Baseball: Diamondbacks' pitcher Jason Grimsley names names

Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Jason Grimsley has been let go by the team after federal agents found evidence that he was dealing in illegal substances. They have evidence that he received packages of human growth hormones (HGH). He has also invested in a pharmaceutical company that supplies these substances. Reportedly, Grimsley sat down with the feds and agreed to turn state's evidence. He named names, and we can only wonder who is on the feds' hit list now.

On ESPNRadio today, Keith Olbermann predicted that this event will be bigger than Bonds and bigger than Palmeiro's lie in front of Congress

[Edited on 6/7/06 by BirdstheBest]

[Edited on 6/7/06 by BirdstheBest]

Wow, this is a huge development. I can only wonder who is gonna be on this guy's list. It wouldn't suprise me to see some big names, the only question is gonna be will it be accepted or treated like Consseco's list and kicked around like it was a piece of trash. Yes my friends i believe the steroid era is coming to an end.

Well, here is the $64,000 question:

WILL THEY, NOW THAT THEY HAVE A BUNDLE OF THIS STUFF, FIND A WAY TO TEST FOR IT?

If they do, this will be baseball's Watergate... and then some. They already have tons of urine samples from these guys. Just go back through them and test them for HGH. And then we'll all know just who the frauds are. From the ex-MLB pitcher I've played poker with, I can tell you there will be a TON of them.

But I don't think that will happen, and here is why:

(1) An enormous number of MLB players, surely over 50%, are using HGH. From what that ex-MLB player told me, it could be over 80% or 90%.

(2) If that fact comes out, and the public learns that--say, just for example--Giambi AND A-Rod AND Jeter AND Matsui AND Rivera AND another 6 to 10 Yankees are on HGH, AND the public learns Pujols has been on it from Day One of his phenomenal career, AND the public learns CLEMENS and SCHILLING have used it since at least the mid-1990's.... Well, it's no longer about a circus strongman freak like McGwire, and a bunch of drug-running freaks from south-of-the-border, and a handful of white guys like Kent and Brady (I can hit 50 HR's from out of nowhere one year) Anderson and Caminiti, and then everyone's favorite urinal, Barry Bonds....

Now, it's somewhere between 50 and 90% of the players for the past 15 years. The poker player said, "You wouldn't BELIEVE how many use it," and those were HIS caps.

And guys like me will point out that after Mickey Mantle became only the NINTH member of the .700 single-season slugging club in 1956, nobody joined it until 1994. And after George Foster became the 5th NL player, and 10th total player, to join the 50 HR club in 1977, nobody became the 11th until Cecil Fielder in 1990... and lots of people had been saying NOBODY would ever again hit 50 HR's, because pitching had improved so much.

Fast foward to the present.... Now, we have at least twice that many members of the 50-HR club, and we have ONE guy, Sosa, who hit 60+ HR's THREE times without winning a single HR trophy in any of those three years!!!

And oh, yeah, here's another surprise:

When Hack Wilson got his 191 RBI's in 1930--a record which Steroid Ball apparently won't break--he also got 56 HR's that year. That mark was an N.L. record, believe it or not, all the way until the "marvelous" and quite literally "incredible" HR race of McGwire and Sosa in 1998. Since then, it's been "broken" repeatedly.

OR, you could make a good argument that only ONE person has broken Hack Wilson's all-time NL record for HR's in a season, namely, Luis Gonzalez with 57 in 2001. Or is that one terribly tainted, too, and I just don't know about it?

I know this: The other three who have "broken" Wilson's NL HR mark are 3/4 of the 4 who have come to symbolize cheating in our time:

McGwire, Sosa and Bonds, in that chronological order. Sorry, Palmeiro, but you never got there. I guess you just weren't as good a cheater. But hey, it wasn't for lack of effort, and you can console yourself with the thought that you're the most flagrantly, hopelessly guilty of them all.

As much as I rant and rave about all of these frauds, I love the game with a passion.

Yeah, vicious, violent and racist/pan-bigoted monsters like Cobb, Speaker et al. make me sick.... MOST of all Speaker, who should be expelled from the Hall as fast as anyone, since he was not only involved in throwing regular season games, which Ty Cobb and a whole lot of other pre-live ball Hall of Famers were, but he also threw GAME SIX of the 1912 World Series, for god's sake!!!

