The speculation has ended.
A week after a major al-Jazeera report about alleged use of HGH and other substances by NFL great Peyton Manning, and Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard and Nationals third baseman Ryan Zimmerman, as blogged here, the two, who share the same agent, have filed the first lawsuit. Zimmerman’s suit is already posted online.
Lawsuits over things like this are rare. Yes, Albert Pujols sued Jack Clark, but he was working for a local media outlet and was fired a week after making the comments. Al Jazeera is not a local media outlet and has the money for fighting a suit. Plus, it has the recorded conversations Liam Collins had with Charlie Sly. Clark had nothing recorded from conversations he allegedly had with Pujols’ personal trainer, allegedly years before his comments.
It’s risky to air this out.
Meanwhile, there’s yet another twist.
Deadspin insinuated today that the New York Times is hinting that Derek Jeter might be connected, while hinting the Times was also trying to not stick its neck out further than making waves. The Jeter connection? His person trainer was Sly’s business partner.
In the “discovery” process in a lawsuit like this, almost anything is fair game. Al Jazeera can ask for Zimmerman’s and Howard’s phone bills, credit card bills and receipts and much more. Plus, as Yahoo notes, as public figures, they’d have to prove actual malice against Al Jazeera.
Getcha popcorn!
Fan Interference 
Did I just read that someone insinuated that someone hinted at someone that might be connected to someone doing something bad? I will get my popcorn.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Allegedly.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s pump the brakes on that not even “Anonymous” sourced suggestion of association.
LikeLike
I’m amazed they are wasting their time with a lawsuit. You’re not going to prove malice, and they have tape of a guy saying they did it.
I’m not saying they took the drugs. I have no idea. But the lawsuit is a waste of time.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Agreed. And, as noted, they leave their own fly unzipped.
LikeLike
What they have is a tape of a guy trying to recruit business because he thinks he’s looking for some illegal PEDs. This is like recording conversations with someone trying to sell you something and then using that as evidence that something is true.
As of yet, there hasn’t been a single bit of actual evidence provided that the athletes alluded to did anything. No documentation of any sort. Nothing other than a former intern trying to attract a new client. Calling that an “investigative report” is laughable when there isn’t anything to back up the salesman’s claims….and running the story without a single bit of supporting evidence is irresponsible.
This is like a celebrity filing for divorce based on adultery because they saw their spouse was cheating on them in a tabloid story while they were waiting in the checkout line.
LikeLike
All may be true, Paper. But they will still lose the lawsuit, while getting a chance to have other dirty laundry aired.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Except they say they have a second source that confirms everything. This isn’t the Enquirer running a story like this. It’s a well respected news organization that said they spent a month researching it.
LikeLike
Exactly.
LikeLike
Call me skeptical. That anonymous “source” wasn’t mentioned until they went into CYA mode.
LikeLike
Actually, there are other things. Like the mailing records to Manning’s wife. Let’s note he’s already admitted that.
LikeLike
What mailing records? Have they shown documentation of those mailings? This guy’s say so doesn’t mean anything.
LikeLike
Yes, but Manning’s non-denial means something beyond any paper record. And he has admitted that his wife got that stuff in the mail.
LikeLike
As COPO just said, too.
LikeLike
Manning said: ‘Any medical treatments that my wife received, that’s her business. That has nothing to do with me. Nothing that’s been sent to her or [that] my wife has used have I ever taken.
‘Absolutely not. I have my treatments that I do, she may have hers and that is her business. There’s no connection between the two.’
LikeLike
Right, so we know the Manning household got a shipment. As I noted when this story first came out, there’s a direct parallel with the Roger Clemens household.
LikeLike
And? What?
Who, exactly, do you think “anti-aging clinics” target? Rich people, mostly women, who worry about getting older or looking older….some of whom will try anything to stay younger looking.
Are we just going to start assuming that every shipment of HGH to someone dumb enough to think it would do them some good was really for their spouse?
LikeLike
I assume that with Roger Clemens, yes, per the parallel I noted.
LikeLike
Yeah. For the Clemens’, the most likely scenario seems to be that both of them used, but that is based on more direct evidence and alleged conversations that Roger himself had with people.
LikeLike
So, we need a Jose Canseco of the NFL, too!
LikeLike
Oddly enough. There haven’t been personal trainers of football players busted for distributing steroids (like the guys busted that worked for/with players on some teams (I am blanking on the teams, Mets? Yanks? Red Sox?). I mean….do football players, as a group, seem like they would be smarter about who they associated with than baseball players? It isn’t like baseball busted those guys, law enforcement did.
LikeLike
Not “odd” to me. Look at who runs the NFL. It’s deliberate from-the-top denialism.
And, look at Congress. A bunch of old folks who don’t look at TV ratings and are still thinking of baseball as the “national pastime.” That’s why Selig and players, but NOT Goodell and players, were hauled before Congress.
LikeLike
Neither of which have anything to do with MLB players getting caught by law enforcement. MLB or congress didn’t catch anyone, they just made a big deal out of it when an investigation unearthed MLB names. No such investigation has resulted in a list of NFL names that was ignored…it just hasn’t happened.
LikeLike
You don’t have to go all sexist about it.
