Tag: MLB steroids (Page 2 of 5)

      The difference between MLB and NFL players when it comes to steroids

      May 19, 2010 /

      When it comes to speaking his mind about the differences between how MLB and NFL players are treated when it comes to steroids, Astros’ first baseman Lance Berkman hits the nail on the head.

      From the Houston Chronicle:

      “I will say that what will be interesting will be the reaction, because generally when that happens to a football player, it’s kind of ho-hum,” Berkman said. “They’ll write a story and he’ll serve his four games and nobody will ever say anything else about it.

      “If that happens to a baseball player, they’d want to strike him from the record book. It’s just a totally, totally different reaction, and I don’t know why that is.”

      Here’s my theory: Football is just more popular than baseball is, so people have a tendency to give NFL players more leniency.

      Fantasy baseball isn’t as popular as fantasy football and the NFL has a clear advantage over MLB when it comes to gambling.

      There are only 16 games in football, so fans live and die on every play. There are 162 games in baseball, so fans could essentially miss an entire week of action and it still might not even matter in the grand scheme of things.

      People love football. They crave it. They want to see their favorite players in uniform and if one of them screws up, all they usually care about is how many games he’ll miss before he’s back on the field. When a baseball player screws up, the games he misses won’t necessarily have a barring on how the team does (look at Manny Ramirez’s suspension last year), so fans are more likely to get their moral handbooks out when passing judgment.

      It’s not fair, but that’s just the way it is.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      External Sports, MLB, NFL

      Eric Gagne admits to taking HGH

      February 22, 2010 /

      Another baseball player has decided to come clean about his use of performance enhancing drugs during his playing career, as reliever Eric Gagne admitted to Los Angeles Times’ columnist T.J. Simers on Monday that he used HGH in the past.

      “Why did you use HGH?” I ask, and he says, “I didn’t.”

      But he knows better. He and I have had a long relationship; he’s the guy who introduced me to a children’s hospital. Heart and guts, the great intimidator, eight innings of splendid work by his teammates riding on his work and almost never disappointing. How could he?

      “You were using HGH, weren’t you?”

      “I did,” he says. “I hate to talk about it. It just doesn’t do anyone any good. But I thought it would help me get better when I hurt my knee. I just don’t want that to sound as an excuse.

      “I’m so ashamed. It wasn’t smart. If I knew what I know now. . . . I didn’t need it. I regret it so much, just now maybe getting over the guilt. It was stupid.”

      It’s great that more players are coming clean about their drug use, but where were these guys when the Mitchell Report was released? I realize the names on that list weren’t supposed to be made public, but once they were it would have been nice if more players admitted their use instead of denying it.

      I could be wrong, but I don’t think fans are as mad about the drug use as they are about being lied to. Don’t get me wrong, fans are still pissed that players like Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds broke records while juicing. But what gnaws at fans more than anything is that these players denied using drugs, only to admit later that they were using. I realize that people tell lies because they think they won’t come back to haunt them, but these players should have just admitted their use when they were caught the first time.

      As for Gagne, his admission isn’t a surprise. His name was on the Mitchell Report, so it isn’t shocking to hear him admit that he was using. Good for him for coming clean, although he’s no better than any other player for admitting that they used after they originally denied it. Still, he gets credit for coming forward when many others refuse to do so.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      MLB

      Dealer claims McGwire used to get bigger

      January 23, 2010 /

      Curtis Wenzlaff, a former trainer convicted of dealing steroids and who says he supplied Mark McGwire with performance-enhancing drugs in the late 80s, told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” that Big Mac’s goal was to get “bigger, faster, stronger” from taking roids.

      Wenzlaff also delivered the quote of the week when speaking on the subject:

      “Will it help you hit a baseball?” Wenzlaff said. “Let me put it to you this way. If Paris Hilton was to take that array, she could run over Dick Butkus.”

      When asked for his reaction to McGwire’s claim that he only took steroids to stay healthy enough to play, Wenzlaff said: “I chuckled. If excelling and kicking ass on the field is the end result I guess that’s a healthy, good feeling. But for health, there are other things you can take for health that are anabolic, but it wouldn’t be that type of combination.”

      When asked about McGwire’s goal for taking the array of steroids he recommended and provided to McGwire, Wenzlaff said, “As anybody — bigger, faster, stronger.”

      Shocking.

      See, this is my problem with McGwire. He came “clean,” yet he still lied while doing so. He must honestly think that the general public is incredibly stupid and naïve. I would have had more respect for him if he came out and said:

      “I’m ashamed – I took steroids and I want to come clean.”

      “Why did you take steroids, Mr. McGwire?”

      “Because they gave me big muscles and I wanted to hit as many home runs before my career was finished.”

      He’d still be a cheater, but at least people could have respected him more for telling the truth. Now he just looks like a cheater and an idiot for thinking that he could get away with telling everyone he used drugs for health reasons. I’m not suggesting that everyone should buy into what Wenzlaff is saying, but it’s a joke to think that McGwire didn’t use riods to bulk up and smash 550-foot moonshots out of Busch Stadium.

      MLB

      Ortiz address media, says he never buys or uses steroids

      August 8, 2009 /

      David Ortiz addressed the media about his positive PED test from 2003 on Saturday and stated that he never buys or uses steroids.

      From ESPN.com:

      “I definitely was a little bit careless back in those days when I was buying supplements and vitamins over the counter — legal supplements, legal vitamins over the counter — but I never buy steroids or use steroids,” Ortiz said during a news conference that began about 3½ hours before his Boston Red Sox played the New York Yankees.

      “I never thought that buying supplements and vitamins, it was going to hurt anybody’s feelings.”

      If you replace “vitamins and supplements” with “flax seed oil,” then Ortiz essentially did the same thing Bonds did in that he attributed the positive test results to over-the-counter supplements and not anabolic steroids.

      This may sound like I’m defending Big Papi, but maybe he really did take an over-the-counter supplement or something like Androstenedione, which is banned now, but wasn’t in 2003. Some people like to group supplements like testosterone boosters in with anabolic steroids and there is a massive difference between the two in terms of the effect they can have on your body. We don’t know what Ortiz took, so it’s not really fair to speculate until more details come out (if they ever do, that is).

      It’s not surprising that Ortiz didn’t reveal much in the press conference. Don’t forget that these test results were supposed to be confidential and therefore Ortiz was probably legally bound from providing too much detail.

      That said, it would have been nice if he admitted what he took, especially if he’s telling the truth about never taking steroids. He could have gotten on the podium and said, “I took Supplement X, Y and Z” and at least gained a little respect from his detractors. But since he didn’t reveal anything, many fans will go onto believe that he disgraced the game by cheating.

      The sad part is that we may never know what these guys took.

      MLB

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