Steroid Nation

Manny Ramirez sneaks back from steroid suspension

As arguably baseball's biggest steroid suspension, Manny Ramirez accomplished an uneventful return to the LA Dodgers lineup on this 4th of July, 2009.  Appears that steroid and PED abuse is so prevalent that a large segment of the population just either doesn't care about cheating the game, or worse even encourages the bloating of players.  From Reuters:

Manny Ramirez made a low key return to the Los Angeles Dodgers line-up after serving a 50-game ban for a doping offense on Friday, the slugger going 0-for-3 during his team's 6-3 win over the San Diego Padres.

Playing for the first time since the suspension was handed out on May 7 for violating the Major League Baseball drug policy, Ramirez brought the Padres home Petco Park to its feet during his first at-bat, a first-inning walk.

The right-hander also grounded out twice and popped out before being replaced in left field by Juan Pierre in the bottom of the sixth.

"It was great. I was nervous at first but it was fine," Ramirez told reporters.

So many athletes abused PEDs and AASs that Ramirez should not become the poster boy for 'roiders; on the other hand it is amazing that baseball gave up a premier player...something the sport could not effect for Sosa, McGwire, and Bonds.

"It was great. I was nervous at first but it was fine," Ramirez told reporters.

"I want to thank my fans. I think they drove from (Los Angeles) just to watch me play and it was unbelievable. This team can do a lot of great things without me. I'm just trying to follow those guys."

With a large contingent of Dodger supporters making their way to the sold-out stadium of 42,217 fans, Ramirez was welcomed warmly for the most part with the applause drowning out the boos.

His much anticipated return included a pre-game news conference in which he apologized to fans and team mates but refused to answer questions about the banned substances that evoked his suspension.

"I don't want to get into (that)," Ramirez told reporters.

"I don't want to talk about my record. I just want to talk about the game. It was tough but it's over.

"I'm moving on."

Manny should move on, but baseball shouldn't.

2003 Major League Baseball steroids list: fact or fiction

Apparently a list of 104 players testing positive during the 2003 MLB preliminary steroids testing, surfaced on the net yesterday.  There is no way of knowing the authenticity of such a compilation of names.  It could be fantasy, or it could be a leak -- which did not find outlet through a credible source.

If such a list were available, then why did Senator Mitchell not discover the document during his well-financed, thorough investigation?

Links are found here (Rotoworld) and here (The Big Lead)

Big Poppy, David Ortiz, enmeshed in controversy

Pity David Ortiz, Big Poppy of the Boston Red Sox, crowd pleaser, slugger magnificent, and humble star appears welled in a nasty slump that has led to talk and suspicion about steroids.

Ortiz has never admitted steroids or other PEDs.  Ortiz's name never showed up on an Internet list of PED buyers.  Ortiz has not even incurred the wrath of Jose Canseco.

Because Poppy shows no pop in his bat this year, at age 33 Ortiz is hitting .185. The talk in 2009 is that Poppy came down from steroids.

Of course there is no real evidence Ortiz is suffering steroid withdraw.  Does anyone know what a year after steroid withdrawal looks like?  We don't.  To the Eagle-Tribune:

It was about 1:20 p.m. yesterday when Red Sox "slugger" David Ortiz stepped into the batter's box.

Five barbers and five customers, all Dominican men, watched intently on the big screen TV in the back of the busy Flow Barber Shop on Lawrence Street.

Flow Barber Show was a place I expected the last bastion of believers.

I was wrong.

From 2003 through 2008, would have brought silence to Flow's.

But only one of the barbers, Cristian Felipe, cared to stop cutting and look up at the TV.

"It's sad, really sad," said Felipe, through an interpreter, shaking his head. "He's always been the best."

So what's wrong?

What's wrong with Ortiz?

There were almost as many theories as there were men at Flow's.

"He might be all done," said barber Christian Flores. "I'm just glad they moved him out of the third spot (in the lineup). He can't hit. And the Red Sox need a great hitter in that spot."

Felipe says Ortiz hasn't looked the same since Manny Ramirez was traded last July.

"People can say Kevin Youkilis and Jason Bay are great hitters, and they are, but they're not Manny Ramirez," said Felipe. "Manny was the best protection Ortiz ever had. He's one of the best hitters ever. Ortiz just hasn't seemed the same."

The steroids rumor — could he have been taking them and stopped? — was also tossed out there. That brought an interesting response.

"I wouldn't doubt that for a second," said Tejada. "I honestly believe about 80 percent of the Dominicans that play in the major leagues probably have tried steroids. In our country, they are easy to get. If you have money to pay for them, you can go to a drug store or a doctor and get them.

"Our country has a lot of poor people and we aren't as educated when it comes to steroids and that other stuff. I know people that have taken steroids. It's different here. Maybe he is off them now and maybe that's the problem? You don't see guys drop off the way he did."

Tejada said the pressure of playing for the Red Sox and being one of the most beloved athletes in the Dominican Republic has become too much.

"I was in the D.R. when Manny was traded and people there jumped ship and traded in their Red Sox caps for Dodgers caps," said Tejada. "Ortiz is really the only Dominican left on the Red Sox and the country depends on him. I know he feels that pressure."

Carlos Nunez, who stopped in for a lunch time haircut, said Ortiz needs to be treated like every other player, Dominican or not.

Nunez said, "If you're not going to produce, you're not going to play. And he's not producing. I would bench him. And if he doesn't hit, I'd find someone else."

Other explanations than steroid withdrawal.  However, those whisper are not likley to be silenced soon.

Busted steroid dealer in Florida says he supplied Washington Capitals and Nationals players

A drug peddler in Florida says he supplied steroids to professional athletes including Washington Capitals and Washington Nationals players.  What might be significant would be a connection to the Caps and steroid use in the NHL.  Never hear much about PEDs in the NHL.

Original report here. To the Washington Times:

Law enforcement officials in Lakeland, Fla., on Tuesday arrested two people on charges of steroid possession who claim they sold the illegal substances to players on the Washington Nationals and Washington Capitals teams.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said officers arrested Richard and Sandra Thomas on 10 counts of steroid possession with intent to distribute, 10 counts of importing the drugs and one count of maintaining a dwelling for drug sales.

Judd said Thomas bragged about being one of the largest sellers of steroids in Florida, obtaining the drugs from suppliers all over the world. In making the arrests, the Sheriff's Department seized several loaded weapons, including an AR-15 assault rifle.

Thomas did not name specific players but mentioned the Capitals and Nationals by name in specific interviews, Judd said.

"Richard Thomas told Sheriff's narcotics detectives when he was asked if he had sold steroids to professional athletes, 'Name the sport - if they played it, I sold it,''" Judd said in a statement Wednesday morning. "Then Richard Thomas went further and specifically mentioned two  professional sports teams from the Washington D.C. area whose players he had sold steroids to - the DC Nationals baseball team, and the Washington Capitals hockey team. While he stated to detectives that he sold steroids to professional athletes on those teams, he did not mention any specific players' names."

Judd said that Polk County detectives have yet to uncover any evidence to support Thomas' claims that but that an investigation is ongoing.

MLB fan opinion: High salaries are more problematic for baseball than steroids

The American Chronicle carries a piece on baseball, and the problems fans perceive.  Apparently salaries -- which are set by supply and demand -- are perceived are more problematic than steroid-cheats.

I was watching Mike & Mike in the Morning on ESPN 2 today (March 2009), when they discussed an interesting survey conducted with baseball fans. The question: What is the one thing that is most responsible bringing Major League Baseball down? Both Mikes thought the majority would say high ticket prices, but this was only 23%.

Even the steroids abuse was only 22%. The answer that received 51% was the high salaries being paid to baseball players. Interesting is it not? Despite all the media exposure of big name ball players exposed as hypocrites and liars about their steroid use. Despite high ticket prices directly affecting their family economics. Exorbitant salaries are what tick fans off the most.

Perhaps this should not be such a surprise. After all, exorbitant salaries and bonuses have been getting even more media attention than steroids as of late. The public is quickly losing their taste for those being paid ridiculously high salaries and bonuses. We see so many examples of pay far exceeding the value that any one person could offer. If you are the owner of a business, then I say that this is an entirely different matter, but if you are an employee (and even a CEO is an employee), of a publicly help corporation, there should be a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders for reasonable wages.

One argument for high CEO pay is that they are being paid according to their peers. If you do not pay, they will leave and move on. The self serving argument has produced a situation in the USA where a CEO makes over 400 times the earnings of the average worker. The next highest country is 29 times the average worker. The boards of directors that are supposed to oversee companies are composed of CEOs. Why wouldn't they participate in the escalation of salaries and bonuses?

If you argue that the business increases and they deserve these extravagant amounts, I would argue the businesses might be charging too much. If we cut baseball player's salaries then this money flows back to the owners. We then put pressure on the owners to reduce the price of attending a ball game. If we cut executive pay, then shareholders, employees and customers should all benefit.

As a nation, we need to make better judgments as to when enough is enough. Why is it that we so envy power, money and fame? Where has it gotten us? Why are we so concerned about what we have rather than who we are as a human being? What would our daily life be like if we were all more concerned with being good people rather than rich people? All we have to do is establish a mindset of sharing the wealth rather than stealing the wealth.

Interesting comment.  We noted the fan survey which rates salaries a problem.  On one hand, salaries are determined by the market o supply and demand.  Ticket prices too.  This is what baseball fans will pay.

On the other hand the high compensation drives the cheating to a degree.

Ryan Theriot and Rick Telander meet: No steroids, no HGH, no bull

ESPN carries a story of reporter/columnist Rick Telander meeting Cub shortstop Ryan Theriot to talk about the column where the reporter discusses the cloud hovering over baseball since the steroid era came to town.  Theroit knew he was not under steroid suspicion, rather his May outburst (5 home runs) was used as a point of discussion about why everyone is under suspicion in the MLB.

The writer and the player met on the field after Sunday's game to discuss the Sun-Times' article and headline that attached Cubs shortstop Ryan Theriot's latest power surge to baseball's performance-enhancing drug problem.

Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander waited for Theriot to finish his post-game duties, then talked to him along with myself and two Chicago camera crews. I asked Theriot what his response was to Telander's article and the attending headline, which Telander didn't write.

"I didn't like it very much," Theriot said. "My response would be, it's unfair and kind of hurtful for me just because of the work I've put in and the way I've gone about my business and the way I've lived my life up to this point. To have something like that come out, to me, is just not fair."

Theriot and Telander were very respectful of each other, and Theriot has always answered all the questions asked of him. Sunday was no different. Again, I asked the Cubs shortstop his main contention with the story.

"I understand the article itself and the article had a lot of validity to it, but the lead, headline and even the first few sentences of the story, to me, were a little irresponsible," Theriot said.

