Over the last week, I've given a lot of thought to the Jason Grimsley situation. It's not that I've ever been a great fan of the 38-year-old pitcher, but he fell into a category of players who I've always admired — namely those who manage to survive, sometimes against heavy odds.
Grimsley was the Phillies' 10th-round selection in the 1985 draft, and although he made it to the big leagues as a 21-year-old in 1989, he never lived up to the potential expected of him. When a change of scenery was decided, Philadelphia sent him to the Houston Astros for Curt Schilling in 1992.
In the early 1990s when I was covering baseball for a suburban newspaper, I was working on a story about a local player who at the time was with the Phillies' Triple A affiliate, the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons. The starting pitcher for the Charlotte Knights on the night that I drove up to Scranton to see my subject play was Grimsley. I don't remember the outcome of that game, but I do remember that the pitcher struggled.
After bouncing through a few organizations, Grimsley finally found success with the New York Yankees, who made him a full-time reliever in 1999. The pitcher had a 7-2 record and a 3.60 earned run average in 55 games that year. After going 3-2 with a 5.04 ERA in the 2000 season, New York released him, but Grimsley had found his niche. He logged more than 70 appearances in each of the next four seasons while relieving for the Kansas City Royals and Baltimore Orioles.
Perseverance, determination and hard work, I always thought. After struggling for so long, everything was finally paying off for a player who just stuck with it and refused to give up. When I found out that he might have had some help along the way, the bubble burst.
Grimsley voluntarily left the Arizona Diamondbacks last week after federal investigators raided his house searching for evidence during an investigation of steroid use in baseball. According to court documents, Grimsley originally cooperated with authorities after failing a drug test in 2003, and he admitted using human-growth hormone, amphetamines and steroids. It was his withdrawal of cooperation that supposedly led to the raid on the player's house.
For me, this is one of the more troubling aspects of this case. Although I don't condone the use of illegal substances in baseball, I also don't believe that law enforcement agents at any level have carte blanche to do anything necessary to obtain information, indictments or convictions. After deciding not to cooperate any longer — such as wearing a wire to implicate other players — is Grimsley a bad guy or is he simply objecting to being used as a pawn by investigators? And was the raid on his house retaliation for trying to protect himself?
I don't have those answers. We have a constitution that is supposed to protect innocent people. It is also supposed to ensure that any action taken against a citizen is done lawfully, but there is no shortage of examples where convictions are sometimes obtained through questionable tactics.
I'm not defending Grimsley's alleged use of illegal substances, but if he thinks that clamming up now and relying on the advice of his lawyers is best for him, then that is his right. If investigators see a need to use alleged threats and, in this case, a raid on his house as the only way to make a case, is there really a case?
If you watch popular movies and television series, scripts sometimes use similar scenarios to rationalize underhanded tactics by police as a means to an end — to obtain a confession or cooperation by an important witness.
"A killer will walk free if we don't do this" is one common rationale. I don't agree. Any conviction gained by illegal activity does not justify the means.
Likewise in baseball. If Jason Grimsley thought that he needed human-growth hormone, steroids or amphetamines to survive in this game, then baseball has one fewer rotten egg in its basket.
I don't know where the current investigation is going, but I think that this thing is far from over. What do you think? What will come next?
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