Sunday, 10 February 2008

grimsley drops small fortune in dimes



Grimsley drops a small fortune in dimes

The Mets are underway in Los Angeles, with a 5-1 lead in the second

inning of the rubber game.

As for the injuries: Floyd has a sprained ankle, and is listed as

day-to-day. He has said that he won't require a trip to the DL. I'm

going to go ahead and cross my fingers just in case.

Beltran is showing no ill effects from his strained oblique, with two

singles already tonight. Reyes is out of the lineup with his sore

wrist.

Of course, the story of the day is Jason Grimsley.

I strongly recommend the IRS-Criminal Investigation (not a TV show,

yet) agent's affidavit. Just incredible stuff. "Naming names" doesn't

go far enough to describe the level of cooperation he provided.

He told them absolutely everything. He gave up as many prominent names

as possible, the details of their use/distribution, even the names of

people he just suspected were juicing. For extra credit, he even

called his supplier with a bugged phone at the agents' behest to

provide evidence of their past and planned activities.

A particularly jaw-dropping excerpt:

Grimsley identified, in his words, "Latin players," as a major source

for the amphetamines within baseball. He stated that it was common

knowledge that you could get amphetamines from "Latin players." He

stated that he got amphetamines from "Latin players" whenever he

needed them. He stated that "Latin players" had boxes of them.

One major "takeaway" from his statements, as they relate to the

efficacy of the recently imposed testing regime, is that its effect

was to confine his performance-enhancement to Human Growth Hormone

alone.

Given that he had been injecting a variety of conventional steroids

before testing began, a "glass-half-full" observer could call that a

qualified success. Unfortunately, that qualification is a rather large

one.

There's also the familiar refrain of the apprehended (or confessed)

steroid user: "boatloads" of players are using them.

The names in question have been redacted from the document, but

apparently it's only a matter of time before a clean copy gets leaked.

In the meantime, you can try to figure out who he's talking about from

the unedited details like what team a player was on or when they

started using. I tried but failed.

Whether or not he's in any of Grimsley's little black books, I'm still

trying to implicate Roger Clemens in this fiasco. I'll do it myself if

I have to. Look at this picture of him and Koby and tell me that his

kids weren't raised on peanut butter and Winstrol sandwiches.

One thing's for sure: Jason Grimsley is going to be much more famous

(and useful) as a state's witness than he ever was as a relief


No comments: