancing drugs. And the several women who were linked to Clemens in articles that appeared in The Daily News last week could have an impact on that investigation.

Investigators will pursue the woman named in the New Daily News series to see if Clemens leaked any PED/steroid information to them.  One of the key witnesses against Barry Bonds should be his ex-mistress Kimberly Bell.  We may well hear one of Clemens's women testify against him someday too.

According to lawyers familiar with the matter, federal authorities will probably try to question the women to see if they can link Clemens to the use of steroids and human growth hormone.

The lawyers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to comment publicly about a continuing investigation, said it was unclear if authorities would seek to question the women immediately.

One of Clemens's harem apparently snooped into his suitcases:

One of the women, Mindy McCready, a country singer, confirmed last week that she had had a longstanding relationship with Clemens. In a telephone interview Wednesday, her mother, Gayle Inge, said McCready’s lawyers had informed her that federal investigators would probably contact her.

Inge said she had asked her daughter whether she believed the allegations linking Clemens to performance-enhancing drugs. Her daughter replied that she did not.

“She said she’s looked in his suitcase and everything,” Inge said of her daughter, “and she’s never seen anything like that.”

The FBI and the FDA already began tracking down informants on Clemens's PED use, in the investigation into possible perjury.  Sounds like they smell blood:

Two F.B.I. agents — one from Washington and the other from California — spent last week in Houston, where Clemens lives. While there, they questioned Shaun Kelley, a weight-loss center owner, about Clemens. Kelley said last week that the agents administered a lie-detector test and that he was certain that he had passed.

He has publicly denied knowing Clemens or providing him with drugs.

And two weeks ago, the Food and Drug Administration agent Jeff Novitzky and two other federal agents questioned José Canseco about his knowledge of Clemens’s activities.

In other Clemens news, the coach of USA Baseball says Clemens will not be considered for the roster.  Their loss, Clemens could bring some fine women along to the games...

Daily Steroid Briefing

1.  The Boston Globe says Roger Clemens could have avoided this Rocket explosion.  (Boston.com)

2.  Old report, but the curse of the Mitchell Report hits Gagne and Giambi.  (Sporting News)

3.  Studs on steroids: horses juice up. (Courier-Journal)

4.  MLB's drug unit probing ID theft as well as drug use  (AP)

5.  HGH testing to be introduced in Australia (The Australian)

6.  Boxes of HGH missing from a juvenile detention center in New Jersey.  (Wall Police Blotter)

7.  Someone doesn't like it that Roger Clemens dated a 15 yar-old girl. (Boston Herald)

The Rocket -- Roger Clemens -- appears to be in frequent launch mode

Due startling revelations the past few days, Roger Clemens's reputation lies shattered on the launchpad.  Singer Mindy McCready admitted yesterday to an intimate relationship with the Rocket.  However, several other 'intimates' came forward over the past few hours, reports the New York Daily News.

Roger Clemens hung out with several attractive women in his baseball career, including beauties in California and Boston and a former Manhattan bartender named Angela Moyer.

Clemens, 45, flew the women around the country on his private jet and bought expensive jewelry for at least one of them, a source told the Daily News Tuesday.

As the Daily News first reported Sunday, the Rocket carried on a decade-long affair with country singer Mindy McCready, who confirmed the romantic relationship Monday.

Moyer, a 30-year-old Realtor who lives in the Harrisburg, Pa., area, worked as a bartender from 2000 to 2004 at Sutton Place, a yuppie East Side watering hole. That's roughly the same time the pitching legend played for the Yankees.

A woman in every space-port, eh? Rocket?  Could it be all that nandrolone?  But at age 15?  The speculation centers on how all this plays out for Clemens in his current fights against ex-trainer Brain McNamee who says Clemens partook in steroids and HGH.

Singer Mindy McCready played poker, while her mother admitted the Rocket orbited around her daughter:

"I've been playing poker and I invented a new game called 'I win,'" McCready said with a laugh, still nervous from her time under the media microscope this week.

Her mother, Gayle Inge, later told The News, "I know Roger was infatuated with Mindy."

Ever Jose Canseco, long known for his veracity, appeared 'stunned' at the accusations bombarding his firend Clemens.  In his book Canseco claimed Clemens was a virgin (wink wink).

Former slugger Jose Canseco said he was stunned to learn his former teammate had an affair with McCready.

"I found out about it Tuesday and it took me completely by surprise," said Canseco, who wrote in his first book, "Juiced," that the legendary pitcher never strayed from his wife.

"I saw none of it. If it is true, he kept it secret."

Right, Jose.  Looks like Canseco's thin credibility becomes even thinner.

 

Late Daily Steroid Briefing

1.  The San Francisco Giants take stock of loss of Bonds  (NY Times)

2. Interview with ex-Senator George Mitchell, of the infamous Mitchell Report.  He delayed treatment for prostrate cancer until after the MLB steroid report was published (Trading Markets)

3. New Jersey pumps up steroid testing for kids (1010 WINS)

4. A Utah station says high school use of steroids is epidemic (CDC disagrees) (ABC 4)

5.  Duke newspaper says good riddance to old athletic director Joe Alleva, who resigned to take the position at LSU.  Sites failure to be honest about steroid abuse on Duke baseball team.  (Duke Chronicle)

6.  Ibuprofen and Tylenol as PEDs?  Study says yes. (Physorg)

Photographic memory: more info on the Canseco/Clemens party photos

More information concerning the Canseco Party in 1998 where Roger Clemens talked steroids (and may have used some) emerged today.  This story takes on legendary status as the weeks go on.

