Tag: Mark McGwire steroids (Page 3 of 4)

A-Rod speaks, says he and cousin injected each other with over the counter substance

February 17, 2009 /

At a press conference on Tuesday, Yankees’ third baseman Alex Rodriguez said in a prepared statement that from 2001 to 2003, he and a cousin used a substance available over the counter in the Dominican Republic and that it was known as “boli.”

“I didn’t think they were steroids,” he said. “That’s again part of being young and stupid. It was over the counter. It was pretty simple.”

“All these years I never thought I did anything wrong.”

He said he wasn’t sure how the drug use helped him, but admitted he had more energy.
Rodriguez said he has not used human growth hormone or any other banned drug since then. He refused to identify his cousin.

The three-time AL MVP and baseball’s highest-paid player spoke at the Yankees’ spring training camp 10 days after Sports Illustrated reported that he tested positive in 2003 for a pair of steroids during baseball’s anonymous survey in 2003. Two days after the story broke, Major League Baseball’s highest-paid player acknowledged that fact in an interview with ESPN.

For years, Rodriguez denied using performance-enhancing drugs. But SI reported he was on a list of 104 players who tested positive during baseball’s 2003 survey. SI identified the drugs causing the positive test as Primobolan and testosterone.

“We consulted no one and had no good reason to base that decision,” he said. “It was pretty evident that we didn’t know what we’re doing.”

Hey, A-Rod’s human – he makes mistakes just like everyone else. But I have a hard time fathoming that he injected something into his body that he believed was just an energy booster.

He’s a star athlete making millions of dollars, had a newborn baby on the way at the time and a wife. Forget the fact that he’s an athlete – as a man, shouldn’t he have gone to greater lengths to make sure that he wasn’t doing anything to harm himself or his family? It would be irresponsible if he or anyone else were out doing drugs with a child on the way and a family to take after. Considering he didn’t know what was going into his body, this situation is no different.

He hasn’t tried to hide from this situation and that’s commendable. He is taking his medicine and will continue to do so throughout the rest of his career. But to me, he still seems like he’s trying to snake out of this situation. He still seems like he’s trying to play the role of victim by writing this entire situation off by saying he was young, naïve and stupid.

Either way, as long as he’s not lying again, it’s over. He’s admitted his mistake and that’s more than Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmiero have done.

MLB

Can baseball be fixed?

February 13, 2009 /

Of course it can. We have hard evidence that the game has been fixed since the early ‘90s. Crooked players, crooked trainers, crooked owners, crooked general managers, and crooked lawyers have all contributed to turning America’s pastime into a racketeering enterprise. For the last 15 years, baseball fans have watched their game turn into a traveling sideshow. Before our very eyes, we’ve conceded that baseball will have that sort of WWE fantasy – the realization that while what we are watching at times is athletically amazing, it’s not altogether real.

This week, a video surfaced of WWE wrestler Chris Jericho punching a female fan who was antagonizing him. All this recent hullabaloo got me thinking about the relationship fans have with their favorite athletes. As witnessed in the video, while many attempted to get a picture with Jericho, a few passionately wanted to abuse him. They stupidly believed in a fabricated storyline and sought to attack the main instigator who was ruining their day. Essentially, they cared way too much about something that wasn’t even real.

Wrestlers are actors who work out, plain and simple. While they do display some degree of athleticism, that’s not why fans pile into the arena. They watch because of the engaging storylines written by failed Hollywood writers. Hey, this amalgam of fiction and sports did it for me as kid. However, other hobbies and becoming familiar with the female gender prevented my relationships with The Rock, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and The Undertaker from continuing. Nevertheless, I always hung on to baseball, even to this day. Unfortunately, I’ve watched my sport evolve into a form of sports entertainment, not unlike the WWE.

Baseball was the first sport I ever really loved. I played it. I collected the cards. I went to the Dodgers games. I stayed up late to watch Dan Patrick and Chris Berman on “Baseball Tonight.” I really loved it. Even then, I appreciated that I didn’t know anything personal about the players I admired. In my mind, they were all “good guys.” Now that I think about, the reason I was in awe of these athletes was because I was watching them perform things I couldn’t do. I couldn’t hit as far (Frank Thomas), I couldn’t throw as hard (Randy Johnson), and I sure as hell could never make that catch (Ken Griffey). At ten years old, something inside me couldn’t stand that they were better players than I was. What they were doing was real, and there was no way around it.

macThen it happened. Barry Bonds was accused of taking steroids and the game imploded. I could do what some of these guys were doing – I just needed to cheat. Then there were the Supreme Court hearings and the Mitchell Report. And Jose Canseco? What? Amidst all the two-stepping by those involved, Canseco has appeared to be the only constant source of truth. In doing so, he’s been blackballed from the game and created more enemies than he has home runs. I don’t care what you think about the guy, all of his claims have proven to be true. As I write this, a list of 103 players who took steroids in 2003 is out. Donald Fehr, the union chief of the MLBPA says that it’s unlikely that he will ever release this list. Call me crazy, but I respect Canseco for outing himself and others who contributed to tarnishing the game. Fehr, on the other hand, is protecting these criminals by not releasing their names. And they are criminals. If you used illegal methods at your job to generate a salary three to five times your actual worth, you would not be suspended three months without pay. You would immediately be fired and most likely be taken to court, tried as a criminal.

