In between a humanitarian/World Baseball Classic training mission to his homeland of the Dominican Republic this month and reporting to spring training this coming weekend, Albert Pujols made an appearance at a baseball clinic in Kansas City on Thursday.
While in the Dominican, among the WBC players with whom Pujols worked out was embattled New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, the current flashpoint for an entire generation of baseball’s mistakes. The two are pictured here together on February 3 of this year.
The world’s desire for juicy tidbits to report on the situation has meant everyone from Yankees captain Derek Jeter to the most obscure clubhouse boys are getting microphones pushed in their face, looking for any kind of A-Rod reaction.
Jeter, who became very savvy with the New York press as a survival vehicle, has made it clear he is not going to discuss Rodriguez until all reporters have arrived in Yankees camp.
He is really smart. Like A-Rod himself, just cover it once and try to move on.
What about Pujols?
Like seemingly every one of the 2000 or more players that will be reporting to WBC and major league spring training camps this coming week, the Cardinals star was asked while in Kansas City to comment on the scandal.
Being the wary individual that he is, Pujols answered, but didn’t.
“I’m making no comment about that,” Pujols told the Kansas City Star.
Of course, Albert couldn’t stop there. He had to say a bit more to qualify himself.
“That’s one thing I learned. Every time I say something, if I try to stick (up) for one side, they always try to throw me in the heap. So I don’t want to comment on that,” Pujols wisely observed.
He probably should have stopped there.
The final sentence of the quote was clearly well-intended, but seems naive.
“I’m just glad nobody on my team has had problems with that,” was Pujols’ conclusion.
Now, I interpret that to mean that Pujols is simply relieved that none of his Cardinals teammates are in today’s news for steroids-related transgressions. That way, Albert won’t have to deal with the numerous associated distractions as he prepares for the 2009 season.
I get that.
I am not picking on Albert’s words here, but using them to make another related point.
One might make another interpretation from the remarks that the Cardinals have been conflict-free with regard to steroid-related accusations.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just that the news is yesterday’s, not today’s.
At least three stalwarts on the 2009 St. Louis Cardinals have been in the news in recent times for steroids-related issues. They include reliever Ryan Franklin, outfielder Rick Ankiel and third baseman Troy Glaus.
While with Seattle, Franklin was suspended for ten games during the 2005 season for violating MLB’s joint drug prevention and treatment program. He denied any knowledge.
“There’s got to be a flaw in the system. I have no clue. I tested in [early] May and again three weeks later. The first was positive, the second was negative,” Franklin said at the time.
I am unaware of any more recent accusations against him.
In 2007, Ankiel was identified as having received a year’s supply of human growth hormone in 2004 from an internet pharmacy under investigation. Ankiel stated that any medications he took were prescribed by his physicians.
As part of the same 2007 disclosures, Glaus, a former World Series MVP and four-time All-Star, was fingered as having received multiple shipments of performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 and 2004 via a California anti-aging clinic, filled by the same Florida pharmacy linked to Ankiel.
Both the Franklin and Glaus incidents allegedly occurred before they joined St. Louis, information the club was aware of before bringing the players in. Yet there are others accused that may have been Cardinals at the time of use, but have since moved on.
I bring this up not to dredge up old dirt, but to remind us of the pervasive nature of baseball’s problem.
So maybe none of Albert’s teammates have problems in the headlines today, but what about the other 103 players who tested positive in the 2003 supposedly-anonymous testing?
Given there are 30 teams in Major League Baseball, sheer probability would indicate that three or four Cardinals could be among those 103 still unnamed offenders. They might be players already knocked down, or there could be other hidden surprises.
Here is hoping that those names are not released and baseball can move ahead to try once again to heal its newly-reopened wounds.
Here is hoping that Pujols’ relief over the fact that his teammates names (or his own) are not on the front pages continues.
On the other hand, anyone, whether players, officials, fans, broadcasters, or writers who think an A-Rod-like mess couldn’t happen on “their” team today, tomorrow or next week are completely out of touch with reality.
There are so many wrinkles and uncertainties within the PED jihad and muddle.
It sounds like Franklin had a positive and then a negative result. I think I read Bonds had the flip, a negative and then a positive. Were these repeat analyses of the same sample or differing samples obtained at different times? I fear it may be the former. If so, this only illustrates the profound importance of chemical tests and how they are interpreted. They are not a simple, easy cake-walk, apparently. Its not as easy at a thermometer reading.
This leads to the issue of the selectivity of tests. They only can find specific chemicals that are specifically sought, for which their are analytic “signatures.” What if players are using PEDs that are unknown or go unsought for analysis? Allright, so let us suppose 104 guys tested positive for something, this does not establish that the other 1,100 are not using some other PEDs that are not sought.
Ankiel sought supplements of a normal bodily endowment, human growth hormone, called HGH. This can be prescribed by doctors. And I think I have read that something like 100 players a year inform MLB that they need to use HGH and MLB records this. So lots of guys are finding doctors who assert they have medical justifications for high doses of HGH. For all we know, maybe an HGH prescription is as hard to get as viagra. Doctors and shrinks are not tight-wads when it comes to handing out prescriptions.
We live in a society, during times, when there has been a lot of advances in scientific insights about how molecules can be used within the body promoting biological effects, perhaps some quite small.
The only way to move forward is to establish a testing program. It can never be perfect, players will adjust and find new PEDs. As they do and if this becomes known, the analytes of the tests must be expanded and toughened.
The mere idea that there is a testing system, of any kind, seems to reassure a great number of fans, who are reasonably not interested to know more about this impossibly complicated and imperfect topic.
Knowledge of how molecules can influence human health has grown greatly. We also live with a great diversity of choices and doctors willing to prescribe them.
