Former baseball player Darryl Strawberry admits he would have eagerly used anabolic steroids if they had been readily available during the 1980s in Major League Baseball. In a rare display of honesty from a pro athlete on the topic of steroids, Strawberry acknowledges the appeal of steroids to highly competitive athletes (”Strawberry says he would have taken steroids,” March 3).
“Hell yeah, I would have used them. Are you kidding me? I mean, come on. We’re competitive creatures and we have tremendous drive, high tolerance, all these things. I’m not saying that was the right thing to do. But if that was going on in the ’80s, that probably would have been in my system, too. I wouldn’t have denied it because you guys know I don’t deny anything.”
If Strawberry had not been consumed with self-destructive addictions that derailed his career perhaps he would have been more focused on behaviors that would have actually enhanced his performance e.g. anabolic steroids.
Ironically, Darryl Strawberry will probably not be judged as harshly as contemporary MLB players who have, either through admission or implication, been linked to performance enhancing drugs. Strawberry’s numerous off-field transgressions involving his cocaine addiction, sexual escapades, and spousal abuse did not improve his performance on the field; therefore, the general public and baseball fans who decry athletes of the so-called steroid era of baseball are not as offended by Strawberry’s misdeeds. A history of substance abuse, domestic violence involving various women including a pregnant woman, failure to pay child support are one thing but the use of steroids apparently represents an unforgiveable violation that forever tarnishes a player’s reputation. Read more
Steroid hysteria is presented at its finest in ESPN Columnist Howard Bryant’s book on the anabolic steroids in baseball scandal entitled “Juicing the Game
Howard Bryant’s attempt to weave a narrative out of his passion for baseball and the obviously foreign world of steroids could have benefitted from considerable more steroid research. But only an exceptional writer like Howard Bryant could create such masterfully written steroid hysteria with such disturbingly false information as follows.
Despite the disagreement, virtually all doctors, Crusaders or not, could agree that anabolic steroids were lethal to the human system. They were certain that some of the more powerful steroids, such as Deca-durabolin, Winstrol, and stanozolol, were major threats to the heart, the liver, and the kidneys. Deca-durabolin, for example, was a particularly nasty steroid that had been in use among weightlifters since the 1960s. Users of the powerful yet lethal drug were highly susceptible to kidney malfunction and liver and pituitary tumors. To Robert Cantu, the noted Boston neurosurgeon who specialized in catastrophic sports injury, athletes were involved in a high-stakes poker game, in which the odds were against them and the risks were chilling. While most people knew that steroids could cause sterility, Cantu believed it to be less known that the drugs could affect the reproductive systems of a user’s children and grandchildren. That athletes were now willing to risk the future health of their unborn children for a big payday raised the stakes even further. (emphasis added)
There’s a great article in the Washington Post about the latest round of Congressional hearings on the steroids in baseball issue. It is written by the guys at Reason website and is critical of Congress’ interference in the business of a private sports league.
The uncomfortable truth is that illegally obtained muscle-rebuilding treatments exist on a continuum that includes laser eye surgery, Vitamin B-12 shots and Tommy John surgery (a procedure that grafts ligaments from knees or elsewhere onto a wrecked elbow, frequently giving pitchers more velocity than they had before). Sorting out the morality and legality of self-improvement has more to do with aesthetic revulsion and moral panic than with considered science or logic.
In other words, it’s not remotely a job for Congress.
Ha ha. It is obvious by the selection of steroid experts by Congress that they are not interested in any serious scientific discussion about anabolic steroids. Congressional leaders are content to remain woefully ignorant about steroids.
Source: Washington Post
Jose Caseco is writing “Vindicated,” a new book about anabolic steroids in baseball. It is the sequel to the bestselling book “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ’Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big” that ignited the steroids in baseball scandal. It has sorta become a historical document in baseball for its role in baseball’s steroid scandal. Canseco claims he will include information about additional baseball players, such as Alex Rodriguez and likely Roger Clemens, not included in his original expose of steroid use. Canseco identified several professional baseball players as users of anabolic steroids in Juiced including Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro, Iván Rodríguez, and Juan González.
The new steroid book, scheduled to be released on Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season, was originally to be co-authored by former Sports Illustrated reporter Don Yaeger. He was the ghostwriter for Canseco’s Juiced. After Yaeger took a look at Canseco’s materials, he quit the project telling the NY Daily News:
I’m passing… I had a chance to review the Jose Canseco (material) that he provided me. I don’t think there’s a book there. I don’t know what they’re going to do. I don’t think he’s got what he claims to have, certainly doesn’t have what he claims to have on A-Rod… There’s no meat on the bones.
Officially, the publisher has diplomatically cited “editorial delays” as the reason for not publishing the book.
By mutual agreement with José Canseco, we have decided not to publish his book ‘Vindicated…’ After much consideration, we have agreed to part ways due to editorial delays that made it impossible to maintain our original publishing schedule.
So, Jose Canseco has been forced to changed publishers and find a new ghostwriter selecting Pablo F. Fenjves, a former National Enquirer writer; Fenjves was the ghostwriter for O.J. Simpson’s book outlining how he would have killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/sports/baseball/17canseco.html?ref=baseball
