Your Steroid Resource

While the topic of steroid use is framed towards men and boys, mainly due to the number of baseball and football players as well as those who have admitted use in the professional wrestling field, it is an issue of concern for girls, too.

“Procter and Gamble recently did a nation-wide survey and 500,000 students admitted using steroids,” I Play Clean founder and Bears’ Hall of Fame Linebacker Dick Butkus pointed out. “Of those kids, about one-third of the users are girls. These are all numbers we are trying to reduce.”

Morris softball coach Amy Barr was at one time involved in drug-testing education, testing and appeals at the national level as the President of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee while in college at Eastern Illinois University. She feels that girls are likely just as prone to using performance-enhancing drugs as boys.

“Girls take steroids for any number of reasons, just like boys — to get stronger, so they can be more competitive in their sport and to lose weight faster,” Barr said. “They might take nutritional supplements because they think it will make them healthier, too. A high percentage of female athletes suffer from eating disorders, so they could take different things they believe might curb their appetites … things to help them stay up late and have lots of energy.”

In recent years, the number of high-profile cases of athletes being outed for taking anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs are decidedly one-sided against the males. However, Barr was quick to point out one of the higher profile cases in recent years.

“Marion Jones is a perfect example. Girls are just as competitive as boys, therefore, some female athletes will make the decision to use steroids,” she said. “Depending on the sport, most female athletes are not looking for excessive muscle mass, so we are going to see them taking steroids that help their muscles recover faster.”

Though steroid use amongst females may not seem to be the bigger issue, according to Barr, maybe those who are taking the lead on this steroids issue need to consider expanding it to other supplements.

“Dietary supplements and weight loss drugs are not heavily regulated by the FDA. And most female athletes, especially younger athletes don’t understand this,” she said. “They see them advertised on T.V. by celebrities and believe it’s okay to take them, or if they take them they are going to look the celebrity. In reality, they don’t know what the are actually taking because the labels on the boxes might not even be right.”

Don’t take steroids. But if you’re dumb enough to take them — don’t get caught.

If you happen to be even dumber and get caught, make sure you have a game plan to successfully dodge, or admit, your steroid accusations.

I’ll focus on seven players who’ve allegedly juiced: Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, the newly anointed Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz.

First is the runner-up in the 1998 chase for 61 home runs, Sosa, who has 609 career home runs and holds the record for most 60-home-run seasons with three, according to Baseball Digest. Sosa’s method of dodging steroid accusations: an Oscar-worthy performance.

The award for best actor who suddenly forgot how to speak English when faced with steroid allegations goes to — drum roll please — Sammy Sosa.

The winner in the chase for 61, McGwire, acknowledged taking androstenedione after Steve Wilstein, an AP reporter, saw it in his locker at Busch Stadium, Matt Chaney of New York Daily News said.

Androstenedione was banned by the Olympics, National Collegiate Athletic Association and the NFL, but not by MLB at the time. What set McGwire’s steroid dodging apart was the admission of him using steroids – given by his brother. What better way for Jay McGwire to promote his book than to expose his brother’s drug use?

Now up, Boston’s former duo, Ramirez and Ortiz. Ramirez, the 2004 World Series MVP, allegedly tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, according to an article on the Sports Illustrated Web site. The 2003 allegations came after serving a 50-game suspension for the use of hCG.

According to Mike Fish of ESPN, hCG is “produced naturally by women during pregnancy and often is used by steroid users to reboot their body’s natural testosterone production coming off a steroid cycle.”

But what wasn’t said is hCG is also used for erectile dysfunction — or to jumpstart testosterone production when the testicles have become inept, according to an anonymous physician, who was quoted by Yahoo Sports. Ramirez’ method of steroid dodging — remain quiet before opposing fans flip “Mannywood” into a joke about your masculinity.

Ortiz allegedly tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. These allegations came in the wake of Ortiz’s worst season in Boston that features a comedic .224 batting average as of August 21.

Ortiz’s method? Claim he never bought steroids, but admit he might have been a bit careless back in the day when buying over-the-counter supplements and vitamins. But what do you blame his sudden lack of performance on? A miraculous, timely eye sight problem?

The next method of steroid dodging — the all too effective “60 Minutes” appearance. Patrons of this art, Clemens and A-Rod, have used Katie Couric and Mike Wallace to publicly make even bigger asses of themselves.

