Archive for STEROIDS!
MLB will not punish A-Rod
Posted by: | CommentsFrom the non-news on a slow Saturday department, MLB will not punish Alex Rodriguez after completing it’s investigation into whether he used performance enhancing drugs longer than he acknowledged. Had he been punished in any way, I assume the union would have flipped their lid and come to A-Rod’s aid.
Meanwhile, what’s up with David Ortiz? It’s been exactly five weeks since his press conference and 44 days since he got outed as cheat, are we still waiting for him to “gather information?” Why does he escape the witch hunt?
To admit, to deny or to avoid
Posted by: | Comments“Careless” is an easy word to employ as a defense against a failed PED test. Just ask David Ortiz.
“I definitely was a little bit careless back in those days when I was buying supplements and vitamins over the counter,” the Red Sox DH said yesterday as he offered up a half-hearted explanation of his failed 2003 PED test. With the Players Union looking over his shoulder, Ortiz stressed his desire for “more information” concerning his failed test and claimed he wasn’t a steroid user.
No one was really buying it. Even with PA General Counsel Michael Weiner force-feeding everyone ready-made excuses — Ortiz can’t get the information he needs to defend himself — the attempts to deflect guilt sounded empty.
Across the park, in a manner of speaking, was another star who found himself outed for a failed 2003 PED test. Alex Rodriguez says he slept through David Ortiz’s press conference. A-Rod also says he feels unencumbered by steroid use after his Spring Training admission of guilt. “I took a lot of things off my chest and, to me, since that press conference, I felt like a new man,” Rodriguez said to Jack Curry yesterday. “I feel like I’ve been embraced by not only the city of New York, but my teammates, my coaches and my manager. I just feel liberated by just the way I came out and did things.”
Ortiz, meanwhile, will try to move on. Since The Times outed him on July 31, he is just 4 for 35 with a home run and a double. Against the Yanks this weekend, he is 1 for 14 with 1 walk. Distracted, slumping, or finished. Pick one. Or more.
Ortiz’s faux-admission press conference, coming just under 12 hours after Alex Rodriguez delivered a dramatic win for the Yanks on Friday night, provides a juxtaposition for the steroid era. A-Rod joined Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi as players willing to admit to illicit drug use. David Ortiz joined Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and, to a degree, Roger Clemens as players never willing to admit to any wrong-doing.
The players who dance around the issue curry no favor with anyone while the players who fess up to something of the truth earn a modicum of respect. In the end, that’s how it should work. But though years have elapsed since Game of Shadows, the Steroid Era won’t end. Names drip out. Players don’t know how to respond. One day, it will all be over, and with each name, it inches closer to the end. Yet, Ortiz’s PED dance yesterday showed just far away that day is.
This weekend, the Yankees are beating the Red Sox on the field when they need to the most. They’re also beating them off the field and in front of the PED-tainted microphones. I don’t like seeing the game’s faces taken down, but at least our guys have been mostly honest when it came time to face the music.
What to do with the Steroid Era
Posted by: | CommentsThis is a guest post from Steve S. from The Yankee Universe. Many of you know him in the comments as The Artist.
With the recent revelation that may add David Ortiz’s name to the ever-growing list of PED abusers, we come back to a nagging and somewhat uncomfortable question for Yankee fans. What do we make of all this? Steroids are every baseball team’s version of the crazy aunt. Everybody has one, nobody likes to talk about the subject, and it’s just something we’re going to have to figure out how to deal with.
We as Yankee fans can’t throw around the ‘T’ word (taint) at the Red Sox without having it boomerang quickly back in our direction. Our beloved late 90’s-early 2000’s teams had their fair share of accused steroid users, including Jason Grimsley, Mike Stanton, Roger Clemens, David Justice and Mo only knows who else. Other recent Yankee teams featured Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Jason Giambi and other accused users, the most notable being none other than Alex Rodriguez. Even Mister Steroid himself, Jose Canseco collected a ring with the Yankees after being picked up off waives in late in 2000. So we as Yankee fans can’t exactly celebrate the demise of our main nemesis’ reputation(s) without realizing we are up to our knees in syringes ourselves.
