But there is context that some people want to skip over. Sure he waited until caught. Most people in this thread would have done the same thing. To lump Pettitte in with the habitual users is just shortsighted and unfair imo. Pettitte deserves whatever he gets because he made the decision, but I think people are being quite unreasonable in their expectations.
And they are holding athletes to a far higher threshold than they would hold most others, including and especially themselves. Again, he who has never ever ever cheated in any way in any game, sport, ever... throw that first stone that ALL cheaters are culpable to the same degree because they all cheated in one way or another.
Just my opinion. And Ive never liked Pettitte at all, either fwiw.
There is context. But claiming Pettite is somehow unfairly lumped in with the "really bad guys" requires a big assumption:That we believe Pettite's story.
Why should we believe him?
The fact is, people want to believe Pettite because they like him. Not a good reason.
A more cynical person would take my attitude, that this is just clever damage control. Like this guy:
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball..._crocodile.html
A little over a year ago, it was reported in the Los Angeles Times that a former Yankee pitcher named Jason Grimsley had accused some major-league players of using performance-enhancing drugs in a federal agent's affidavit. One of the players named in the Times story was Andy Pettitte, who was about to finish his last season with the Houston Astros.
When asked about the story at the time, here is what Andy Pettitte, who now says he has worked hard his entire life to do things the right way, said: "I've never used any drugs to enhance my performance in baseball. I don't know what to say except that it's embarrassing that my name would be out there."
Now Pettitte's name is out there - for using human growth hormone - in former Sen. George Mitchell's report. Two days after Mitchell releases that report to the public, a report that has Pettitte getting HGH from personal trainer Brian McNamee and using it for two to four days, Pettitte issues a statement, throws himself on the mercy of the public and cops to two.
So Pettitte essentially cops to half of what the report said he did. In a way that really sounds half-something-else. This really is an absolute classic sports apology, the kind where somebody says that if he offended somebody he's sorry, when the only thing he's really sorry about is getting caught.
This wasn't from Pettitte's heart Saturday, it was from the lawyers and agents, with more addendums than Mitchell had in the report that brought Andy Pettitte to this moment.
Maybe, using Pettitte's logic, using human growth hormone to rehab faster from a sore elbow doesn't mean you were looking to enhance your performance. We really are getting a lot of that these days.
The real truth is that he got these drugs from McNamee, drugs he never could have gotten from a legitimate doctor for an elbow injury, and when people find out about it five years later, Pettitte expects everybody to believe he was just doing it for his school.
He wants to come across as a standup guy here. Instead he looks like somebody in a boxer's crouch, covering up so he doesn't get hit anymore, doesn't get lumped in with all the other cheap, dirty drug users named in George Mitchell's report.
"If what I did was an error in judgment on my part, I apologize," Pettitte said in a statement so carefully worded you imagine he kept waiting for his agents' keyboard to explode if there was one wrong word in it, any word that could move Pettitte away from Monument Park someday.
Pettitte takes responsibility for those two days with HGH and then goes on to say this:
"Everything else written or said about me knowingly using illegal drugs is nonsense, wrong and hurtful. I have the utmost respect for baseball and have always tried to live my life in a way that would be honorable. I wasn't looking for an edge; I was looking to heal."
We're supposed to pin a medal on a guy for using drugs he knew he shouldn't be using, that a doctor would never give him for his particular medical condition. He wasn't just another guy going to the needle. Oh, no, he was going to McNamee the way believers go to Lourdes.
Come on.
Here is something else Pettitte said about McNamee last October: "I talk to Mac once a week. ... He's the greatest trainer that I've ever been involved with or around. He's trained me for the five years he was in New York. ... Mac's been awesome. I will continue to use Mac to train me. He's one of a kind."
But if you read the statement Pettitte issued Saturday, this awesome, one-of-a-kind trainer gave him the worst advice any trainer could ever give a ballplayer. And nobody's supposed to wonder why Pettitte stayed with McNamee after that, continued to think of him as an awesome and one-of-a-kind guy.
"In 2002 I was injured," Andy Pettitte says in his statement. "I had heard that human growth hormone could promote faster healing for my elbow. I felt an obligation to get back to my team as soon as possible."
There you have it. Maybe all the other drug users in George Mitchell's report had different motives. With Pettitte, HGH was practically a responsibility. Or a sacrament. And Dr. Lewis Maharam, whose specialty is sports medicine and is quoted in the Mitchell Report, isn't buying Pettitte's almost beatific view of his actions.
Maharam also says that agent Scott Boras' notion that legitimate medical doctors used to prescribe HGH for recovery from baseball injuries is ridiculous.
"No legitimate doctor in his right mind would prescribe human growth hormone for recovery," said Maharam, former president of the New York chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine, and now medical director for the New York City Marathon. "Anyone who has prescribed it should be ashamed of themselves. You use HGH for dwarfism. Or with AIDS patients. Nobody uses it in sports medicine, at least nobody in their right mind. You'd be afraid the government would come and take your license."
Then Maharam said, "Yeah, it helps you heal, but it also gives you an edge."
And you know who would have known that? Brian McNamee, trainer to the stars.
Pettitte, for all his qualifiers, at least says McNamee was telling the truth to George Mitchell, and the federal agents in the room. His buddy Roger Clemens is up next. Maybe Clemens will be able to explain why McNamee was telling the truth about Pettitte but lying about him.
When making an apology, you never use the word "if..." You just stand up, say what you did was poor judgment, and walk away.
