By JIMMY D / Mitchell Report creates more steroid fantasies | Jimmy's archive

Roger Clemens was 18-4 in 2004. He struck out 218 in 214 innings. He won the NL Cy Young Award that year with Houston as a 42-year-old and everyone cheered his stamina, longevity and continued excellence.

But there was no cheering in Jimmyville – mighty Jimmy had struck out.
As in, he had struck out in his baseball league, losing by a statistical hair. And those amazing Clemens numbers were the difference in a fantasy championship and a close-but-no-cigar-second-place finish.

I think it’s only fair that Jimmy be retroactively awarded that title in light of the Mitchell Report of last week. Heck, they can wipe out world records in track and field and take back Olympic gold medals, why not strike fantasy victories from the record too?

Rocket Roger was named 103 times in the report into steroid use, just two times fewer than Barry Bonds. Is it possible or probable that the two best players of our generation derived their excellence not just from hard work and solid DNA but from the pharmacy?

Through his lawyer Rusty Hardin, Clemens has denied cheating. He said the strength coach who testified to shooting Winstrol into Rocket’s butt-cheeks in 1998 and who said he injected Clemens with testosterone and human growth hormone in 2000 was blabbing falsely because he got pinched by the cops.

Winstol, you may recall, was the horse steroid (also known as stanozolol) that sprinter Ben Johnson “never knowingly” took. That was back in 1988, the year admitted doper Jose Canseco was winning the AL MVP. It was the year a presumably clean Clemens was finishing second in the Cy balloting and the year a rake-thin Orel Hershiser was winning the NL Cy.

It was back when baseball players looked like regular men (except Hershiser who was far too skinny) and not contestants in a Mr. Universe competition. Jimmy has a Sammy Sosa rookie card – he was listed at 5 foot 8 and 165 pounds. Did his body simply mature nicely with age or did he have some pharmaceutical assistance in bulking to a 66-homer size?

You can make all kinds of excuses and concoct all kinds of conspiracy theories, but Jimmy likes to rely on facts and numbers and research. For fun, check out this page www.baseball-reference.com/c/clemero02.shtml online.

You will see Clemens had nine straight stellar seasons, full of Cy Young Awards and the 1986 AL MVP award. Then, around the age of 30 when athletes used to start slowing down (back in the old days anyway), he had four straight sub-par years – two with losing records, two with un-Clemens-ish ERAs well above 4.00.

Then in 1997, he moved to Toronto and won two straight Cy Youngs and never slowed down, winning his seventh Cy in 2004, that now-disputed season in the annals of Jimmy D fantasy loss history.

Want some more statistical fun? Go here www.baseball-reference.com/awards/mvp_cya.shtml and look at the names of the AL MVPs between 1995 and 2002. Every name except Ken Griffey and Ichiru Suzuki are named in the Mitchell Report. Ken Caminiti (who died a few years after admitting steroid abuse), Sosa and Bonds dominated the NL MVP ceremony during the same span.

What is laughable and makes Jimmy angry is the protestation that players are getting unfairly smeared and never had a chance to defend themselves against these scurrilous, nasty and generally mean-spirited accusations.

 “It’s not right to put somebody in a report with this kind of allegation and lack of proof, because there's nothing he can do to combat it,” Clemens’ lawyer said last week.

Well, actually, Roger, you could have spoken with the nice former senator to give your side of the story. You were invited many times after all.

Stay tuned to this story for suspension ramification on your baseball draft next spring.

Westbrook ‘smart’ play

A few commentators called it the smartest play of the season. Jimmy called it the dumbest play of the fantasy season.

Brian Westbrook, Jimmy’s controversial top pick in the NFL draft back in August, was galloping free towards the end zone late in the Philly upset at Dallas when he suddenly stopped and sat down on the 2-yard line.

Jimmy was aghast! What was Westbrook doing? It turned out he knew the Cowboys had no timeouts left and the Eagles could grind out the clock and win 10-6. At 17-6, Dallas would get the ball back to try to reprise their Week 5 miracle in Buffalo where they scored 10 points in the final 20 seconds to beat the Bills).

What a wonderful, unselfish, team-focused, screw-up-Jimmy’s-team play that was.

Night Before Christmas Jimmy-style

There will be a holiday version Jimmy D this Saturday where his annual ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas fantasy-sports-style will appear in this space.
In the meantime, get busy, get shopping and get lucky.

Jimmy D