Steroids

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.

INDIANAPOLIS -- The adults talked of steroids and EastGermans, of world records and Olympic medals. But the 15-year-old wearing the Birkenstock sandals, wool socks and blue sweat suit just wanted to go back to sleep."

If you want to know why baseball put up with sluggers like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa getting big as sequoias while rewriting the record books, just turn on the TV this season. When they show game highlights on ESPN's Sportcenter or the 11 o'clock news, what do you see? It's not some skinny second baseman laying down a sacrifice bunt. It's not the 180-pound lead-off hitter roping a nice, clean single to left field. No, it's big guys with rippling muscles smacking home runs deep into the night and strutting around the bases as the crowd goes wild.

Only once since the report came out this spring has Texas Rangers outfielder/infielder Jerry Hairston Jr. been heckled by a fan about his alleged connection to performance-enhancing drugs. "I was in Toronto and I was on deck and a fan yelled at me, `Hey Hairston, if you are on steroids, you need to get your money back,' " recalled Hairston, who has hit .254 with two home runs in his first 67 at-bats this season. "That was kind of funny." In fact, being associated with steroids would be funny for the easygoing Hairston, he said, if the ramifications weren't so serious.

We're inundated with roaring headlines about athletes using performance-enhancing drugs in the major leagues, the NFL, the Olympics, the Tour de France and even high school sports, but what about college football? There's barely a whisper, much less a roar. Something is wrong with that. Are we supposed to believe that football jocks inclined to juicing do so before they get to college and after they reach the pros, but not while on campus? Please. Rumors of widespread steroid use have dogged the college game for years.

Sammy Sosa hit homer No. 600 Wednesday night, and I smiled. Cheering would be over the top. A scowl and hollow feeling, which comes just thinking about the number 756, would be too much. Hypocritical? A little. Maybe not as much as you think. Here's the shorthand: Barry Bonds: Evil. Mark McGwire: Coward. Rafael Palmeiro: Apparent perjurer. Hmmm, Sosa? A likable phony, sure. A cheater, demonstrably; remember the corked bat from 2003? A steroids user? Maybe. Probably. Don't know for sure.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Baltimore -- using an undercover agent with a sophisticated knowledge of chemistry and a bodybuilder's physique -- said it has smashed an organization that trafficked in large amounts of black- market steroids smuggled from Mexico.Use of the drugs by athletes, bodybuilders and even teen-agers to gain size and strength has increased sharply in recent years despite serious health risks and a recent federal law banning possession without a prescription.

When that slugger clears the wall with a majestic home run or when that bruising defensive end plows into the quarterback, the fan jumps to his feet, high-fives a buddy or lets loose a whoop. Here's what the typical fan doesn't do: worry that the athlete involved had taken steroids. Moralists can wail that our sports are being ruined by steroids and other performance-enhancing substances, but they need to get off their high horses and just sit down in front of the wide-screen television.

He could have been the "before" picture in a Charles Atlas bodybuilding ad."I was the little guy who always got laughed at, pushed around, when I was a kid," said the man, who was charged Wednesday as a principal in what U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials described as a nationwide black-market steroids business that was smashed by a DEA task force based in Baltimore.The suspect, who has agreed to cooperate with authorities, asked that his name not be published. In turn, he agreed to discuss his use of steroids and the damaging effect the performance-enhancing drugs have on competitors he has known on the amateur bodybuilding circuit.

Steve Courson is used to battling 290-pound linemen. He did it for 13 years with the University of South Carolina, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.But now Courson is battling his toughest opponent -- heart disease -- and is using his experience with steroids to educate high school athletes, especially football players, who might be .. tempted to use steroids.Courson, who retired from the NFL in 1985, is suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy, a weakened heart muscle, a condition he blames on the combination of alcohol and steroids.