Steroids

Court documents show Barry Bonds tested positive for three types of steroids, and his personal trainer once told his business manager in the San Francisco Giants' clubhouse how he injected the slugger with performance-enhancing drugs "all over the place." Prosecutors plan to use those 2000-2003 test results and other evidence, detailed in documents released yesterday, at Bonds' trial next month to show he lied when he told a federal grand jury in December 2003 that he never knowingly used steroids.

News item: The Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers meet Thursday night in a renewal of one of the NFL's greatest rivalries, but two-thirds of American homes will not get the game because of a dispute between the NFL Network and the major cable providers. My take: It'll be a great night to own a sports bar. I'll have the chicken fingers, the nachos, the mini-burgers, two orders of jalapeno poppers and a Diet Coke. News item: Disgraced track star Marion Jones was stripped of all her victories since September 2000 and ordered by the International Association of Athletics Federation to repay $700,000 in winnings.

Former Sen. George Mitchell urged baseball owners yesterday to cooperate with his investigation into players' steroid use, saying Congress might force witnesses to testify later if they don't do so voluntarily now. "I believe it will be in your best interests, and the best interests of baseball, if I can report that I have received full cooperation from your organizations, and from others, in conducting this investigation," Mitchell said in prepared remarks...

A day after it was reported that a group investigating steroid use in baseball is seeking medical records of several former Orioles, experts in the field acknowledged that it is highly possible that standard records wouldn't show evidence of the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Gary I. Wadler, one of the world's leading authorities on drug use in sports, allowed that under routine screening, it would be unusual to find telltale signs of steroids, unless the individual was "somebody in their 20s, an athlete, very fit, with a high red [blood]

At 5 feet 9 and 175 pounds, he is among the smallest players linked to performance-enhancing drugs by the Mitchell Report. Small in stature, but not in significance. The Orioles were recurring characters in the 409-page report. Of the 80-plus players outed in the report, 19 had passed through the Orioles' clubhouse and were linked to performance-enhancing drugs with varying degrees of evidence. But of all the accused, it's Brian Roberts' case that best illustrates all that was wrong with the Mitchell investigation.

Former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell may not have hit a home run with last week's report on the illegal use of steroids and other performance-enhancing substances by Major League Baseball players, but he at least swatted a line-drive single. The report has its flaws: Mr. Mitchell had no subpoena power, and most players refused to participate, maintaining what the report terms "baseball's clubhouse `code of silence.'" A good chunk of the report relies on phone and mail records, canceled checks or assertions from two nonplaying employees, a former clubhouse attendant with the New York Mets and a former strength coach with the New York Yankees.

It's a story that never seems to go away. Steroids. Steroids. Steroids. If former Sen. George Mitchell, who has been conducting an investigation backed by millions of dollars from Major League Baseball, has something, he'd better get it out there pronto. Because Barry Bonds is going to break Hank Aaron's all-time home run record soon, and it will be in the books. Asterisk or no asterisk. It will count. Maybe it won't be recognized by baseball purists, those who believe that anyone who has been found to use steroids or has come under suspicion should be stricken from public consciousness.

When his record-setting clout against the Washington Nationals landed around midnight Eastern time Tuesday, San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds officially became baseball's reigning home run king. But hours, days, maybe years after Bonds' 756th home run reached the AT&T Park seats, questions about the validity of Bonds' accomplishments - and really, of any of those who played in the recent, so-called steroids era - will continue to linger. "I don't know how we are going to look at it or what's going to come out of this decade.

One thing every Baseball Hall of Fame voter seems to agree on is this: We all wish Mark McGwire were not on the ballot this year. It's too soon. None of us has any perspective about McGwire's career or the careers of any of those 1990s baseball players who put up astonishing numbers and probably injected illegal steroids. What will history say about this era in baseball? We can only guess now. But McGwire is on the Hall of Fame ballot this year, so choices must be made. Like many, I've tossed and turned about McGwire (this is, I believe, the 2,483rd McGwire column written in America this month)

Nashville, Tenn. -- One of the unseen benefits of holding Major League Baseball's winter meetings last week at the gigantic Opryland Resort is that there was plenty of space to accommodate the elephant in the middle of every meeting room. Perhaps as soon as midweek, the result of the independent investigation of performance-enhancing drug use in baseball - dubbed the Mitchell Report after lead investigator and former Sen. George Mitchell - will be released. Baseball is holding its collective breath while assuming dozens of current and former players will be implicated, creating further embarrassment for a sport that has been entangled in steroid controversies for most of the decade.

