Of course Clemens denial is in doubt. Is anyone really surprised?

Clemens guilt was never at issue. Physique and gaining a couple miles per hour on the heater in his 30's told the tail. His occasionally deranged mound presence in screamed roid rage. If he wants to be believed he needs to give sworn testimony. Bonds lies threaten to hang him. Clemens harangues at the media mean nothing.

Berkman has been outspoken for a couple of seasons now. I'm not sure if he is the clubs PA rep, but he better be careful. If MLB does not prove the report wrong, congress could force another full on investigation, but this time, placing players, trainers and managers under oath. That said, he must be mighty confident that he hasn't taken anything questionable for the duration of his career - including when he seriously injured his knee.

That might be why he is so outspoken. He's never taken anything and has busted his ass to succeed. I would be seriously pissed myself.

re: clemens and the Mitchell report

First, Clemens has no obligation whatsoever to comment. To the extent that any possible criminal charges may or might flow from the conduct which is alleged in the Mitchell report, his best option legally ethically and for the good of his reputation is to lawyer up and say nothing. Anything he says can later be used against him in a court of civil or criminal law, or worse, be used against one of his fellow players, which will invite a raft of subpoenas for Clemens to be deposed as a material witness or serve as a criminal witness against other players.

I'm not sure without legal training and experience your bloggers understand the depths or chasms of the legal mess that the Mitchell report has created by naming names and revealing part of an ongoing investigation without actually indicting anyone or turning over their findings to a U.S. Attorney who is willing to act on the allegations. Every single one of the 80 or so players should lawyer up and silence themselves. As a former criminal defense litigator, this is clearly what I would have advised them to do during my time doing that in the 1990s, and any attorney worth their salt would do precisely the same.

Also, these players have certain rights under the collective bargaining agreement which may well have been violated when they were named in the Mitchell report. Consequently they have labor grievances they can file as well.

I would be more sanguine about the Mitchell report if I didn't realize that Sen. Mitchell himself is a biased source, being a part-owner/consultant to the Boston Red Sox and an employee/managerial figure in organized baseball for some years prior to this report.

In addition to this element of bias, you have the normal problems of the snitch who's cut a deal to avoid doing time himself in the met's clubhouse trainer. While Mitchell emphasizes that his credibility is bolstered by certain points of his testimony being independently verified by other points of evidence, the whole story is not independently verifiable, and clearly unless he tells a whopper of a story, he isn't getting a downward departure from the sentencing guidelines or a 5K.1 deal from the prosecutors.

Same with any other witness who cooperated with prosecutors and also spoke with Mitchell.

None of these witnesses has been skillfully cross-examined by defense counsel, and there have to be holes in the story.

Finally, with regards to Sen. Bunning's calling for all the "cheaters" to have their records revoked, let's all recall that in the Neyer/James handbook of pitchers, Bunning voluntarily admitted throwing the spitter throughout his career (a cheater's pitch) and also stated that if he'd have thrown a vaseline pitch as well as Don Drysdale, he'd of won a good deal more games.

If we apply Sen. Bunning's own yardstick to his own body of work, we should revoke him from the hall of fame for using the spitball so many years, along with Don Drysdale, Don Sutton, Gaylord Perry, and a host of other pitchers who used the spitball, vaseline ball, greaseball or other altered pitches to gain an unfair advantage over the course of their careers. Recall also this was in addition to throwing off a 15 inch mound in the 60s.

It seems to me that pitchers have cheated far longer and much more frequently than hitters. During the 1900s and 1910s, the pitchers all used spitters and purposely kept a beaten-up, soft and darkened, hard to see ball in play, which resulted in a depressed offense. Jack Chesbro used the spitball to win 40 games and so did most of the 20th century's 40 game winners.

Should we wipe them from the record books?

And how about the fact that while players never competed against their black superiors from 1887 to 1947? Should we wipe their records away because they essentially played against AAA teams without blacks in the major leagues? After all, no one is going to convince me that the eight major league teams in each league wouldn't have started at least four african american players at each position if there were no bias and the best man were given the job. During the first half of the 20th century, the african american players were better than the white.

Josh Gibson, not Henry Aaron or Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth, should probably have the overall home run record.

What about that?

And Satchel Paige, if he'd been allowed to play, he'd of won 600 games in the majors, easy. He'd hold every no-hitter record and then some. He'd of been Nolan Ryan with a .900 winning record. No one would have been able to beat him. He'd of put Walter Johnson to shame, and it's a shame we didn't see him hook up with Walter.

