RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Sports and Wrestling Baseball is investigating steroids... really...

_{Rob made this. Thanks.}


Baseball to launch investigation into past steroid use
By RONALD BLUM, AP Baseball Writer
March 30, 2006

NEW YORK (AP) -- The alleged steroid use by Barry Bonds and other players will be investigated by Major League Baseball, and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell will lead the effort.

A baseball official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that final plans were to be announced at a news conference Thursday, and commissioner Bud Selig was scheduled to make an announcement at his office. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Selig has not yet made his intentions public.

Selig's decision to launch the probe, first reported by ESPN, came in the wake of "Game of Shadows," a book by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters detailing alleged extensive steroid use by Bonds and other baseball stars. The commissioner has said for several weeks that he was evaluating how to respond to the book.

Some in Congress have called for an independent investigation. Mitchell, a Maine Democrat and a director of the Boston Red Sox, has been a director of the Florida Marlins and served on an economic study committee that Selig appointed in 1999. He also is chairman of The Walt Disney Co., whose ESPN subsidiary is one of baseball's primary broadcast partners.

Mitchell's possible involvement was first mentioned Wednesday in The New York Times. The name of a lawyer who will run the mechanics of the probe also was to be announced.

No matter what the findings of an investigation, it would be difficult for baseball to penalize anyone for steroids used before Sept. 30, 2002, when a joint drug agreement between management and the players' association took effect. Baseball began drug testing in 2003 and started testing with penalties the following year.

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"I will only comment on things about Barry's on-field performance or contractual status," said his agent, Jeff Borris.

It is unclear whether current or former players would cooperate with an investigation or could be forced to do so by baseball. Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association, declined comment.

Under pressure from Congress, baseball toughened penalties last year and again this season, when an initial positive test will result in a 50-game suspension. Twelve players, including Rafael Palmeiro, were suspended for 10 days each following positive tests last year.

"Game of Shadows" details alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs by Bonds for at least five seasons beginning after the 1998 season.

Former commissioner Fay Vincent called this month for an investigation and suggested it be headed by Mitchell or John Dowd, who led baseball's 1989 probe into gambling by career hits leader Pete Rose, who agreed to a lifetime ban.

"I think the investigation is the right step," Vincent said. "I don't think the issue is punishment, I think it's: `Shouldn't the players be called to task for cheating, even if there is no punishment?' I think baseball has to recapture the moral high ground."

An after-hours message left for Mitchell at his New York office was not immediately returned Wednesday. The New York Daily News first reported March 16 that Selig would launch an investigation, but Selig said no decision had been made at the time.

I told you there was going to be a formal investigation, that there was no way Selig could avoid this any longer.

Henry Aaron deserves better than Barry Bonds.

Clearly Bud Selig read Chris Oakley's letter to the Boston Globe.

the timing is coincedental since there have been 5 or 6 major sponsors that have said they would have nothing to do with the celebration of bonds breaking any records...

Morals are morals, money is money.

Have fun storming the castle!

An excerpt from Tom Verducci's column on SI.com today

So this is how the great chase of Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron plays out, wholly without grace. An event to be mocked. A celebration of the absurd rather than of sporting achievement. An embarrassment for baseball and a burden for the Giants. Syringes on the field. Double entendres in the stands. Investigators wading into the muck. The class act Vin Scully telling the Los Angeles Times he hopes he's not unlucky enough to have to call home run number 756.

Consider what happened Monday evening in San Diego. In his first game since being catalogued by the book Game of Shadows as a serial steroid user and effectively being placed under investigation by the office of the commissioner, Barry Bonds was Tonya Harding. A punch line. An object of ridicule. His teammate Omar Vizquel said that Bonds was heckled by children, for goodness sake, during batting practice.

"Today it was kind of bad,'' Vizquel said.

Oh, that was just a start. Fans littered the stands with placards that questioned everything about Bonds, from the legitimacy of his records to the size of his head and genitalia. A reporter asked Bonds quite seriously if the syringe thrown near him on the field had a needle. Giants staffers were in full panic mode trying to tamp down the brush fire of questions to players about all things Bonds, and a weariness had already settled over the clubhouse about this elephant in the room that will dominate their season.

"And this is only Day One," one Giant said, shaking his head.

And this was only San Diego, where the sun-dappled folks eating their fish tacos in flip-flops don't know what it's like to work up a really good anger. Holy trenbolone, if San Diego is hostile, what is Los Angeles going to be like? Philadelphia? Chicago? New York? Now that the first draft of the rules of engagement have been written, what happens when the seasoned hecklers get their turn?

Here's just a sampling of San Diego's messages to Bonds: "Barr-Roids," "Bonds 1st in Hall of Shame," "Cheaters Never Prosper,'' "No Confess, No Hall of Fame," "Bonds Greatest Cheater of the Era," "Huge Head, Tiny Bat, Tiny Balls," and, simply yet profoundly, "*''. And that was before someone chucked the large syringe onto the field. Bonds picked it up with his glove. No, he didn't keep it. He flipped it into a camera well near the dugout.

The Giants cannot be a normal baseball team. Bonds, the person and the ongoing news story, is bigger than the team, which you would have understood if you were in the San Francisco clubhouse after the 6-1 Opening Day loss to San Diego. Immediately after the game, as Bonds fetched an ice pack for his right knee, the airspace around his locker was staked out very seriously by a p.r. flak vainly trying to affect a bodyguard's stance, Bonds' personal trainer (non-incarcerated version, who, wink-wink, is employed by the Giants), Bonds' clubhouse lackey, Bonds' personal videographer and about 15 reporters who cared not a whit about what manager Felipe Alou had to say about how the game was lost.

Bonds took some questions, though. With practiced detachment, his answers were devoid of any real thought.

Barry Bonds must go. It will only get worse.

He invites this on himself. But the syringe was too much. Fans shouldn't throw things onto the field, or at people.

Bonds wasn't too phased by it. He doubled in his first at bat.

I am really loving how much this is pissing everyone off. I can't imagine how funny it will be if the Giants get to the World Series.