As someone who grew up steeped in the history of New York baseball and the game’s sacred records, I was a fervent and outspoken critic of steroids in the game from early on and wanted to see the game cleaned up ASAP. I was recently deeply disappointed when the so-called “clean HR champ” A-Rod turned up dirty himself. I never sided with the camp that simply views baseball as entertainment, and views PED use like some Hollywood star getting plastic surgery. Sports is and should be more than that. Hollywood produces fantasy and nobody cares whether its a level playing field or not. If sports goes the way of entertainment, then it becomes the WWE. We might as well writes scripts detailing who will win the World Series at that point.
There’s also something more pervasive and troubling about accepting PED use. For far too many athletes, steroids would become a price of admission to the big leagues. The young, talented high school star athlete would quickly realize as he rose through the minors that he’d never make a team without getting on the juice. Players with certain skill sets would be forced to choose between giving up their dreams and using drugs to become more than they could ever be naturally, with their long term health as a casualty. That makes professional sports a dirty business, and one I couldn’t encourage my son (if I had one) to play with any hopes of succeeding to the bigs. I also could not in good conscience be an ardent fan of a game where players slowly kill themselves to entertain me. That’s a little too Ancient Rome for my tastes.
I don’t however, blame fans for cheering known steroid cheats. What these critics fail to realize is fans cheer the home run and the moment it creates in the context of a game. Fans rarely applaud the individual, they applaud the act itself. When fans in the 20s and 30s cheered Babe Ruth, they weren’t applauding his drinking, womanizing, or fast living. They were cheering number 3 on the field and the moment in time when the game was won. It’s interesting to note that Babe Ruth attempted to use an early version of steroids as his body aged, only to make himself horribly sick. So it’s clear that this isn’t unique to the modern athlete, players of any era would do whatever possible to get an edge. Be it real or imagined.
Despite my long standing opposition to steroids and my desire to clean up the game, its become clear in recent years that PED use was so pervasive that it created something of a even playing field. Pitchers on steroids were facing hitters on steroids, each pumping up their stats in the process. There have also been many examples of lesser players (David Segui/Jason Grimsley) who were fringe major leaguers despite being serial steroid abusers, so its clear that being a great player requires much more than a needle in the tush.
We can’t ignore an entire era of baseball, or keep all the accused users out of the Hall of Fame. Comparing numbers across various eras is always fraught with pitfalls, the Steroid Era just adds another wrinkle. Does anyone think we’ll see a pitcher win 511 games again? Do we really believe anyone will ever break Roger Hornby’s 1924 season when he hit .423? And that’s just the modern era: Hugh Duffy is the all time leader, having hit .440 in 1894. How do we compare those players to today? In all honesty, we can’t. Considering everything, I would favor allowing the known steroid users into the Hall of Fame, but with a caveat. If PED’s enhance performance, than simply hold these guys to a higher standard. Forget the old 500 HRs/1500 RBIs/300 Wins standards, and come up with something more. I would also take into account other factors, such as Mark McGwire’s spotty health history and Roger Clemens’s mid-career decline. HOF voters should look at each player on a case by case basis, and frankly if it was me I’d need to be blown away. But I can’t pretend roughly 20 years of the games history either doesn’t exist, or should be completely ignored in posterity.
Manny, Papi tested positive for PEDs in 2003
Posted by: | CommentsWow. Legacy, meet taint. Taint, legacy.
Update (12:37pm): Here’s the original NY Times article.
Sammy Sosa, nearly a Yankee in 2000, on list of 104
Posted by: | CommentsAccording to The Times’ sources, Sammy Sosa is on the 2003 list of 104 failed drug tests. Michael S. Schmidt relies upon “lawyers with knowledge of the drug-testing results from that year” to unveil another name from the infamous and supposedly anonymous list. As Yankee fans may recall, Sports Illustrated’s Selena Roberts exposed Alex Rodriguez as the first of the list’s 104 tests to be identified. It really is just a matter of time before the other 102 names get out.
The Yankees nearly traded for Sosa in 2000. They offered up Jackson Melian, Jake Westbrook, Ricky Ledee and either Alfonso Soriano or D’Angelo Jimenez, but the Cubs wanted Alex Graman too. The Yanks thought the five-player price too steep and landed themselves David Justice instead. I’d say that worked out well for them.
The beginning of the end of the Steroid Era
Posted by: | CommentsLast night, as Alex Rodriguez stood in against Jonathan Papelbon in the top of the 9th, the Fenway Faithful began to chant. “You did steroids,” they said. “You did steroids.”
The sounds filled the stadium, and while Michael Kay didn’t quote the crowd, he called a “derogatory” crowd. It was by far the most vicious taunting Alex Rodriguez has received all year, but A-Rod has heard louder boos from the Bronx crowds than that. It was almost disappointing in its unoriginality and tameness.
Meanwhile, in related news, USA Today’s Tom Weir reported on Selena Roberts’ low sales totals. Her A-Rod biography has sold just 16,000 copies of its 150,000 press run. It is a bomb (and it’s not very good either).
Across the country, Manny Ramirez, serving a 50-game suspension for a failed drug test, visited the Dodgers’ clubhouse, and his teammates are eagerly anticipating his return. Dodgers fans appear to be as well, and with these tepid responses and outright forgiveness, I have to wonder if we’re at the end of the era when fans actually cared about players’ purported drug use.
For the better part of the decade, steroid use and its impact on baseball have dominated the headlines. The BALCO raid happened in 2003, and Jason Giambi’s apology came in 2005. The Mitchell Report misfired in 2007, and since then, a steroid-induced fatigue has settled over the game.
Right now, the only people left outraged are baseball columnists and Hall of Fame voters. The fans have embraced their players, and as the Boston crowd showed last night, they taunt their team’s opponents out of some sense of duty with no real emotion behind it.
So if the fans have moved on and if the players and owners are satisfied with the continued efforts to keep the game as clean as possible, it’s probably time for everyone else to move on. Baseball’s leaders need to focus on the future and forget about the past. Hall of Fame voters need to recognize their complicity in feeding a drug-fueled home run-happy beast.
Maybe I’m a little premature in calling the era of outrage over. But if it’s not there yet, it’s on its dying breath. The game is better off for it. We don’t need to take glee in catching players who used drugs when, well, everyone else is doing, and we can instead look ahead to another day, another game and another pennant race free from overwrought accusations and poorly written books.
Manny’s story raises more PED questions
Posted by: | CommentsFor starters, apologies for a second-straight PED post. We try to keep these topics to a minimum, but since Manny Ramirez was suspended last week, a number of issues have come to light. These issues are important in preventing future PED usage, not in any past witch hunts, which is why I’m going to run with this.
As you can see in the above-linked post, reports ran rampant upon the announcement of Manny’s suspension. It’s pot; no, it’s an ED drug; no it’s a fertility drug. Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn of ESPN have laid out the whole story, from Manny’s failed test to the ensuing investigation, even covering the planned appeal and its eventual dropping. If you’re interested in how Manny actually got caught, give it a read. It explains everything rather succinctly.
Just as it is difficult to believe that A-Rod stopped using steroids after the 2003 test, it’s equally difficult to believe this was the first time Manny used. There’s no use speculating exactly how long he used, so we’ll skip that part. Let’s just take it for granted that both A-Rod and Manny used outside of the timeframe when they were caught. How, then, are they skirting the tests? This is the most important question to arise from the collective incidences.
Major League Baseball’s drug testing program, while not the strictest on the books, trumps those of the three other major American sports. Yet the Manny issue highlights its deficiencies. Unfortunately, it’s going to take plenty more research to determine how these players are skirting tests. Are they only using in the off-season? Manny’s case could point to that. MLB found synthetic testosterone in his system, and his medical records revealed a prescription for hCG, a drug taken by steroid users coming off a cycle, in order to kickstart natural testosterone production. Does this indicate that players are using in the off-season, cycling off just before the round of Spring Training tests, and using drugs like hCG to restore normal testosterone levels?