And Cool Papa Bell not Ricky Henderson would be the world's greatest leadoff man in major league history.

I could go on with the revision of records due to cheating, prejudice and unethical behavior by baseball, but let's face it, other than Ty Cobb Babe Ruth and a few others, white baseball had no stars until Jackie Robinson and the African American players arrived in 1947 with an entirely new and exciting brand of baseball. Before that, baseball was boring and awful and basically only one or two teams were good enough to be considered major league like the Yankees and maybe one or two others each year. The rest were filler and fodder. The real players were in the Negro Leagues.

So yes, i'd revise the record books a lot--like removing Babe Ruth altogether because he played only against whites. I'd remove all records from before 1947 from the record book entirely as being the product of segregation and Jim Crow. All records in baseball would be counted from 1947 on. Records prior to that would be for informational purposes only and they would be the ones with the asterisks. The leagues prior to 1947 would be considered minor, not major leagues due to segregation.

And the spitballers would be thrown out of the Hall of Fame and the record books along with the juicers, etc.

Of course, we'd let Sen. Bunning have a fair hearing.

His perfect game would be erased too.

--art kyriazis, philly

Art Kyriazis is an eeeediot! Pul-leaze! I guess you are referring to offensive records from those white players that played before 1947? Then one would have to make the case that Black pitchers are better pitchers than White pitchers. Since 1947, how many Black pitchers have won 20 games? 7? 8?

The Babe would have taken ANYONE deep, as would have Foxx, Greenberg, Gehrig, et al......

As well, Cobb, Wagner, Hornsby, et al.....

And yes, the Big Train, Big Six,...well, you know where I am going here.

And to boot, if one wants to play the race card, which you damn sure just did in fact, let us examine the Hammer for a brief moment: How many night games did HA homer in?(Babe never played in a night game, as well as many others) How many homers did HA hit off of a lower mound post 1968?(Babe never batted off of the lower mound, as well as many others of that era) How many homers did HA hit off of watered-down expansion-era pitchers?(Babe played before any expansion as you might know) How many homers did HA hit with a harder ball?(as you might guess, Babe and his cohorts were basically hitting a cardboard ball compared to a ball in the last seven or eight years of HAs career) And even then, with all of the advantages HA had over the Babe, it still took the Hammer almost six seasons worth of ABs more to tie the Babe at 714.

In short, no one ever seperated himself from the pack more than the Babe, save Jim Brown or Wayne Gretzky. Babe would have hit HRs off of anyone, and the evidence suggests that he may have hit even more if Black players were allowed the pleasure to serve 'em up to the Caliph of Clout.

I don't think it is a coincidence that one can spell "Krazy" from your last name!

And BTW, it is on good authority that Josh Gibson, as "great" as he probably was, hit between 220 and 500 homeruns, with 500 being rather generous. And all of this off of far inferior pitching as a whole in the Negro Leagues. Like to try again?

And last: have you ever heard John Jordan Oneil's anecdote about the time the Babe hit a homer off of 'ol Satch in a Barnstorming game that traveled 500 feet?(Satch and Oneils estimation)

"I wish I could have been there when Babe Ruth pointed and hit the ball out of the ballpark in the 1932 World Series. I wish I could have seen that. But I did see something I admired just about as much, with Satchel Paige and Babe Ruth. This was in Chicago, after Ruth came out of the major leagues. He was barnstorming, playing with different teams, and he played us. Satchel was pitching and Ruth was hitting. Satchel threw Ruth the ball and Ruth hit the ball, must have been 500 feet, off of Satchel. Satchel looked at Ruth all the way around the bases and when Ruth got to home plate, you know who shook his hand? Satchel Paige shook Ruth's hand at home plate.
They stopped the game and waited, he and Satchel talking, until the kid went out, got the ball, brought it back and Satchel had Babe Ruth autograph that ball for him. That was some kind of moment."-"Buck" Oneil

So yes, the Babe would have struck out as well off of 'Ol Satch(Negro Leagues BEST pitcher), but would have "swatted" him as well as anyone in history would.

The Babe was the best, case closed! And all of his damage with a 48 ounce telephone pole!

Mark McGwire, the Babe, and Barry Bonds are one two and three in HRs per ABs, and we all know what the real deal is/was with Big Mac and Barry "Bones"! Move along here, nothing to see.....:)