The last time the Giants played in the Fall Classic was 2002, when Barry Bonds was at the height of his game and his name couldn’t be brought up without it being synonymous to steroids.

Now the G-Men are back in the World Series and things wouldn’t feel right if one of their players weren’t being accused of juicing. That’s where outfielder Jose Guillen (who isn’t even on their postseason roster) steps in.

From ESPN.com:

San Francisco Giants outfielder Jose Guillen, left off the team’s postseason roster, is linked to a federal investigation into shipments of performance-enhancing drugs, The New York Times reported on its website Thursday night.

The story, citing several unidentified lawyers, said federal authorities told Major League Baseball they were looking into shipments of human growth hormone, allegedly sent to Guillen’s wife in the Bay Area.

That was just before the postseason began, The Times said. Guillen was left off the Giants’ roster for all three rounds because of a nagging neck injury, according to manager Bruce Bochy. According to The Times, the Giants were told to leave Guillen off the roster by Major League Baseball.

The conspiracy theorist will be quick to say that the Giants left Guillen off their postseason roster because they knew he would eventually be caught with steroids. But Guillen was also dealing with a neck injury weeks before the playoffs began and the Giants were deep in the outfield so they went with healthier options (i.e. Cody Ross, who was the NLCS MVP).

Or maybe they did know and if that’s the case, they were smart to tell him to go home. They obviously don’t need the distraction and it’s not like he was hitting before the playoffs started anyway. If he’s going to be busted for HGH, then it’s better that he’s caught when he’s not affiliated with the team.

Nevertheless, this isn’t good for Guillen’s career. The Giants picked him up off waivers from the Royals and even before this news broke, the emergence of Ross has made Guillen expendable next season. He won’t be in a Giants uniform next season and if he’s suspended, he may not be in any uniform in 2011. It’s not like the guy has a good track record of being a team player and at his age, he’s not an attractive option right now. It says something when the Royals don’t even want you.

One of the biggest double standards in all of sports is how the NFL gets a free pass when it comes to criticizing players for off-field problems, yet because baseball had the steroid era MLB players might as well be the devil reincarnate.

Fourteen players will start the 2010 NFL season suspended:

Ben Roethlisberger – wasn’t charged, but accused of sexual assault twice in one year

Cary Williams – domestic dispute

Quinn Ojinnaka – arrested and charged with battery, accused of throwing his wife down the stairs of their house and throwing her out

Aqib Talib – punched a cab driver, charged with resisting arrest without violence and simple battery

Jonathan Babineaux – substance abuse

Robert James – PEDs

Santonio Holmes – violated substance abuse policy

Shawn Nelson – failed drug test (supposedly marijuana)

LenDale White – failed drug test (supposedly marijuana)

Vincent Jackson – two DUIs

Leroy Hill – arrested on marijuana-possession charge

Johnny Jolly – felony drug charge

Brian Cushing – PEDs

Gerald McRath – PEDs

Let’s see, we’ve got battery, sexual assault, failed drug tests, PEDs and one punched cab driver. And yet somehow, Pacman Jones’ name didn’t make the list.

When an NFL player is suspended, one of the first things that fans ask is, “How long will he be out for?”

When a MLB player is caught using steroids, it’s: “He disrespected the game! Cut off his f**king hands! Prepare him for sacrifice to the baseball Gods!”

Mark McGwire tried to get a job earlier this year as the Cardinals’ hitting coach and you would have sworn that he set a school on fire that happened to be next to a church, which also burned down. Yet Santonio Holmes is being viewed as the ultimate late round sleeper in fantasy football drafts because he’s going to be out for the first four games for violating the league’s substance abuse policy.

Look, I realize that steroids can have a profound effect on scared records, wins and whether or not players have an unnatural advantage over another player.

But I’m sorry, steroids take a back seat to domestic violence, battery and sexual abuse. Wrong is wrong and cheating the game of baseball is definitely grounds for being scrutinized for the rest of your life but come on – NFL players are breaking the law and it’s not even Page 7B news anymore.

The double standard between how NFL and MLB players are viewed is appalling.

According to a report by ESPN.com, Roger Clemens was offered a plea agreement but his attorney Rusty Hardin said that his client declined the offer.

“The government made a recommendation [for a plea agreement] and we declined,” Hardin said. “I will tell you the recommendation they made was a very good one if he was guilty. And if he was guilty we would have jumped on it. Everybody has all this great solicitous advice, all the media and you guys — ESPN. Nobody is answering the question: What if he didn’t do it, what should he have done? And everybody wants him to confess.

“I have even heard people suggest that even if he didn’t do it he should have said he did so that everybody will move on. That is a helluva commentary.”

Hardin reiterated he and his staff have drilled Clemens on the need to fess up, if he did steroids or human growth hormone.