The remainder of the article documents the meeting between reporter and ballplayer, an intelligent introspective discourse.  More of what is needed to address the PED problem in the MLB.

Chicago Sun Times writer Rick Telander points out Ryan Theriot epitimizes MLB steroid problems (but is NOT under steroid suspicion)

The Chicago Cub's shortstop Ryan Theroit hit one home run last year.  Sure the winds were always blowing in against him, and the mound was elevated only when he batted, but one home run is not impressive.  The slugger has banged out 5 this May alone.  What is this...Brady Anderson revisited?

The Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander points out that the Theriot power outburst now comes under suspicion in 2009 MLB times.  In time past, fans might conclude Theriot spent more time working out over the winter, or matured as a hitter this year.  No more: the juice is in.

Sorry, Ryan Theriot, you're a suspect. Forget Manny Ramirez and Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Mark McGwire and all the other hulking, accused performance-enhancing drug users.

You, sir, all 5-11, 175 pounds of you, are doing devious things.

To wit, Theriot -- no disrespect, but if he's 5-11, I'm 6-12 -- hit two home runs Wednesday night at Wrigley Field against the Padres, giving him five times more home runs in 33 games this year than he hit all last season.

Brrinnnng! Eee -- ah! Eee-ah! Zzzt! Zzzzt!

That rings the steroid/HGH/ whatever-designer-drug-is-in bell, doesn't it?

Well, yes, ''The Riot'' hit only one dinger in 2008 and only five so far this year.

But if he were, say, Manny Ramirez (37 home runs in 2008), he would have just hit his 185th homer of 2009.

Really, Theriot is not a serious suspect for juicing.  Apparently his bat found a sweet spot or two.  However, this is 2009 and post-Clemens, post-Bonds, post-A-rod, Post-Manny, post-McGwire...it goes on and on and on.

But this is what baseball has wrought.

This is what we tried to tell Bud Selig and Donald Fehr and all the head-in-the-sand executive clowns for years and years would happen if Major League Baseball and its union left athletes to their own devices, acting as though crazy numbers came about just because eating and lifting had become trendy...

  What's the old saying -- you reap what you sow?

When you plant cheating, Major League Baseball, cynicism will be your crop.

Telander's correct.  Once the slippery slope of enhanced achievement is breached, then it is a long slide down.  Speaking of enhancement,where is Ms. California when you need some positive enhancement?  Or Brady Anderson for that matter?

Roger Clemens: Over and out...legal and literary

Roger Clemens makes the news again.  Apparently he cannot stand Manny and A-Rod stealing the headlines.

Roger: Out (US AG)

The United State Attorney General Eric Holder, all busy with torture and such, is calling himself recused from the Roger Clemens investigation going on in DC with the FBI. Apparently the Rocket showed Mr. Holder how to throw a backdoor slider.  From Reuters:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has removed himself from the criminal probe into whether baseball pitching great Roger Clemens lied to Congress about steroids, a Justice Department spokesman said on Thursday.

The FBI began the investigation more than a year ago after Clemens denied in testimony before a congressional committee that he used performance-enhancing steroids. His former trainer testified Clemens had used steroids and human growth hormone.

Department spokesman Matt Miller said Holder was recused because he previously worked at Covington and Burling, a law firm that had represented Clemens.

Roger, meanwhile continues to maintain that Brian McNamee injected his rocket rear with PEDs.  The Toronto Star carries this one:

Clemens again denied that former personal trainer Brian McNamee injected him with performance-enhancing drugs in a phone interview on ESPN. "He's never injected me with HGH or steroids," Clemens said of McNamee's assertions to baseball investigator George Mitchell...

Clemens said he chose to speak out yesterday because it was the release date of a book about his alleged drug use.

"It's important for me to do that," he said. "I've seen excerpts of the book and they're completely false. ... You know, guys, it's piling on. It's hurtful at times. But I'm moving on."

Clemens must have some reason for fervent denials.  A deal with McNamee "Don't ask, don't tell what you're injecting".

Others are moving on too from the Clemens affair...like the Hall of Fame voters.

Lou Merloni: Did a physician inform MLB players how to use steroids?

MLB.com carries a story about Red Sox minor league player Merloni's recollection of a seminar on spring training while he was with Boston.

Former Red Sox utility man Lou Merloni said Saturday on Comcast's "The Baseball Show" that he remembered a Spring Training meeting in which a doctor explained to players how to use steroids intelligently and without abuse, according to multiple reports.

Merloni's exact quotes, according to The Boston Globe, were: "I'm in Spring Training, and I got an 8:30-9:00 meeting in the morning. I walk into that office, and this happened while I was with the Boston Red Sox before this last regime, I'm sitting in the meeting. There's a doctor up there and he's talking about steroids, and everyone was like, 'Here we go, we're going to sit here and get the whole thing -- they're bad for you.'

"No. He spins it and says, 'You know what? If you take steroids and sit on the couch all winter long, you can actually get stronger than someone who works out clean. If you're going to take steroids, one cycle won't hurt you; abusing steroids it will.'

"He sat there for one hour and told us how to properly use steroids while I'm with the Boston Red Sox, sitting there with the rest of the organization, and after this I said, 'What the heck was that?' And everybody on the team was like, 'What was that?' And the response we got was, 'Well, we know guys are taking it, so we want to make sure they're taking it the right way.' ... Where did that come from? That didn't come from the Players Association."

The Red Sox angrily denied the allegation:

Boston's general manager during Merloni's Red Sox tenure, Dan Duquette, responded angrily to Merloni's claims, according to The Globe.

"It's ridiculous -- it's totally unfounded," Duquette said. "Who was the doctor? Tell me who the doctor is. If there was such a doctor, he wasn't in the employ of the Red Sox. We brought in doctors to educate the players on the Major League drug policy at the time at the recommendation of Major League Baseball. This is so ridiculous, I hate to even respond to it."

In fact, there were occasions when physicians presented steroids in a favorable light, in particular Dr. Robert Millman, of Cornell.  Here is what John Rocker said about a presentation:

The loudmouth former reliever said he and then-Rangers teammate Alex Rodriguez, among others, were advised in spring training of 2002 by management and players' union doctors on how to use steroids in a way that is "not going to hurt you."

Rocker said a doctor hired by the Players' Association pulled aside himself, A-Rod, Ivan Rodriguez and Rafael Palmeiro following a spring training lecture and candidly told them how to use steroids.

"Look guys, if you take one kind of steroid, you don't triple stack them and take them 10 months out of the year like Lyle Alzado did," the doctor told him, Rocker said yesterday during an interview on the Buck and Kincade Show on WCNN-680 The Fan in Atlanta. "If you do it responsibly, it's not going to hurt you."

Here is the account from the Mitchell Report"

During baseball’s winter meetings in Nashville in December 1998, baseball executives and team physicians heard a presentation from Dr. Millman and Dr. Solomon on baseball’s drug policy. One attendee, Dr. William Wilder, was then the team doctor for the Cleveland Indians. In a memorandum to then Indians general manager John Hart that he wrote after the meeting, Dr. Wilder reported that the presentation focused on the benefits that could be obtained from testosterone. He was disturbed by the presentation, observing in the memorandum that whether or not testosterone increased muscle strength and endurance “begs the question of whether it should be used in athletics.” He believed there was “no reason that some preliminary literature can’t be sent out to the players concerning the known and unknown data about performance enhancing substances,” and recalled that Houston Astros’ team physician Bill Bryan presented a good overview of these issues with respect to supplements at meetings the previous year.   Dr. Wilder reiterated these observations and views in our interview with him.

Manny Ramirez HCG admission a smokescreen: Tested positive for testosterone

Suspended Manny Ramirez will be serving a 50 game outage for HCG right?  Perhaps wrong. 

According to the astute TJ Quinn of ESPN, Manny tested positive for testosterone -- exogenous testosterone.  The  entered into the equation only later in the chain of events.  Smokescreen?

Obviously using HCG would appear to be less of a sin than a horrible anabolic steroid.  (in our view a drug is a drug; there is no hierarchy of bad drugs or good drugs).  Admitting to HCG would sanitize other PED use, making the situation much more palatable to the regular fan - or the Hall of Fame voter.

Ramirez (and spokespeople) have been promoting the HCG angle.  HCG, a natural hormone of pregnancy that also increase natural testosterone production.  The drug may enhance the strength of one's convictions, but in our view not enhance too much else.

However, there is evidence Ramirez used the much more potent hormone testosterone:

...testing by Major League Baseball showed that Ramirez had testosterone in his body that was not natural and came from an artificial source, two people with knowledge of the case told ESPN's Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn. The sources said that in addition to the artificial testosterone, Ramirez was identified as using the female fertility drug human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG.

The sources said Ramirez was suspended for using hCG because baseball had documentation to prove his use of the drug. A Major League Baseball source said Ramirez's representatives indicated they would fight a suspension for using artificial testosterone.

The 'doctor's prescription' excuse just might go over in an appeal to the MLB fan public.  If Ramirez really has a legitimate use for HCG he needs to get that information out there, along with lab tests, ASAP.

If Ramirez had a prescription he would have been for one of two reasons:

1.  Low sperm count

2.  Someone bought the idea he was low on endogenous testosterone...because he going off-cycle

The Los Angeles Dodgers star said he did not take steroids and was prescribed medication by a doctor that contained a banned substance.

The commissioner's office didn't announce the specific violation by the 36-year-old outfielder, who apologized to the Dodgers and fans for "this whole situation..."

Ramirez, in a statement issued by the players' union, said: "Recently, I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me.

So apparently we will not be privy to what really happened to the Dodger star.  One more deception.

Angry Cleveland fans demand HCG, HGH, steroids, and anti-depressants

Andy Borowitz at the Huffington Post, says angry Cleveland fans demand their players take steroids.

The national pastime suffered another black eye last night when a mob of irate Cleveland Indians fans poured onto the diamond at Progressive Field to demand that their team take steroids.

Displeasure with the championship-starved squad reached a boiling point with the news that slugger Manny Ramirez took performance-enhancing drugs -- but only after leaving the Indians.

When asked by ESPN if he ingested the banned medication while playing for Cleveland, Mr. Ramirez shrugged his shoulders and replied, "What would be the point of that?"

Mr. Ramirez is just the latest in a long line of baseball players who have refused to take steroids while playing for the Indians, says fan Chuck Goulardi, 49, the leader of last night's protest.

"Manny's comment was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back," says Mr. Goulardi, who has seen his 'roid-free Tribe fall to their juiced-up competition more times than he can recall. "These players are paid good money, and all we're asking them to do is take one measly shot in the ass."

Name the best juicier who suited up for the Indians?  Paul Byrd?  Isn't that sad?  Give Cleveland a huge hit of anti-depressants.