Suddenly, everybody in baseball is a bad guy. The game looks a lot more like Barry Bonds than Chase Utley, a lot more like Ty Cobb than Willie Mays. The good guy is gone. Hey may be there, but you’ll rarely hear about him because he isn’t putting up the bloated numbers, negotiating $25 million one-year contracts, or lying in front of a grand jury. Nope, you only hear about the bad guys. Sadly, what these individuals are doing is fake, so unreal in their performance and in the money they earn from it. They’re the wrestlers of baseball and they’ve been winning every match. Bud Selig is Vince McMahon, the one in charge whose negligence indirectly promotes the evil. And we’re just the fans who get punched in the face for caring too much about something that isn’t even real.

But it once was. Most of our readers most likely got into the sport before the early 90s, when players weren’t injecting themselves left and right. We got into the game simply because of its blueprint. We love the stats, the diving grab, the long ball, the uniforms, the stadiums, the broadcasters, and the rivalries. Most importantly, we love the 162-game season, because its constant loyalty never wavers like a girlfriend who’s still in community college and much too attractive for us. The game will be there in April, but also in October, unlike so many things in life.

Baseball can be fixed, my friends, and in a good way. While casual fans quit watching out of disgust and sponsors pull their support because of the negative association, the purists will remain because of this blueprint. Selig and the player’s union will have to rely on this stable base and build up from that. Here are my suggestions:

1. Officially ban any currently retired players associated with steroid use from the Hall of Fame. With what we know, this would include Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and Roger Clemens. Whether or not their stats before using are strong enough to encourage admission is not valid. They cheated, and if Pete Rose and “Shoeless” Jack Jackson are exempt, so are these guys.

2. As with all sports, statistics tell its history. Baseball purists are some of the most eccentric and passionate stat-heads around. To please them, any World Series championship team that contained a steroid-user shall receive an asterisk.

3. Bud Selig should force Player’s Union chief Donald Fehr to release the list of the remaining 103 players who tested positive for steroid use in 2003. Since Fehr is publicly holding evidence that incriminates certain individuals, I have no idea how the information hasn’t been made available.

4. The players on this list, and those mentioned in the Mitchell Report, are also banned from the Hall of Fame. All stats recorded during years of admitted or proven steroid use will contain an asterisk.

arod5. All active players that tested positive will be banned for the following season without pay. Their contracts would then start up again the season after. Therefore, if they were in the second year of a three-year contract, after their banned season, they would then commence being paid for the final year of their contract. Even though they’ll have been “laid off” for a year, I think they’ll be able to get by.

6. The popular notion revolving around this preceding idea is that their salaries should be donated to various charities. While that may be a good idea, I’m from the school of thought that selfishly believes baseball fans got incredibly screwed by all of this. With the money back in the owner’s hands, Selig shall order that they use it in a way that gives back to the fans. Three to five games during the seasons will be free to fans on a first-come, first-serve basis (season tickets holders keep theirs). There will be more “free days” such as Free Hot Dog Day, Free Nachos Day, etc. Lastly, ticket prices and concessions will be reduced by a figure both sides can agree on. What fans have been watching the past few years has been a hoax. With many of the big-earners suspended, owners will have less money to pay out. With ticket and concession prices slashed, the game should be fine economically. We’ve already seen that its TV ratings haven’t been affected.

It’s a long road ahead, I know. Let’s not forget that baseball has dealt with cheaters and liars in the past, just not at this disgusting level. While baseball purists will never forget, we will forgive because we want to. Unfortunately for Bud Selig, there aren’t enough baseball purists to pay his salary, let alone those of Manny Ramirez, CC Sabathia, and Mark Teixiera. The casual fans needs to tune in and they’re slowly beginning to stop. It’s not just time to come clean, it’s time for the league to take a well-deserved spanking from everybody who’s seen or been to a game in the last few years. We’ve earned it.

MLB

Strawberry has a book coming out…this should be good.

February 12, 2009 /

Instead of being a public advocate of the dangers of drugs and alcohol, former baseball star Darryl Strawberry has decided to write a book to gloat about how much cocaine and sex he had when he was a player.

Darryl StrawberryStrawberry has a new book coming out in April, and something tells me his ex-teammates aren’t going to appreciate the contents much. Strawberry’s claims about all the cocaine they did and the women they had sex with — sometimes during games — probably won’t sit well.

