Lupica has the guts to name names, that he suspects, while others will not take that tact.

Within this article, he openly questions Piazza and Clemens. Rare to see that in a columnist these days, when they prefer to straddle a fence:


Impossible to detect, but easy to suspect



Roger Clemens works way back into majors while former Yankee teammate Jason Grimsley exits big leagues but leaves behind a cloud that promises to linger.
Jason Grimsley doesn't want to be a distraction the way Jason Giambi didn't want to be a distraction. Giambi, one of the BALCO All-Stars, never admitted that his leaked grand jury testimony in the BALCO case was true, never admitted that he used steroids to get bigger and stronger and much richer, just apologized for nothing and was celebrated for that far and wide. Even now Giambi keeps saying he did what he had to do and moved on.

Mostly by hitting home runs.


"I didn't want to be a distraction to my teammates," Giambi, who gets cheered wildly now for hitting the ball as far as he ever did when he was (allegedly) using steroids, said last year.


What a guy. Now Grimsley, whose home got raided and who copped not only to using steroids but human growth hormones as well, says pretty much the same thing. He is a journeyman pitcher at the end of his career, he isn't good enough to play himself out of trouble the way Giambi has, now or ever. But, boy oh boy, he sure is a good teammate. These cheats think that is going to help get them into heaven, even as they will clearly do anything to make more money and get more career for themselves. For the last time, they don't call this stuff dope for nothing.


Here is Joe Bick, Grimsley's agent, talking:


"Anybody that knows anything about Jason knows he's a very good teammate and he told all the players, 'I don't want to be a distraction now.'"


Grimsley shouldn't worry about that. He's through. And you wonder how his fellow members of the Major League Baseball Players Association are going to feel about him if it turns out that a world-class teammate like this named names when the feds came calling.


These are the same union members who have been patting themselves on their backs for the testing program now in place, even as they know that the guy in the locker next to him and the guy in the locker next to him have found something like human growth hormones to stay strong, and ahead of the law.


Maybe these guys thought they were in the clear because they could beat the current testing. Maybe they thought the government would just go away after BALCO. Now they find out differently. I hope it has scared the new wave of cheats half to death. You think Grimsley is the only one using this stuff? You think the government is going to stop with him? Think again.


So it is a pitcher this time. It is a popular pitcher who has pitched in a lot of places and been friendly with a lot of guys. It isn't one of the BALCO boys. It isn't Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Comeback Player of the Year Giambi. It is a pitcher, and you better believe that it is going to bring suspicions about other pitchers out into the open. It is going to make everybody a suspect all over again, especially all of Grimsley's good buddies all over baseball.


We are still putting an awful lot on faith in baseball, and were doing that before Grimsley, who sounds like a Rite-Aid all by himself, got good and busted. We are supposed to take it on faith that even though Giambi (allegedly) took steroids in the first place to get bigger and stronger and much richer, keep up with all the other guys he thought were using drugs to do that, he is now as big and strong and clean as he was before all that.


The other night at Yankee Stadium he hit one off the facing of the upper deck and I didn't think he even got all of it.


Roger Clemens is having the same kind of second half of his career that Bonds is having. He is one of a handful of pitchers who goes against everything we have ever seen in pitching in the history of the world, which means his fastball has gotten better and better after the age of 35, which is when pitchers start to break down. And we are supposed to take it on faith, even as he signs one amazing contract after another as he approaches his 44th birthday, that it's that workout regimen of his, with maybe some B-12 shots thrown in there.


We are supposed to take it on faith that Sheffield went out and spent all that time with Bonds and didn't know anything about steroids, and that Mike Piazza just suddenly aged faster than milk does.


We are supposed to take it on faith that current home run heroes aren't on anything because they've never tested positive for anything. Grimsley didn't, either, at least not after that survey year that has brought us to the testing program baseball now has, one that still does not prevent us from seeing suspects all over the sport.


Now one of the suspects gets busted. When he does, when Jason Grimsley has the feds come to his front door, he apparently started singing like he was on "American Idol" until he got lawyered up.


Bud Selig hasn't collectively bargained for blood testing baseball players. Not yet. Nobody has. The Players Association has fought that the way it fought everything else. But Selig, who got more testing and more penalties out of the Players Association than anybody ever thought he would, has to do something, even if it's preserving samples until a reliable test does come along. Or finding an entirely new method of anti-doping in a DNA, CSI world, as a way of putting these bums on notice.


Until then the national pastime in the national pastime is all these good teammates staying one step ahead of the testers. If not the law.

Originally published on June 8, 2006

Good article though the focus needs to be on the fact that testing obviously needs to be improved if guys are still using HGH with little fear of failing a test rather than the Bonds witch hunt.

Clemens in my mind is a easy suspect though Ryan pitched well at a advanced age also.

Piazza is suprising in that all catchers drop off in production at the age he did.

I gather Giambi won't be speaking to Lupica anytime soon after Lupica basically says he is still using in the article.

Good article though the focus needs to be on the fact that testing obviously needs to be improved if guys are still using HGH with little fear of failing a test rather than the Bonds witch hunt.

Clemens in my mind is a easy suspect though Ryan pitched well at a advanced age also.

Piazza is suprising in that all catchers drop off in production at the age he did.

I gather Giambi won't be speaking to Lupica anytime soon after Lupica basically says he is still using in the article.


There was that insinuation there, wasn't there?

It is going to be up to the players union. Fehr would probably love to strangle Grimsley at this point. It is going to be hard for teh union to say no to blood testing now, with the govt so hot on this trail.

