The Mitchell Report

Performance Enhancing Drugs

I was forced to think about the damn Mitchell report and about Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte in light of them being named. I've already discussed my feelings about steroids in the game of baseball here; and I have to say my position has not changed. My mixed emotions carry over to Roger's 354 victories equally as they do to Bonds' 762 homers. While those gents might be denying they ever did PEDs, Andy Pettitte has admitted it.

"I had heard that human growth hormone could promote faster healing for my elbow," Pettitte said. "I felt an obligation to get back to my team as soon as possible. For this reason, and only this reason, for two days I tried human growth hormone."

According to the report, Pettitte called Brian McNamee -- by then, a former Yankees assistant trainer who still worked closely with Pettitte and Roger Clemens -- and asked McNamee to travel to Tampa.

McNamee told the Mitchell investigators that he injected Pettitte with HGH two to four times, obtained from former Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski. Pettitte paid for McNamee's trip and expenses, but McNamee said there was no separate payment for the HGH.

Pettitte returned from the disabled list on June 14 of that season and made 19 starts through the remainder of the regular season, going 12-4 with a 3.29 ERA.

"Though it was not against baseball rules, I was not comfortable with what I was doing, so I stopped," Pettitte said. "This is it -- two days out of my life; two days out of my entire career, when I was injured and on the disabled list."

I'm not really surprised to find out about this stuff. As such, I'm finding it hard to write anything new about it. It feels like a decade-old topic, even with fresh allegations and admissions.

So to write some new insight, I was thinking about Viagra. Viagra is a 'performance enhancing drug'. Enhancing Performance is the central appeal/efficacy of viagra and its like medicines, that they enhance the masculine performance in sex. So if you were the woman who gets to have an orgasm, thanks to your partner having taken the little blue tab with the 'v', do you then complain about the orgasm not having been achieved legitimately? That is to say, is there really such a thing as a legitimate orgasm that is different from a viagra-assisted orgasm?
Furthermore, would you be complaining about the possible side-effects of the Viagra? Does anybody (apart from Paul Vitti/Robert DeNiro in 'Analyze This') actually care?
I think the answer is a resounding 'no'. Thus we must ask, is there a real difference between a PED-assisted home-run and an ordinary home-run? probably not.

The complaints about the tainted record books seem incredibly overstated.
Yes, it's bad that they took these drugs; it certainly sets a bad example for the kids; it's illegal to have done so; and it casts a pall on the record books; but maybe it wasn't as significant a factor as it was for a sport like athletics or cycling?
I'm tired of speculating and wondering. I think at some point the numbers and the known fact should stand on their own.