“We were the boys of summer. The drunk, speed-freak, sneaking-a-smoke boys of summer,” writes onetime home-run legend Darryl Strawberry in “Straw: Finding My Way,” out in April from Ecco. “[An] infamous rolling frat party . . . drinking, drugs, fights, gambling, groupies.”

Beer “was the foundation of our alcoholic lifestyle,” he writes. “We hauled around more Bud than the Clydesdales. The beer was just to get the party started and maybe take the edge off the speed and coke.”

The team’s mantra on the road, he writes, was to “tear up your best bars and nightclubs and take your finest women . . . The only hard part for us was choosing which hottie to take back to your hotel room. Lots of times you . . . picked two or three.”

Then there are these little tidbits about how the Mets would kill time between innings.

Although he doesn’t name names, Strawberry relates how team members picked out girls from the stands for quickies. He once watched a pitcher march a frisky fan to a private room for oral sex: “I was jealous. When I saw her heading back to her seat, I gave her a sign. She smiled, turned right back around, and met me in that same little room . . . I had to be quick and run back out on the field.”

Another time, “I was in the clubhouse, having one last quickie with this cute little Florida girl. Charlie Samuels, the equipment manager, came in and caught us. He just stood there shaking his head while I finished up.”

But, hey, at least they weren’t taking steroids right? That might give them a competitive advantage. All cocaine does is give you superhuman strength and help you ignore any pain you might be feeling. Steroids don’t do any of that.

Great point. So what’s worse, players that are all roided up or the ones who were all hopped up on cocaine and doing unpaid whores in between innings?

The majority of fans just shake their heads and move on when it comes to guys like Strawberry and Dwight Gooden doing cocaine. But Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire are “ruining the game we love” and should be despised. To me, whether morons like Strawberry and Gooden are doing cocaine or cheaters like A-Rod and Bonds are doing steroids, it’s all the same – they should be lumped up in the same category of players that have helped ruin baseball. (And no, I’m not naive to think that some players today aren’t doing hard drugs or the same things Strawberry was doing back in the day.)

If parents needed any more reason not to allow their kids to worship athletes, idiots like Strawberry should do the trick. Outside of guys like Kurt Warner, Warrick Dunn, Derek Jeter and a few others, I would highly stress parents to point their kids in another direction when it comes time for them to start having role models.

MLB

Is A-Rod pulling a fast one on everybody?

February 9, 2009 /

Let’s take a moment and reflect on this Alex Rodriguez-steroid situation for a moment, shall we? Let’s take a step back and really examine what has transpired over the past couple days.

On Saturday, SI.com ran a report that A-Rod tested positive for steroids when he was a member of the Rangers in 2003. The only response Rodriguez gave to the report was, “You’ll have to talk to the union” and “I’m not saying anything.”

That was smart – he might as well give himself some time to plan his next move before he started digging a deeper hole for himself.

So on Monday, A-Rod phones ESPN.com’s Peter Gammons and admit he did in fact use steroids and that SI.com’s report is true. (By the way, I find it kind of humorous that instead of going to SI.com, he went to ESPN since the former was the one that had a hand in outing him.)

“When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure, felt all the weight of the world on top of me to perform, and perform at a high level every day,” Rodriguez told ESPN’s Peter Gammons in an interview in Miami Beach, Fla. “Back then, [baseball] was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naïve. I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.

“I did take a banned substance. For that, I am very sorry and deeply regretful.”

“To be quite honest, I don’t know exactly what substance I was guilty of using,” Rodriguez said.

“Overall, I felt a tremendous pressure to play, and play really well” in Texas, the New York Yankees third baseman said. “I had just signed this enormous contract I felt like I needed something, a push, without over-investigating what I was taking, to get me to the next level.”

“It’s been a rough 15 months here for me,” Rodriguez said. “I was stupid for three years. I was very, very stupid.”

He also said: “The more honest we can all be, the quicker we can get baseball [back] to where it needs to be.”

There are a couple of things we can take from A-Rod’s discussion with Gammons and ESPN. One, regardless of what you think of him, Rodriguez has more balls than Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and every other player that knowingly took steroids and either denied it or tap danced around the subject in order to save face. He got caught red-handed and decided to fess up. If nothing else, I give him credit for stepping up and being a man about being caught.

But his argument that he didn’t know what substance he was guilty of using is complete bull.

Why do athletes continue to treat fans like brainless idiots? Some athletes hire professional chefs to cook their meals every day. Some athletes have professional trainers to construct detailed workout regimens for them every day. And some athletes have professional dieticians so they know what foods and supplements would be best for their bodies.

