Joseph Dion, currently a Miami-based personal trainer, told two Sports Illustrated reporters that he was the individual identified as “Max” in Jose Canseco’s book Vindicated. Canseco claimed that Max was a steroid dealer who provided baseball player Alex Rodriguez with steroids.
Dion has refuted Canseco’s claims and told Sports Illustrated that he is completely anti-steroid (”The man behind the Max,” April 18).
“That’s really, really funny because I am the one person that hates steroids,” Dion said. “I’m against it 100 percent. And, A-Rod, at the time that I trained him — and this I swear to God — was 100 percent against steroids. He was one of the hardest working guys, and most natural guy, that I’ve met in my life. He hated steroids. We talked about it.”
It remains to be seen how this latest revelation will affect the steroid witch hunt in baseball. Federal investigators are scheduled to meet with Jose Canseco on Tuesday to discuss steroids in baseball; investigators are expected to ask Canseco about Joseph Dion, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens, and other Major League Baseball players.
When he meets with investigators on Tuesday, he could be in a vulnerable position, said Daniel C. Richman, a professor of law at Columbia University and a former federal prosecutor.
“It sounds like the government is looking at Canseco as just a witness,” Richman said. “But a witness who proves uncooperative can easily turn into a subject or even a target if the government wants to push hard. And the range of statements that Canseco has already made in his book and to Congress will make it easier for investigators to pin him down, forcing him to either reaffirm past claims or explicitly deny them. He has far less wiggle room than witnesses who can fairly claim not to remember.”
In the case of Canseco, federal authorities are hoping that his unapologetic use of steroids will lead them not only to Max, but to other suppliers, according to the lawyer familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Canseco’s lawyer, Greg S. Emerson, plans to ask federal authorities for immunity so that Canseco does not risk incriminating himself. If a grand jury convenes in the Roger Clemens’ perjury case, Canseco may be subpoenaed to testify under oath.
New York Yankees baseball player Andy Pettitte allegedly obtained human growth hormone from his father who obtained it from Kelly Blair who may have obtained it from pro bodybuilder Craig Titus. It has yet to be determined where Craig Titus obtained the growth hormone. Former IFBB Pro bodybuilder Craig Titus has been in jail awaiting trial in the murder of his personal assistant
Kelly Blair is the owner of 1-on-1 Elite Personal Fitness in Pasadena, Texas. He attended Deer Park High School with Andy Pettite. Craig Titus is formerly from the Houston area.
According to the Craig Titus and Kelly Ryan Investigation website:
The Daily News reports some of the drugs came from steroid-user Craig Titus, a champion bodybuilder who is facing a murder trial in Nevada for the slaying of his former live-in assistant.
Kelly Blair is also allegedly linked to Roger Clemens son:
Also, Blair was reportedly seen working with Koby Clemens, the son of seven- time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens, who was involved in a heated congressional hearing this past week. However, the Daily News reports that Koby Clemens, who is now playing baseball in the minors, hasn’t been linked to any illicit activity at the gym.
I’m fundamentally against the use of state or federal taxpayer funds to finance drug testing for private sports leagues or to finance steroid testing for high school athletes. I am not necessarily against the idea of drug testing for high school athletes. But I am against the type of “feel-good” drug-testing policies that do little to eliminate the use of performance enhancing drugs by teenage athletes.
The Texas University Interscholastic League (UIL) selected the National Center for Drug Free Sport as the private company to administer the UIL Anabolic Steroid Testing Program mandated by Texas State Senate Bill 8. Texas is paying Drug Free Sport $5.6 million to administer steroid tests 40,000-50,000 high school athletes. According the UIL website:
The UIL has been directed to test a statistically significant number of student-athletes in grades 9-12 at approximately 30% of UIL member high schools. The selection process of schools and student-athletes will be random, and approximately 40,000-50,000 student athletes will be tested for anabolic steroids between this spring and the end of the 2008-09 school year.
UIL Assistant Director and Director of Athletics Charles Breithaupt believes Texas massive testing program should be a model for other states!
We look forward to working closely with Drug Free Sport in implementing a first-class steroid testing program that we feel will be a model for other states and organizations to follow.
Why don’t I think this will be effective?
(1) An average of only 3% of student-athletes will be tested each academic year. In 2006-2007 school year, 764,581 students participated in athletics which would be subject to steroid testing. While it may be statistically significant, will it significantly deter or reduce steroid use.
(2) Student-athletes in grades 9-12 are affected “regardless of sport, gender or participation level.” Performance enhancing drug use does not occur equally in all sports, all grades, all genders, and all levels. The likelihood of anabolic steroid use is overwhelmingly more likely in male, varsity level football and baseball. I’m sure there is steroid use by teenage girls and in sports Team Tennis, Cross Country, Volleyball, Swimming & Diving, Basketball, Soccer, Tennis, Golf, Track & Field, Softball. But by diluting the pool subject to testing to include both genders, all sports and freshman, junior varsity, and varsity athletes, it decreases the likelihood that male varsity football and baseball players will be tested, doing little to deter steroid use on the teams where it is most likely to occur.
(3) Less than 400 of the 1300 Texas high schools will be subject to steroid testing. In other words, 900 high schools or 70% of high school athletes will not be subject at all to random testing for anabolic steroids. It seems probable that information about schools that are tested and schools that are not tested will be readily disseminated.
