I accept those explanations and i'd be more leniant on them but both deserve lenghty suspensions regardless of their intentions.
You can't suspend them because nobody has accused them of doing them after the rule against them went into effect. Only people accused after 2003 will get suspended. If there even are any on that list.
Great post , here is the thing. I am inclined to believe that he only took it to recover from an injury I'm going to say I believe he took it more than twice though. I buy the recovery angle becuase unlke Clemens and Bonds he did not get better when he should have been breaking down. He was always a very good pitcher and he did show signs of breaking down (ie career with Astros). While I think there is a fine line between taking it to recover vs taking it gain an edge I still respect the guy for coming out and not being a liar. That being said I'd like to be in Fenway the first time he takes the mound.
I hope they can find a way to punish them as they deserve to be punished, there has to be a loophole somewhere.
Assuming you believe he only used HGH for 2 days and his latest admission is the full truth... Andy Pettitte admitted what he did after the fact that he was outed by the Mitchell Report and his face was on every tabloid in the country. You call that being a man, I call that getting caught and talking about it after years of lies and denials. I agree you need to look at intent and motivation in all of this, including what Andy's intention and motivation were for his recent statement where he tried to pull the wool over everbodies eyes again and present himself as an honorable guy.... his motivation and intent was to clear his name by downplaying what he did as two day lapse of judgement and seperate himself from stigma of being somebody who enhanced his performance with drugs. But the truth is that it was more then a two day lapse of judgement to simply help himself heal. It was a premeditated plan to go to non legitimate sources to get illegally perscribed drugs to artificially enhance his recovery. In other words he's just as guilty as anybody else. "I have the utmost respect for baseball and have always tried to live my life in a way that would be honorable. I wasn't looking for an edge; I was looking to heal." Hey Andy last time I checked taking HGH to help you heal faster is getting an edge and it's neither honarable or respectful of the game. "I've never used any drugs to enhance my performance in baseball. I don't know what to say except that it's embarrassing that my name would be out there." AP- 2006 Andy Pettitte is a lying scumbag like the rest of these guys and I'm not buying the awww shucks country boy BS speech his lawyer wrote for him... and neither should you.
I had thought about posting something when it appeared that the "he's an honorable guy" stuff started gaining momentum, but you've made that a moot point, as you said it better than I could have. To my mind there are three key points here (and you've made them all): obtaining steroids or HGH without a prescription is illegal, and always has been, so the fact that there were no rules in baseball against its use a few years ago doesn't change the fact that it was dishonorable; gaining the benefit of being able to heal faster (or at all) is, in fact, enhancing your performance, and is thus no different from getting extra muscle from drugs; and Pettitte went out of his way to deny ever using any drugs before, so if you're going to say he's "being a man" now, presumably you have to say that he was "being a rat" for years until he got caught, and hardly deserves any great praise for that.
Sadly, even as a devout Yankee homer, I have to agree. The more I think about it, the more I truly believe he is just wrong. No excuse makes it "better" or "okay". It's wrong, not gray area wrong, but clear-cut wrong.
I can't get into the Andy Pettitte argument, because if I was Andy, I would have done the same exact thing he did.
No one takes HGH for two days, what would be the point? He like Clemens was probably taking it for years but regardless what's the difference? For any one to believe any of these guys have any crediblity is useless. Pettitte and Rodney Harrison took something that they knew would give them an unfair advantage even if it was just for recovery. No real doctor is prescribing it for them so you know it's not "legal".
Can you tell me about all the lies and denials Pettitte has issued over the years regarding his use of HGH? Because I don't recall him ever needing to say anything one way or the other. ETA: Of course, this assumes that you take him at his word regarding his intent. If you don't think he was using it to heal, then you can say he was "lying" about his HGH use.
Here you go... http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2609699 This is from October 2, 2006, after Grimsley got busted and named Clemens, Pettitte, and Tejada (all in the report). Pettitte is the only Yankee I've ever liked, but he's just as guilty as everyone else in this.
Right. That's the quote FirstTimeCaller used before (and it's the only one I've seen). But like I said, if you take Pettitte at his word that his use of HGH was to heal, and not to gain a competitive advantage on the field (which would make sense if he only took it while injured), then that quote certainly doesn't point to "years of lies and denials." In fact, that quote is completely consistent with the quote from 2006. Where are the years of lies and denial?
I guess the difference is that most of us aren't blinded by pinstripe loyalty and DON'T take him at his word that he only took it twice. And even if he did, that was 2002. That's 5 years of lying by ommision, and a full year since the flat out lie he told after Grimsley named him.
I'm amused by the metamorphosis of the players' stock response. What began just a few years ago as, "I have not and would not," changed to "I thought it was something else," and now again to - "I did just once." Funny how performance enhancing substances can be so wide spread, and yet penetrate so shallow.
I'm not "blinded by pinstripe loyalty." It's just that there's nothing else to go on. It could just as easily be said that some are "blinded by pinstripe or steroid hatred" and immediately assume the worst. Here's the thing: Regardless of what your assumptions or subjective conclusions are, Pettitte has never explicitly said anything that can be construed as a lie. Lying by omission is a pretty weak argument to call someone out on, and it's even weaker if you're trying to fit it into the harsher claim of "years of lies and denial." And again, the 2006 quote is completely consistent with what he had said before, IF his usage in 2002 was for injury only. Debatable. A rather semantic argument, but competitive advantages are usually limited directly to what a person is capable of doing on the field relative to his opponents. IF (and it's a big if) Pettitte is telling the truth about his use, then he would have received no boost to his individual performance by using HGH to heal. The TEAM might have received a boost to its performance, if he came back earlier than he otherwise would have... but that's a different point. Whatever the case, my point is not that Pettitte is totally innocent, or that he should be commended. I was just curious where these quotes supporting "years of lies and denial" were, since he was making it seem like Pettitte had been a Bonds- or Palmeiro-like denier of steroid use, and then got busted. I was wondering if perhaps Pettitte had said anything more damning. So far, we have one quote, from last year, that is internally consistent with Pettitte's story. In order for this claim of "years of lies and denial" to be true, it requires several assumptions.