Manny Mania: HCG story pregnant with possibilities

A compendium of stories after the Manny Rodriguez HCG story, which is pregnant with possibilities:

1.  Sports Illustrated gives us a time line of MLB steroid use.

2.  I'm back, R-Rod injects himself back into baseball. (USA Today)

3. SI, who must have an army of writers chopping at the bit, surveys MLB cities about Manny.

4.  How does Curt Schilling work his way into this story?

Add you favorites below...

The Dodgers Manny Ramirez: Jacked with HCG, and now suspended from MLB

A zillion media outlets picked up on the Manny Ramirez story today.  AfP carries the outlines:

American baseball hero Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and has been slapped with a 50-game ban, Major League Baseball announced on Thursday.

Ramirez is the first marquee player to be suspended under MLB's stepped-up drug policy which followed the damaging Mitchell Report investigation into steroid use in baseball.

The 12-time all-star Ramirez, who turns 37 later this month, is also the best player in the Los Angeles Dodgers squad who have won 13-straight games at home and have the top record in baseball.

US sports broadcaster ESPN reported that Ramirez tested positive for the drug human chorionic gonadotropin or hCG.

As other reports indicate HCG is used for testosterone support.  The letters stand for human chorionic gonadotropin.  The hormone level rises in pregnancy, which constitutes the urine pregnancy test. Perhaps Manny is simply pregnant?  According to Manny it's a doctor's fault:

Ramirez's ban is effective immediately which means he will not be eligible to return to the Los Angeles lineup until July 3.

Ramirez, of the Dominican Republic, blamed the positive drug test on a doctor, but didn't say whether it was a Dodgers team doctor.

He denied taking steroids and said the problem stems from medication he took for personal use.

"Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid," Ramirez said. "I have taken and passed 15 drug tests over the past five seasons."

Is it ludicrous to believe Manny?  Not really.  Here are the indications for HCG:

HCG is used to cause ovulation and to treat infertility in women, and to increase sperm count in men. HCG is also used in young boys when their testicles have not dropped down into the scrotum normally. This can be caused by a pituitary gland disorder.

Manny would not be taking the drug for infertility.  Hopefully his testicles have 'dropped down'.  It is concevable (no pun intended) that the hormone was prescribed for low sperm count.  If so, there would be no reason for Manny and his doctor not to obtain a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE).

Manny could be using the hormone to boost testosterone after a cycle of anabolic steroids.  If he got nailed in the spring he would have been finishing a cycle in preparation for the baseball season.  Use of an anabolic steroid reduces a man's own natural testosterone production.  Thus the need for a drug like HCG.

Ramirez will lose 50 games and 7.7 million dollars.

As Renault says:  I am shocked, shocked to find that juicing is going on in here!" No one in 2009 should be shocked a star like Manny juices.

What, no Manny Ramirez Post? It doesn't meet Government priorities

As someone asked us once (me) 'Don't you actually have a real job"?  And yes there is a real job.  At the real job our team (which means me basically) has been writing grants all spring.  A much gratifying thing, writing grants: Stay up all night writing; in between all the usual clinical work write all day; document everything you can think of to make it politically correct-- like how we are going to recruit the correct number of native Alaskans for proper demographics in the study -- jump through 5000 bureaucratic hoops only eventually to be told by the bureaucrats in Washington DC we stink and that the grand money will go to the usual old boys network gang who really had an inside deal the entire time.  It's kinda like dealing with organized crime, only the criminals get more sleep.  Academic death is not as sudden as organized crime however certainly as painful, and alot more political.

So we completely missed the Manny Ramirez story.  Completely.  Oh well, we cannot compete with the major news outlets who likely devote entire teams of writers to this story.  Wish we could borrow those writers to put some flair on the grants.  Oh wait, the rejection notices has started flowing like blood from a lance wound...or LH from a pituitary.

And the proposal on performance enhancing drugs (PEDs):  We were told that it doesn't "appear to be consistent with the listed (Government) priorities"" ...go figure.

Idaho newspaper tells Selena Roberts to move on from A-Rod...before book even published

Interesting view from the Idaho Press-Tribune which advises author Selena Roberts to move on from her A-Rod obsession.  Fine, except Robert's book isn't published yet.

I understand why Selena Roberts is on the witch hunt to further embarrass Alex Rodriguez, but honestly, what's the point? The fact that he'll be screaming "show me the money" pretty soon my be her motivation.

Will her new book, which is ironically slated to come out just in time for Rodriguez's return to  baseball, shed new light on the steroid age? Will it prove that Rodriguez did in fact do steroids longer than what he has already admitted? Was he doping in high school?

Who cares! We all know he cheated. Let's move on.

In the book, we're basically going to read Roberts' side of the story, which of course, will conflict with Rodriguez's side.

The part that bothers me most is this: Because Rodriguez makes a ton of money and plays for the Yankees (a team we all love to hate), he's held to a higher standard. And frankly, like Barry Bonds before him, he rubs people the wrong way.

Now if he were a top talent and did hard-core drugs for years, then he stopped, we'd all praise him for kicking drugs and finding faith in the process.

Because we prone to spelling errors, we will not point out the problems the style of the piece  However, where is the logic:

- A witch hunt implies that the hunted is something that doesn't exist.  Obviously steroid use in baseball does exist.  It is not a witch hunt.

- Rodriguez is not held to a 'higher standard' (whatever that means); A_Rod is held to the standard standard or in fact a lower standard -- likely benefiting from his superstar status.

- Roberts doesn't have a 'side' to the story, she is a journalist; 'sides' are for protagonists.

So, yeah, let's move on from this book, before it is published.

More to the A-Rod controversy: Did Alex Rodriguez juice in high school?

Looking into the story behinds prominent juiced athlete is like opening a Pandora's box, as more and more comes out.  It also becomes difficult to separate fact form fiction as these stories spread wide and fast.

The Los Angeles Times (along with every other media outlet in the solar system) reports on claims made in the new book about Rodriquez by Selena Roberts.

A new, unflattering biography of Alex Rodriguez reportedly says he may have used steroids as early as high school and even after he joined the New York Yankees.

Rodriguez admitted in February to using steroids while with the Texas Rangers from 2001-03 but insisted he stopped before he was traded to the Yankees in February 2004. He brushed off a question Thursday about details from Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts' upcoming book "A-Rod" that cast doubt on his earlier statements...

The New York Daily News reported Thursday that Roberts' book offers a portrait of the three-time American League most valuable player as a needy personality who wanted his ego stroked constantly and a player who tipped opponents to pitches in blowout games, hoping the favor would be returned someday.

If Rodriguez juiced in high school, he joins about 5% of males and 2.5% of females who use some sort of PED before adulthood.

ON the other hand, Doug Mientkiewicz, who attended high school with A-Rod, says he never saw the Yankee use 'roids.

Dodgers utilityman Doug Mientkiewicz said that he, Alex Rodriguez and their teammates on the Westminster Christian High spent as much time together as possible.

They were always together in school, Mientkiewicz said. They often ate dinner together. Many players, including Rodriguez, frequently slept over at Mientkiewicz's house, which was only 10 minutes from the private school in suburban Miami.

Mientkiewicz said he never saw any signs that Rodriguez was on steroids, as is being alleged in an upcoming book by Sports Illustrated's Selena Roberts, according to a report in the New York Daily News.

"From my perspective, it would be 99.9% impossible for us not to know," said Mientkiewicz, who was a year ahead of Rodriguez in school.

Mientkiewicz makes a valid point about weight gain and pubertal maturation:

Rodriguez put on 25 pounds of muscle between his sophomore and junior years in high school, according to the book.

"You're basically accusing every kid that's gone through puberty that they're on steroids too, huh?" Mientkiewicz said. "He gained a couple of inches height-wise too, if I remember right. . . . I knew what he looked like in ninth grade. He was skinny. Who isn't in ninth grade? He was very dedicated back then, he worked harder than anyone else."

One of Roberts' sources was a high school teammate of Rodriguez's, according to the Daily News.

Alyssa Milano on steroids in baseball and botox in actresses

Actress Alyssa Milano has a new book on baseball: Safe at Home: Confessions of a Baseball Fanatic.  She traces her interest in baseball, and association with the game.  She also discusses steroids and PEDs in the game.

Milano admittedly is a bit confounded by baseball's ever-present albatross - the steroid issue. "There have always been scandals in baseball," she philosophizes. "Steroids is a sign of the times. We are a pharmaceutical nation.

"You can't find a woman over 40 who is an actress who hasn't used Botox. I get the players' perspective. What I don't get is how it got so out of hand, and how they let it go on for so long. I can forgive a player if he is honest about it. I don't view Alex Rodriguez any differently than anyone else. He may be different to some because he's a Yankee, but I don't think it's any worse for the sport because he did it.

"The players' union should support a come-clean program. Just say 'I was wrong, I got caught up in it, and I'm sorry.' Apologize for it, then move on."

The remarks about appearance enhancement in actresses is right on.

Lenny Dykstra, 'Nails' with steroids, a complete sports and business fraud

EPSN compiled an in-depth story on Ex-Philadelphia Philly, Ex-New York Met Lenny Dykstra once known as 'Nails".  Dykstra was a  hustling aggressive ballplayer in the MLB, but when it was revealed that Nails used steroids to juice up his play, his athletic reputation appeared a a bit rusted.  (commentary at Deadspin)  Now, like other steroid cheats (Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, Tim Montgomery) we see his business dealings are also fraudulent.

Fish's article looks at the fraud that is Lenny Dykstra's business 'empire'.  Like the fake stats he juiced up in baseball, Dykstra fraudulently juices up his business acumen, massaging the data to look great, meanwhile he lies, cheats, misrepresents, and defrauds his clients, friends and family.

In case you missed the HBO profile last year or the magazine stories that trumpet Dykstra's business acumen, his life beyond baseball includes acquisitions such as hockey legend Wayne Gretzky's old house ("the best house in the world," Dykstra says) in Thousand Oaks, Calif., which he bought for $18.5 million. He drives a black Rolls Royce Phantom with an extended wheelbase, and hires pilots to fly him around in his Gulfstream II jet...

And after thumbing through a series of lawsuits that stretches from coast to coast and chatting up his business associates, you wonder if this aspiring financial Pied Piper is, indeed, living in a fantasyland. You wonder if the dream, built on glitz and greed in a time of economic uncertainty, is a teetering house of cards. You wonder if anyone this side of Bernie Madoff has ticked off more people -- business partners and family, alike -- than Lenny K. Dykstra.

The lawsuits suggest that one of two things is going on here: Either Lenny hates to pay his bills, or he's a financial train wreck.