Now, yeah, Speaker was a greater player than Joe Jackson, and by quite a lot. He's unquestionably the greatest defensive outfielder of the first half of the century (in MLB), and holds the career records for doubles and outfielder assists, as well as the A.L. record for outfielder putouts. 20% of those who saw both men felt Speaker was better than COBB. But Joe Jackson supposedly "only" threw Game One in 1919. Speaker's throwing Game Six in 1912 (with several teammates' help), with his team up 3 games to 2, and his team having to face CHRISTY MATHEWSON in Game 7, was a lot worse than what Joe Jackson did.

So maybe Speaker, one of the 10 greatest players ever by any rational measure, should be expelled. If not, Jackson CERTAINLY should be admitted. And just as certainly, baseball prior to 1920--the year they finally got real baseballs... and a commissioner--stunk. But from 1920 on, there was little or no game throwing, and people can rant all they want to about greenies in the 1950's and 1960's, they couldn't TOUCH what this garbage has done to the game. Just look at the annihilation of records, if you're tempted to compare the two. You'll never do it again.

Bud Complicit-By-His-Inaction-And-Silence Selig will do his best to save his @ss here, but I think Congress is going to take this one over, and I think this time there will be no holding the dam back. All baseball fans should be prepared for the possibility of finding out their favorite players used--and have continued to use--this HGH garbage.

I've been an enormous Roger Clemens fan for a very long time. I've gone on and on about how his SEVEN e.r.a. titles are second only to the incomparable Grove, and about his W-L %, his Cy Young Awards (though he's got a couple too many and sportswriters' votes are b.s.), his seek/give no quarter attitude, etc. I'm a California hippie lawyer who's not exactly a Texas fan, but I love the guy. It will kill me to find out that last year, while he was 42/43, he had one of the best years by a post-Dead Ball pitcher of ANY age by taking this sh!t. But if that's what happened, and if he's been doing it a long time, I'll do the same to him that I've done to Bonds--ascertain the year through which his stats are real, then rate him based on his stats through that year and throw out the rest.

The difference is that, whereas it feels cathartic to do that to Bonds, and it won't bother at all to do it to Schilling, it will hurt terribly to do it to Clemens. And a lot of others.

BHN

Originally posted by aegis fang
Wow, this is a huge development. I can only wonder who is gonna be on this guy's list. It wouldn't suprise me to see some big names, the only question is gonna be will it be accepted or treated like Consseco's list and kicked around like it was a piece of trash. Yes my friends i believe the steroid era is coming to an end.

My Friend Aegis,

Not to quibble with you, but I think Canseco's list was, in the final analysis, NOT kicked around like a piece of trash. It was treated that way for a long time, for sure, but after they caught Palmeiro cold, and after they all saw that pathetic performance by Little Mac in that House Subcommittee, more than one writer said, "It is a sad thing to contemplate the fact Jose Canseco was probably the most honest ballplayer in that hearing room."

And he almost certainly was. How sad, huh?

BHN

I wonder how long it will take until the names leak out into the public.

If Bud Complicit-By-Silence Selig has anything to say about it, FOREVER. But I think Congress isn't going to screw around, now. We have elections in the fall, the Demos are looking to regain the House, and since when did ANY Republican ever want to look soft on crime.

Also--if y'all will forgive me for the only good think I have to say about the "man"--Dubya takes this stuff seriously, perhaps because of the time period when his parents bought the Rangers for him. Everyone thought it was silly when he mentioned cheating in baseball as a top priority in the one year's State of the Union Address--except me. I think it SHOULD be a top priority. And NOW, if they use the government's chemists, instead of MLB's chemists, they surely out to be able to figure out HGH's constituent components, devise a test for it, run a big TV and print media campaign against it, and pass strict federal laws against it.

TimmyEspo3, how long do YOU think it will take, and how aggressive do you think the feds will be about this?

BHN

I was reading the paper today and there was a little blurb that said MLB was giving 450,000 for research into a test for HGH. Seems alittle small to me. I hope they go after these guys aggressively and quickly, saddly i think MLB will drag it's feet on this, especially if as BHN said 50 to 90 percent of the players are using this stuff. However the FBI is involved and i don't know that they'll take a backseat to MLB. Who knows sometime in the near future i may be able to try out for a baseball team when all the players get banned for life.

Yeah, can either you or Giants Fan pitch?

I pitch... so I wouldn't mind makin the big bucks after everyone fails their tests. I basically have a fastball and a good knuckle bll. Knuckle is actually almost a knuckle curve, and the fastball is just straight down the gut, and is only hit if the player can catch up to it. So I wouldn't mind puttin on a uni. As for jason's allegations... I'm curious to see the names, as I'm sure I'll be unsurprised by many of them.

