November 04, 2005
Taking Responsibility
Nice to see Matt Lawton not make excuses for his steroid use.
"I made a terrible and foolish mistake that I will regret for the rest of my life," Lawton said, in a statement to The Associated Press. "I take full responsibility for my actions and did not appeal my suspension. I apologize to the fans, the game, my family and all those people that I let down. I am truly sorry and deeply regret my terrible lapse in judgment."
It would be nicer to see players sticking to the rules, but it's better than blaming contamination or another player's vitamin shot.
As one person points out to me, the rumor was that the player was appealing his test. Lawton says he didn't do that. I don't think there's someone else out there based on that rumor. I just think the people who floated it got it all wrong.
Posted by David Pinto at
08:38 AM
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Or they both could have been right (in a sense). Will Carroll's column on BP yesterday suggested that Lawton may have meant that he didn't appeal the decision outside of the mlb process (to an independent arbitrator).
That aside, I was pleasantly surprised to see Lawton not try to dodge responsibility here, in a "i don't know how that winstrol got injected into my ass" sort of way.
Yeah, it's nice to see someone actually take responsibility for their actions.
This is the perfect response to getting caught. Admit guilt, own up, and apologize. It might help to add promising not to do it again.
While I'm sympathetic to Giambi's "I wanna admit I did it, but the lawyers are telling me not to," approach, this is a better way to handle it.
Giambi won't admit it because doing so publically would possibly enable the Yanks to nullify his contract. There was a clause in it that spoke to Giambi making every effort to maintain his health; legal analysts have suggested that admission of steroid use on his part would violate this specific term. I think he has upwards of $60 million remaining, and probably had to think about it for exactly 1 second before opting out.
Lawton, however, is contract-less. Before I go about congratulating him for opening up, I'll guess that his reasons, like Giambi's, are based on self-interest. Our response: "Hey, he's pretty responsible, fessing up, let's forgive" is exactly what he's looking for from a new employer. The stuff he was on was pretty hardcore: heavy weekly injections for 6+ months. That's a long, repeated, and major "mistake" to make. He knew what he was doing, took a risk, got caught, and is now in damage control mode.
what is interesting is that using these drugs is a felony.
where are the law enforcement people?
why isn't he being taken to trial - he confessed to committing a felony - heck, many felonies.
little double standard - if he was a ghetto crack addict you best beliefve he be in jail right now
if he was a ghetto crack addict you best beliefve he be in jail right now
I don't think so. If someone was on the news and said they had done crack once a week for 6 months, I do not think that they would be arrested.