[Posted 6/19 p.m.]
Note: I said I wasn’t doing another Bar Chat until next Monday, but I wanted to clear some of the following off the table beforehand, namely the Roger Clemens verdict. I’m rushing to finish a lot of stuff so no quiz or top 3…back to normal next time.
R.A. Dickey
Before offering some opinions on Roger Clemens, Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey’s story only got better on Monday night as he became the first pitcher in baseball since Dave Stieb in 1988 to toss consecutive one-hitters…the first in the National League since Jim Tobin of the Boston Braves in 1944. 68 years.
Us Mets fans have had the opportunity to watch Dickey progress and it is truly remarkable. He has mastered a pitch like no one else in the history of the game.
He’s now 11-1, a 2.00 ERA, but it’s what he’s done his last six starts that is truly astounding. 1 earned run in 48 innings. He has now not allowed an earned run in 42 2/3.
In his last seven starts, he has 71 strikeouts and just six walks…for a knuckleballer. I mean he hasn’t thrown a wild pitch yet this season.
His lone loss, and lone non-quality start (six innings, three earned runs) in his last 25 outings going back to last season was in the rain.
And back to the strikeouts, he has at least eight strikeouts in each of his last seven starts, which is one shy of Randy Johnson’s major-league record. Goodness gracious.
Oh, and the Mets have a $5 million option for 2013. Needless to say, the guy will get an extension beyond that. No reason he can’t perform at a high level into his mid-40s.
Roger Clemens
It hasn’t been a good stretch for prosecution of sports stars over alleged steroid use. On Monday, Roger Clemens was acquitted on all six counts that he lied to Congress. Since 2007, when the Mitchell Report on drug use first mentioned him, the government was pursuing the Rocket. Then on Feb. 13, 2008, he famously disavowed any link to performance-enhancing drugs before a nationally televised hearing.
After being acquitted Clemens strode before the microphones and, tearing up, said, “I put a lot of hard work into my career” as he began to blast the doubters but then walked away.
As for his chief accuser, trainee Brian McNamee, his life is shattered. I feel for the guy. He was far from perfect, but now he goes down as a total loser.
“Barry Bonds. Guilty on a technicality. At least that’s how much of the public sees it. It’s all that came out of a seven-year investigation into baseball’s home run king.
“Lance Armstrong. Not even prosecuted. A two-year, multi-continent investigation brought to a close this year with no charges filed.
“Now Roger Clemens. Acquitted on all counts. A five-year investigation ended with the top pitcher of his generation celebrating with family hugs inside the courtroom.
“After three expensive failures, the government is done, it seems, with the business of pursuing high-profile cases of drugs-in-sports – with a track record not worth bragging about.
“ ‘It was a tremendous waste of federal resources,’ said Stanley Brand, a long-time Washington defense attorney who was counsel to the House of Representatives from 1976 to 1983. ‘The juries that acquitted these people weren’t persuaded by any of this. That’s the man on the street.’”
At least the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is on the case, policing track and field and filing formal accusations against Armstrong last week that could strip him of his seven Tour de France titles.
“Roger Clemens will put today’s not guilty verdict in the win column. Of course he will. In a separate category perhaps, but right up there alongside the 354 W’s he recorded for the Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays and Astros in his 24-season big-league career.
“Because that’s the type of competitor Clemens is. And that’s surely why he stared down federal prosecutors the last eight weeks. Because Clemens saw his perjury trial the same way he saw every batter in each of the 741 starts he made in his career – regular season and postseason. Another confrontation. Not backing down. May the better man win.
“But Clemens is likely to be disappointed, when he learns that the score is not yet final. This winter, when his name appears on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, it’s not likely Clemens will earn induction. His name will go on the ballot along with Barry Bonds. In all likelihood, they’ll fare no better than Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro did last winter….
“Over time, perhaps, the baseball writers who vote will change the way they view players who did things during the so-called Steroid Era that appeared too good to have been done without performance-enhancing drugs. Things like Bonds, who’d never hit 50 home runs in a season, hitting 73 at the age of 36, and 268 of his record 762 home runs between the ages of 36-42. And Clemens, who won only 40 games from 1993-1996, winning 136 games and four Cy Young Awards between his 34th and 41st birthdays.”