Originally posted by BaseballHistoryNut
Yeah, can either you or Giants Fan pitch?

I can chase down foul balls and pick up bats with the best of them. I can even sweep up sunflower seed shells pretty good too.

BHN, I may be wrong, but I have heard that HGH cannot be detected in urine tests, only in blood tests. I don't think the union will consent to blood tests. Of course, in this situation we are talking about the feds, so if they want to get some blood, they will

It really is sad that it all had to come to this. The NFL recognized the steroid threat years ago and enacted policy accordingly. In MLB, it took federal agents to wake up the place.

Have you also heard about the use of amphetamines? Grimsley said that there were two coffee pots in the clubhouse: one marked Leaded and the other marked Unleaded. The Leaded one had speed in it. Maybe that nut HOOTIE was right after all.

Well, yes and no. It remains true that stimulants, whether legal or illegal, and whether moderately potent or very potent, cannot begin to poison the game anywhere near as much as taking this cr@p that turns players into small mountain ranges.

Just look at the number of records broken from 1950-1990, compared to the number broken from 1990-2005. Or look at this:

In the mid-1950's, Mickey Mantle became something like the 9th member of the .700 single-season slugging club. In 1957, Ted Williams did it for the second time in his fabulous career. NOBODY did it again, in a single season, until 1994. Since then, the number of people in the club has at least doubled, and Bonds has done the unthinkable, twice slugging .800--like Ruth did--and breaking Ruth's unbreakable .847 single-season record, which was considered like Cy Young's 511 career wins for unbreakability.

ALL SORTS OF records have been smashed in the last few years. Are you aware that until 1998, Hack Wilson's 1930 mark of 56 HR's was still the National League record? It stood for 58 years, and only the steroidfest of McGwire and Sosa broke it. To this day, Luis Gonzalez is the only person other than McGwire, Sosa and Bonds--3/4 of the 4 poster children for cheating, with Palmeiro being #4--to surpass Wilson's NL mark. Anyone know of any reason to suspect Luis Gonzalez? If so, he's surely not as flagrant as the BIG three.

But Sosa, for instance, hit over SIXTY HR's in THREE different seasons, WITHOUT WINNING A SINGLE HR TITLE in any of those three seasons!!!

Anyone who thinks stimulants could produce results even faintly like this nonsense is just nuts.

As for which is worse for the heart, well, I don't know. They're both TERRIBLE for you, that's for sure. Speed is the scourge drug of our society, and any criminal lawyer (on either side) can tell you that, but steroids are a real cancer, too. They're just not nearly as popular, sort of like PCP. If PCP were as popular as crank, crank might no longer be the worst drug in creation. It would be close, at least. Same story with steroids.

BHN

Baseball is getting hurt by all of these allegations lately. It just makes you thinka little bit more on who might be on these performance enhancing drugs. Is bonds on them, and will we ever find out if he took any of these drugs. Who knows, i know that i don't see bonds chancing the records in the same light as i did before.

"Did Bonds take steroids?" is a question on a par with "Did OJ kill his wife?" and "Is Michael Jackson a pedophile?"

I'm not sure how any reasonable person could answer "no" to any of those questions, at least in the court of public opinion. There is no "beyond a resonable doubt" requirement in the court of public opinion. And I'm quite confident OJ offed his ex, Michael Jackson is a molester, and Bonds has juiced up on whatever he could get his hands on.

And I'm equally sure that a big percentage of MLB players are right there with Bonds. I'm sure there are numbers of marginal players that have juiced just to get in the league, but they're under the radar.

The juicers, Selig, and the player's association are equally culpable as far as I'm concerned. And since there doesn't seem to be a great hue and cry from "clean" players, I'm forced to conclude that there must not be too many of them.

LOL

Well, there is another way to interpret that one. Baseball has had a "code of silence," and a policy of taking care of its biz on the field, for as long as I've been around. I wouldn't expect clean players to snitch, get royally indignant in public, etc. They would pay a hellacious price if they did.

However, I, too, believe that an enormous number of MLB players are on HGH. I've shared what that former Phillies pitcher I met briefly on Internet poker told me, and he was quite candid about his own HGH use. He also said that ANY player who doesn't use it is putting himself at a real competitive disadvantage.

You know, Y.R., as much as I believe Jackson to have been guilty, I don't think I'd put him in the same category of flagrantly-guilty with Bonds and O.J. Your Bonds and O.J. questions are, in my opinion, ones which are ridiculous to ask... ones which anyone who answers negatively should feel embarrassment over. I don't feel I know enough about the Jackson case to make that absolute a statement.