A-Rod first appeared on “60 Minutes” with Couric in 2007 after the Mitchell Report was released. While not named in the report, when Couric asked him if he’d ever been tempted to take performance-enhancing drugs he replied with a “no.”

A-Rod was among the first players to be leaked from the 2003 MLB testing report— which was supposed to be confidential. The tests were performed to see the percentage of players who were using performance-enhancing drugs. Ortiz and Ramirez were also a couple of the names leaked.

Following the leak of the 2003 test, A-Rod admitted to using steroids after lying to Couric on national television. Selena Roberts and Sports Illustrated broke the story. A-Rod’s next move? Attack Roberts.

This leads to the A-Rod art form – Be two faced. Deny steroid allegations, then admit to using when you get caught. Attack the media, then apologize. Admit you took steroids, then change your story.

Clemens, who was named in the Mitchell Report, went on “60 Minutes” to talk to Brett Wallace. According to Clemens, he never took performance-enhancing drugs. I guess it’s easy to do it the Clemens way and say you beefed up with hard work, vitamin B12 and lidocaine.

Last up is the home run king and master of steroid dodging, Bonds. This power hitter has the record for most career home runs and the single-season home run record. There wasn’t a method of denial — or steroid —he didn’t try.

These seven players have pretty much written the book on dodging steroid allegations. Some were more successful than others. The ones who tried the hardest, Clemens and Bonds, dug the deepest holes.

While I don’t condone the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports, it’s ridiculous to let the fact that these guys juiced take away from the way their accomplishments affected the fans.

The emotions felt by sports fans during the chase for 61, the Red Sox breaking the curse or the all-time home run record were real – even if the players’ power numbers wasn’t.

So, like I said, if you’re going to take steroids, don’t get caught.

But if you do get caught, you can take a lesson from the pros and try your hand at squeezing out of the consequences.

PED use among our elderly athletes: are we overreacting to an appropriate degree, or could we stand to overreact even more?Metformin HCl. Glipizide. Lisinopril. Viagra. All these and more are found in the drug cabinet of one of our nation’s senior middle-distance runners. And who cares if they’re the only things keeping him alive? What about the sanctity of the game?

The Times takes an in-depth look at steroid use by competitors in USA Track & Field’s Masters Series, focusing on the 70-to-90-year-olds. The report gives no answers because it doesn’t particularly raise any questions. Are there prohibited substances taken by the old folks? Sure. Do they need these drugs for medical purposes? Probably.

USA Track & Field doesn’t test for PEDs because of the cost, but at international competitions they’re more stringent. Take 56-year-old sprinter Kathy Jager, who was disqualified after testing positive for anabolic steroids. The one prescribed to her as part of her treatment for menopause.

I’m sure there are folks taking something like Manny,” Mr. Snyder said, referring to Manny Ramirez, the baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers who this year was suspended 50 games for violating the sport’s drug policy. “But most are using drugs for medical reasons.”

I say let ‘em play. Most won’t outlive a 1-year ban.

After a nine-month suspension for using steroids, UFC middleweight Chris Leben is soon to return to action. Usually in a situation like that, a fighter would have to worry about negative public reaction to his comeback, but in this case, Leben is likely to be hailed as a conquering hero, as the 29-year-old veteran has the good fortune of returning at UFC 102 in his hometown of Portland, Oregon.

The match itself, however will not be easy; Leben (18-6) will take on former three-time NCAA wrestling national champion Jake Rosholt as a featured bout on the televised card.

“The Crippler” recently took a few moments out of his training to talk to FanHouse about his steroids suspension, returning to the octagon, and preparing for Rosholt.
Mike Chiappetta: How much are you looking forward to getting back in the cage?
Chris Leben: I’m really excited. It’s been too long and I’m excited to get back and compete. I’m a fighter. That’s what I do and I miss it for sure. I fighting, I miss training, I miss preparing, I miss competing. I miss all of it.

How did you use the time you were on suspension? Did you use the time to work on any specific skills?
I opened my own gym in Hawaii, the Ultimate Fight School [in Oahu]. I’ve been focused on opening that and running that. I’ve got over 100 students now and a fight team out there. So that keeps me busy. Then also, just training is what I’ve done for so many years that it’s second nature to me. Regardless if I have a fight or not, I’m still going to get my conditioning in the morning. I’m still going to get my team training. I’m still going to bring different people in to work with me. I’m a martial artist regardless if I’m competing in the next week or not.