The controversy seems trivial: so what if Clemens attended some goofy Party at Canseco's house?  Two important points:

• The fact of Clemens attending the Canseco party starts the true/false controversy.  This represents the beginning of the Clemens steroid story in the gospel according to trainer McNamee.  One person is not truthful about the fact.  Both testified under oath on his side of the truth.
• At the party, McNamee says The Rocket learned about steroid use, although others say he was already an knowledgeable juice consumer.
• Now reports says Clemens may have juiced at the party.

The New York Daily News contends that IRS/BALCO investigator Jeff Novitzky possesses photographs of both Canseco and Clemens putting them at th party seen with a teenage fan.

Two photographs that may link Roger Clemens to having attended the infamous 1998 party at Jose Canseco's Florida home are in the hands of IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky.

Novitzky, the lead investigator in the BALCO steroids scandal who is investigating whether Clemens perjured himself before Congress, wants to meet with Canseco to discuss the photos, according to Canseco's attorney Robert Saunooke.

The Daily News first reported the existence of the photographs in February. Brian McNamee, Clemens' former trainer turned accuser, claimed in the Mitchell Report that the Rocket was introduced to steroids at the party. McNamee also said in a Dec. 12 taped conversation with two investigators that Clemens may have even used performance enhancers at the party.

McNamee's attorney, Richard Emery, told The News on Feb. 21 that he'd been made aware of the photos. An 11-year-old boy who apparently attended the same party had photos taken of himself with Clemens and with Canseco. Saunooke said Saturday night that he had no idea how the photos would place Clemens at the party since Canseco and Clemens are not photographed together. The two players were Blue Jays teammates during the '98 season.

"Jeff called me. He apparently has two photographs, one of a boy with Roger Clemens in a pool and one of the boy with Jose. He wants to meet with Jose, so we're going to try and work something out in the next 30 days," Saunooke told The News last night by phone. Canseco is currently on tour promoting his book "Vindicated."

Clemens's grandstanding lawyer, Rusty Hardin, backed off statements Clemens was not in attendance.  Someone's veracity will be suspect when this is all over.

 

Quite a night at the ballpark for President Bush: Snubs Lo Duca, calls for players to 'fix it' on steroids, and throws out the first pitch in Nats new palace

President George Bush, once the owner of the steroid-riddled Texas Rangers, snubbed Nationals catcher Paul Lo Duca last night when he threw out the first ball at the Nats new stadium.  Perhaps Bush became concerned that Lo Duca -- apparently a lifelong juicer -- would chuck that ball back at his head, or throw a Clemens-esque bat his way.

The VIllage Voice says thus:

Oh, they're so happy over on ESPN because of the Washington Nationals' new baseball stadium, which opened last night when George W. Bush threw up the first pitch.

The doofus POTUS was wild with his throw to Nats' manager Manny Acta. Strange, isn't it, that Bush's battery mate was Acta instead of the Nats' catcher, Paul Lo Duca. But the ex-Met is ensnared in the steroids scandal, so his PR quotient is below the Mendoza Line.

When asked by the ESPN team about the steroid scandals, Bush fumbled his way through the issue, and responded to the Mitchell Report (which we bet he didn't read) in an oblique way:

Funnier still was during the game itself, when Bush showed up in the broadcast booth to say of the steroids scandal, "I hope the players fix it." He didn't say "the commissioner" or "the owners." Only "the players."

We would agree about the hilarity here.  Why hold the leadership responsible for events going on?  Didn't the troops send themselves over to Iraq?  Doesn't he know about baseball's power structure?  According to the Voice, Bush wasn't a real owner:

The broadcast crew noted that Bush is a former baseball owner. But that's only technically true. Before he was even Texas governor, Bush was trotted out before the public as the "owner" of the Texas Rangers. But Tom Hicks was the real owner; Bush put up a minuscule amount of money but was only the front man for Hicks and the rest of the real ownership group so they could get a stadium and other parts of a sweet deal with Arlington, the home of the team. When the Rangers were later sold, Bush cashed in for a lot of dough.

Years later, Bush became Dick Cheney's front man, where he's been even more dangerous.

And, about last night..that new stadium in the midst of DC poverty:

Too bad D.C. isn't making out as well as Bush. The new stadium was a point of contention when D.C. didn't even have a team and its luxury boxes were only a dream in the minds of politicians and lobbyists...

Since 2000, the gap between rich and poor has widened throughout the country. But D.C. was in terrible shape even during the Clinton years.

So there we have it.  Nice new baseball park in the midst of poverty and infrastructure meltdowns.  However, everyone thinks it is important to feel good when watching the national pastime...escape to a nice space in the city, even though the players like Lo Duca could be shooting juice in the johns...