“He’s been told from the beginning if he did it he ought to do exactly what Andy [Pettitte] did. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that. And everybody assumes it is his arrogance and his ego that kept him from doing it.

“He wasn’t the greatest witness before Congress, I understand that. But I got to tell you, we’ve sat on him probably for 100 of our hours over the last two-and-a-half years, always with the same thing: ‘If you did it, the best thing to do is just admit it and move on and we’ll deal with it.’ He has never, ever wavered.”

Talk about rolling the dice. If he’s guilty and he didn’t accept this deal when he had the chance, then he’s absolutely out of his mind. The government has essentially given him a nice out and he decided not to take it, so he’s either truly innocent or clinically insane.

I will give Clemens this – he has maintained his innocence throughout this whole ordeal. He’s never wavered in his denial about talking steroids and obviously he’s willing to go to extreme measures to prove his innocence. One would think that if he were guilty, he would have taken the deal and then faced the public scrutiny to avoid jail time.

Of course, I wouldn’t put it past Clemens to go to jail and maintain his innocence, rather than accept a plea agreement and admit that he’s been lying this entire time. Even if he’s proven guilty in the court of law, he could continue to tell the public that he never juiced and that he was screwed by the judicial system.

What a mess.

After he was indicted yesterday on charges of making false statements to Congress during his testimony about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, Roger Clemens made a statement via his Twitter page denying that he ever used steroids.

I never took HGH or Steroids. And I did not lie to Congress. I look forward to challenging the Governments accusations, and hope people will keep an open mind until trial. I appreciate all the support I have been getting. I am happy to finally have my day in court.

Rocket

Is it just me, or does anyone else think there’s something sad about the way Clemens signs off as “Rocket” at the end of his note? That’s his nickname of course, but it almost feels like he’s trying to play to the crowd that beloved him during his playing days.

Regardless, if you’re innocent, you shout it from the rooftops as much as possible – just like Clemens has done. It’s also important to keep in mind that he has never been proven guilty of anything as of this point.

But given how much evidence there is linking him to performance-enhancing drugs, I can’t help but to think about the Dana Carevy stand-up routine when he pokes fun at the O.J. Simpson trial.

Here sits a mountain of forensic evidence and Roger’s like, “Why we even havin’ a trial?”

Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times is reporting that former pitcher Roger Clemens will be indicted on charges of making false statements to Congress during his testimony about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The indictment comes nearly two and half years after Clemens and his former trainer Brian McNamee testified under oath at a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, directly contradicting each other about whether Clemens had used the banned substances.

The committee held the hearing in February 2008, just two months after McNamee first tied Clemens to the use of the substances in George J. Mitchell’s report on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. After Mitchell released the report, Clemens launched an attack on McNamee, saying he made up the allegations.

I’ve long held the opinion that both Clemens and McNamee lied about their testimonies back in 2008. I don’t think we’ve heard the true story of Clemens’ involvement with performance-enhancing drugs, although sadly I don’t know if we ever will either.

Even though Clemens has been indicted, don’t expect a speedy trial. Barry Bonds was indicted in 2007 and his trial won’t start until next March. Thus, it could be years before Clemens goes to trial.

Reason #478 why I love The Onion.

Baseball Superstar Accused of Performance-Enhancing Genie Use

David Ortiz addressed the media about his positive PED test from 2003 on Saturday and stated that he never buys or uses steroids.

From ESPN.com:

“I definitely was a little bit careless back in those days when I was buying supplements and vitamins over the counter — legal supplements, legal vitamins over the counter — but I never buy steroids or use steroids,” Ortiz said during a news conference that began about 3½ hours before his Boston Red Sox played the New York Yankees.

“I never thought that buying supplements and vitamins, it was going to hurt anybody’s feelings.”

If you replace “vitamins and supplements” with “flax seed oil,” then Ortiz essentially did the same thing Bonds did in that he attributed the positive test results to over-the-counter supplements and not anabolic steroids.

This may sound like I’m defending Big Papi, but maybe he really did take an over-the-counter supplement or something like Androstenedione, which is banned now, but wasn’t in 2003. Some people like to group supplements like testosterone boosters in with anabolic steroids and there is a massive difference between the two in terms of the effect they can have on your body. We don’t know what Ortiz took, so it’s not really fair to speculate until more details come out (if they ever do, that is).

It’s not surprising that Ortiz didn’t reveal much in the press conference. Don’t forget that these test results were supposed to be confidential and therefore Ortiz was probably legally bound from providing too much detail.

That said, it would have been nice if he admitted what he took, especially if he’s telling the truth about never taking steroids. He could have gotten on the podium and said, “I took Supplement X, Y and Z” and at least gained a little respect from his detractors. But since he didn’t reveal anything, many fans will go onto believe that he disgraced the game by cheating.

The sad part is that we may never know what these guys took.