Just in the past two years, Dykstra has been the subject of at least 24 legal actions, including 18 since November. Three suits hit the courts on Jan. 29. He's been sued by publishers and print companies, by three different groups of pilots and by a Maryland-based financial and litigation consulting firm that offered expert testimony on his behalf in an earlier lawsuit. He's even been sued by a die-hard Mets fan who was the best man at his wedding 20-some years ago, though that New York investor claims there is no bad blood. 

Dykstra cheated at baseball with steroids and PEDs, and it also appears he cheats at business.  Critical point: look at Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, and Lenny Dystra.  Heck, look at A-Rod too.  These athletes expose serious character flaws that cheat the games, the fans, their competitors, and now their clients.

Those who say illicit steroid and PED use presents no big deal need to answer to the cheating.  The cheaters are consistently flawed and frequently fraudulent.  Sports fraud leads to business fraud leads to personal fraud leads to a wacky moral compass.

Baseball may not be really important or as revered as devotees think.  Then again, ostensibly the sport offers a break from the stress of life...the sport defines itself between the lines where the setting is controlled and the results immediate.  Man v man, like the old days.  However, the cheating and back-stabbing that now takes place daily in the business sphere, is mirrored between the lines.  Great refuge huh?  Human nature, huh?

If Baseball doesn't give a dran about reputation, let the cheaters go on about their way, and we look on the sport as an interesting pastime, kinda like Vegas.  However devotees demand 'integrity'.  Clean up the game and the records if that is the case  From 1990 on there is little  integrity in the game in the 'Steroid Era'.

Dystra's brother turned against him, after the business burns; guess who supplied Nails with Roids:

Kevin Dykstra acknowledges that he briefed investigators for the Mitchell report as well as Major League Baseball security on what he describes as Lenny's use of recreational and performance-enhancing drugs during his playing days. Kevin says he was a source of the drugs for his brother, even after Lenny's baseball career ended.

And here is what the tainted records are worth:

So Dykstra, an assistant and a driver dash out of his office en route to the meeting, carrying plastic-wrapped bundles of The Players Club magazine. Inside the office elevator, Dykstra lifts his right leg like a dog relieving itself -- he retains a degree of the old flexibility -- and farts.

ESPN writer Howard Bryant calls out 2002 Angels - Giants World Series as apex of steroid juiced MLB

ESPN writer Howard Bryant (Juicing the Game) calls out the players and management of both teams in the 2002 World Series between the Anaheim Angles (Troy Glaus) and the San Francisco Giants (Barry Bonds).   Bryant doesn't spare the doctors, also popping unethical California physician Ramon Scruggs who supplied steroids to the Angels' players.

The cornering of Alex Rodriguez and his subsequent admission that he used performance-enhancing drugs represented, for all intents and purposes, the nadir of the steroid era with few, if any, remaining ambiguities: The A-list, Hall of Fame's best used drugs; and so did the mediocre; and so did the worst. The general managers demurred, the leaders shrank and the men who signed the checks, like everyone else, made a fortune. The shock is gone. Little else can surprise our calloused sensibilities.

That said, the intricate details of just how this confidence game was carried out still carry immense value, for they cement a discredited time with facts instead of speculation. Understanding the foundations of the steroid era also reveals that this industrywide failure stretched far beyond the players connected to Brian McNamee, Kirk Radomski or the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative. It provides even more evidence that so much of what we've seen on the field during the past decade and a half needs to be recast.

Recently, The New York Times obtained transcripts of interviews by federal agents with four major league players conducted as part of the ongoing criminal investigation of Ramon Scruggs, a physician under indictment for illegally distributing steroids to big leaguers, police officers and corporate executives, among others.

As we have said, dirty trainers, doctors, and health professionals often stand behind the doping curtain:

Meanwhile, dirty doctors such as Scruggs have applied the same cheap excuses for their behavior that we've heard for years from the players. Glaus told investigators he used steroids to recover from a shoulder injury that was not healing. According to the Times, Schoeneweis told federal agents he felt run-down. Greene said he was fearful of losing his spot on a major league roster and so would not be able to support his family. Valdez said shoulder and knee injuries were not healing. Suggs mailed him steroids and syringes.

Each player used an old rationalization -- I wasn't trying to cheat; I was trying to stay on the field -- to soften the appearance of his actions, but the domino effect remains the same. At this late date, the excuses grow thin, the lies nothing more than a self-created noose.

And that 2002 Series pitting Glaus and the 'Angels' v. Bonds and the 'Gaints'.  We will not point out the delicate irony behind those monikors (we just did):

The 2002 Angels, for example, are the legitimate champions of an illegitimate time, just as Bonds is the legitimate home run champion of a discredited era. Despite Angels manager Mike Scioscia's adamant public stand against drugs, people around the game point privately to that club as one of the premier steroid-fueled teams thanks in part to a bullpen rife with career minor leaguers who suddenly began throwing in the mid-90s after their 30th birthdays.

Glaus was the MVP of that 2002 World Series, which is looking more and more like the definitive Steroid Series. Glaus, Brendan Donnelly and Schoeneweis, all of whom have been implicated, played for the Angels that season. On the Giants, there were Bonds, Benito Santiago, Marvin Benard, David Bell and Rich Aurilia. And that doesn't include the players who were suspect.

Bryant's exleeent writing is very dense reading, packed full of fact and logic.  Excellent piece.

Royals' prospects will sit 50 games for steroids violations: Juan Rivera and Joseph Billick

Two Kansas City Royals minor league prospects will be taking a vacation, due to steroids infractions. 

Kansas City Royals minor leaguers Juan Rivera and Joseph Billick were suspended for 50 games Friday after testing positive for performance-enhancing substances under baseball's minor league drug program.

Rivera, a shortstop with Class A Burlington, tested positive for metabolites of Nandrolone, the commissioner's office said. Billick, a catcher with Class A Wilmington, tested positive for metabolites of Stanozolol. Both suspensions were effective immediately.

Four of the 10 players suspended this year for violating baseball's minor league drug program are Royals prospects.

Rivera is a 22 year-old shortstop at Burlington, hitting .222 this year.  Nandrolone sure didn't help his hitting.

Interesting that 40% of the pro baseball players played in the Royals system.  Either the Royals prospects want to bulk up, or they aren't too bright, or the Royals are more diligent in testing.

Gary Sheffield launches tainted home run *500*

One more milestone, one more 'asterisk'.  Gary Sheffield luanched home run #500 in Citi Field for the New York Mets.  Here is what the New York Daily News says:

"Everything happens for a reason," Sheffield would say. "There's a reason I hit 19 homers instead of 20 last year. Doing it on the biggest stage, it makes it that much more special to me." Then he talked a bit piously about "a higher purpose" and "a bigger reason."

Sheffield is only the 25th player to enter the 500 Club, the fourth oldest, yet his accomplishment deserves one of the larger asterisks handed out in the steroid era. His election to the Hall of Fame is far from assured, despite this statistical feat. Sheffield has admitted to using a performance-enhancing cream back in 2001 while claiming he had no idea at the time about its chemical makeup or potency. He is named in the Mitchell Repor

If the feat sells more caps and jerseys and tickets it's all OK.  Like one big MLB Ponzi scheme.  Of Sheffield recieved one penny for each home run, he could buy one share of CitiBank Stock...

His narrative on that subject is about as believable as the tales we have been hearing from Marion Jones and Barry Bonds all these years. Friday night, no reporter was going to bother Sheffield about such things when the slugger showed up at the postgame press conference with two children on his knees and his wife at his side. And again, if you think the crowd at Citi Field cared in the least about any of this in the seventh inning, down a run, then you don't know much about baseball fans. They'd cheer the cream itself, right there in the container, if they thought it could win them a pennant. "We needed it in a big way," Jerry Manuel said of the homer.

MLB players -- Glaus and Schoenewies -- talk of relationship with steroid doctor Ramon Scruggs

Major league baseball players Scott Schoenewies and Troy Glaus recounted their roles in steroids and HGH use,prescribed by renegade physician Ramon Scruggs.  Scruggs appears to be a significant source for illicit PEDs for a number of athletes.  The information form the New York Times was found in federal documents preparing for a Scruggs prosecution.

When an All-Star third baseman needed help recovering from a shoulder injury, he knew from one of his agents whom to call: a doctor who mailed him steroids and syringes without ever seeing him.

A journeyman catcher, fearing he would not be able to support his wife and children if he lost his spot in the major leagues, reached out to the same doctor.

A pitcher who was feeling worn down followed the same path, but another pitcher who was plagued by fatigue found an alternative: he said a team doctor injected him with steroids.

Ok, now we have gotten over the human interest pity for the players, let's get to the heart of the story.  The MLB players, despite knowing the drugs were illegal found a doctor who supplied them with illicit prescriptions.  Forget the fact that there is no good research (especially at the time) of the regenerative porperties of the PEDs, it was simply illegal.

The account hints that Schoeneweis even used inside information on drug testing timelines because he was the player rep of the club, to avoid detection

Glaus said he was “willing to take the risk” because he needed to play, according to a report written by the federal agent who interviewed Glaus. Schoeneweis said he knew when players were tested because he was his team’s union representative, according to the report, though Schoeneweis said in an interview last month that the agent misinterpreted him. A basic tenet of effective drug testing is that the element of surprise is essential. The accounts of Glaus, Schoeneweis, catcher Todd Greene and pitcher Ismael Valdez were written by federal agents who interviewed the players as they gathered evidence in the case of Ramon Scruggs, an anti-aging doctor who was indicted last year on charges that he illegally wrote prescriptions for steroids and human growth hormone to the players, business executives, police officers and others.

Scruggs not only decides his own law, but his own interpretation of medical research:

“These players benefited from restoration, not performance enhancement,” Scruggs said in a telephone interview. “Steroids don’t make someone a good athlete or a bad athlete; they may make you stronger, but they don’t make you a better athlete.”

Dude, increased strength makes you a better athlete.  Basic.

Athletes and doctors may be involved, as well as agents. Wonder if the players thanked the agents for the great guidance. 

Glaus and Greene testified before a federal grand jury that they were referred to Scruggs by their agents, Mike Nicotera and Gene Casaleggio, according to people with knowledge of the testimony who insisted on anonymity because the information is sealed by a court order.

Here is the way Scruggs worked:

There was a buzz about Scruggs’s name at the Texas Rangers’ spring training facility when Valdez, the pitcher, arrived after signing as a free agent before the 2002 season.

Valdez told the investigators he had pain in his shoulder and knee, and contacted Scruggs, who mailed him syringes filled with steroids.

Mail order medicine...

Jose Canseco says A-Rod a "Canseco copycat"; Manny Ramirez "most likely 90%" steroid user

Jose Canseco spoke on the USC campus this weekend.  Always ready to unload some new juice Canesco bashed a few more fellow ball players.  (LA Times source)

About his retirement from baseball:

1998 has made him reconsider things. After long telling anyone who'd listen that he might not have made the big leagues without steroids, maybe the year in Canada shows he could have become a star without drugs. He holds tight to this new notion.