How difficult have the last nine months been like for you, because you had to deal with not only the suspension, but a loss on your record?
Obviously it wasn’t easy but you move on. Everyone’s lost before, and losses are always hard but you get over them. Everybody takes hits in life. You just have to say, I’m going to let this ruin me or I’m going to pick myself up. It wasn’t easy but that’s been my focus to get over it.

What was your reaction when you were told you tested positive for steroids and would be suspended?
A little bit of disbelief. It was something that I wasn’t very happy about obviously. I didn’t realize it would stay in my system for so long. I’m not an expert on it. It was something I’d done months before, so I thought I was… Ultimately, I paid the price for a mistake I made.

Why did you take steroids?
It was just to help training and I wanted to lose some weight, and I guess curiosity killed the cat, so to speak. But again, I’m rehabilitated now.

Did you have any concerns the UFC would cut you after the positive test?
I didn’t know. I just didn’t know what they’d do.

Did you lose any sponsors as a result?
I did. My nutrition sponsor.

Did anything positive come out of your situation?
I think it’s a good example for other people of what not to do.

Do you feel like you have to rebuild your credibility with the fans, and if so, how do you go about doing that?
For me, I’m just excited to get back and compete again. I’ve got a great team, a great group of guys at home that I’m working with and focusing on. The people that train with me in Hawaii, the people that are helping me train in Oregon are the people I care about most. I jujst want to go in there and represent them well.

Do you have any concerns about ring rust after the layoff?
No, I don’t. I’ve been training hard. This isn’t my first, second, third, or fifteenth fight. I don’t think I’ll have any ring rust. It’ll be the opposite.

Were you happy when the UFC came to you with Rosholt as an opponent?
To be honest with you, it’s the UFC’s job to pick who I’m going to fight and I’ll take whoever the put in front of me. I was just glad to be able to get in the cage again.

What do you think of Rosholt’s game?
I think he’s a phenomenal wrestler. He’s a four-time All-American. He’s a national champ. There’s no way you can say anything bad about having a set of skills like that.

What about the rest of his game?
I know he’s been with Mark Laimon for a while, so I’m sure his grappling’s gotten quite a bit better. From what I’ve seen, he’s a goer. He likes to take people down and try to beat on them. Styles make fights, so we’re going to have to see how this whole thing matches up.

You must feel like you have a big advantage on the feet?
Yeah, I think so.

Did you bring in any specialists to prepare for his wrestling?
Absolutely. Carl Barton, who wrestled at Penn State and now coaches at my school, I spent a lot of time with him. Then, out here in Oregon, Ed Herman, Matt Lindland, Chael Sonnen, and Nate Quarry, so I had some great guys with great wrestling skills on top of me. If I can get out from under them, I could get out from under anybody.

What if he decided to stand with you? He seems to like the fact that you’re a straight-ahead guy.
It’d make my day. It would definitely make my day if that’s his plan. I’ve stood with a lot of people so, we know that I’m not worried about that.

Where do you hope your career goes after the Rosholt fight?
Right now, to be at the point that I’m at with my life and everything that’s taken place, I’m just looking at this fight. I’m just focusing on this fight. I’m not looking at what’s going to happen next and what’s further down the road. I’ll worry about that on August 30.

Fighting in front of Portland, will it feel like a home game?
Absolutely, I’m born and raised here. Team Quest is where I started and I know everybody there. My friends and family are here. Being here is great.

How many people are you expecting to come out and support you at the arena?
A lot! I know every one of my friends has called me and told me they were able to get a bunch of tickets. And I’m a pretty cool guy, so I’ve got a lot of friends.

How good is the next name going to have to be, from baseball’s secret steroids-offender list? The returns on the leaks from the six-year-old document are already diminishing: Alex Rodriguez was boffo, scandal-perfect, exactly what everyone wanted to hear.

But that was the peak. The Manny Ramirez–David Ortiz combo? Ramirez was already serving a drug-test-related suspension, and the news that Ortiz was implicated was just like the news that Ramirez was implicated, only a little fatter and slower.

The idea of the list is much more exciting than the list itself. Everything you didn’t know you knew about performance-enhancing drugs, all in one place. Just let the list out, and let the public stand face to face with the truth about drugs and baseball.

“Name them all and get it over and let baseball go on,” Hank Aaron said. Put the names out, Mark Teixeira said. Put the names out, Johnny Damon said.