Not to be overly cynical, but what message, exactly, were the students of Milford Mill Academy supposed to take away from Tuesday's surprise anti-steroid talk by the New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez? He came to the school to discourage students from taking steroids by sharing his story, which goes something like this: From 2001-2003, starting just after signing a contract with the Texas Rangers that made him the highest-paid player in the history of Major League Baseball, Mr. Rodriguez took steroids.

New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez made an unexpected visit to 500 students at a Baltimore County school to deliver an anti-steroid message Tuesday, months after admitting publicly that he used performance-enhancing drugs earlier in his career. At the time of his admission, Rodriguez vowed to turn his past transgressions into a positive lesson for young athletes, and he appears to be attempting to uphold that promise by discreetly speaking to select students this season. It's part of the agreement, however, that the talks not be covered by the news media.

His legacy clouded by the fallout from baseball's steroid era, Major League Baseball Players Association head Donald Fehr is leaving his position. After adding to the success that Marvin Miller had in negotiating one-sided labor contracts with the fractious group of MLB owners, Fehr more notably has been dragged alongside commissioner Bud Selig to a string of congressional hearings into steroids throughout much of the past two decades. Fehr did not give a specific reason for his decision to resign Monday, saying only it was time to move on. "I don't know if it's fair to say I've lost my taste for it," Fehr said in a conference call with reporters.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - -Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. has known New York Yankees All-Star Alex Rodriguez for 16 years, but the two have not spoken since Rodriguez admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers. But when they do, he has one question. "I really want to know why," Ripken told the audience at the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County's Men's Night Out banquet Thursday. "I'm going to make it my business to find out." Ripken avoided the topic of steroids during his 40-minute speech but was later asked about baseball's black eye. "The steroid era really puts a dark cloud over baseball," Ripken said.

News item: The new book about to hit the shelves by Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Roberts portrays Alex Rodriguez as a guy who took steroids in high school and tipped pitches to opposing hitters in the hope they would reciprocate and help him pad his stats. My take: After all those steroids, you would think the guy wouldn't need any more padding. News item: Former Oriole Kevin Millar, sporting the goatee he was not allowed to grow in Baltimore, drove in three runs in the Toronto Blue Jays' 8-4 victory over the Orioles on Friday night at Rogers Centre.

Here's Jim Palmer, in Baltimore for an eye exam, then stopping by the radio station before heading back to Florida, where spring training is about to begin. The Orioles' legend turned 63 last fall, and he's a grandfather now. He's still tall, lean, tanned and handsome, keeping himself in good shape long after the end of a Hall of Fame career in which he established himself as one of baseball's greatest pitchers - without the help of anabolic steroids. "Anti-inflammatories," Mr. Palmer says when, during an hourlong conversation on WYPR, I ask him to list substances that players of the pre-steroidal era used to keep themselves going.

WASHINGTON -Former Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada issued a tearful apology at a news conference in Houston yesterday, hours after he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of misleading Congress regarding his knowledge of steroid use in major league baseball. "I made a mistake, and now I know how serious a mistake I made," Tejada said, according to the Houston Chronicle. "I take responsibility, and I'm very sorry for what happened." Tejada took no questions during the news conference at Minute Maid Park.

He did not do it just once. Alex Rodriguez admitted yesterday that he used performance-enhancing substances for the three years before baseball initiated steroid tests in which violators would be identified and suspended. "I was stupid for three years," Rodriguez told ESPN. Two days after Sports Illustrated revealed Rodriguez had tested positive for steroids in 2003, Rodriguez said he took performance-enhancing drugs upon joining the Texas Rangers in 2001, citing the "enormous amount of pressure" that accompanied his then-record $252 million contract with the club.

Court documents show Barry Bonds tested positive for three types of steroids, and his personal trainer once told his business manager in the San Francisco Giants' clubhouse how he injected the slugger with performance-enhancing drugs "all over the place." Prosecutors plan to use those 2000-2003 test results and other evidence, detailed in documents released yesterday, at Bonds' trial next month to show he lied when he told a federal grand jury in December 2003 that he never knowingly used steroids.

Report: Brother says McGwire used steroids baseball Mark McGwire's youngest brother says in a book proposal that he injected the former baseball star with steroids, according to Deadspin.com. Jay McGwire is circulating a manuscript titled The McGwire Family Secret: The Truth about Steroids, a Slugger and Ultimate Redemption, the Web site reported Wednesday. Jay McGwire, a bodybuilder, said his brother started using steroids in 1994 and that he injected Mark with Deca-Durabolin. Mark McGwire has denied using illegal performance-enhancing drugs.