The player's union had a nice run of wins, but that is going away and they are for the first time, since the 70's having to make concessions. This will be interesting.

It wouldn't shock me if Clemens were exposed.

But there comes a point where its really easy to throw around wild speculation without much proof. Lupica has nothing. Pettitte has the same trainer, a guy who's an ex-NYPD cop who grew up in Rockaway. Why not throw Pettitte in there too? Clemens must be talking to his lawyer right about now.

It wouldn't shock me if Clemens were exposed.

But there comes a point where its really easy to throw around wild speculation without much proof. Lupica has nothing. Pettitte has the same trainer, a guy who's an ex-NYPD cop who grew up in Rockaway. Why not throw Pettitte in there too? Clemens must be talking to his lawyer right about now.

Remember that wild interent rumor last year about the League about to announce suspensions of Clemens and I think it was Damon (I may be wrong on him, working from memory).

Lupica is careful not to throw charges directly, just to make cases of players who have gone outside the norm of baseball history. Nothing wrong with that.

If Clemens is even close to being tainted, I would look for him to pull up lame and bail. The Astros are quickly falling out of contention and I don't know why other than greed he is doing this.

Lupica names several guys. If he wants to do that, back it up. Otherwise he's just a douchebag filling his space.

Lupica names several guys. If he wants to do that, back it up. Otherwise he's just a douchebag filling his space.

Bugg-What he is doing is doing is looking at career and accomplishments that seem odd, given teh context of the era that they were done in, and how they stick out from what has been considered norm.

The players union has hidden behind a shroud of "privacy protection" and collective bargaining agreemnts to not allow full disclosure. None of that should have been allowed.

If you are a cheat, it should have been publicized for full public scrutiny. It was breaking the law and still is.

All Lupica is doing is pointing out the obvious fact that by taking this stance, NO ONE is above suspicion. By protecting the guilty, everyone becomes guilty by association.

And teh union has no one to blame but itself. What else are we left to think? When you protect the guilty, all are guilty.

Agree 100% that the union has been an impediment. After all, they represent players who don't cheat as much, if not moreso, than ones who do cheat.

Still, Lupica is just being a lazy jerk. Want to name names in a newspaper-back it up. All he does here is throw out some names, link them to cheating with steriods and HGH, and then runs away too scared to say outright what he's suggesting in the 1st place. The guys in the Bonds* book pulled no such punches; theys aid it and dared him to sue them for libel. But backing it up might require Lupica to get out of his Connecticut mansion and do some actual reporting, or even, heaven forbid, go to a real ballgame(things he hasn't done in decades), rather than run his mouth.

Eh I really don't buy it from Clemens. Clemens from what I've heard, has a freakish training regiment that he uses 365/yr. Nolan Ryan, as someone mentioned earlier, was 45 when he retired, didn't throw his 7th no-hitter until 93' when i believe he was 43, maybe 44, and still had a fastball with lower to mid 90s heat. It all depends on body makeup and training.

Clemens also has been healthy for the vast majority of his career. Hasn't had arm problems or anything of that nature that I'm aware of.

Eh I really don't buy it from Clemens. Clemens from what I've heard, has a freakish training regiment that he uses 365/yr. Nolan Ryan, as someone mentioned earlier, was 45 when he retired, didn't throw his 7th no-hitter until 93' when i believe he was 43, maybe 44, and still had a fastball with lower to mid 90s heat. It all depends on body makeup and training.

Clemens also has been healthy for the vast majority of his career. Hasn't had arm problems or anything of that nature that I'm aware of.

Clemns' velocity did go down and then came back again over a period of a few years.

Whether that means he was "on" or not, who knows.

With Ryan, his velocity did decrease a decent bit. As well, his pitch counts were not able to go as high, and he became very hittable after the 6th inning or so.

Dont let any name you hear surprise you.

Eh I really don't buy it from Clemens. Clemens from what I've heard, has a freakish training regiment that he uses 365/yr. Nolan Ryan, as someone mentioned earlier, was 45 when he retired, didn't throw his 7th no-hitter until 93' when i believe he was 43, maybe 44, and still had a fastball with lower to mid 90s heat. It all depends on body makeup and training.

Clemens also has been healthy for the vast majority of his career. Hasn't had arm problems or anything of that nature that I'm aware of.

Until Clemens proves that he can beat the snot out of someone 20 years his junior, please refrain from mentioning him with Nolan again.

Thanks.

Whether that means he was "on" or not, who knows.

That is not true. The commissioners office has already admitted that they were wrong for changing pitching gun calibration techniques in the mid 90's. The crop of pitchers that were impact by the new calibration procedure should have been grandfathered into the old techniques.

I hope you enjoy reading this drivel. Because in a weird way, I enjoy making it up.

Until Clemens proves that he can beat the snot out of someone 20 years his junior, please refrain from mentioning him with Nolan again.

Thanks.



What is sick about Ryan is that Clemens is 2nd on teh all-time strikeout list, yet is still about 1,400 strikeouts BEHIND Nolan Ryan. talk about a record that isn't going to be broken for a long, long time.

What is sick about Ryan is that Clemens is 2nd on teh all-time strikeout list, yet is still about 1,400 strikeouts BEHIND Nolan Ryan. talk about a record that isn't going to be broken for a long, long time.

A kid just starting out would have to average 300 Ks for 19 years, and would still be behind Ryan's record.

I agree. That one is going to hang around a while, if it ever is broken.