Major League Baseball Is As Phony As Wrestling

Major League Baseball should change their slogan to "Steroids, Human Growth Hormone, and Lies - Catch It!"

A week after former Yankee manager Joe Torre revealed fellow Yankees players called Alex Rodriguez "AFraud", we now learn he earned that nickname by being another in the long line of steroids cheaters, according to Sports Illustrated.

ARod failed a drug test in 2003, with two steroids showing up in his system, according to four sources that corroborated the story to SI.com.

Selena Roberts, one of the SI reporters who broke the story, reported on MLB Network Saturday that one of the steroids ARod allegedly tested positive for, Primobolan, is highly sought after because it doesn't cause users to swell up like over-muscled cartoon characters. Roberts also reported that Primobolan is popular because it can be flushed out of a players system quickly to pass a drug test, and users retain approximately 80% of their strength even after getting off that particular steroid.

Here's where it gets out of control. This isn't merely one player, or a handful of players, cheating in order to boost their performance(s) and income. SI reports multiple sources say MLB Players Association Chief Operating Officer Gene Orza tipped multiple players they were about to be tested, including ARod in September 2004, a year after ARod had failed the first test.

"Three major league players who spoke to SI said that Rodriguez was also tipped by Orza in early September 2004 that he would be tested later that month. Rodriguez declined to respond on Thursday when asked about the warning Orza provided him.

When Orza was asked on Friday in the union's New York City office about the tipping allegations, he told a reporter, "I'm not interested in discussing this information with you."

A top official in the Players Association was enabling cheaters by tipping them off to drug tests. We also know that MLB baseball has done the exact same thing, tipping teams days before drug testing officials arrived for "surprise tests". There's no such thing as a surprise test when you're warned days or weeks in advance and given enough time to flush the illegal drugs out of your system.

MLB also does not penalize or make public the names of players who fail a drug test the first time. A player has to be caught cheating twice before they face any punishment under MLB's drug testing policy.

What we have here is a system of corruption. Everyone from the owners to league officials, player's association leaders, and the players themselves are all in on the fix. We are told to believe there is substantive testing, that the sport is clean, all the while records that have stood for decades have come crashing down on a tsunami of testosterone.

If the players don't care, and the owners don't care, why should the fans? When a 40-something Roger Clemens throws a 98 mph fastball to a 40-something Barry Bonds, who crushes it into the seats, isn't it as phony as professional wrestling? Can we believe anything we see anymore? For many people, ARod was going to be the person who chases Bonds-The-Cheater from the record books. Now Arod will only join Bonds in infamy.

One thing overlooked in discussions of steroids in baseball over the past few years are the future health effects these players face. Professional wrestling, another sport that has a love affair with steroids, has had over 60 wrestlers under 45 who have died of steroids related deaths in the last ten years. Not one or two, OVER 60. (Also see Complete List of Dead Wrestlers)

Perhaps MLB and the Players Association will begin to care only if their star players suddenly start dropping dead at young ages. Somehow, like the deaths in wrestling haven't changed a thing, I highly doubt it.

Clemens and Bonds Evidence Grows, Did MLB Cover Up Failed Test?

They've shared the limelight for years but Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds could soon be sharing the same prison cell.

On Tuesday the perjury cases against former Major League Baseball superstars Clemens and Bonds reportedly added DNA proof to their growing list of evidence against the pair.

First came word of the proverbial nail in the coffin of Roger Clemens...

"Tests have linked Roger Clemens' DNA to blood in syringes that his former personal trainer says he used to inject the pitcher with performance-enhancing drugs..."

Then came an update on the Barry Bonds perjury case...

"A urine sample taken from Barry Bonds in 2003 as part of Major League Baseball's anonymous testing program has tested positive for performance-enhancing substance..."

The Bonds news was even more fascinating, because of this line...

"The initial samples did not test positive under baseball's program, but the samples were retested by federal authorities after being seized in 2004."

MLB's tests didn't show any steroids in Bonds' urine, but the tests conducted by federal agents did. Which raises another concern. Bonds lawyers may argue that age of the sample or the feds handling methods corrupted the sample. Or they may argue the feds fabricated the results. All of those are unlikely because testing on old urine and blood samples in other sports has shown no breakdown or contamination by false positives. Furthermore, the need to falsify a test appears low given the already impressive list of evidence and witnesses lined up to testify against Bonds.

Witnesses and records are said to corroborate that Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, was also supplying them with steroids and human growth hormone, along with personalized calendars instructing times and dates to administer the drugs. Similar calendars were seized from Anderson's home with the initials B.B. on them. We also have heard that the feds have samples, results, or both of at least one failed drug test Bonds took for BALCO, the laboratory who provided Anderson with the banned drugs.

Here's where it gets interesting. We've learned in the past year that MLB regularly tipped front offices days in advance of when a drug tester would be arriving to test players. Sometimes MLB gave teams 3-4 days notice before the tests. MLB claims it was done so teams could have to make parking and other arrangements for the testers, and not to give players time to take masking agents to cover up their drug use.

We also know from MLB's own policy that first time offenders are not made public. Players have to fail at least two drug tests before their names are released and they are punished. We've heard in the past that Bonds did fail at least one MLB drug test, but it was never publicly announced by the league. Which means, if Bonds had failed a previous MLB drug test for performance enhancing drugs, his second MLB failure would have resulted in a mandatory 25-50 game suspension, depending on what season the second failed test occurred. MLB may have had good reason to treat their superstar differently because he was on a historic home run pace that was a cash cow for the Giants and MLB, sparking ticket and memorabilia sales and higher television ratings.

So the question then becomes, with all of the evidence showing MLB making it as easy as possible for players to pass drug tests, were they simply incompetent when it came to testing Bonds' samples, or did they intentionally falsify the results? The feds say they tested the same sample MLB says is clean, yet the feds results show steroids are present. If the reports are accurate, there are at least 3 drug tests Bonds failed (one from BALCO, one from MLB, and a second from MLB that the league said was clean).

Former teammates have lined up against both players. Andy Pettitte's testimony before Congress contradicted Clemens' defense, and former Giants teammate Bobby Estalella, along with Jason and Jeremy Giambi, who played across the bay in Oakland are expected to testify that Bonds' trainer provided each of them with the Creme and the Clear, along with personalized calendars with instructions.

It's important to remind oneself that Bonds and Clemens are not being charged with possessing, using, or taking the illegal drugs. Instead Bonds has been charged with committing perjury by lying to prosecutors investigating the BALCO case. A Grand Jury is debating whether to charge Clemens with perjury for lying to Congress.