The use of masking agents is another possibility. Steroid tests compare the ratio of testosterone and epitestosterone in a urine sample, with a 1:1 ratio being normal and a 4:1 ratio signaling foul play. A masking agent, then, could simulate epitestosterone in order to make the test look normal. This could be a problem for the testing program, since they’d then have to figure out what kind of masking agent would produce such an effect. Then they’d have to create a test for it which could be determined from urine alone, since we know blood testing isn’t an option at the moment.
While the current drug testing policy works well to keep normal steroid use in check, MLB still has a ways to go in further combatting PED use. If they’re truly committed to eradicating the sport of steroids and amphetamines, they’ll do whatever it takes to understand how players are beating tests. I’d expect many PED-related issues to arise when the PA and owners sit down for the next collective bargaining agreement. Unfortunately for the players, they’re not going to have a ton of leverage on this issue.
Saunders: A-Rod shouldn’t be an All-Star
Posted by: | CommentsReader LC pointed this out in the open thread last night, but I wanted to expand on it a bit. First, here’s what Halos’ lefty Joe Saunders had to say about Mr. Rodriguez:
Following an offseason of steroid revelations and confessions, Saunders said he would not vote for Rodriguez [for the All Star Game], regardless of whatever compelling numbers he puts up.
As Saunders put it to the Los Angeles Times, “It’s over for him.”
Speaking following Saturday night’s game against Kansas City, flush with his 1-0 victory over previously unbeaten sensation Zack Greinke, Saunders didn’t buy that fans are greeting the returning Rodriguez with a “forgive-and-forget” attitude.
“I think the fans do care,” Saunders said. “Pretty much everybody wants a game without cheating.”
This isn’t the first time an opposing pitcher has blasted A-Rod publicly about his admitted steroid use; back in February Astros’ ace Roy Oswalt said he wanted to see A-Rod’s numbers erased from the record books. I certainly understand the disdain people feel for steroid users, but opposing players coming out like this are walking on thin ice.
Joe Saunders made the All-Star team last year with Gary Matthews Jr. (linked to HGH) on his team. Roy Oswalt has been – or still is – teammates with Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada, and Stephen Randolph, all of whom were named in the Mitchell Report. Are these two really naive enough to think that they’ve never benefited from a teammate that was using PEDs? We’re talking about a very slippery slope here.
I’m not saying that players who used steroids aren’t cheaters or anything like that, because they obviously are. I’m not even saying that A-Rod should make the All-Star team, chances are he won’t have the numbers after missing over a month with his hip injury. It’s just that people who come out and blast known users need to realize there’s two coins to this PED stuff, and chances are they’ve been impacted in a positive way (stats wise) by a teammate on something they shouldn’t have been. The grass isn’t always greener.
Breaking: Manny suspended 50 games for PEDs
Posted by: | CommentsNews just broke on SportsCenter. More as it comes.
Update (11:48am): LA Times has the news.
Update (11:52am): From the LAT article:
Ramirez is expected to attribute the test results to medication received from a doctor for a personal medical issue, according to a source familiar with matter but not authorized to speak publicly.
Update (12:21pm): Okay, so now basically everyone involved, including Manny and Boras, are saying the positive test was triggered by a medication prescribed for a personal issue by a doctor in Miami. Regardless, banned substances are banned substances, and Manny will serve the suspension starting tonight. I suspect we’ll hear absolutely nothing about the possibility of Boston’s recent titles being tainted.
Update (12:36pm): Manny issued a statement, basically saying that it was a prescribed medication and that he’s been advised not to say anything else. He did note that he’s taken – and passed – about 15 other tests over the last few years. The statement is available here as a PDF.
Update by Ben (12:50pm): Per Will Carroll’s Twitter, Manny was suspended under section 8.G.2 of the drug agreement. This provision allows for a suspension if a player tests positive for controlled substances, PEDs or stimulants not enumerated in the prior Section 8 terms. (The JDA is available here as a PDF.)
