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Bush: Steroids have 'sullied' baseball Dec. 14: "The players and the owners must take the Mitchell Report seriously," President Bush said Friday. |
Much of the information about Clemens came from former New York Yankees major league strength and conditioning coach Brian McNamee.
According to the report, McNamee also told investigators that “during the middle of the 2000 season, Clemens made it clear that he was ready to use steroids again. During the latter part of the regular season, McNamee injected Clemens in the buttocks four to six times with testosterone from a bottle labeled either Sustanon 250 or Deca-Durabolin.”
The report was unlikely to trigger a wave of discipline. While a few players, such as Bonds, are subjects of ongoing legal proceedings, many of the instances cited by Mitchell were before drug testing began in 2003.
Mitchell said punishment was inappropriate in all but the most egregious cases, and Selig said decisions on any action would come “swiftly” on a case-by-case basis.
Mitchell said the problems didn’t develop overnight and there was plenty of blame to go around.
“Everyone involved in baseball over the past two decades — commissioners, club officials, the players’ association and players — shares to some extent the responsibility for the Steroids Era,” Mitchell said. “There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and to deal with it early on.”
Mitchell recommended that the drug-testing program be made independent, that a list of the substances players test positive for be issued periodically and that the timing of testing be more unpredictable.
“The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances poses a serious threat to the integrity of the game,” the report said. “Widespread use by players of such substances unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who refuse to use them and raises questions about the validity of baseball records.”
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
DeMarco: Plug in a well-heeled ownership group and negotiate one of those mega-bucks TV deals that are going around, and the Dodgers could become the west coast version of the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox.
The Mitchell Report |
‘Cart before the horse’ Dec. 15: Jim Bunning, Hall of fame pitcher and Kentucky Senator says MLB is too concerned with protecting the players and not the game. |
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