Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Allen Barra doesn't spend enough time in the dugout.

What's with this guy?

He probably never even met Andy Pettitte.

If you looked into Pettitte's eyes and shook Pettitte's hand (a firm, all-American handshake, no doubt), then you would know that Pettitte is not a cheater.

He just isn't:

"Why hasn't Andy Pettitte heard from MLB, and why hasn't there been talk of a suspension? In his deposition to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Pettitte admitted that his father injected him with HGH in 2004. (And surely the most bizarre single piece of evidence to emerge during the entire hearing process is that Pettitte's dad stuck a needle in his son's ass.) In admitting this, Pettitte was in effect also admitting that he had lied to the Mitchell Commission—and thus to Major League Baseball—about the extent of his drug use.

Moreover, Pettitte was admitting to a crime. Though HGH wasn't banned from baseball under the Basic Agreement existing at the time—it wouldn't be added to the list of prohibited substances until 2005—it was and remains illegal unless prescribed for one of three rare diseases. Pettitte has clarified that he used HGH without a prescription. This means that he has admitted to the illegal use of HGH not once but twice, in 2002 and 2004. So where are MLB, the FDA, and the FBI?

...

Or as ESPN's astute legal analyst Roger Cossack put it, in a summation largely ignored by the New York media (and, for that matter, by Cossack's colleagues at ESPN): 'If you take out Andy Pettitte, is there any reason here you would believe McNamee any more than you would believe Clemens? McNamee has been shown to be a guy who lies for convenience. He lied when he first started talking to the Mitchell Commission . . . . Clemens has his own problems . . . . Obviously, his biggest problem is Andy Pettitte.'

When the Mitchell Report revealed that McNamee said he injected Pettitte with HGH in 2002, Pettitte was reviled as a cheat and a liar. In a short time, he was transformed into a sympathetic figure (despite withholding information on further HGH use) for one reason: He was the tool that could be used to get Roger Clemens."


I agree, except I don't think Pettitte was ever reviled as a cheat and a liar.

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