Would I bet the same way as you on Michael Jackson? Of course. But do I think the contrary belief is preposterous and embarrassing, as it is with O.J. and Bonds? No.

I wonder how the innocent left fielder's plea bargains will go.

BHN

Dear Everyone,

You know, I wonder just how the powers-that-be will deal with this. They've gone to such great lengths, through the years, to protect the aristocrats who run this country from our knowing just how sordid their pasts and presents are. See, for example, Teddy Kennedy and Chappaquidick. If any of us had done what he did there (i.e., get drunk, cause a one-car accident and kill his passenger in a lake, then flee the scene), we would, at a minimum, have been convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated. The current penalty in California is 4, 6 or 10 years in prison (judge's choice), plus whatever penalty he would get for fleeing the scene, plus whatever penalty he would get for the zillion or so lies he told the police about it. But not so for a Kennedy in Massachusetts.

And then there's President Hitler. Since his family owns Texas and protected the potted plant from the consequences of his innumerable misdeeds, he had, oh, what, 30 or 40 drunk driving arrests in his young adulthood? Not to worry. A few officers commented on them, until they were told to shut up, but all of the records have been sealed. His days of dealing coke at Yale are all as top secret as Kennedy's god-knows-how-many days of lifelong drunken misconduct. (Kennedy, unlike Dubya, is a lifelong drunk.)

Anyway, the purpose of this tirade against two incredibly mediocre-minded people, from two incredibly rich and powerful families, is this:

Anyone who is not extraordinarily naive knows we only hear what the powers that be want us to hear. And it's been thus since time immemorial. Fast-forward to the present and our world of sports:

It's not just BASEBALL, of course, where steroids and HGH have run amok. We've had hundreds of guys who are about 6'3", 300 to 350 pounds, and had precious little body fat in the NFL for HOW LONG? Does anyone seriously believe they've not been using steroids and/or HGH? And in numerous other sports, ditto?

Televised sports are our "bread and circuses," for those of you familiar with the history of the Roman Empire and their way of mollifying the masses. Suppose we all find out for certain that 87% of all major league baseball players over the past 15 years, AND 80% of all NFL players over the past 15 years, AND 70% of all hockey players over the past 15 years, AND 60% of all NBA players--oh, that's right, nobody here cares about the NBA, lol.

But y'all know what I mean. If the American public learns that not just the obvious frauds--McGwire, Bonds, Palmeiro, Brady Anderson (50 HR's in one season from out of frickin' nowhere!), Sosa, etc.,--but almost EVERYONE--is dirty....

Well, there's hopeless addicts like me, and there's a whole s-load of hopeless NFL addicts who probably wouldn't care if the guys shot up on national television, BUT...

The revelations that are about to come flying out over the next two or three years could really destroy major team sports in America. I seriously could see parents' not letting their kids go to games or watch them on TV, because they don't want their kids worshipping a bunch of steroid/HGH freaks, cheaters, thugs, bullies and people whose vices will lead them to early graves... after they've encouraged the kids to do things likely to lead them to the same place.

So what do y'all think? This stuff really IS our bread and circuses. It keeps us mindless and numb and indifferent to what's going on in the big picture. And that's not only what the dumbass Ted Kennedy's and George W. Bush's of the country want; it's also what their masters, the folks with the 3-digit IQ's, want. I seriously doubt THOSE PEOPLE want us to stop watching all of our TV sports. (Can you imagine the effect on golf if it came out Tiger Woods took HGH to help produce all those drives, lol? )

Will it all get suppressed? Will our incredibly compliant/complicit media act like Bud Selig and do whatever needs doing to bury these stories... in ALL of the afflicted sports? Will not only Mitchell's comparatively tame efforts, but also the Congressional powers that be--and in this election year, no less--back off of this explosive story for the sake of American sports... AND American society?

What do y'all think?

Baseball History Nut

"Did Bonds take steroids?" is a question on a par with "Did OJ kill his wife?" and "Is Michael Jackson a pedophile?"

I agree with BHN on this one (and he is an attorney). The evidence for OJ is pretty damning, not for MJ. All but two of the witnesses in his trisl turned out to be liars, and the "victim's" mother ended up having a history of trying to get money out of people. Also, there were many witnesses who said Jackson was not a pedophile.

But as long as we're using these analogies, let's remember that both Simpson and Jackson were found not guilty. Bonds had not even been charged yet.