It ain’t easy being a Yankee fan lately! The new (embarrassingly empty) Yankee stadium has turned home runs into a joke, who needs steroids when you play at the house that A-Roid ruined. And freakin’ Clemens, can’t this ex-Red Sox just shut up and go away? Speaking of ex-Sox, luckily Manny is back to being Manny for good ole Joe Torre to take some of the heat away. As you will see in our juiced up MLB roundup, it looks like the Sox may be bigger players in this never-ending steroid scandal. Only question now, who’s the next to be exposed?

Here’s your injection:

Baseball still allows the steroid DHEA

After the embarrassments before Congress and the public shaming and the cries for a clean game and the protestation that Major League Baseball is really, truly, swear-on-momma’s-grave trying to tidy its act, get this: a baseball player can still swallow a steroid with absolutely zero repercussions.

It’s true. There is a drug called dehydroepiandrosterone, better known as DHEA, and it’s legal in the United States and available at your friendly neighborhood meathead market….

The NFL, NBA, NCAA, NHL, Olympic doping programs saw through the political malarkey that allowed it to avoid the controlled-substance label of its testosterone-boosting cousin androstenedione, or andro. Baseball has 58 anabolic androgenic steroids on its prohibited list. DHEA is not one of them.

And while the inconsistency has always stood out, it was given relevancy last week when the San Diego Union-Tribune reported that Manny Ramirez’s(notes) representatives were prepared to appeal his suspension by citing DHEA use as the reason for elevated testosterone levels in his urine. [continue reading]

Ramirez’s excuse: We’ve heard it before

The Los Angeles Dodger says he took a drug he did not know was banned. True or not, the excuse adds to a lengthening line of equivocations from ballplayers suspected of doping.

… in a sport that has given us the simple eloquence of Lou Gehrig, who declared himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” to the endearing absurdities of Yogi Berra, the most memorable quotes of the modern game all have the ring of “the dog ate my homework.”

Pitcher Roger Clemens gave us lidocaine and B12 – a painkiller and a vitamin that he, somewhat curiously, decided to have injected into his buttocks. They were not steroids and human growth hormone, he insists, though his trainer now says they were.

Barry Bonds gave us flaxseed oil and rubbing balm, saying that’s what he thought his trainer was giving him for arthritis. It they were steroids, he didn’t know it, he told a federal grand jury in 2003. He is now preparing for a perjury trial.

Alex Rodriguez gave the world what appeared to be honesty: Yes, he said, he did use steroids – but only from 2001 to 2003. Tosh, says a soon-to-be-released book by the Sports Illustrated journalist who broke the news of the positive drug test in 2003. The book alleges Rodriguez continued taking them after he was traded to the New York Yankees and perhaps as early as high school.

Various reports suggest that the drug in question with Ramirez is hCG (human chorionic gonadotropin). Apparently, the only plausible medical reason that a man would take hCG is to increase his sperm count. Yahoo.com is reporting that a source close to Ramirez says the slugger took the drug for erectile dysfunction. [continue reading]

50 Better Ways Manny Ramirez Could’ve Blown $7.7 Million

* Give boob jobs to every Miss America contestant until 2031
* Give away 67 season tickets at Yankee Stadium to kids in his hometown of the Bronx
* Cryogenically preserve a 2-liter bottle of semen for 100 years
* Book Gov. Spitzer’s escort, Ashley Dupree for 7.12 straight years [continue reading]

An open letter to Roger Clemens

Dear Roger:

It’s me — your brain….

To begin with, wake the hell up and face reality. Nobody believes you. Literally, nobody. Not the media, not the fans, not even your former co-workers. The more you defend yourself, the guiltier you sound.

Did you hear the Mike & Mike tape from the other day? I’m being serious — did you listen to the tape? “I have our family has the history of heart conditions. My brother had a heart attack and as late 40s my step dad died of heart attack. I mean it would be suicidal.”

Roger! Your step dad — no biological relation!? Your brother Randy — who suffered from years of drug addiction!? Those are your examples of hereditary heart disease? [continue reading]

New Book - American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime

American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime is about much more than the downfall of a superstar. While the fascinating portrait of Clemens is certainly at the center of the action, the book takes us outside the white lines and inside the lives and dealings of sports executives, trainers, congressmen, lawyers, drug dealers, groupies, a porn star, and even a murderers”all of whom have ties to this saga. Four superb investigative journalists have spent years uncovering the truth, and at the heart of their investigation is a behind-the-scenes portrait of the maneuvering and strategies in the legal war between Clemens and his accuser, McNamee.

This compelling story is the strongest examination yet of the rise of illegal drugs in America’s favorite sport, the gym-rat culture in Texas that has played such an important role in spreading those drugs, and the way Congress has dealt with the entire issue. Andy Pettitte, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez, and Chuck Knoblauch are just a few of the other players whose moving and sometimes disturbing stories are illuminated here as well. The New York Daily News Sports Investigative Team has written the definitive book on corruption and the steroids era in Major League Baseball. In doing so, they have managed to dig beneath the disillusion and disappointment to give us a stirring look at heroes who all too often live unheroic shadow lives. [continue reading]

New Book - A-Rod: The Unnatural

A new biography presents a devastatingly unflattering portrait of the Yankees superstar….

[A-Rod's] return coincides with the publication of a new book—”A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez,” by Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts—that presents the most unflattering portrayal yet of the game’s highest-paid player.

