More Steriods
« Lineup Order | Main | Sleepless Nights »This story about the BALCO investigation and steroids hits McGwire pretty hard:
As a kid growing up in San Jose, I watched lanky, loose-limbed Giants slugger Willie McCovey clobber low fastballs for towering home runs; more recently, as an Oakland A's beat writer for the Chronicle, I marveled at Mark McGwire's tight, coiled swing producing home runs with barely a twitch of all that muscle, which by then I understood was the product of years of steroid use.
It ends with this:
Still, there's reason to be skeptical whether the Chron's drive on this story will be emulated in the future, even by the paper itself. Ask yourself a question: What about McGwire? Who is asking him the hard questions about the year he broke Roger Maris's home run record? He was Giambi's best friend, and I've spoken with a number of reliable inside sources who've talked in explicit detail about his steroid use. But have any editors sent a reporter to show up at his door in Southern California, the way reporters often show up at front doors to badger coaches who've just been fired? Apparently not. What are they afraid of? Probably the truth.
There's one more interesting angle to this whole thing, from Will Carroll (linking to the same article):
This article by Steve Kettman shows a lot of interesting tips and a good grasp of the basics of this whole thing. It gets a LOT more interesting when you realize that Kettman is Jose Canseco’s ghostwriter on “Juiced.”
So the guy who wrote Juiced is reouting McGwire. It bothers me a little that a Journalist is kvetching because nobody is asking McGwire these questions. You're a journalist, do it yourself, lazy bastard. Somebody needs to put the screws on this guy: He says he's spoken to "several reliable sources" who say McGwire used steroids. Out em. If it's true it's time to have it out in the open instead of continuing to snipe from behind cover.
Be a man Kettman and publish what you know. Don't whine about how somebody else should do.
Posted by Josh at February 18, 2005 10:19 AMWhat's interesting to me is what is listed as Kettman's biography at the bottom of the article:
"Steve Kettmann, a Chronicle sportswriter from 1990 to 1998, is author of One Day at Fenway: A Day in the Life of Baseball in America. "
There are probably still people at the Chronicle he knows -- you'd think he could at least tip them off as to who has all this McGwire dirt. Not to even mention the whole questionable journalism ethics of failing to disclose your considerable personal interest in keeping the steroid scandal on the front page.
Then again, I doubt a journalist with unquestionable ethics would have agreed to work with Canseco. Or at least, the book would be VERY different.
You know, on the surface the connection between McGwire and Giambi is a concern. Giambi considered McGwire a mentor.
But on the other side of the coin you have Giambi supposedly asking Bonds to "hook him up" with his trainer around 2001 because he liked "what he was able to do for Bonds." Was Giambi using before the 2002 season? (His stats suggest he was, I don't know what his Grand Jury testimony claimed, though.) Was he just wanting "better" stuff from Bonds than he already had?
This whole thing is a grand mess.
Posted by: Robb at February 18, 2005 10:51 AMMaybe Kettman could settle this thing by measuring forehead growth and backne constellations. This is getting ridiculous.
What's the status on the relationship between Canseco and McGwire? They can't be friends anymore if they ever were.
I'd pay a lot to see that cage match. I'd put my money on Big Mac too.
I can't wait for real baseball to start and knock all this stuff out of the press. Seems like every year now a few weeks before spring training, someone publishes a book or makes a big statement (didn't Pete Rose do the same thing just a year or two ago?) to both steal hype from and generate it for MLB.
Posted by: Ryan at February 18, 2005 12:06 PM"Steve Kettmann, a Chronicle sportswriter from 1990 to 1998, is author of One Day at Fenway: A Day in the Life of Baseball in America."
Oh, so that's the reason for the weird Neyer comment from Will Carroll. Amazon comment wars and all that.
Posted by: Rob at February 18, 2005 05:48 PMDude, it's McGwire...not McGuire. If you're gonna write about the Cards then at least get the names right, please?????
Posted by: Eric at February 23, 2005 03:29 PM