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merkin Profile
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Bullpen Guard

Registered: 02-2006
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Grimsley...........


Wow

Bonds 715 is done

Grimsley news it out

I think this takes the pressure off Barry

The Grimsley news is startling
Not because of what it contains...
But the fact it looks like he sang like a canary and implicated MANY players whom he called friends.....

The guy had no friends now.....

---
"...the best evaluation of players is subjective judgment...The real baseball world is inevitably going to be hundreds of times more complicated than the model that we construct...." -Bill James
6/7/2006, 11:10 pm Link to this post   
 
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Re: Grimsley...........


Baseball's HGH problem
 
By Jeff Passan, Yahoo! Sports
June 7, 2006


On April 20, the day after Jason Grimsley spent two hours telling federal investigators about the package of human growth hormone he received and his long history with performance-enhancing drugs, he pitched 4 1/3 shutout innings for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Just because Grimsley's name registers a lower Q rating than Barry Bonds' or Rafael Palmeiro's doesn't lessen the nuclear nature of the investigation by IRS agent Jeff Novitzky, the lead sleuth in the BALCO case and the hero of anti-doping advocates.

Grimsley sang like wind chimes in a hurricane. He implicated his distributor, who's certain to get a visit from Novitzky and Co. soon, and he fingered players, whose names, redacted for now on the affidavit, will eventually leak. He admitted to copious performance-enhancing drug use, ranging from growth hormone to steroids to prohormones to amphetamines, over the course of his 15-year career, which, incidentally, is probably over after the Diamondbacks released him Wednesday. He confessed to an idle chat last year with former Baltimore Orioles teammates about how baseball would react to the banning of amphetamines, talk corroborated during spring training when Grimsley suggested to the New York Times that baseball look into expanding rosters from 25 to 30.

The most damning slice of the affidavit was a single sentence that blew a hole through Major League Baseball's insistence that its performance-enhancing-drug-testing program catches users:

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"Grimsley stated that since Major League Baseball began its drug testing for steroids and amphetamines, the only drug he has used is human growth hormone."

And there it is. Proof, in 25 words, that for all the progress made – and there has been plenty – baseball still faces perhaps its toughest question yet in the steroid scandal.

Just how far will it go to protect the integrity of its game?

In three years, baseball has gone from no steroid policy to the most stringent in sports, and still, fallibility and loopholes abound. Even though HGH is on its banned list, there is no urine test for it. The sport helped fund Don Catlin, the UCLA doctor who discovered the designer steroid THG, to develop one. Nothing yet. The World Anti-Doping Association is also trying, to no avail.

"The urine test is beyond what you and I can see now," said Gary Wadler, a WADA board member, "down the long trail."

I had called Wadler on Monday, before the Grimsley story broke, to talk about HGH. Generally, he is an optimist. When talking about growth hormone, he sounded defeated. He knows it's prevalent. The evidence crops up in players' muscle gain or unnaturally quick recoveries from injuries. For all of medical technology's wonders, Grimsley's return last July only 10 months after Tommy John surgery seemed astounding.

Wadler called on baseball to implement blood testing, something he's done for years and something the players' association opposes vehemently. Peeing in a cup is one thing; getting stuck with needles and having the samples frozen for future testing delves into the deep and moralistic issues of civil liberties, and returns us to the argument's crux.

How important is ridding the game of performance-enhancing drugs?

Currently, two types of blood tests are used to detect HGH. The more popular test, the one used at the Turin Olympics, isolates small proteins known as isoforms, which are slightly different in human-produced growth hormone than the synthetic version. The other looks for slight fingerprints in the blood, or markers, that indicate usage of synthetic growth hormone.

Neither is patently reliable.

Grimsley, 38, has been using performance enhancers for years. He admitted to being on the list of 83 players who tested positive in 2003, a list that, if ever released, would inflict further and deeper damage on a sport already carpet bombed with controversy. Grimsley told investigators he tested positive for 1-AD, or androstenediol, a prohormone similar to the androstenedione that Mark McGwire took the season he hit 70 home runs. Both substances are now banned.

To recover from shoulder surgery, he took Deca-Durabolin, a brand of nandrolone and a Jose Canseco favorite. He ingested Clenbuterol, a drug with similar effects to the banned dietary supplement ephedrine, which speeds up the heart. Grimsley told investigators he and others popped amphetamines "like aspirin."

Between 10 and 12 times, Grimsley said, he received HGH shipments similar to the one Novitzky confiscated from his home April 19. This particular kind was Serostin, a branded version of the drug somatropin.

One kit, filled with seven vials of powdered HGH and seven vials of sterile water to mix in, cost Grimsley $1,600. Two were delivered April 19. On bodybuilding message boards, users talk about their sources for HGH: citizens, many times AIDS patients, who are lawfully prescribed the drug.