“If I ever lie to Congress about having syringes of human growth hormone injected into my bloodstream, I hope my case is heard in the District of Columbia by a group of jurors I can wink and smile at, people who know my face and what I’ve accomplished in my career, and who are clearly impressed that I am much more famous than they are.
“If I ever lie to Congress about having a low-life drug mule puncture my buttocks with performance-enhancing drugs, I hope I have enough money to be represented by a homespun slick lawyer named Rusty, who cross-examines that lowlife whom I employed, and puts enough doubt into the people impressed they get to sit within a few feet of me.
“If I ever cheat my profession and tell Texas-sized lies on Capitol Hill, I hope a former co-worker of mine, who had the guts to admit he once used HGH, will contradict his original testimony during my trial. Because not only will someone like Andy Pettitte be useful to my acquittal, heck, I might even tell my wife to invite him back to my cookouts and put him back on the Christmas card list.
“When I break down and cry after my lawyer gets me off, like Roger Clemens did after he was acquitted of all perjury charges Monday afternoon, let my supporters believe they are tears of innocence instead of what they really represent: my emotional reaction to knowing I had dodged a self-inflicted beanball that barely missed and very nearly proved I lied to America.
“More than a decade after federal agents raided a Bay Area ‘supplement’ company and uncovered mounds of evidence showing that many of our athletic heroes weren’t worthy of adulation – convicted felons such as Marion Jones and Barry Bonds, we have learned two truths:
“Steroids work. They help you obliterate home run records. They win you gold medals. They prolong careers, enabling you to work harder than perhaps the guy who won’t use them, who has been toiling in Class AAA his entire career because he refuses to put pills and needles into his body, because he has enough integrity not to make the major leagues that way.
“And cheating pays. Clemens may be guilty in a court of public opinion – it’s why he wouldn’t dare take questions from the media yesterday after his acquittal – but he made millions of dollars well into his 40s because, I believe, he used HGH to prolong his career….
“ ‘It’s a day of celebration for us,’ (Rusty) Hardin said Monday. ‘Let me tell you something: Justice won out.’
“Congratulations, Rusty. You got your high-profile client off. You turned Pettitte into a reluctant witness, sad for the loss of his friendship with Clemens, and you managed to discredit Brian McNamee, who never had much credit to begin with.
“But whatever doubt you sowed among those jury members, you did little to erase the doubts many of us still have about your client. You enabled Clemens to walk away a free man Monday, not guilty of any charges. In many of our minds, though, Roger Clemens is guilty – guilty enough to never be enshrined in Cooperstown.”
“ ‘The verdict will not change my note,’ said Boston Globe baseball columnist Nick Cafardo, who covered Clemens throughout his career with the Boston Red Sox. ‘I always felt Roger Clemens was a Hall of Fame pitcher and still do.’
Said Yahoo baseball columnist Tim Brown: ‘The jury decision didn’t change my opinion either way. The facts of the case certainly led me to the opinion that Roger Clemens did in fact use performance-enhancing drugs. I won’t vote for anyone that I believe enhanced his career by cheating. I won’t vote for Clemens.’…
“The next jury will be the Hall of Fame vote. I’ll vote for Clemens. I’ll vote for Bonds. I’ll vote for Sosa. We have no idea who was and wasn’t cheating, but the rampant steroid use made it almost a level playing field.
“ ‘I think that it’s impossible to ever find out everybody who was doing steroids in that era,’ New York Times writer Tyler Kepner said. ‘And if you can’t find out everybody who did it, you have to accept the era for what it was.
“(Clemens) spent millions of dollars in legal fees – refusing a plea deal – to do just that: to have his adamant denials of using performance-enhancing drugs validated by a jury of his peers.
“He did so because he desperately wants to have his career and all that ‘hard work’ that went into those 354 wins, third-most strikeouts (4,672) and record seven Cy Young Awards get validated by being voted into the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers Association.
“The problem Clemens is going to have with that, however, is that the crimes for which he was acquitted Monday had nothing to do with whether he did or didn’t use steroids and, despite the court verdict, there is still considerable evidence he was a cheater.