So we’re supposed to believe that athletes like A-Rod would spend money to hire all these people to help them live healthier lives, yet they don’t know what’s going into their bodies? Come on. I read the bottle of aspirin twice just to make sure I take the correct dosage when I have a headache. And these athletes are saying that they don’t what kind of steroid they were about to take and what kind of side effects could come with it? Not a chance.

Alex RodriguezPerhaps the bigger issue in A-Rod’s apology is what he used as an excuse. He talked about being “young”, “naïve” and “stupid” when he took steroids. He was 26 in 2003 – not 16. Anyone who has gone through their teenage years and their early twenties probably did some stupid shit for a variety of reasons, none of which were probably given much thought. But by your mid-20’s, you’re fully aware of every decision you make and you have come up with justification for doing it.

Rodriguez didn’t take steroids because he was young and naïve – he took steroids to gain an edge. He took steroids to make his game better, which is ridiculous when you think about it because he was already better than anyone in the league at the time. He knew exactly why he took what he took, and probably came to a rational decision as to why to do it. (Therefore the young and naïve bit doesn’t fly.)

One can’t help but wonder if this is all part of A-Rod’s plan to weasel out of this situation with minimal damage. He’s already not well liked around the league, but many of us were hoping that he would legitimize the home run record by breaking the mark after Barry Bonds stole it from Hank Aaron. We thought, “Well, A-Rod’s an ass but at least when he breaks the record that cheater Bonds won’t have it.”

So what does A-Rod do when he gets caught? Admit to it, knowing that he might save a little face and not have to endure the same public scrutiny that Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Palmero and Clemens did. After all, his own teammate Andy Pettitte came clean about using steroids and now you barely hear his name associated with those athletes that were caught using performance-enhancers.

A-Rod confessing that he did use steroids in 2003 is all well and good. But he also claims he hasn’t used steroids since then, yet if you look at pictures from 2003 until now, his body has changed all that much. The question now becomes: Did he just fess up to being caught so it would divert everyone’s attention away from the fact that he’s still on riods? If he did, he just hung himself in the court of public opinion. The American public loves to forgive and forget, but they won’t stand for being lied to twice.

Then again, maybe this is a pessimistic way of looking at this situation. Maybe Rodriguez truly did only take steroids for one year and has been clean ever since. Maybe his reasoning that he was young and naïve is a viable excuse. And maybe everyone should focus on the fact that he stepped forwarded and admitted his wrong doing instead of dragging the situation out further. When you look at how Bonds, McGwire, Clemens, Sosa and Palmeiro handled their respective situations, A-Rod looks like the poster child of for what to do when an athlete makes a mistake.

Either way, A-Rod better hope he knows what he’s doing because every step he makes from now until the end of his career will be reported and talked about in length. He’s not in Texas or Seattle anymore – he’s in New York. And that media has only begun to take aim on his situation.

MLB

Alex Rodriguez admits to using steroids

February 9, 2009 /

In the wake of this weekend’s SI.com report that claimed he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, Yankees’ third baseman Alex Rodriguez admitted to ESPN.com’s Peter Gammons that the report is in fact true.

His voice shaking at times, Alex Rodriguez met head-on allegations that he tested positive for steroids six years ago, telling ESPN on Monday that he did take performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers during a three-year period beginning in 2001.

“When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day,” Rodriguez told ESPN’s Peter Gammons in an interview in Miami Beach, Fla. “Back then, [baseball] was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naïve. I wanted to prove to everyone I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.

“I did take a banned substance. For that, I’m very sorry and deeply regretful.”

Sources who know about the testing results told SI that Rodriguez tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan, an anabolic steroid. In his ESPN interview, Rodriguez said he did not know exactly which substance or substances he had taken. In 2003, there were no penalties for a positive result.
“I am sorry for my Texas years,” the New York Yankees third baseman said. “I apologize to the fans of Texas.”

“The more honest we can all be, the quicker we can get baseball [back] to where it needs to be,” he said.

Rodriguez said he stopped taking substances after injuring himself at spring training in 2003 with the Rangers.

“It wasn’t a real dramatic day. I started experimenting with things that, today, are not legal,” he said, “that today are not accepted … ever since that incident happened, I realized that I don’t need any of it.”

Whether you like him or not, you have to admit Alex Rodriguez has more balls than Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and all of the other players that took performance-enhancing drugs and lied about it or danced around the topic. He got caught and fessed up and at the very least, we should be satisfied that he didn’t drag this situation out. Any player that knowingly took steroids and were caught should follow A-Rod’s lead because if there is one thing we’re know for in America, it’s forgiving and moving on.

That said, A-Rod better be telling the truth that his Yankee years have be clean. There’s nothing worse than admitting your mistake only to lie again. And one can’t help but wonder if he’s just using the “I was naive” excuse to dodge more bullets. He was 26 in 2001, it’s not like he was a 20-year-old kid who was pressured into taking steroids.

MLB

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