In contrast to this wide range of molecular opportunities, there is the modestly appreciated myopia of tests for these invisible molecules within human samples. Chemists are only going to find low levels of what they are paid to specifically seek and find, provided there is an analytic method available to find a given molecule.
Then it gets fuzzier. HGH is a normal human hormone. And players can get prescriptions from sympathetic doctors. The player then registers this use with MLB. So lots of guys can get HGH supplements, provided they simply inform MLB. This seems like a MASSIVE LOOPHOLE.
Brian Cashman, GM of the Bombers, says he appreciates many PED molecules are entirely undetectable by analytic chemists. This is JumboShrimp’s assumption too.
Now I read Franklin had a positive test and then a negative. Was this duplicate analyses of the same sample? Bonds had the reverse, a negative and then a positive, and now is being prosecuted.
The whole PED jihad is wonderfully complicated. So what can and should be done about it? Institute a testing program, disclose its parameters, so the public knows how good the testing program is. If new PEDs become known, add them, to make the tests more rigorous. And that is about all that can be done. Life does not always offer simple and perfect solutions.
The fans probably want to know that MLB and the players union are both dedicated to as fair a game as they can make. It would provide a lot of reassurance to fans to know there is a testing program, and penalties.
Its not really fair to go back and make allegations about players in the past, before there was a testing program. Everything then becomes based on allegations and few facts. Or on picking on a few people, while many of their peers get a free pass.
I remain completely uninterested in this non-story. Baseball was a bit dirtier a few years ago. It is a bit cleaner today, and will hopefully be cleaner in a few years if morals and ethics can be instilled in today’s athletes. Though watching the
Super BowlWorld Wrestling Federation Championship this year and reading the piece about Stan Musial linked at VEB today does make you wonder if good sportsmanship will ever become de rigeur again. Let’s hope so. But let’s also try to get beyond the arcane discussions of whose blood contained what hormones five, eight and 10 years ago.In other words, I’m not hear to talk about the past…
RedC, yes I remember reading that Musial article last summer. It is priceless. Here is the direct link.
Good link. If charity is the greatest virtue, some of its manifestations must include kindness and giving. Musial would have been shaped by the Depression and WWWII. During that era, as I heard it, unemployed people would come to my grandparent’s door to ask for a meal. Though my grandparents had lost what modest money they had had in bank failures, strangers did not get turned away hungry. Musial was formed by his upbringing and understood his unusal opportunity as a star to share kindness with others.
Brian: I figure you to be a person mindful of ethical issues. You were following a beat of the Cardinals. McGwire was a sensation. Then arose stories about steroids in sports and possibly cheapening the game. So you have followed the story with sincere attention, because it happenned on your personal turf and you care about right from wrong, the setting of good examples, of living an ethical life. These are of course worthy values, even if our general outlooks about baseball PEDs may differ.
Esquire published an article on A-Rod and Scott Boras in 2001, when Rodriguez was signed by the Rangers. It mentions or claims Boras got a PhD in “industrial pharmaceutics” and a law degree, before joining a Chicago law firm to defend pharmaceutical companies and doctors against malpractice claims. If so, it sounds as if Dr. Boras may know a fair amount about drug science issues.
Boras got his PhD from the Univ. of Pacific. The degree programs are heavily weighted toward medicine and chemistry, because this university joined with the San Francisco College of Physicians and Surgeons, circa 1962. So there are degree programs in Pharmaceutics; Pharmacology; Pharmaceutical and Chemial Sciences; Medicinal chemistry; and a sports medicine program.
Boras also got his law degree from this school.
I am not suggesting Boras is advising his baseball clients about which PEDs they should take.
But he may be conveniently educated for helping advise them about some of the PED related issues that could arise in their lives, as recently with A-Rod.
Boras used to represent Barry Bonds. Bonds gave World Series rings to Boras’ three sons.
Boras has had trainers to assist and serve his clients. Given how some of Boras’ clients have gotten publicity about adding PEDs into their training regimens, it seems an odd co-incidence that after his minor league days concluded, Boras acquired a PhD pertaining to pharmaceuticals. Nowadays, Boras may not want to advertise this history too loudly.
Maybe that guy at the “I love Boras” blog will dig into this one!
I got onto this via the Boras adoration blog. There was a link to a 2001 article extolling Boras for Esquire magazine. It was written after A-Rod’s jump to the Rangers and enormous contract. I was startled to read a passing allusion to Boras having a doctorate and then the subject matter. I always thought of him as a lawyer. And a law degree would be a lot of work in and of itself, so presumably most lawyers do not acquire PhDs too.
Boras likely hails from farmlands south of Sacramento. Its understandable that he went to a university in Stockton, since probably near his home. This university co-incidentally seems to have an unusal specialty in medicine related sciences. Since Scott had himself been an athlete, its not hard to imagine he could be attracted to study the nexus of chemistry and health. Pursuing this to the depth of a PhD degree seems a lot of work, but it might given him a professional advantage if he had a vision of combining this with law so as to work in the arena of medical malpractice.
After two degrees, he moved to Chicago to practice law, but being a former ballplayer he soon was representing Cubs players. Agenting became his calling, not medical malpractice. Yet with chemical helper issues pervasive in baseball, Scott has co-incidentally had a useful educational foundation.
Boras’ numbers as a Cards farmhand:
1974 Gulf Coast League Cards. .274/.405/.347
1975 Florida State League St Pete Cards .277/.402/.373 8th best batting average in league
1975 St Pete Cards .295/.383/.387 5th best BA, all star team as utilityman
1977 St Pete Cards ..346/.440/.423 an offensive machine in 22 games
1977 AA Cards & Cubs .273/.379/.351
Able to get on base.
Jumbo–
You do know the Cardinals drafted one of Boras’s sons, don’t you?