“I suspect a prime reason for the jurors – many of whom had to jar themselves to stay awake during the tedious nine-week trial – reaching their verdict so quickly was because they concluded this was a baseball issue and not a federal case.
“And so they threw it out, like a used baseball, right into the laps of the baseball writers, who will be Clemens’ next judge and jury, beginning in January. That is when he will make his debut on the Hall of Fame ballot along with fellow alleged steroid cheats Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa, and Mike Piazza, the former Met who, though never named in the Mitchell Report, has been tainted….
“We’ll see, off this acquittal, if Clemens will be able to get past that clause on the Baseball Writers’ Association Hall of Fame ballot about sportsmanship and integrity.
“I can’t speak for my brethren, but I take that clause seriously and will vote accordingly. It has been my stance that if you want me to vote for all of these guys – Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, the rest – sheerly because they have reached Hall of Fame numbers, then take the clause out of the ballot.
“He can feel justifiably elated by Monday’s verdict, but at the same time, Clemens might want to take a gander back at history and the statement baseball commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis issued the day after the eight ‘Black Sox’ were acquitted: ‘Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ballgame, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame, no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.’
“Even though Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the greatest hitters of all time, was acquitted in court, he never played another game in the majors, and there is no plaque for him in the Hall of Fame.
“Nor – unless circumstances and criteria are changed by the Hall of Fame – should there be one for Clemens.”
“Understand one thing: What Clemens skated on were six charges related to perjury. In the eyes of the jury, he did not lie when he stood before Congress and declared himself a clear baseball player. He was not specifically cleared of using steroids. That was beside the point, outside the case. In almost every instance of a player using steroids, or not using them, we are talking about an unindicted crime.
“Really, it was hard to engender any kind of emotion about Roger Clemens going to jail. This isn’t the Jerry Sandusky trial. This isn’t the O.J. Simpson trial. Nobody was murdered. No innocence was stolen from children. If the proliferation of steroids in baseball in the 1990s wasn’t entirely a victimless crime – ask any truly clean player whose career stalled in Double- or Triple-A about that – it was an intramural racket.
“Society? Put it this way: Who is going to feel badly that Brian McNamee will now return to his sad life as a nobody? [Ed. me.]
“But this trial, while a supreme waste of taxpayer money and the judicial system’s time, barely will have a ripple effect on the voting body that will judge whether Clemens will ever walk through the gates at Cooperstown or slip a Hall of Fame ring on his finger. We are not bound by legal precedent or federal verdict. We vote our consciences.
“And the truth is some of us think 300-game winners are automatic entrants, some don’t. Some of us think Bert Blyleven was a worthy inductee because of his career body of work, some of us didn’t. Jack Morris? We’re split, and needles never enter into the debate….
“I voted for Mark McGwire one year. I haven’t voted for him the years since. I changed my mind because I could. I might do so again. I voted for Jeff Bagwell because I never have been persuaded he was a cheater; maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong. Next year, I’ll make my mind up all over again….
“Will I vote for (Clemens)? If I had to decide right now, today, I wouldn’t. I think he used. I think he cheated the game. And at bare minimum, I think it should cost him a first-ballot ticket.”
Russell Westbrook
“Given a choice between Ty Lawson of the Nuggets and Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook, you could bet 29 of 30 general managers would pick the point guard stealing shots form Kevin Durant at the NBA Finals.
“Lawson is going to be the biggest thing under 6 feet tall in this league.
“Denver was eliminated from the playoffs by the Los Angeles Lakers, but in the process, a star was born. During the last two games of the series, Lawson averaged 28 points, six assists and five rebounds, prompting Lakers coach Mike Brown to say: ‘You’re not going to stop Ty Lawson.’
“With the NBA Finals tied at 1-1, the biggest obstacle to the Thunder winning the title is not LeBron James. It’s Westbrook’s ego. He plays point guard like a kid who buys a new basketball, then acts afraid teammates might leave the playground, run home and hide it under the bed after his next pass….
“For more than a year, I’ve maintained Westbrook is the NBA’s most over-rated player….
“Talent evaluators and number crunchers alike would laugh now at any suggestion Lawson will be a smarter long-term choice than Westbrook.
“Check back in five years. Don’t forget to bring a thank-you note.”