"I have regrets," he says. "The way people look at my career was compromised by using. Then the whole thing fell apart. . . . I was cut off. Not being able to play at 36. That's how old I was when baseball colluded to keep me out. They were sending a message to all the other players: 'Stop using, or you will be like Jose.' "

On Alex Rodriguez, A-Rod's 'roid use:

What about Alex Rodriguez, the audience wants to know? Canseco calls the Yankees third baseman a Canseco copycat, from the steroids to the dalliance with Madonna. He scoffs at the notion Rodriguez is telling the whole truth about his drug use.

On Manny Ramirez:

What about Manny Ramirez? someone asks.

Canseco laughs and offers his theory. A-Rod was exposed only when his name was leaked from a list of 104 major leaguers who in a 2003 test showed up positive for steroids. Because the test was anonymous, those names were not supposed to be made public. But in Canseco's mind, baseball's power brokers know who is on it: players he is sure will be seen as toxic if the truth comes out.

He says this, despite the fact that A-Rod isn't being treated as toxic, nor are other players who were caught up in the steroid scandal but publicly apologized, including Miguel Tejada, starting shortstop for the Houston Astros, and Andy Pettitte, a starting pitcher with the New York Yankees.

Why didn't Ramirez get a long-term deal? Canseco asks. Why were owners gun-shy about signing arguably the game's best hitter?

Never mind that Ramirez was asking for a mega-deal at age 36. Or that he was negotiating in a sickly economy, while weighed down by the heavy baggage of a surly reputation. Canseco will have none of it. To Canseco, the drawn-out negotiation, the lack of a long-term deal, the lack of interest all raise red flags, and so he tells the Bovard crowd that Ramirez's "name is most likely, 90%," on the list.

Canseco admits later that he has no way of knowing. But it makes sense to him, so he threw it out there -- kaboom! -- swinging for the fences, still.

Interesting that Canseco didn't bash USC linebacker Brian Cushing while he was at it...Canseco just doesn't give it up does he?  Also noted in the article was that Canseco continues to take testosterone, although therapeutic at this point...if you believe that.

Jocks breaking rocks: Athletes (boosters, trainers) behind bars

Reasononline carries a very nicely researched piece on athletes, boosters, and trainer who walk the line in a prison.  The athletes end up in jail for drug-related offenses, which recently included illegal steroids and PEDs.

 The article sets the stage with the conviction of Logan Young, the 'Bama Booster who bought players for the Crimson Tide:

Before his untimely death in 2006, Logan Young faced six months in federal prison for “conspiracy to commit racketeering” and “crossing state lines to commit racketeering,” both felonies. While those charges made Young sound like a mafioso, his real offense was violating the recruiting rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)...The conviction of Logan Young as “the first college sports booster sentenced to prison essentially for busting NCAA rules” (in the words of ESPN.com’s Mike Fish) is just one example of a disturbing trend: the federal criminalization of private rule breaking in the world of sports.

The authors look at athletes who did time for crimes which include steroid offenses:

Marion Jones:

Former Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones served six months in federal prison last year for making false statements to two grand juries about her personal use of performance-enhancing steroids. As part of a highly unusual plea agreement, unrelated check fraud charges against Jones were dropped in return for her publicly admitting her past steroid use and retiring from the sport...

Barry Bonds:

All-time Major League Baseball (MLB) home run leader Barry Bonds was scheduled to begin trial in March on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, based on his grand jury testimony in a steroid distribution case that closed in 2005 after producing just four minor convictions that netted seven months prison time combined (half as long as Bonds’ personal trainer served behind bars for criminal contempt after refusing to testify about his boss). At press time, yet another federal grand jury was hearing testimony about whether former MLB pitching great Roger Clemens committed perjury when he denied using steroids after being hauled in front of Congress in February 2008.

There are also 'derivative crimes'; as a 'derivative' in finance refers to an instrument that derives value from the underlying entity so do 'derivative crimes.  For instance money laundering, obstruction of justice, racketeering and so on.  Same with jock crimes.

In 1990 Congress added performance-enhancing steroids to its list of banned substances, largely in response to a scandal involving Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who was stripped of his 1988 Olympic gold medal after testing positive for anabolic steroids. Capitalizing on the public outcry, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) held hearings on doping in sports. McCain threatened to introduce legislation that would take away the autonomy of the U.S. Olympic Committee unless it adopted aggressive anti-doping policies.

The article continues with a lengthy discussion of the BALCO derivative crimes, found after the jump..

Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Roberts discusses breaking the A-ROD on steroids story

SI reporter Selena Roberts, who was initially trashed by AROD, discusses her role in the story of A-Rod juice:

On controversy involving breaking the A-Rod steroids story: "I learned a lot at the Orlando Sentinel, where I had on-the-ground training many years ago covering the Magic ... Certainly there's a bit of a backlash on me personally. I'm a big girl, I can handle that sort of thing. That goes with the business we're in. ... The goal is always the same -- to get to the truth."

 If you want to listen to Roberts' entire interview, click here and wait a few seconds for the download: Download SelenaRoberts

Tejada receives one year probation for lying to Congress about steroids

So if you lie to Congress during hearings -- repeatedly -- you receive a one year probation where you promise not to lie to Congress again for one year?  The Houston Chron goes into this:

Drayton McLane loves it when his players do community work, so he has to be thrilled Miguel Tejada has agreed to do an extra 100 hours this summer.

Nice going, Miggy. Way to represent The Good Guys.

Incidentally, who decided a $5,000 fine was any way to punish a guy making $13 million? Couldn’t the feds have ordered Tejada to pay whatever the government spent proving he’s a liar?

Anyway, about eight seconds after Tejada’s plea-bargain agreement was announced, the Astros issued a statement saying how happy they were to have this whole thing behind them.

In other words, let’s all forget that this guy is a cheat and that we got fleeced on this trade.

As for Tejada, he hasn’t exactly been forthright. He has confessed to what he got caught doing and nothing more. And there appears to be more there.

He played the contrite card when he showed up at spring training until someone asked about his use of steroids and HGH.

He bristled and said he wasn’t going to talk about it. Now that’s coming clean.

He doesn’t have to admit anything. The Mitchell Report does it for him. It’s right there on page 201 along with photo copies of checks to ex-teammate Adam Piatt for $3,100 and $3,200.

Piatt said he provided Tejada with steroids and human growth hormone, but he has no way of knowing if Tejada actually used the stuff.

We don't want a witch hunt do we?  Lying and cheating professionals should never be hunted down to answer for their peccadilloes.  The Astros don't think so:

....the Astros have handled this thing from start to finish (with) Ethics be damned.

First, they said they had no idea Tejada would be included in the Mitchell Report. This spring, McLane changed his story, admitting the team had discussed the issue and made the trade anyway.

Translation: We don’t care if a guy is a cheat as long as he helps us win games. There’s a good message for the youngsters in there somewhere.

That’s how baseball operated during the steroid era. If the ballparks were full and the home runs long, if everyone made a lot of money, then why bother with the annoying details?

Miguel Tajeda to receive sentence for steroid perjury today

The Houston Astros' Miguel Tejada will appear in federal court today to learn what his sentence will be for lying to a Congressional investigation into steroid use in major league baseball.  It sounds like justice will go easy on Tejada because he said he was sorry for lying about steroids.

Six weeks after pleading guilty to misleading Congressional investigators about performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, Miguel Tejada is scheduled to receive his sentencing in Washington, D.C.

Tejada traveled to the nation's capital on Thursday and is expected to receive probation, as recommended by prosecutors. U.S. attorney Jeffrey Taylor wrote in a memo last week to Federal Magistrate Judge Alan Kay that Tejada should get a reduced sentence because he has publicly apologized for his actions and has no criminal history.

Tejada, a five-time All-Star and the 2002 American League Most Valuable Player, was accused of giving false statements about his conversations with another player, former Athletics teammate Adam Piatt, about steroids and human growth hormone. Tejada also admitted he didn't reveal information to House committee investigators in August 2005 about whether or not his ex-teammate Rafael Palmeiro took steroids.

Tejada lied about is age for years; it would appear he is generally hopeless in matters of veracity.  However, he does have a fat contract.

A-Rod crumbling

You wonder how much pharmacological substances affected A-Rod over time.  One poor decision after another appears to have his baseball career in free-fall.  The latest from a New York Madam who claims she dated A-Rod, even for free.

Former Madam Kristen Davis, best known for organizing hookers for former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer has been named as both a supplier and former lover of disgraced New York Yankee’s player Alex Rodreiguez.

According to the NY Daily News, the relationship started with the supply of hookers, then turned into something more personal. Davis is said to have found A-Rod “so charming she “dated him herself for free.” A-Rod apparently wanted more, and showered Davis “with flowers, jewelry, persistence and heated e-mails.”

The newspaper confirmed the story with Davis, who said that “all I can say is our paths have definitely crossed personally and professionally.”

Notably, A-Rod was married at the time. You can now add hookers to A-Rod’s list of vices next to steroids.

Is this guy going to make it back to baseball?

Steroid prophet Rick Helling, hired by MLB Player's Association

The LA Times says that Rick Helling, once the prophet of steroid corruption in the MLB, will be hired by the players union.

Rick Helling's major league career was nothing remarkable. He won 20 games for the Texas Rangers in 1998, albeit with a 4.41 ERA, but mostly he showed up every fifth day and ate a lot of innings.

But Helling, a Stanford product, was active in the players' union. In the winter of 1998-99, following the season in which Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa captivated America with the race to set the single-season home-run record, Helling stood up at a union meeting and said--this according to an excerpt from Joe Torre's book, "The Yankee Years"--what prompted Time magazine to label him "The Man Who Warned Baseball About Steroids."

He told his fellow union leaders that steroid use by ballplayers had grown rampant and was corrupting the game.

"There is this problem with steroids," Helling told them. "It's happening. It's real. And it's so prevalent that guys who aren't doing it are feeling pressure to do it because they're falling behind. It's not a level playing field. We've got to figure out a way to address it.

"It's a bigger deal than people think. It's noticeable enough that it's creating an uneven playing field. What really bothers me is that it's gotten so out of hand that guys are feeling pressure to do it. It's one thing to be a cheater, to be somebody who doesn't care whether it's right or wrong. But it's another thing when other guys feel like they have to do it just to keep up. And that's what's happening. And I don't feel like this is the right way to go."

What Helling had just done was the equivalent of turning up all the lights, clicking off the music and announcing the party was over. "He was the first guy," David Cone said, "who had the guts to stand up at a union meeting and say that in front of everybody and put pressure on it."

