Interesting article on Balco. . .

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
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I thought you meant Falco.
Then I saw "sports.yahoo.com" and stopped caring.
 

BrokenVisage

Lifer
Jan 29, 2005
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Originally posted by: nakedfrog
I thought you meant Falco.
Then I saw "sports.yahoo.com" and stopped caring.

Funny, people must be taking that same approach with the Reggie Bush story they seem to be (un)coveringly exclusively. Then again, I'm sure USC is doing all it can to make sure that gets swept under the rug.
 
Jun 27, 2005
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The guy makes one good point but he totally misses the obvious when he tries to paint Bonds as a scape goat and make the situation with Clemens to be the same thing.

His good point is that because of the GJ leaks in the BALCO case, people are going to be very skittish about ever testifying. As much as Game of Shadows was an important book and brought out just how pervasive doping is in professional sports... the guys who wrote it really should have been punished for using leaked GJ testimony. When you are promised that your testimony will be secret in exchange for immunity there are expectations on both sides. Obviously the Fed expects you to tell the truth and you, as a witness, expect that whatever you say will remain sealed forever. The authors of that book proved that no GJ or other secret testimony is really safe and that you have to protect yourself no matter what. And yes, that probably had a lot to do with the resistance to talk to Mitchell and his staff for this report...

BUT...

The Clemens situation is totally different than the Bonds situation. Bonds isn't under indictment because he used steroids... he is under indictment for lying to a GJ. Clemens was never called before the BALCO GJ because he was not a client of BALCO. He never lied to a GJ. The author seems to miss this point. That or he is deliberately unleashing a very large strawman to manufacture a debate.

With Clemens, all you have is one guy who said he saw/participated in actions that involved Clemens. Hardly a "slam dunk case" as the author calls it. Basically a he said/he said situation. There is a mountain of evidence against Bonds. I'm not saying that Clemens is clean here... I happen to be a huge cynic on the issue and I wouldn't be surprised to hear about any professional athlete being invilved with PEDs. And as with Bonds, I think it's odd that some of Clemens most productive years came so late in his career. And his name has certainly been in the rumor mill for a while now.

But trying to make a case out of the Fed going after Bonds and not after Clemens is silly.

As for the Mitchell report itself... I was hoping for more. Without the testimony of McNamee and one former bat boy that report would have been about three pages long. TBH it seems now like a huge waste of time. It's filled with lots of supposition and guilt by association. But it lacks evidence in most of its conclusions... if you call them that.
 

nakedfrog

No Lifer
Apr 3, 2001
58,152
12,325
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Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
Originally posted by: nakedfrog
I thought you meant Falco.
Then I saw "sports.yahoo.com" and stopped caring.

What....you didn't like Keanu playing Shane Falco?

Wrong Falco ;)
Come on and rock me, Amadeus!