Grimsley used his to enhance performance – by the looks of his 4.88 ERA this season and 4.77 ERA for his career, the results weren't exactly as intended – and as such the government raided his house in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Tuesday and for six hours searched for records that could tie him to a litany of charges: distribution of steroids, illegal possession of steroids, illegal receipt of HGH and money laundering.

Now Grimsley, anonymous but for crawling through a duct to steal Albert Belle's corked bat in Cleveland in 1994, is the latest pharmacological dabbler caught.

And baseball, again, is reeling.

The onus falls on the sport to act as a pioneer, even if it's at the end of the production-and-distribution cycle. If the most baseball can reasonably do is test, it must help fund other methods of choking off the supply. A few years ago, WADA tossed around the idea of attaching markers to drugs when they come out of the factory – adding detectable doses of a benign substance to a drug so it wouldn't change the chemical properties, for those who need it, but would show up in visible proportions in drug tests.

Though the FDA testing process for the new compounds would take a few years, drug companies, knowing their products are being abused and their names sullied, would likely be on board.

Other options are limited. HGH is the desert mirage of performance-enhancing drugs, showing up for a short while before vanishing without a trace. Two years ago, the United States Anti-Doping Association assembled a group of endocrinologists, hormone experts, laboratory scientists and sports testers for a town-hall meeting on HGH.

"We were locked up for two days," Wadler said. "And the bottom line is, the landscape hasn't changed. It's going to take a lot of years and a lot of money."

And a lot of commitment, too.

Commissioner Bud Selig and union leader Donald Fehr must decide whether that's the path they want to travel. The amount of wrangling it took to get the current policy – Capitol Hill hearings and back-room negotiating and public-relations haymakers – seemed worth the amount of credibility it bought. Until the latest hit, at least, which is the start of a slow and painful trickle from the Grimsley case. Pressure will mount for more action. Baseball will need to weigh its priorities in an unenviable yet inevitable decision.

The sanctity of the game or the privacy of its players?
 
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---
"...the best evaluation of players is subjective judgment...The real baseball world is inevitably going to be hundreds of times more complicated than the model that we construct...." -Bill James
6/7/2006, 11:19 pm Link to this post   
 
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Re: Grimsley...........


Merk and everybody, read today's mercury news.
6/8/2006, 8:48 pm Link to this post   
 
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Re: Grimsley...........


Grimsley's lawyer said that the feds went after him to try and and lure other players into confidential conversations in an effort to find incriminating evidence against Barry.

its in today's Mercury news in the sports section.
6/8/2006, 8:52 pm Link to this post   
 
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Re: Grimsley...........


you mean this?

Is Bonds real target?
DRUG PROBE'S GOAL WAS TO ENSNARE S.F. STAR, ATTORNEY SAYS
By Joseph Reaves and Craig Harris
Arizona Republic

AP Photo / Michael Chow
Pitcher Jason Grimsley, 38, was released by the Arizona Diamondbacks after federal agents searched his home Tuesday.
Purdy: Breaking down Grimsley's door to get to Bonds may shed light in dark baseball corner
Grimsley vs. top hitters
Ailing Bonds' status is iffy
Giants to display items from Bonds' 715th homer game this weekend
On deck for the Giants: Pittsburgh Pirates
Schmidt eager to share credit for 16-strikeout game
The attorney for Jason Grimsley said Wednesday that federal agents tried to pressure the former Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher into wearing a listening device to lure other players into confidential conversations in an effort to find incriminating evidence against Giants outfielder Barry Bonds.

``It was a specific effort to target Bonds,'' attorney Edward F. Novak said. ``We were told that Jason's cooperation was necessary to their case.''

Grimsley allegedly was caught illegally possessing human growth hormone in April, then ``was outed by the feds'' when he refused to cooperate with the investigation of Bonds, Novak said.

Mark Lessler, a special agent for criminal investigation with the Internal Revenue Service, which produced the affidavit that led to a search of Grimsley's home in Scottsdale, Ariz., declined comment on an investigation.

Grimsley, 38, left the team Tuesday after federal authorities unsealed a sworn affidavit in which an investigator said the pitcher admitted using steroids, amphetamines, HGH and other illegal performance-enhancing drugs ``throughout his career.''

The Diamondbacks released Grimsley, at his request, on Wednesday.

According to the affidavit, Grimsley identified ``several'' former and current major league players who used banned substances.

The names of those players were redacted from the unsealed document, creating an air of suspicion and nervousness throughout baseball.

Novak denied that Grimsley volunteered the names of players. He said, instead, that federal agents questioned Grimsley about specific athletes and asked what he knew about their illegal drug habits.

``They asked him specifically about Barry Bonds,'' Novak said. ``Jason said he didn't know Bonds well and didn't know if he did or didn't use drugs.''