Damon’s name is on one list already. The Yankees outfielder is No. 3 on a list of 103 baseball players that you can turn up if you Google “baseball steroids list”—or that you can find even more quickly by Googling “fake steroids list.”

People who post the Internet list like to make a point of saying they don’t really believe what’s on it. There are plenty of forensic criticisms of the list—too many Red Sox (it’s a Yankees fan’s hoax!), too few no-name players, suspicious formatting—but the main objection to the list is a matter of attitude. The steroids scandal is about the feeling of being duped, or worse, letting oneself be duped. So now the desire is to be in the know but also to be knowing, to be wised up.

That said, you wouldn’t care to bet that any particular player on the fake list is not also on the real list. Plenty of the names have already gone into the history books for being otherwise implicated for performance-enhancing drugs—Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield, Barry Bonds, Benito Santiago—and even more are the sort of names that history has a hard time paying attention to. Wasn’t that journeyman utility infielder already caught for something? What about that slow-footed corner outfielder? Or that other slow-footed corner outfielder? It’s like trying to keep track of who used to play for the Rangers and who used to play for the Astros. Six years is a long time in baseball.

So the Internet list hovers on the edge of public view, not quite fit for discussion. Information does not exactly want to be free, at least not in this case. Information would rather be certified by someone who knows what he or she is doing: The New York Times and Sports Illustrated, the old media of record, slowly digging out the names on the real list, one or two at a time, like scrupulous archaeologists clearing a site with brushes. Look, here we have … what appears to be … yes, here is Sammy Sosa. Definitely Sammy Sosa. Sammy Sosa, “according to lawyers with knowledge of the drug-testing results,” was on the list of players who failed drug tests.

Thanks, lawyers. Come on. You gave up the guy shaped like the Thing, the guy who hit 243 home runs in four years. That’s like shooting a farm-raised pig on a captive hunt. Put the names out!

Or better yet, don’t. The ethical problems are bad enough: Sammy Sosa may be a fraud and a hypocrite, but his drug test was supposed to be anonymous. Turning a private screening program into a public blacklist is a much more serious breach of trust than trashing the home-run record book ever was—even if the list were to tell us what we want to know.

And it won’t. The secret list, the one seized by drug investigators and passed around and leaked, is not the final word on performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. It is a list of 104 names of players who were told in 2003 that they would be tested for drugs, and were then associated with a positive drug-test result. As with any drug-testing program, some of those positives were false positives: Major League Baseball has said that only 96 players were ultimately counted as positive, and that the players’ union disputes some of those 96 results.

So after we learn who the 104 guilty players are, it will be time to get the list of the eight guilty-but-not-guilty players, and then the list of however many players’ guilt that is in dispute. Meanwhile, the list will still be missing all the drug-assisted players who got a false negative, or who took a masking agent, or who had moved on to drugs too advanced for the drug tests to catch.

What can the real list tell us that the fake list can’t? Yes, it would be funny if one of the anti-steroids crusaders like Curt Schilling or Jeff Kent showed up on the list. But it wouldn’t be surprising. Jeff Kent hit more home runs after his 35th birthday than he did before his 30th. Maybe he’s a clean guy who happened to hit like a steroids guy. Nobody knows.

One national sportswriter wrote recently that he would give up on baseball if Derek Jeter’s name showed up on the list, because Jeter seems like a guy who would quit the game rather than “cheat to compete.” That’s nice, but Derek Jeter never refused to cross home plate when a known steroid cheater like Alex Rodriguez or Gary Sheffield knocked him in. He’s a team player, and he plays to win.

Every time a drug list comes up—the fake one, the Mitchell Report, the collected works of Jose Canseco—it looks at first glance as if your favorite team is especially implicated. You can find the suspect list online with the names of all Mets-linked players underlined: 30-some out of 103 players. Those dirty Mets! But it’s mostly perception: Ballplayers knock around, and the Mets’ alumni are other teams’ alumni, too. Gary Sheffield is a Met and a Yankee—and a Brewer, Padre, Dodger, Brave, Marlin and Tiger.

Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees have the best record in the American League at the moment. Manny Ramirez and the Dodgers have the best record in the National League. Here comes baseball history, or more of the same baseball history.

The last championship Yankees were a steroids team. The Red Sox who knocked them off were a steroids team. The Baltimore Orioles who sat in fourth place and watched them were a steroids team. Nobody’s roster was hydroponically grown in a clean room. Everybody comes out of the same dirt.

By Tom Scocca
August 18, 2009