Roberts is the SI writer who earlier this year broke the story that A-Rod had tested positive for steroids back in 2003. It led to a bizarre press conference in which he confessed to a youthful indiscretion of haphazard use of steroids during his three years with the Texas Rangers. Roberts now contends that Rodriguez is not only a cheat, but a liar, too. She writes that his use of performance-enhancing drugs in Texas was extensive and regimented, and that he may have used them as far back as high school and as recently as his tenure with the Yankees.

Nobody who has followed the perpetual soap opera that is A-Rod will be surprised by a portrayal of the Yankee slugger as an emotionally needy and narcissistic young man. In his memoir earlier this year, former Yankee manager Joe Torre covered much of the same ground, describing A-Rod as something of an emotional basket case. He saw Rodriguez as a “me-me” guy who—despite the money and awards lavished on him throughout his career—craves all the attention and winds up buckling under the weight of it.

What’s new and different in Roberts’s book is the devastatingly unflattering portrayal of A-Rod’s life beyond the baseball diamond. In Roberts’s view, he is not a remotely sympathetic figure, not simply a confused, immature and perhaps misguided man, but instead … well, kind of a crud. His sins, according to Roberts, are too numerous to list here. She characterizes him as a relentless womanizer who flaunted his infidelities; an overeager poker player who hung out in joints where he never should have been in the first place; a rude man (and often a crude one) with women; a stingy man, be it tipping a waitress or making donations through his charity foundation; a two-faced backstabber who, from Junior Griffey to Derek Jeter, resents more-popular teammates; and a man who has no real friends, only lackeys who shield him from inconvenience—from the smallest errand to the smallest fan. Oh, yeah, and he’s a slumlord to boot! [continue reading]

Rose supports A-Rod, loathes steroids

Pete Rose believes players who use steroids commit a transgression far worse than his admitted betting on the game, but Major League Baseball’s disgraced hit king said he’d back an admitted user like Alex Rodriguez for the Hall of Fame….

“I’m willing to give a guy a second chance,” Rose said in an interview on “The Dan Patrick Show.”…

“When you take steroids you have a direct outcome of the game,” Rose said. “That’s the integrity of the game. And when you can change records when you do something illegal, it’s just not right. … Baseball records are sacred. If you do something illegal to surpass those records, it’s just not good.”

Rose, however, considers Barry Bonds to be the all-time home run king because “he hit the home runs. … I don’t think anyone has proven that he took steroids.” [continue reading]

Did Red Sox teach players how to juice?

Former Red Sox infielder Lou Merloni has caused a bit of a storm lately with comments that the Red Sox taught players how to use steroids….

Merloni, an analyst on Comcast’s “The Baseball Show,” had this to say Saturday:

“I’m in spring training, and I got an 8:30-9:00 meeting in the morning,” said Merloni, who was in the Red Sox minor-league system from 1996-97 and played in the big leagues with them from 1998-2002.

“And 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 gonna 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.” [continue reading]

Here’s A Juicy Rumor For You: Word Is Another MLB Star Is Going To Get Busted For Steroids. Who Will It Be?

RotoInfo had this to say on their Twitter page today: “According to sources close MLB Lance Berkmans name has been floating around the commissioners office as a possible 50 game suspension looms.”

So, it sounds like someone is likely to get nailed for messing around with steroids real soon, and Berkman seems like the probably candidate. But what if it isn’t Berkman?

* Pujols? There have been questions about him for years.
* Big Papi? A suddenly huge decline in productivity. Did he get nabbed during spring training, and it’s messing with his mind?
* Carlos Quentin? Had an MVP-caliber year last year out of nowhere.

Let us know who you think it might be. If you guess right, you get a lifetime supply of HGH. [continue reading]

Scaring the Drug Cheats

The anti-doping crusaders may not yet be winning the war in sports. But at least now a lot more athletes have reason to worry.

Before any of us get too giddy, understand that these are but small victories—albeit involving some big names—in what has been a long, losing battle against epidemic use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes. Still, while the anti-drug forces may not have gained the upper hand, they have at least thrown a scare into the cheaters. And it could amount to far more than that if only the obstructionists would mimic the increasingly aggressive Olympic approach. [continue reading]

A-Rod, Manny detract from otherwise fascinating season

In light of Manny Ramirez using performance enhancing drugs, it makes me think, Are any superstars clean? I will lose my mind if Albert Pujols shows up on a list somewhere.
– Eric Greene, New York, NY

It’s fine to hope that superstars are clean, but the hard lesson from the revelations of Rodriguez and Ramirez is that it’s probably best not to get those hopes too high. Now that two of the game’s biggest names have been brought down, only months apart, baseball is short of two more players who are shining examples that players could still reach great heights through hard work and natural ability.

In some ways, Pujols might be the last great defender of the game. His numbers make him a lock for the Hall of Fame and his character and cleanliness have never been legitimately called into question. He’s already stated publicly and for the record that he has never used performance-enhancing drugs. Because of his status as the game’s premier slugger, the spotlight will always shine even brighter on him. For all the value of singles and doubles hitters, it is the great sluggers who will continue to generate the most excitement, and thus have the most potential to disappoint when their gargantuan blasts are found to have been chemically enhanced. [continue reading]

And to end the juiced up roundup, here’s the TRUE single-season home run king in action:

 Email This Post

---