Back in the day, Donald Fehr disputed Helling's account.  However:

The news: Fehr hired Helling as a special assistant this morning. From the union's news release...

Interesting.

Cal State Fullerton editorial on steroids in baseball

From the Daily Titan, an interesting take on the PED/steroids in baseball issue:

Today’s baseball players are cheating just as their forefather’s before them, but their means to an end have far more severe consequences.

Gone are the days of spitballs, sandpaper and Vaseline. Now there are new buzzwords such as HGH (human growth hormone), performance enhancers and “the clear.”

There is never a good reason to cheat, but at least the old-timers were doing it to win, not to inflate stats and get a few extra million in their wallets. The bigger concern remains with what the long-term effects of using steroids will be.

Not only are the best players in the world using them without any regard for themselves and their long-term health, they are also jeopardizing the youth that idolize them so much.

With owners, the media and everyone in between turning away from the problem at the beginning, the use of performance enhancing drugs has quietly become acceptable for college and high school players looking to make the leap into professional sports.

There are no guarantees in sports. The lives of millions of student-athletes shouldn’t be at stake because it has become acceptable in the professional level. There is no reason to be using any illegal substances to improve your level of play.

Yes, everyone wants to be the best and have a chance, but by allowing baseball’s promiscuity with drugs get to this point everyone is now at risk.

Major League Baseball, Bud Selig in particular, has to step in and finally put an end to this mess...

Albert Pujols, now and then...Juiced?

Newsday carries a piece on the Albert Pujols story.  Did he or didn't he (juice with steroids)?

In the meantime, Albert Pujols - considered the best player in baseball who hasn't been linked to steroids - denied ever using steroids or PEDs in an article in last week's SI.

Color me cynical, but I'm not ready to call him Mr. Clean. I'm not saying he's drugged up, not by any means, but we've been burned so many times by athletes that we are trained to scoff at their denials. Sad, but true: when someone denies, I shrug and move on.

What else is there to do?

Look at the cover of a recent Sports Illustrated.  Compare with a cover of Muscle and Fitness a few years ago.  Are people decelerating their muscle and fitness or is there another reason Pujos appears so svelte?  Dramatic change.

Houston Astros sign another alleged juicer: Ivan Rodriguez

The Houston Press reports that the Astros signed Pudge Rodriguez today...In the great Texas tradition of ignoring steroid use.

After denying interest for most of this past year, the Houston Astros yesterday inked catcher Ivan Rodriguez to a one-year $1.5 million contract that also includes $1.5 million in incentives. Reportedly, the Astros had not been interested because he didn't mix well with pitchers, but supposedly Astros ace Roy Oswalt had been pushing the team to sign Rodriguez.

Rodriguez is known as one of the game's greatest catchers, having won 13 gold gloves for defensive excellence along with seven Silver Slugger awards for his hitting power. Over the course of his 18-year career, he has got 2605 hits, 524 doubles, 295 homers, 1217 RBI, and 1253 runs. He's got a career .339 on-base percentage with a.457 slugging percentage and a career .301 batting average. He was the 1999 American League MVP, and he was the 2003 MVP of the National League Championship Series.

He split last season between the Detroit Tigers and the New York Yankees, where he hit a disappointing .276 with 110 hits, 20 doubles, 7 homers, and 55 RBI in 115 games with only a .319 on-base percentage and a .394 slugging percentage. It was partly because of those stats, and rumors of alleged steroid use, that Rodriguez went so far into spring training without signing a contract...

As for the steroid rumors... so what? The way the team and fans have embraced Miguel Tejada shows that nobody really gives a damn about players using steroids. And Rodriguez is a far superior player to Tejada, and always has been.

Why no positive for 'boli' (primobolan) in MLB testing for A-Rod?

Newsday wonders why Alex Rodriquez who admitted to using primobolan for at least 3 years, did not test positive for the anabolic steroid?

The MLB and MLB Players Association agreed to the 'screening' test in 2003.  As we know Sports Illustrated found credible information that A-Rod was among those players who tested positive.  However, according to the Mitchell Report, no MLB player tipped the scales with primobolan.

On Feb. 17, Alex Rodriguez held a news conference at the Yankees' spring training complex in Tampa intending to set the record straight about his steroid use, which had been reported by Sports Illustrated the previous week.

Nearly a month later, many of the questions raised by the original story have been answered...

If A-Rod really was taking Primobolan from 2001 to 2003, why didn't he test positive for that specific drug during the random survey in 2003? There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. Baseball needs to provide it...

...according to a breakdown of the drugs the players tested positive for in the 2003 survey released along with the Mitchell Report, not a single player tested positive for Primobolan.

According to the breakdown that was made public, 73 players tested positive for nandrolone, a hardcore oil-based injectable steroid also known as Deca-Durabolin; 26 for stanozolol, also known as Winstrol; eight for elevated levels of testosterone; five for boldenone, also known as Equipoise; three for methandrostenolone, or Dianabol, and one for clenbuterol, technically not a steroid at all but a bronchodilator used by athletes to cut fat.

Interetesting that no player tested positive for primobolan.  Also interesting that only 8 players tested positive for 'elevated testosterone'  Do we have any information that MLB looked at T:E ratios?  Onlny 8 positive for the most popular PED?

Consider A-Rod himself: Does this cast credibility on his story... or the man responsible for the testing?

Right now, baseball does its own in-house testing, by a lab contracted to work for Major League Baseball, and all results are evaluated by one man, Dr. Bryan Smith, who of course is paid by Major League Baseball.

(Dr. Smith also is the man who signed off on 106 therapeutic exemptions for players diagnosed with ADD, allowing them to use drugs such as Ritalin, a powerful stimulant, without penalty.)

This is not to impugn the integrity of any of those entities or individuals, simply to ask how much more reliable the data coming from them would be if the testing were administered by an entity entirely independent of the people it is testing.

Evidence of performance enhancing drugs on Clemens personal syringes?

We missed the past few days, busy with various public presentations.  Here is a Fox story out yesterday: 

Federal investigators involved in the Roger Clemens perjury probe have found performance- enhancing drugs on syringes, vials and gauze pads provided by his former trainer, The New York Times reported.

The revelations could help the case of ex-trainer Brian McNamee, who has told federal agents, baseball investigator George Mitchell and a House of Representatives committee that he injected Clemens more than a dozen times with steroids and the human growth hormone from 1998-2001.

Clemens has been accused of lying to Congress last year, when he said under oath that he never used steroids or H.G.H.

Clemens’ attorney, Rusty Hardin, said he wasn’t shocked by the findings.

"Duh," Hardin told the Times. "Do you really think McNamee was going to fabricate this stuff and not make sure there were substances on there? The fact is Roger never used steroids or H.G.H."

That's why you hire those high priced lawyers: to stand with you in thick-muscled and thin-skinned.  Is this H.G.H. to pump you to Notorious B.I.G.?

This really isn't news, but more keeping this story breathing.  So what was on those syringes?  Vitamin B shots?

"Hell yeah" Ex-Met Darryl Strawberry would have juiced with steroids

Former Met slugger Darryl Strawberry commented that he would have juiced, given the opportunity.  In an admission that sets the tone for ethics in sports, Strawberry's comments are found here:

Alex Rodriguez regrets that he took steroids. Darryl Strawberry wishes that he had. Or at least had the opportunity to try them. That's what the outspoken Strawberry revealed yesterday when asked if he would have chosen to inject the forbidden performance-enhancing drugs.

"Hell yeah, I would have used them," Strawberry said. "Are you kidding me? I mean, come on. We're competitive creatures and we have tremendous drive, high tolerance, all these things. I'm not saying that was the right thing to do. But if that was going on in the '80s, that probably would have been in my system, too. I wouldn't have denied it because you guys know I don't deny anything."

Strawberry also seems to have overlooked the fact that A-Rod was outed, and didn't step forward to admit he drug-cheated.  He also could have added that the use of illegal drugs is clearly problematic in the MLB.

"I love Alex and respect him, and I'm glad Alex was man enough to stand up and tell the truth about it," Strawberry said. "But I have a hard time with the union when one player out of 104 players' names comes out and it's Alex Rodriguez - on testing that was done that was supposed to be confidential.

Strawberry, arrested multiple times for various crimes, illegal drugs, impaired driving, and other vagaries, does not appear to be the poster child for clean living in sports.  Good thing the Mets are giving Strawberry exposure to their young players.

Will A-Rod's donations lead to way to increased funding for the Hooton anti-steroid effort?

This Houston Chronicle carries a story on Don Hooton's effort at educating youngsters on the dangers of steroids and PEDs.  The Taylor Hooton Foundation from Plano TX received a nice donation from Alex Rodriguez following his steroids admissions.

THe Hooton Foundation often draws the ire of bodybuilders for being anti-steroid, however the foundation's effort target youngsters.  There would be universal aggreement that adolescents should not be exposed to the drugs.

Don Hooton doesn't buy the notion that Alex Rodriguez is damaged goods in corporate America.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

The suburban Dallas father whose son's suicide was linked to steroid use started the Taylor Hooton Foundation to honor the 17-year-old's memory and try to fill what he saw as a void in educating youth on the dangers of performance-enhancing drugs.

Fundraising has been modest, and the list of athletes joining Hooton's cause is short. Hooton believes both could change after he attended Rodriguez's first news conference since the New York Yankees third baseman admitted using performance enhancers from 2001-03. Rodriguez, an 11-time All-Star, used that forum two weeks ago in Florida to announce his intention to help Hooton's foundation.

Hooton is hoping Rodriguez can give his foundation access to corporate sponsors it hasn't had before. He is unfazed by derisive alternatives to Rodriguez's iconic nickname, A-Rod, or that the steroids admission meant Rodriguez lied in a nationally televised interview in 2007.

"If you ever went ... to Gamblers Anonymous and were going to take a lesson, you don't go to the guy that's never gambled," Hooton said. "If you think back to the last five or six years, who would you reach out to? Who is clean? At least we're dealing with a known quantity here. And certainly just from notoriety and visibility, we could not have found a better player, I think, to associate with..."

More on the Taylor Hooton Foundation after the jump...

Anti-Steroid, anti-doping crusader and IRS agent Jeff Novitzky under the spotlight

ABC News posts a story on the journey of IRS agent Jeff Novitzky, who once tried out for Lute Olson at Arizona basketball, as he crusades against steroids and  doping and some say too zealously Barry Bonds.

The story starts in a California courtroom where Novitzky participated in the BALCO trial of Victor Conte.  And it will continue in the same courtroom:

Sometime in the next few months, Jeff Novitzky will walk back into the same 10th floor courtroom, raise his right hand and swear to tell the truth in the case of the United States v. Barry Lamar Bonds. He will say that Bonds lied in that same courthouse five years ago when he told the grand jury he never knowingly took steroids. And then he'll wait for the jury to decide if baseball's home run king was telling the truth.

