This Week's Links (12/17-12/21)

Big Shot Levance.

ATHF's Carl breaks down the Mitchell Report. "How do you think Ted Williams fought all those Nazis, huh? Roids, pure and simple." (via Defensive Indifference)

How The Weakest Link relates to sports.

Pomeroy explains his individual stats, and looks at which teams have accumulated gaudy win totals against weak competition.

AA talks to Gus Johnson. This is one of my favorite calls ever.

STF interviews Basketball Prospectus' John Gasaway.

Another potential replacement for the BBWAA awards: The Pozcars.

Roger Clemens Is Awesome

Roger Clemens made this big statement today. If you somehow missed it, it's here:

"I am disappointed that my 25 years in public life have apparently not earned me the benefit of the doubt..."

First of all, if anything had happened in the last two days in CBB or MLB, I would be writing about that. Sadly, nothing has. Georgia Tech almost took Kansas to OT, but they couldn't get the ball over half court when they had the opportunity to tie the game with five seconds left.

Secondly...what have you done to earn the "benefit of the doubt"? You think the 4,672 strikeouts accomplished that? The seven Cy Youngs? You clearly haven't been paying attention.

What's great about this situation is that someone is blatantly lying, and whomever it is has a lot on the line. Either it's Roger, or it's Brian McNamee (from the Mitchell Report):

"Federal law enforcement officials and members of my staff participated with me in all of the interviews [with McNamee].

"During each of the interviews, the law enforcement officials warned him that he faced criminal jeopardy if he made any false statements."

McNamee has a lot more on the line (although it's closer than it probably should be). If he's lying, he's risking going to jail. If Roger is lying, he's risking...what? He's got $121 million (plus a lot more in endorsements) in the bank. He could lose those AT&T commercials, and his "reputation", but that's about it.

It seems like quite a stretch to think that McNamee told the exact truth about Pettitte, but made up this elaborate lie about Clemens, and manged to give the same story to both Mitchell and the cops. Not to mention the circumstantial evidence of Clemens dominating the NL at age 42, and retiring eight times.

Photo from Seth Mnookin's site, after searching for "roger clemens muscles", and CBC.

Excellent perspective: Clemens' Denial is a Play for the Future [Shysterball]

Mitchell Report Live-Blog? Why Not

(Updated at 8:29pm)

The Mitchell Report is going to be released/announced at 2pm today (ESPN had me fooled for awhile; their *coverage* starts at 1pm, but God knows I'm not watching an hour of Skip Bayless discussing steroids). I really don't care all that much, but I figure something interesting is bound to happen, so I'll be live-blogging it. Don't expect any brilliant insight, but stop by a little before 2pm eastern.

10:51 Apparently, Roger Clemens is going to be named in the report. Off to an excellent start already.

11:04 MLBTR reports that "the Yankees are in for a bad day (but Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera are not in the report)".

11:22 I really like this picture, on ESPN.com's front page right now:

This is not a man to be taken lightly.

11:33 According to some source, "[n]o Mets from the current 40-man roster are named."

11:42 Deadspin has what may be the list. There is one name that stands out. A lot. And it ain't the shirtless guy in the picture.

12:45 ESPN has a very, very lose definition of "breaking news".

Also, shockingly, that original list probably isn't entirely accurate: "A high-ranking MLB official said there are several errors in the list provided to WNBC.com by two sources."

Thankfully we have Skip Bayless and Steve Phillips to guide us through these trying times.

1:22 Case in point: "Commissioner Bud Selig expected to speak at 4:30 ET" is decidedly not breaking news.

1:25 I am currently flipping between ESPN and this fat camp show on MTV, which is absolutely compelling television.

1:27 Heyman has more names. Nothing terribly shocking.

1:30 The Twins have signed Adam Everett, after he was non-tendered by the Astros yesterday. So it looks like their middle infield will be Everett (.248/.299/.356 career line) and Nick Punto (.245/.314/.321). Terrifying.

1:47 Dan Wetzel on Clemens:
"[Clemens and Bonds] are just two guys who had it all, foolishly went for more, and have now lost everything."

Really, now?

1:49 Jose Canseco is in attendance. Fantastic.

1:56 Jeremy Schapp has the report. It looks long.

Roger Clemens took steroids. Once again- this is news?

1:57 People who wrote checks to Radomski: Paul LoDuca, Denny Neagle, Fernando Vina, David Segui, Miguel Tejada, Rondell White.

Schapp could not have possibly done a worse job on this.

1:59 Here comes George Mitchell.

2:01 Apparently Cossack said "Priestley" instead of "Grimsley". Now that is funny.

Oh, and Mitchell is talking and saying nothing of interest. They're going to post the entire report on MLB.com though.

2:06 That was quick. Here it is (.pdf file).

2:15 No Pujols, it looks like. (The above link opens it up in an internet window; there's no actual list, but plenty of names.)

2:17
Marvin Bernard
Barry Bonds
Bobby Estalella
Jason Giambi
Jeremy Giambi
Benito Santiago
Gary Sheffield
Randy Velarde (!)
Lenny Dykstra
David Segui
Larry Bigbie
Brian Roberts
Jack Cust
Tim Laker
Josias Manzanillo
Todd Hundley
Hal Morris
Matt Franco
Rondell White
Roger Clemens
Andy Pettitte
Chuck Knoblauch
Jason Grimsley
Gregg Zaun
David Justice
F.P. Santangelo
Glenallen Hill
Mo Vaughn
Denny Neagle
Ron Villone
Ryan Franklin
Chris Donnels
Todd Williams
Phil Hiatt
Todd Pratt
Kevin Young
Mike Lansing
Cody McKay
Kent Mercker
Adam Piatt
Miguel Tejada
Jason Christiansen
Stephen Randolph
Jerry Hairston Jr.
Paul Lo Duca
Adam Riggs
Fernando Vina
Kevin Brown
Eric Gagne
Mike Bell
Matt Herges
Gary Bennett Jr.
Jim Parque
Brendan Donnelly
Chad Allen
Jeff Williams
Howie Clark
Nook Logan (!)

2:23 Internet Purchases:


2:26 Prediction: in a week (if that), everybody is going to have forgotten about this.

2:30 This link might be more helpful.

3:01 I've lost interest. What have we really learned? Steroids were (and are) bad, and ran rampant. More testing would be good. Nothing terrible groundbreaking here, is there?

3:16 AA has Cossack's 90210 slip-up. Nate Silver also has a post on Unfiltered.

6:33 Apparently, Roger Clemens is denying this whole thing.

Of course he is.

8:25 The fun never ends. The Sporting Blog has the "Anti-Mitchell Report", and apparently Jose Canseco wasn't allowed in the press conference.

Leitch sums it up well:

"But honestly: This is what MLB paid $20 million for? This took nearly two years? Essentially, Sen. Mitchell has two sources, a bunch of media reports, Jose Canseco's book and every player in baseball (save two) ignoring his requests to talk. The only reason Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are in here is because they were unfortunate enough to have acquaintances who had no choice but to talk. The report has brought us no closer, because nothing possibly could. We don't think this is going to bring us any closure, because the report is so obviously not comprehensive."

8:29 FJM has five new Mitchell Report-related posts; I'm not about to link to all of them, but you should go there.