So basically, it sounds as though Manny has been suspended for something other than a PED, a stimulant or marijuana. It could be HGH; it could be something less serious. Either way, the suspension was at the discretion of Bud Selig. Something big happened here.
Update by Ben (1:56 pm): Yahoo! Sports reports that the banned substance was a sexual performance enhancing drug. It isn’t Viagra but rather, as Steve Henson and Tim Brown report, “a substance that treats the cause rather providing a temporary boost in sexual performance, the source said.” What the cause could be is anyone’s guess.
Update by Ben (2:12 pm): ESPN reports that the fertility drug Manny was using is a steroid booster. The Worldwide Leader writes, “HCG is a women’s fertility drug typically used by steroid users to restart their body’s natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle.” This could blow up even more.
Roberts refuses to help as MLB digs into A-Rod
Posted by: | CommentsWhen it comes to Selena Roberts and Alex Rodriguez, baseball writers have largely taken two sides. On the one side are many traditional print journalists such as Peter Abraham, and, to a lesser extent, Joel Sherman who have taken everything Roberts has reported as true no matter how tenuous her sources or qualifying statements are. On the other hand are bloggers such as us and Shysterball’s Craig Calcaterra who are more skeptical of Roberts’ sources and see a lot of players on the record denying Roberts’ accusations.
That divide will only grow deeper today as the baseball world awakes to the news that Major League Baseball is investigating A-Rod’s drug use and that Selena Roberts, for what are admittedly very valid journalistic reasons, will not cooperate. “I said that as a journalist, I cover MLB, and cooperating with them on this would be a conflict of interest, and he said that he understood the position that I am in,” Roberts said to Times reporter Michael S. Schmidt this weekend.
Schmidt had a few details about the MLB investigation into A-Rod. So far, the Commissioner’s Office is looking only into the allegations of drug use beyond the 2001-2003 period. The pitch-tipping inquiries will have to wait, but more on that in a few paragraphs. Schmidt reports on the investigations:
Major League Baseball is investigating the accuracy of statements by Alex Rodriguez about his use of performance-enhancing drugs, according to people within baseball who were briefed on the matter.
Investigators have contacted several of Rodriguez’s associates to determine whether he used performance-enhancing drugs for a longer time than he has admitted, the people said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation.
They said that the investigation began shortly after Rodriguez met with investigators March 1 in Tampa, Fla., because they had questions about the consistency of his statements at the meeting…Questions about the truthfulness of Rodriguez’s statements were heightened among baseball officials last week after details of a new book about Rodriguez were reported by several news media outlets. The book…asserts that Rodriguez used several different steroids under the supervision of Presinal and had human growth hormone in his possession when he played for the Yankees in 2004. In 2005, the book also says, Rodriguez was mocked by teammates who suspected that he was using drugs.
Schmidt goes more in detail on what Bud Selig can and cannot do as Commissioner. The Times scribe notes that Selig, lacking subpoena power, cannot compel testimony from anyone, and if Roberts won’t give up her anonymous sources, baseball is going to have a tough time uncovering concrete evidence.
Now, it will be really easy for the public to demonize Roberts yet again over this decision. In fact, her reliance on anonymous sources is exactly why reporters tend to believe her and others don’t. In today’s media, reporters depend upon their anonymous sources, and reporters are loathe to believe that others’ anonymous sources would be lying.
Yet, as more and more players step forward on the record, it sounds as though Roberts’ sources were less than reliable. As Shysterball detailed on Friday and as I discussed then as well, more players have been coming out vehemently denying the Roberts’ allegations.
In the end, baseball has to investigate to look good for Congress, and Roberts shouldn’t give up her sources any time soon. But for the rest of us, this scandal is just another story in the long line of blows to Bud Selig’s reputation and Roberts’ credibility. The tide has turned on the steroid issue, and while A-Rod will hear boos, the sport should be looking forward to a drug-free era instead of looking back while relying on a book with seemingly less evidence than some J.F.K. conspiracy theorists.