LikeLike
I wasn’t being sexist. There is much more social pressure for women to look young than for men…which makes them worry about it more and more likely to do something.
What I said was no more sexist than saying that most cosmetic surgery is done on women. I’m not judging. Society places unfair and unrealistic expectations on women and how they should age.
LikeLike
“Who, exactly, do you think “anti-aging clinics” target? Rich people, mostly women, who worry about getting older or looking older….some of whom will try anything to stay younger looking.
Are we just going to start assuming that every shipment of HGH to someone dumb enough to think it would do them some good was really for their spouse?”
1) After Biogenesis and the multitude of other scandals, it’s incredibly obvious that many professional atheletes will do anything to get what they think is an edge. So, it’s no more logical to assume they are targeting vain women than athletes…who are rich and often willing to buy any snake oil in desperation. Assuming that it was a vain wife is not a neutral assessment of the facts. It’s a sexist bias that is unwarranted.
2) Even if his wife was the most vain, vain, vain woman ever, that does not mean he did not use the product himself. That is not a logical inference.
3) Do you know for a fact that the shipments were mailed to his wife, or are you assuming that? I haven’t looked at the evidence myself, but if I were making an analysis, I would check that. It’s not conclusive because there could be multiple outcomes of the shipments: they were going to him and he used them, they were going to her and she used them, they were going to her as cover so he could use them, he was committing fraud in obtaining them for her, Chris Perez’s dog Brody likes to mix a weed-and-HGH cocktail, etc.
Frankly, the way it works with circumstantial evidence is that you have to review the totality to come to a most likely conclusion. The mailings and testimony are not enough on their own, which is why if you’re doing an investigation into which of them you could place at the clinic or being treated there, etc. If she were after HGH is there not a doctor more proximate to her that could provide it? That would warrant extra scrutiny, etc.
Also, his denial is so carefully worded that it throws her under the bus while retaining plausible deniability for later — which raises my hackles/antenna. These guys are engaging in common defense tactics that Clemens and Armstrong used that are not about actual guilt or innocence. It’s a PR game, and you play into it when you are willing up front to immediately go to the vain wife assumption (and that is sexist).
LikeLiked by 1 person
This:
Is the point, indeed.
A guy who’s making 10-20 million a year has a “management team,” not just an agent. As soon as the first word started leaking, they started crafting a PR strategy.
And, with both Manning and Clemens, worried about the public first and what they would tell “the missus” at home later.
And, per earlier comment, this is another way the NFL disgusts me.
Even if PEDs can’t improve timing on a bat, or eye-hand coordination, they do add raw body mass. Bigger bodies means harder collisions means more concussions. It’s semi-criminal for the NFL to have such a weak stance on this issue.
LikeLike
You asked for mailing records, and Manning essentially proved that his wife is implicated. It’s not a guarantee that Manning himself is involved, but it’s not a straight denial either.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am going to toss in with Historio on this. As great as the pressure to stay young may be for Manning’s wife, its even greater for Manning himself, given his job and his age.
But more to address PL directly: I listen to the radio for an hour every morning and evening during my commute. I hear anti-aging advertising constantly. I have not once heard it targeted at female customers. The vast majority is coming from places targeting men. They constantly go on about “Low T” supplements (testosterone) for a variety of imagined ailments that can best be summed up as “Well yes, you are getting older but I’ll give you something that may buy you some time while increasing your cancer risks”. Literally every commercial break has at least one of these commercials, they are all aimed at males.
I seriously doubt that Manning’s wife was going to this clinic for her personal needs. The clinic was marketing itself at athlete males, the individuals involved have a long history and ties to professional athlete training (as in the NYT article), and the treatments in question are almost entirely aimed at men. I suppose its possible that during a conversation with some male athlete Manning’s wife knew personally they could have said “You know, this stuff also takes years off of a woman” but I find that highly unlikely.
I will state definitively that the shipments to Manning were for Peyton. I do not have any reservations in stating that, nor do I feel I am jumping the gun or making accusations based on not enough info. I know enough about these clinics in general, and the background of this clinic specifically, to know that there was virtually no chance that a middle-aged woman seeking younger skin and an increased libido was going to end up there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Absence of Malice is a good movie.
LikeLike
Peyton Manning had four neck surgeries and he’s taken a couple hundred snaps this season @ the age of 39 with human turnstile Michael Schofield @ right tackle. I don’t give a shit if he used HGH, deer antler spray, sheep testicle extract and the darkly consecrated blood of a thousand virgins injected directly into his soul if it will protect him from the likes JJ Watt or Justin Houston in two weeks.
Probably JJ because nobody and I mean nobody chokes like the Chiefs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
But, Andy Reid! Second longest tenure other than Belichick.
LikeLike
Andy’s impressive 17 year run is still dwarfed by the Chiefs’ 22 year, 355 day streak without a playoff victory.
Also dwarfed by Bronco DC Wade Phillips’ 40 years in the NFL.
https://nesncom.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/wade-phillips.jpg?w=315&h=177&crop=1
LikeLike
Ahh, Wade Phillips, the right hand boat-anchor to Gary Kubiak and his self-inflicted QB controversy!
LikeLike