Jose Canseco wants to work with Major League Baseball to teach high school athletes about the dangers of anabolic steroids. Canseco is sending a proposal letter to the MLB describing the role he could play in the elimination of steroids from baseball (”Canseco offers assistance to baseball, union on steroid issue,” February 10).
“I think I have the ear of the nation now,” Canseco said Tuesday. “I think everyone realizes I have not in any way, shape or form tried to create smoke and mirrors like Major League Baseball has and the players have. I have been excruciatingly honest about what’s going on in baseball.”
Canseco’s attorney, Dennis Holahan, said he was sending a letter to Fehr and Gene Orza, the union’s chief operating officer, offering the former slugger’s assistance. Canseco, who has admitted using steroids, offered few specifics about what he planned to discuss in his proposed joint meeting, other than he was concerned about the “welfare of baseball.”
“The goal is to come up with a plan to rid baseball of steroids once and for all,” Holahan said.
Jose Canseco identified numerous MLB players as steroid users in his books “Juiced” and “Vindicated.” Initially, the allegations were dismissed. But in the years since the publication of Canseco’s books, practically all of the accused have either admitted to using steroids and/or been implicated by various steroid investigations.
Alex Rodriguez or A-Rod recently admitted using steroids earlier in his career further increasing Jose Canseco’s steroid-user-identification credibility. Nonetheless, few people believe Canseco would be an effective steroid education spokesperson in high schools. One reader compared it to hiring “Louis Farrakhan to help ease racial tensions,” “Ken Lay as a corporate ethics consultant” or “Keith Richards as a substance abuse counselor”.
J.C. Romero of the Philadelphia Philles and Sergio Mitre of the New York Yankees have both tested positive for androstenedione, an anabolic steroid under the Major League Baseball (MLB) drug policy. The Major League Players Association (MLPA), Romero and Mitre all claim the positive steroid test resulted from the respective ingestion of the dietary supplements 6-OXO by Ergopharm and Halodrol Liquigels by Gaspari Nutrition purchased from GNC. The players allege that 6-OXO and Halodrol were contaminated with androstenedione which was not disclosed on the label. Androstenedione has been prohibited by MLB since 2004.
There are two glaring problems with their androstenedione defense. The first problem is that 6-OXO itself, as an “aromatase inhibitor”, appears to be banned by the MLB anway, not to mention WADA. The second problem is that neither of the supplements are actually contaminated with androstenedione. The MLBPA, Romero and Mitre are, purposefully or unintentionally, deceiving the public in order to save face and appear innocent. The erroneous claim that 6-OXO contains androstenedione is based on the assumption that if 6-OXO produces the same urinary metabolites as androstenedione then it most contain androstenedione. This is false … Read the rest of this entry »
The San Diego Union-Tribune has done its own “Mitchell Report” of sorts on performance-enhancing drugs in pro football. The baseball Mitchell Report had 85 names going back to about 1993. The accompanying list has 185 names linked to such drug use dating to 1962 and also 85 names since 1993. It includes 52 former Pro Bowl players and four Hall of Famers.
The “Schrotenboer Report on the Use of Steroids in the NFL” confirms that the Mitchell Report was a waste of money. Major League Baseball paid over $20 million to the law firm of former Senator George Mitchell to compile the “Mitchell Report.” The substance, if not the verbosity, of the Schrotenboer Report exceeds that of the Mitchell Report detailing football players who were publicly linked to steroid use over the past four decades. Schrotenboer was only paid the salary of a staff writer for a major newspaper.
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