Novak said investigators then asked Grimsley whether he knew anybody on the Giants whom he might get to confide about Bonds, who is now second on the all-time home run list.

Grimsley, according to Novak, told investigators that ``baseball players don't go around talking about who is using and who isn't.''

Novak said, ``There is a lot in the affidavit that my client would dispute.'' But one thing Grimsley confirmed was his admission he used illegal drugs for years.

``He has admitted his past steroid use,'' Novak said. ``The substance of that part of the affidavit is accurate.''

Commissioner Bud Selig had no specific comments, he said, because this is an ongoing investigation.

Major League Baseball Executive Vice President Rob Manfred said: ``Major League Baseball now has the strongest steroid-testing program in professional sports. Human growth hormone, however, is a problem for all sports because there is no universally accepted and validated test, either blood or urine. No governing body in any sport has ever been able to discipline an athlete for the use of HGH.''

Federal agents have confronted Grimsley at his home twice in recent months. On April 19, they say they caught him illegally accepting a mail delivery of HGH. Tuesday, they spent six hours searching his house.

When agents contacted Grimsley in April, he spoke with them for two hours, an interview that led to the affidavit to search his home Tuesday.

Novak insisted Wednesday that Grimsley was coerced into going with agents to avoid being embarrassed in front of his friends and family.

``They specifically told him, `Don't call a lawyer,' '' Novak said. ``They let him know that if he didn't cooperate, they basically would terrorize his family and come in with guns drawn and lights flashing.''

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, which has been leading an investigation into illegal drug use focusing on Bonds and Burlingame-based Balco Laboratories, responded to Novak's claims by issuing a statement.

``We continue to investigate allegations of illegal activities concerning steroids, amphetamines and other performance-enhancing drugs and related violations of law, and we will diligently follow the evidence,'' spokesman Luke Macaulay said. ``We believe that this search and the investigative procedures involved were conducted in an entirely appropriate and legal fashion.''

Grimsley helped investigators initially, but then hired Novak and refused any further cooperation. That refusal, the attorney said, led to the search of Grimsley's home Tuesday.

  link click here


---
"...the best evaluation of players is subjective judgment...The real baseball world is inevitably going to be hundreds of times more complicated than the model that we construct...." -Bill James
6/8/2006, 8:52 pm Link to this post   
 
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Re: Grimsley...........


yup thats the one.


Those fuckin feds need to get a life. Especially the IRS. This is pathetic.
6/8/2006, 9:19 pm Link to this post   
 
merkin Profile
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Bullpen Guard

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Re: Grimsley...........


With Gas Prices through the roof
With war going on in Iraq and at home
With Nuclear ambitions of Iran....

Not to mention the crumbling infrastructure

Sorry, I dont like to get political... BUT JEEZUS... dont they have anything better to do????



---
"...the best evaluation of players is subjective judgment...The real baseball world is inevitably going to be hundreds of times more complicated than the model that we construct...." -Bill James
6/8/2006, 11:04 pm Link to this post   
 
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Re: Grimsley...........


quote:

merkin wrote:

With Gas Prices through the roof
With war going on in Iraq and at home
With Nuclear ambitions of Iran....

Not to mention the crumbling infrastructure

Sorry, I dont like to get political... BUT JEEZUS... dont they have anything better to do????






 emoticon The feds have more important things to worry about. and why the hell is the IRS raiding peoples' houses? they are not the FBI.
6/8/2006, 11:11 pm Link to this post   
 
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Bullpen Guard

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Re: Grimsley...........


Just read mark Purdy
Thanks for the heads up

Something tells me this thing is gonna get REALLY UGLY

Bonds will just be a footnote...
Got the feeling we are looking at some BIG HEROS going down.....

Bonds was always the villian... his supposed "usage" didnt break America's heart

we are due for a "Say it ain't so, Jeter" moment

ps.. not saying Jeter used.. but if he did.. the reaction would be so different from Bonds

Last edited by merkin, 6/8/2006, 11:17 pm


---
"...the best evaluation of players is subjective judgment...The real baseball world is inevitably going to be hundreds of times more complicated than the model that we construct...." -Bill James
6/8/2006, 11:16 pm Link to this post   
 
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Re: Grimsley...........


quote:

merkin wrote:

Just read mark Purdy
Thanks for the heads up

Something tells me this thing is gonna get REALLY UGLY

Bonds will just be a footnote...
Got the feeling we are looking at some BIG HEROS going down.....

Bonds was always the villian... his supposed "usage" didnt break America's heart

we are due for a "Say it ain't so, Jeter" moment

ps.. not saying Jeter used.. but if he did.. the reaction would be so different from Bonds





  

no prob man emoticon
6/8/2006, 11:32 pm Link to this post   
 


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