One comparison is telling…field-goal percentage. This year Lawson was at .488, Westbrook .431. The assists to turnovers ratios are essentially a wash.
Yeah, I watched some of Game 4…it literally just ended. Westbrook had his great moments, no doubt, but the Thunder have blown it. Now the guy I can’t stand is Mario Chalmers. Some of the players in this series are reminding me why there have been long stretches I can’t stand the NBA. They are just incredible assholes.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
I forgot to note last time that Dale Jr. finally ended a 143-race winless streak on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, almost four years to the day since his last appearance in victory lane.
Earnhardt pulled away over the final 25 laps in a dominating performance, though he said after, “Those last 15 laps were the longest laps ever.”
It’s a huge shot in the arm for NASCAR as Dale remains the most popular driver.
You know what I forgot? How long it took to open Graceland after Elvis Presley died on Aug. 16, 1977. This month marks 30 years.
“Graceland had become a burden on his estate, which faced high estate and inheritance taxes. Accountants and bankers wanted to sell the home, but Priscilla Presley thought that opening the house to tourists could solve the financial problems while keeping the Elvis legacy alive. She secured a $500,000 investment and visited other tourist attractions – Hearst Castle, Will Rogers’ home, even Disney World – for inspiration.
“Graceland opened for tours on June 7, 1982. ‘We had no idea whether 30 people were coming, or 300, or 3,000 that first day. Fortunately, it was the latter,’ said Jack Soden, CEO of Elvis Presley Enterprises, who helped Priscilla with her plan.
“They sold out all 3,024 tickets on the first day and never looked back.”
500,000 show up annually these days and $32 million a year in revenue is generated in worldwide merchandising and licensing.
I went years ago, when I was still at PIMCO. I told the wholesaler down there for us that we were playing hooky in the afternoon and going to Graceland. It’s amazing how small it is…but definitely worth it.
–In the College World Series, Kent State, after losing its opener to Arkansas, eliminated top-seeded Florida, though it has an elimination game against South Carolina on Wednesday. Earlier, Stony Brook flamed out, losing to UCLA and Florida State by a combined 21-3 score, but what a year for the Seawolves.
—Roger Jongewaard died. He was 75. Jongewaard, the longtime baseball scout, was responsible for three No. 1 draft picks – Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez and Darryl Strawberry.
Jongewaard, who played five years of minor league ball after being drafted by the Milwaukee Braves, began his scouting career in 1973 with Texas and joined the Mets in 1976.
In 1987, now with the Mariners, owner George Argyros wanted to take Cal State Fullerton pitcher Mike Harkey. Jongewaard wanted a high-school outfielder from Cincinnati named Ken Griffey Jr. Jongewaard prevailed. A-Rod was a No. 1 pick for Seattle I 1993.
–Congratulations to LaDainian Tomlinson for a super NFL career, fifth on the rushing list with 13,684 yards, second all time with 145 TDs rushing. He retired as a Charger after nine seasons in San Diego but Jets fans appreciate his solid play the last two years here as he rushed for 1,200 yards and had 94 receptions.
—Cough Cough…Cough…
So I saw a story in the New York Daily News by Christine Roberts that starts out thusly:
“A website is offering some unlikely inspiration to students hesitant to pick up a new language.
“SexyMandarin.com, an online course that uses lingerie-clad models to help teach Mandarin, has gone viral since launching in December.
“The first lesson, titled ‘What Time Is It?’, teaches time vocabulary with two half-naked models groping at each other on a bed and has already gotten over 300,000 hits.”
–Boxer Floyd “Money” Mayweather is now the world’s highest-paid athlete, earning $85 million last year, knocking Tiger Woods out of the top spot. Tiger, who had held it since 2001, fell to third behind another boxer, Manny Pacquiao, who earned $62 million. Woods took home $59.4 million, according to Forbes. LeBron James was fourth at $53 million.
–Ohio State hoops star Jared Sullinger has been red-flagged by NBA doctors, according to ESPN. Sidelined last season at times with back spasms, Sullinger underwent medical tests at the NBA draft combine and team doctors say his back issues could shorten his NBA career.
–And I forgot to wish Paul McCartney a happy 70th birthday on Monday. He is supposed to close out the opening ceremonies for the London Games in about a month’s time.