But no matter what the jury decides -- and face it, most of us have already made up our minds about Bonds -- it is clear that the detective and his gun has replaced the scientist and his test tube. What isn't clear is whether Jeff Novitzky is part of the solution -- or if he's now the bigger part of the problem. 

Novitzky's early life was highlighted by the Olson connection:

There is nothing about Novitzky's life before Balco that suggests a man destined to direct the biggest investigation in sports history. Or one who would crave or abuse power. He grew up the son of a Bay Area hoops coach, a basketball and track star who still owns the San Mateo County high jump record of 7 feet. Coming out of high school in 1985, he tried out for Lute Olson's Arizona University basketball team. When he fell short, Novitzky returned home to play backup forward and teammate to his big brother at San Jose State.

His athletic career over, Novitzky got a degree in accounting and took a job in San Jose with the IRS's criminal division, a select group of agents who use tax laws and their guns to bust up all sorts of criminal operations.

After the jump we examine more of the extended story on Novitzky...

HGH a growth industry in the Dominican Republic

The Caribbean is getting slammed today about PED suspicions.  In line with that, the New York Daily News reports the HGH can be scored in the DR, perhaps easier scored there than in the USA.

Hardcore steroids aren't the only drugs easily obtainable in the Dominican Republic. Human growth hormone - baseball's scarlet letter - is available on the black market in Santo Domingo, in Dominican supplement shops and even in the island's pharmacies.

Sometimes even without a prescription.

Baseball banned HGH before the 2005 season, but does not test players for the substance as there continues to be debate on the reliability of an HGH blood test. The league's current drug testing program uses urine samples only, and HGH cannot be detected in urine. Doping experts believe HGH use among athletes, particularly baseball players, has increased in recent years since a reliable HGH test has yet to be adopted in all sports.

Interest in the Dominican increased when A-Rod said his cousin smuggled in some Primobolan for the slugger's use.  HGH may also be scored in the DR:

Most steroids are legal in the Dominican, and last week a Daily News reporter was able to buy testosterone enanthate, a syringe and the oral steroid Dianabol at a pharmacy there without a prescription.

Human growth hormone is only legal in the Dominican Republic with a prescription, according to Milton Pinedo, the president of the Dominican Federation of Sports Medicine and a member of the Dominican Olympic Committee.

"By law, you need a prescription to obtain growth hormone here," Pinedo told the Daily News Thursday. "But a lot of the time you can get it without a prescription."

Pinedo said that he did not think HGH use in the Dominican was as big a problem as steroid use.

Several Dominican pharmacies contacted by The News Thursday, including the chain Farmax, said they do not sell HGH. One Farmax employee said HGH can be bought at health clinics with a doctor's prescription, and that HGH is generally prescribed for "extreme medical conditions," such as AIDS wasting.

But two other Dominican sources said HGH is easily accessible - in bodegas where milk, rice and food are also sold, or in supplement stores that sell a wide variety of performance-enhancing drugs. One source said that walking into any Dominican gym will yield whatever drug an individual desires.

HGH is not cheap, however. A bodybuilder who sold a News reporter a 10-cc vial of Primobolan last week in Santo Domingo - the same steroid that A-Rod tested positive for in 2003 and that he allegedly used during 2001-03 - said that a supply of HGH would run 20,000 pesos, or $571. That amount is good for five injections. The 10-cc vial of Primobolan - good for two injections in a week - costs approximately $95.

Ex-White Sox player Ron Kittle says Jose Canseco should watch his back

Ron Kittle, an ex-Rookie of the Year for the Chicago White Sox expresses his fears for the health and safety of steroid user/singer Joe Canseco.  Touching,and perhaps true.  True as steroid supplier to the NFL, bodybuilders, and the police David Jacobs found out in Plano TX (possibly whacked).

The Chicago Tribune tells the tale:

Former White Sox slugger Ron Kittle says he fears for the safety of steroids whistle-blower Jose Canseco.

Canseco, an admitted steroid abuser, was chastised when his first book came out in 2005 linking several big-name players to performance-enhancing drugs. Subsequent revelations impugning the likes of Rafael Palmeiro, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez have vindicated him.

"My first thought was: 'I wonder who's going to be the first one to shoot him,' " Kittle said Monday. "I still think somebody who might have had their life ruined might take vengeance on him. If I were [Canseco], I would think about that.

"That's how I look at things. Maybe it's the wrong way, but I think in [bad] economic times when kids are exposed to it and they get to the big leagues to make the money, they will do [steroids]. But it's the wrong path. It's a quick fix."

Canseco, Kittle said, crossed a line when he chose to expose others.

"There is a sign in just about every clubhouse: 'What you see here, what you say here, let it stay here when you leave here,' " he said.

Wow, interesting warning.  As with track, cycling, and football, the code of silence that keeps player's mouths shut and the syringes active.  Did Kittle, a decent slugger ever use 'roids:

Kittle, the American League Rookie of the Year in 1983, said he was never tempted to take steroids.

"I knew it was accessible," he said. "I had known about [steroids] for years. When I broke my neck in the minors, I saw people using stuff like that to get their health back into shape.

"But I was more scared of my father than I was of anything else. I thought that if I did something stupid, my father would probably take my life away anyway."

Kittle knows the tell-tale signs of juicers:

"I could pretty much tell who had been on [steroids]," he said. "You can tell by their complexion, their temperament and their size. One year you take a picture of them and the next year it looks  like a before-and-after. It's not a thing to hide. But it is unfortunate that it has been brought out in the open like this. It is damaging to MLB. And it is damaging to the people who played in MLB."

A-Rod extras: Does this ever stop?

Like Roger Clemens before him, R-Rod might learn that being in the media spotlight is not good.  All kinds of stories coming out:

The Winnipeg Free Press tries to wrap things up on A-Rod.

 Say what you will about Alex Rodriguez -- call him A-Roid or A-Fraud -- but what the Yankees slugger has been doing since his hands were caught in the steroid jar promises to be a fascinating experiment of human sociology.

The Baltimore Sun says MLB is interested in A-Rod's buddies including Angel Presinal.

Primobolan in not OTC (over-the-counter) says the Dominican Republican via the Miami Hertald.

An official in the Dominican Republic is disputing one of Alex Rodriguez's statements in his news conference Tuesday, ESPN Deportes reported Friday.

Rodriguez said earlier this week in Tampa that he and his cousin, Yuri Sucart, purchased an over-the-counter drug, which he identified as ''boli,'' from a pharmacy in the Dominican Republic between 2001 and 2003. But Primobolan, one of the drugs that Rodriguez reportedly tested positive for, is not available for legal purchase with a prescription in the Dominican Republic, ESPN Deportes said. The network quoted Pia Veras, who oversees the agency that regulates pharmaceutical drugs in the Dominican Republic.

''What Alex Rodriguez stated in the press conference doesn't make sense,'' Veras said. ``It is important for us to clarify that such substance has not been registered, and is not currently registered for legal sale in Dominican pharmacies -- not now, and the same applies for the years 2001 to 2003.''

Yankees continue on doping binge: trainer Lopez III once busted for steroids

Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez, Andy Pettitte...appears the New York Yankees are solidly alone at the top of the baseball dope heap.  And this:  A 'former' Yankee trainer in Florida was arrested for a dope and steroid stash in 2002.  Here is the story from Bob's Blitz:

He's the son of Yankees senior vice president Felix Lopez, Felix Manuel Lopez III. Is this what the Yankees refer to as the Tampa Connection?

Isn't it just time to have MLB close up Yankee Steroidium?

Felix the 3rd was sent home after senior management learned of his arrest.

The Yankees claim that he was never employed by the Yanks and he was told by his dad to stop showing up at the minor league complex.

He was charged with trafficking in illegal drugs and possession of controlled substance, approximately 10 vials of liquid steroids and released on 20,000 bond.

According to the arrest record filed with the Tampa Police Department, police obtained several bottles and vials of steroids as well as two boxes with six bottles of the drug GBL when they raided Lopez III’s Tampa apartment on Sept. 18, 2002. His police report lists him at the time of booking as 30 years old and as 6'3" 260lbs. Charge: TRAFFICKING IN ILLEGAL DRUGS 28 GRAM OR M
He listed his employer as...Metro Flex Gym. What, were the Yankees running a Steroids Business on the side?

Go long on the Yankees after the jump...

Alex Rodriguez -- A-Rod -- tight with steroids/doping tainted sports trainer Angel Presinal

This isn't good news for A-Rod fans.  If fact one wonders why the press didn't uncover the relationship between A-Rod, his 'roided cousin Yuri Sucart, and infamous juiced-trainer Angel Presinal.  However, the New York Daily News now links the tainted trainer with the tainted Yankee slugger.

Embattled Yankee Alex Rodriguez has had a long relationship with a steroid-linked trainer who's been banned from major league clubhouses, four independent sources told the Daily News.

Angel Presinal, who was banned from private areas of every MLB ballpark after an October 2001 incident involving an unmarked gym bag full of steroids, has been tight with the Yankee slugger dating back to his time with the Texas Rangers, several sources said.

A former New York-area scout says Presinal, whose named surfaced in the Mitchell Report, was with Rodriguez in New York and Miami as recently as this past fall.

MLB has warned players to stay away from him.

Presinal who carries a big stick in Dominican sports, made ESPN in 2007:

Presinal has been a persona non grata around the majors since an October 2001 incident in which he and former two-time American League MVP Juan Gonzalez, then Presinal's top client, were connected to an unmarked bag discovered by Canadian Border Service agents at the Toronto airport. The bag had come off a Cleveland Indians charter flight and, according to a New York Daily News story last summer, contained anabolic steroids and hypodermic needles. Gonzalez, an outfielder with the Indians at the time, told Canadian Border Service agents that the bag belonged to Presinal. Presinal disputes that it contained steroids, but contends the gym bag and everything in it belonged to Gonzalez. Canadian authorities never filed charges against either the player or the trainer, but rumors about the incident have festered throughout baseball ever since.

Continued after the jump...

San Francisco judge bars positive steroid drug tests in Barry Bonds trial

Judge Susan Illston barred federal prosecutors from introducing 3 positive blood tests in Barry Bonds perjury trial to begin later this year.  The AP reports this story.  (New York Times story here)

Evidence in court must adhere to rules unique to courtrooms, and good for that.  However, the judge cannot banish those positive tests from the minds of baseball fans and Hall of Fame voters, where Barry Bonds really lives...tainted forever.  (BTW Bonds is looking pretty old in the photo)

A federal judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors cannot show jurors three positive steroid tests and other key evidence in the slugger's trial next month.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said the urine samples that tested positive for steroids are inadmissible because prosecutors cannot prove conclusively that they belong to Bonds. The judge also barred prosecutors from showing jurors so-called doping calendars that Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, allegedly maintained for the slugger.

