Who's next? Report Links Byrd to HGH

no one is innocent...tell me you don't want to do some...to quote a bodybuilding buddy of mine, "its the ultimate fountain of youth"

Baseball Steroid Era, is a graphic database of players who are linked to the use or purchase of Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED).  It had 59 names, now it will have 60.  After the Mitchell Report comes out it will probably have over a hundred.  You'll notice Buddy's son on that list.

http://www.baseballssteroidera.com/

Not everyone was doing steroids.  A medical researcher at the University of Iowa has his own blog which he maintains tracking the use of PED's in all sports, as well as the social and health problems they cause.  His work pretty well agrees with the theory that juicing was widespread in baseball but far from normal.  The figure Cansaco used was about 15%.  I keep seeing things that make me think that probably is accurate.  Which means players who were cheating were facing clean players about five out of six times.

http://grg51.typepad.com/steroid_nation/

Dr. Gaffney has noticed two epicenters of abuse:

The 2004 Orioles:

"Dan Connelly -- Sun reporter -- documents a diamond-full of 2003-4 Oriole players who stand implicated in steroid/HGH: Raffy Palmeiro, Gary Matthews Jr., David Segui, Jay Gibbons, Jason Grimsley, Brian Roberts, Sammy Sosa, Tony Saunders, and Miguel Tijada."

...and Scott Boras:

Boras stable of star studs houses a couple of juicers; the GMs are starting to get skittish about signing known 'roiders.

But after two Boras clients, St. Louis' Rick Ankiel and the Mets' Scott Schoeneweis, showed up on the client list of Signature Pharmacy as having received human growth hormone, and, in Schoeneweis' case, steroids, several executives say they will look twice at a Boras client, no matter who it is.

"Absolutely," one GM says. "He talks about how involved he is with their lives - how could he not have known?"

Yep, performance enhancing drugs linked to two of the ugliest things in all baseball.  Scott Boras' creepy control of his client's life decisions and,... the Baltimore Orioles.

Here is a great report by a physicist which confirms that players taking performance enhancers should increase their homerun totals by about 50%.

I have read about how much people who use PED's benefit from them.  They allow users to work harder and longer, get stronger, heal more quickly, emotionally feel a lift, etc.  The thing is these feelings last only a few years.  The side effects of PED are uncontrollable rage, impotence, degradation of cartilage (early arthritis in back and knees in particular), dependency, infected abscesses caused by fluid pooling under the skin, - all which lead to shortened careers punctuated with a crippled body.  

Plus buying these drugs without a prescription is illegal, so there is the whole criminal justice system as another potential side effect.  And finally, it turns out the distribution of PEDs is controlled by organized criminal enterprises who buy their product from illegal Chinese "labs."  People who buy steroids are giving their money to organized criminals and receiving a product that will poison them immediately (you can't imagine the Chinese labs have very high quality control standards for their smuggled illegal drugs) or slowly.  

I really want this culture shut down because I know PhattStairs is right, a lot of high school and college kids use the drugs.  These kids have only the slimiest chance to benefit from them as professional athletes have, but they all will receive the same side effects.  When I see a pretty good NCAA baseball player who has a dream of making it into MLB, but I know that no matter how hard he tries he is likely to top out in the low- to mid-minors, I know this is the type of person who might give in and made a bad decision.  Someone like Rowdy Hardy.  Screw Barry Bonds and the other stars who used.  Let them sulk over their piles of money and mumble about getting no respect.  They ought to own up so they can play a role in bringing this whole culture to and end before more kids screw up their lives.

OK, That post was too long.  Sorry, I do have a lot of opinions on this issue.  Maybe it is because of my connection with NCAA baseball.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO