The Sports Truth

One of the best and worst avenues that covered the baseball winter meetings was espn.com’s live blog from Nashville. With its entire staff of baseball writers at the Opryland Hotel to cover the proceedings, the lay people who were unable (or not invited) to attend could live vicariously through Peter Gammons, Buster Olney, Jayson Stark, etc. with their hourly updates.

The updates were phenomenal entertainment, especially if your team was involved in any of the rumors. However, they also gave us some of the most absurd trade possibilities and potential free agent signings that had a shocking lack of logic to them. Obviously the Santana trade talks were the focus of most of the posts and we’ve covered that ad nauseum. We’ll cover the rest.

In no particular order:

A zany three-team trade with the Mets and Twins that would have featured Haren, Santana and Jose Reyes changing teams. Thoughts on this trade are aptly summed up by Billy Beane: “There’s a better chance of me breeding unicorns than there is of that deal happening.”

Billy Beane’s sarcasm did little to diffuse the notion that he despises baseball’s winter meetings.

Scott Rolen to the Brewers for Chris Capuano and a top prospect. This trade is absurd because the Brewers turned the Cardinals down. I’m sure you’re thinking they didn’t want to trade their top prospect. Nope. They wouldn’t part with Capuano. You know, the same guy who lost 21 straight appearances for the Brewers this year.

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Former major leaguer Jason Grimsley outed Roger Clemens and a number of Baltimore Orioles players, including shortstop Miguel Tejada (right), as steroid users in a sworn affidavit, the Los Angeles Times reports.

In June, federal agents searched Grimsley’s home after the pitcher admitted using human growth hormone, steroids and amphetamines. Grimsley was later released by the Arizona Diamondbacks and suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball.

In a 20-page affidavit signed by IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky, the Times reports, Grimsley identified other players who had used drugs. Those names were blacked out when the document was first released.

The agent for Clemens and Andy Pettitte, who was also named by Grimsley, denied the accusations. Grimsley reportedly told investigators Clemens and Pettitte “used athletic performance-enhancing drugs.”

Also on Jason’s new list were a trio of Baltimore Orioles — Tejada, Brian Roberts and Jay Gibbons (below). An Orioles spokeswoman said the club had not seen the report and had no comment. Two of the players implicated in the sworn testimony promptly shot back.

“What can I do? I spent one morning last year with Grimsley,” Tejada told the Baltimore Sun prior to the Orioles’ game against the Boston Red Sox. “I mean, I already got thrown under the bus with [Rafael Palmeiro]. No, I don’t worry about that… I know that I’ve never had a problem. I know that I’ve never used that and I know I am clean.”

Gibbons denied the claims and told The Sun he has passed every test administered by baseball.

“And I am not going to dignify these claims and accusations with any further response,” he said.

Grimsley has complained to friends, the Times said, that federal agents attributed statements to him that he did not make.

“I’m told he has denied saying all of this,” Randy Hendricks, Clemens’ and Pettitte’s agent, told The Associated Press on Saturday night. “It’s an agent’s recollection about a conversation he had about conjecture.”

Without hard evidence, i.e., failed tests, we may never know exactly who’s guilty of what. But if these accusations are accurate, Roger Maris is looking better by the day — and Baltimore is quickly emerging as baseball’s unofficial steroids hub.

Accusations already dogged Palmeiro, a likely Hall of Famer before last year’s positive test, as well as former All-Stars Brady Anderson (right, he of the dubious 50-homer season in ‘96) and Sammy “conveniently can’t speak English when under oath” Sosa.

Now Tejada, Roberts (he of the torrid ‘05 spring) and Gibbons (now ugly in more ways than one) are in the mix? Yikes. Does Peter Angelos throw free HGH injections into his contracts? Who’s next, Bruce Chen? Boo on you, Birds. Boo on you.