The judge said prosecutors need direct testimony from Anderson to introduce such evidence. Anderson's attorney said the trainer will refuse to testify at Bonds' trial even though he is likely to be sent to prison on contempt of court charges.

However the judge did not bar us from continuing the story after the jump...

A-Rod cousin down in Miami: Pressed flat, Alex Rodriguez's cousin uncovered in Miami

Trying to recover after the ritual 'under-the-bus-throwing' A-Rod's cousin appears to be alive and well, and not talking in Miami.  Forty-six year-old Yuri Sucart survived his ordeal, however is now mum (until the big money draws him out).  Sporting News carries the story:

The cousin who New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez said helped inject him with performance-enhancing drugs is living in Miami with his family.

ESPN.com reported Wednesday night that cousin is Yuri Sucart, 46. Sucart's wife, Carmen, confirmed to the website that her husband was the person about whom Rodriguez was speaking on Tuesday. But neither she nor her husband wished to discuss what Rodriguez said.

"I told you my husband has nothing to say," Carmen Sucart told a reporter who visited the Sucart residence Wednesday. "What A-Rod said at the press conference happened and that is all."

The website reported that a man who answered Sucart's cell phone Wednesday said Sucart wasn't there and asked a reporter to call back in 30 minutes. That follow-up call went to voicemail, the website reported.

Rodriguez told reporters Tuesday that a cousin, now known to be Sucart, supplied him with "boli," an "energy booster," after purchasing it over the counter in the Dominican Republic. Rodriguez said he used the "boli" from 2001-2003 while with the Texas Rangers. Doping experts, however, believe Sucart supplied Rodriguez with a steroid named Primobolan.

Sports Illustrated reported Feb. 7 that Rodriguez tested positive for Primobolan in 2003.

ESPN also reported that Yuri Sucart has followed Rodriguez around during the early part of Rodriguez's career, first to Seattle, then to Texas.

"Yuri was a mule, not a guy who would initiate anything," ESPN quoted whom it said was a friend once close to Rodriguez. "He did what Alex told him to. He was only looking out for Alex. He is not a guy who would take the initiative to go out and buy drugs. Alex said during the press conference that his cousin just did what he was asked -- that is perfect for Yuri's MO."

Seems like the press can track down anyone these days.  Can the press verify that A-Rod and his Cous really thought that Primobolan was a mundane over-the-counter injectable drug for weight gain only?

New witnesses to be called in Barry Bonds BALCO trial, including Patroit linebacker Izzo

The Los Angeles Times delineates the list of potential witnesses in the Federal case against Barry Bonds for lying to the San Francisco Grand Jury about PED use.  A few new names surfaced including Marvin Benard, and football player Larry Izzo.

The government's perjury and obstruction of justice case against Barry Bonds includes plans to call witnesses who will testify that they saw the slugger "being injected" and heard him make statements "admitting his use of steroids," according to court filings Friday in San Francisco.

Among its 39 witnesses, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Northern California said it would call upon "the defendant's mistress," Kimberly Bell, former personal assistants and former teammates Bobby Estalella, Benito Santiago, Armando Rios and Marvin Benard, as well as other major league players...

Syringes, human growth hormone vials and documents pertaining to other athletes with connections to Anderson, including Estalella, Santiago, Jason and Jeremy Giambi and New England Patriots linebacker Larry Izzo, are on the government's exhibits list.

The Feds will also present relatively embarrassing testimony from Bonds's ex-girlfriend Kimberly Bell:

In its filing, the government said Bell "will testify that the defendant told her that he was taking steroids prior to the 2000 baseball season. [She] will further testify to personal observations regarding changes in the defendant's body [beginning in 2000] . . . including bloating, acne on the shoulders and back, hair loss and testicle shrinkage," which prosecution experts will testify is indicative of steroid use.

We could do without some of the images that paragraph invokes.

University of Miami (Motto: "Great is the Truth") names baseball stadium "A-Roid Park"

Joining a group of institutions apparently selling naming rights of parks, stadiums, domes, streets, and back alleys, the University of Miami baseball team will be really pumped up (so to speak) when they take the field at A-Roid Alex Rodriguez Park this season.  The university motto is Magna est veritas which means "Great is the truth".  Appropriate to name a baseball park after a player who lied for years about PED and steroid use.

The Miami-raised slugger grew up in the shadows of the park in Miami, which he indicated at the dedication last night in South Florida.   As the New York Daily News points out, A-Rod joked about his recent steroid confessions; we never would have guessed his contriteness would last less than 48 hours now.

Alex Rodriguez's campaign for forgiveness could have begun Friday night. He stood before the most forgiving audience he could get - one that greeted him with a standing ovation - but he made no apology to his fans for cheating them and the game by taking steroids.

For the most part, really, he just made jokes. 

More after the jump

Federal prosecutors to inject surprise witness in Bonds trial: Says she saw Bonds inject

Federal prosecutors say they will produce a witness who saw Greg Anderson inject some boost into Barry Bonds.  The contents of that boost may not matter, but the injection may , as the Feds charge Bonds with lying to a Grand Jury.  Other witnesses, including some ex-baseball teammates of the Giant slugger will also be called to the witness stand.  They all should be on their best behavior, without lies.  To the New York Times:

Federal prosecutors said on Friday that they planned to call Barry Bonds’s former personal shopper at his perjury trial next month to testify that she saw Bonds being injected by Greg Anderson, his trainer.

Kathy Hoskins, the former personal shopper, is the sister of Steve Hoskins, a childhood friend and former business manager of Bonds’s and a person expected to be a key witness against him at trial.

The disclosure, in a pretrial filing by the prosecution, did not say what Kathy Hoskins thought Bonds was being injected with. But that may not matter. In the government’s indictment of Bonds, it said that Bonds lied when he testified before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative in 2003 that he was never injected by anyone other than his own doctors.

Kathy Hoskins “will further testify that she observed interactions between the defendant and Greg Anderson,” the filing said, “including Anderson giving the defendant an injection.”

The trial, slated for March 2, will also produce Giant players like Benito Santiago, and the ever present Jason Giambi:

The filing by the prosecutors listed current and former baseball players — including Jason Giambi, his brother Jeremy and Benito Santiago — who will testify about how they received performance-enhancing drugs from Anderson. The prosecutors said that Bobby Estalella, who played with Bonds on the San Francisco Giants in 2000 and 2001, will testify that Bonds admitted to him that he was using performance-enhancing drugs.

Hoskins, however, was a surprise to the press.

But it was the new information about Kathy Hoskins that was the most surprising development in the filing. Last week, the prosecution was set back when United States District Judge Susan Illston indicated she was inclined to throw out several pieces of evidence against Bonds, including positive steroid tests and doping calendars that the prosecution believes link him to drug use.

But Kathy Hoskins’s testimony underscores that the government is also accusing Bonds of perjury for denying that anyone but doctors injected him.

We would suggest Hoskins watch her back the next few weeks...

Maybe steroids do cause emotional instability: Madonna irked at A-Rod's flight to ex-wife

It appears the entire lot of these people take steroids because each day is some new emotional roller-coaster.  Madonna (we need to shower after typing that name) reportedly went roid rage when she found out A-Rod spent time with his wife, following the steroid story revelations, and didn't run for her steady guidance.

As the San Francisco Examiner tells us:

Even though she’s been spotted stepping out with hottie Brazilian model Jesus Lux, Madonna is reportedly not at all happy that rumored flame Alex Rodriguez is spending time with ex-wife Cynthia in Miami.

“Madge is pissed!” an inside source tells the New York Daily News. After the steroids scandal broke, “Alex ran right home to Cynthia, and to Madonna, this is the ultimate dis.”

“But Alex’s handlers want to make sure he’s as far from Madonna as possible,” the source explains. “He has enough negative publicity as it is.” (Gee, we hadn’t heard.)

Madonna might be mad at the story continuing after the jump too...

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig mulling A-Rod suspension and record book modification

In almost unheard thoughtfulness, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said to USA Today (via NBC News) that he will consider suspending newly admitted juicer A-Rod -- Alex Rodriguez -- and will also consider modifying the baseball record books to account for the widespread use of steroids and PEDs.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig on Wednesday left open the possibility of punishing New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez for using performance-enhancing drugs. Selig also said he might consider amending the record book to acknowledge steroids use by players.

Selig told USA Today in a telephone interview he "would have to think about" taking action against Rodriguez, saying the player broke the law by using PEDs. Selig refused to be specific about possible penalties, and he indicated a decision would not be made quickly.

The MLB Player's Association executive Don Fehr brushed off the reports (of course).  The Yankees, likewise, will ignore A-Rods steroid confession; The Yanks desperately need his bat.

Donald Fehr, the association's executive director, told USA Today he was not expecting Selig to take any action. "I would be surprised if there was an attempt to do it," the newspaper quoted Fehr as saying. "I don't know anything about that."

The Yankees have said they would not discipline Rodriguez.

On the issue of changing the records, Selig said he would look into the possibility of reinstating Hank Aaron -- a personal friend -- as No. 1 on the all-time home run list and attach asterisks or some other note to the records of players involved in steroids use. "Once you start tinkering, you can create more problems," USA Today quoted Selig as saying. "But I'm not dismissing it. I'm concerned. I'd like to get some more evidence."

Miguel Tejada to admit to lying: Tejada tatakes taguilty taplea about telying to teCongress

When Miguel Tajada told Congress he didn't know a thing about steroids and PEDs last year, he was as truthful as he appears to be about his age: Not.  This could jeopardize Tejada's 13 million dollar Baltimore Oriole payroll scheduled for 2009.

Today Tejada will plead guilty to lying in front of Congress, which is not generally considered a hit.  To the Baltimore Sun:

Former Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada is expected to plead guilty in U.S. District Court in Washington this morning to a charge that he lied to congressional investigators about illegal performance-enhancing drugs -- telling them he knew nothing though he had discussed steroids with an Oakland Athletics

According to a criminal information document filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia yesterday, Tejada provided "misrepresentations" to staffers from the congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Aug. 26, 2005. It was part of the perjury investigation of former Oriole Rafael Palmeiro.

The document in the misdemeanor charge can be filed only with the consent of the defendant, meaning Tejada likely has reached an agreement with prosecutors and subsequently is expected to enter a guilty plea before U.S. Magistrate Alan Kay at 11 a.m. today.

The document filing came one day after Major League Baseball was rocked with another steroid scandal when New York Yankees superstar third baseman Alex Rodriguez admitted to ESPN that he took illegal performance enhancers for three years while with the Texas Rangers.

TaStory continues after Tajump...