(4) UIL officials are incompetent; they do not understand the concept of “surprise testing.” UIL spokeswoman Kim Rogers told the media:
In keeping with the element of surprise and random nature of the testing program, we are not announcing a starting date. If we did, then a student could know when to cycle off steroids or when to begin a new cycle.
Smart. Logical. But practically in the same breath, she revealed that steroid testing would begin:
…within the coming weeks.
And Patti Ohlendorf, vice president of legal affairs at the University of Texas, told the media that testing would begin in February. The media did their job and reported in newspapers across the state and across the country that testing would begin in a matter of days, weeks, and or in February, effectively telling high school athletes in Texas to “cycle off steroids” right now just in case.
(5) UIL is only testing for “anabolic steroids.” There is no drug testing program for amphetamines, ephedrine, and/or other stimulants, growth hormone, peptides, or other performance-enhancing drugs.
(6) It appears steroid testing will only occur during the academic school year. In other words, no testing in summer off-season.
Basically, the probabilities that this steroid testing program will be effective are low. This has nothing to do with the efficacy of the tests or the Center for Drug Free Sports (which I’m sure will competently administer the program and outlined in their contract).
At least it is better than New Jersey’s steroid testing program for high school athletes. New Jersey only tests athletes whose teams make it to “post-season” competition. Steroid tests are administered randomly to “athletes who have qualified for team or individual state championships.”
Talk about advance notice on when to cycle off anabolic steroids! And to think New Jersey wanted their steroid testing program to be a “model” for the country.
Steroid use by teenagers is a problem. But simply throwing money at the steroid problem will not fix it.
Roger Clemens attorney should be fired. Obviously, attorney Rusty Hardin must have devised the strategy used by Roger Clemens in his interview with Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes tonight. Brian McNamee’s attorney, Richard Emery, was spot on when he identified the likely legal strategy:
I think that this is a lawyers’ game, which allows him to try and attempt to say that McNamee didn’t know what he was injecting or that at least Clemens didn’t know what he was injecting.
Conceivably, this is a crafty legal strategy to suggest that Clemens received so many injections of substances that were NOT anabolic steroids, testosterone, or growth hormone, that there is a chance that McNamee and/or Clemens simply didn’t know what was injected.
Roger took bunches of his shots over his career, much the way racehorses do, unfortunately.
But from a public relations standpoint, this strategy is stupid. It is stupid for the attorney to make an analogy to a racehorse; it is stupid to have Clemens’ publicly outline the hypocrisy of drug use in major league baseball…
Clemens’ admission to injecting several performance-enhancing substances that were to help joints and/or mask pain pointed out the hypocrisy of selectively demonizing some performance enhancers while condoning others. Drugs that allow a baseball player to “mask pain” are arguably more dangerous than growth hormone use and even steroid use. Yet Clemens is proud to use these drugs to mask pain allowing him to continue playing and performing while injured.
Clemens admitted to regularly using Toradol, which is considerably more liver toxic than most oral anabolic steroids. Yet the dangerous liver toxicity of oral androgens is unacceptable, but the even more dangerous liver toxicity of Toradol (not to mention its use to mask pain to allow players to perform while injured) is perfectly acceptable.
The regular denials by athletes accused of using anabolic steroids and growth hormone has become relatively commonplace and quite boring. So, I didn’t expect much from Mike Wallace’s 60 Minutes interview of baseball player Roger Clemens (who was accused by trainer Brian McNamee of using testosterone and growth hormone in the Mitchell Report). But I was pleasantly surprised when Clemens offered “proof” that he never used steroids or GH. If he did use the alleged performance enhancing drugs…
He would have grown a “third ear out of his head”;
He would have been able to “pull a tractor with his teeth”;
His tendons would have “turned to dust”;
His body would have experienced a “breakdown”; and
He would have lost “flexibility”
Since none of these things happened, that must be proof positive that he never used steroids or growth hormone!!
The Mitchell Report acknowledged that current steroid education programs used by Major League Baseball that focus on the dangerous side effects of anabolic steroids are generally ineffective:
[T]hese health risks… generally will not deter a player from using these substances. This is because players who use or are considering using performance enhancing substances do not consider them dangerous if used properly. This view is reinforced when players see that other players who they know are using performance enhancing substances arc not experiencing the adverse health effects described in the educational materials.
With the widespread use of steroids by baseball players and the lack of significant negative side effects, it is not surprising that scare tactics using overstated and exaggerated dangers of steroids are unsuccessful at steroid prevention in baseball.
But Senator Mitchell’s proposed solution to restore credibility to steroid education programs seems like a disaster. The Mitchell Report proposes offering “education on alternative methods to achieve the same results.”
[W]hile it is important to educate players about the dangers of performance enhancing substances, it is just as important to educate them on how to achieve the same results through proper training, nutrition, and supplements that are legal and safe.
So, all baseball players need is a creative chemist who can discover or synthesize a legal supplement [that complies with Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA)] with steroid-like effects. This legal supplement will be considered safe since newly introduced supplements are assumed to be safe under DSHEA unless proven otherwise by the FDA.
And the baseball player will have a legal and safe supplement to use.
This is the recommendation of the Mitchell Report?
But isn’t that what started the whole steroids in baseball scandal? THG redux.
. Canseco says that baseball player Alex Rodriguez received steroids from “Max” (”
