MLB needs to blood test for HGH use
Posted: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 3:56 PM
As suggested in my blog of last Friday names are beginning to leak out in the latest chapter of baseball’s performance-enhancing drug use siege.
Last week the New York Daily News reported the Cardinals' Rick Ankiel purchased HGH -- human growth hormone -- in 2004, a year before MLB banned use of the substance. On the heels of that story came a report that Troy Glaus of the Blue Jays received performance-enhancing drugs several years ago from Signature Pharmacy, the same Florida-based outlet which sent Ankiel HGH.
Next SI.com reported that Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons received performance-enhancing steroids and HGH after both were banned by baseball. Ankiel, Glaus, and Gibbons -- all three likely tainted permanently -- are a trio likely to be joined by others whose names will come out publicly and whose reputations will suffer because of it.
HGH has been the real scourge of sports in this era. Unlike “creams” and “clears,” HGH is legal with prescription. It provides massive growth, and no union of a professional sport will allow its athletes to be blood tested for HGH. Simply put, it has been known that HGH was a “free ride” for athletes.
But the curtain continues to be pulled away from this latest issue of performance-enhancing drug use in sports. HGH has been the ace in the hole for players over the last decade. Undetectable via urine tests, HGH is believed to have been turned to by athletes since they are without fear of detection.
What all this is leading to is will MLB seek the best deterrence to use of HGH -- now that it is banned by the sport. That deterrence is blood testing for the use of HGH. Players can't argue with what shows up in blood tests. It’s hard to believe that under commissioner Bud Selig MLB won’t try to take that step. The alternative is to continue down a trail of nonsense with a slow agonizing drip of embarrassing revelations and stories that draw in other players to this net of humiliation.
It was wondered how Ankiel would handle Friday’s news? In my view he did so poorly. His excuse/rationale was lame. Belief in Ankiel’s story should be non-existent among those with an open mind.
There must be many nervous clubhouses as other players hope their receipts are lost and their names never linked. Is there any doubt that this is not a “slugger” problem, but one that has gripped relievers, utility men, and those trying to survive in the bigs?
Is there any doubt that anyone trying to excuse Ankiel for any of the weak reasons he offered must also absolve Barry Bonds? Yes, to give Ankiel a pass means to give Bonds a pass as well.
What is jarring is that baseball's testing for steroids clearly hasn’t stopped the use of them. Homers have dropped, the way the game is played has changed, and yet we are given reason to believe players are still finding ways to beat the system.
Meanwhile, the one diversion I accept is the double-standard complaint. Baseball will always be held to a higher standard. And it should celebrate that the sport still means more to our culture than pro football. Rodney Harrison, who is the Rafael Palmeiro of the NFL, has received only a fraction of the attention focused on Ankiel. The theory here is that Harrison’s offense pales in comparison to the litany of felonies confronting NFL players, thus it gets buried.
But in baseball, Ankiel's case stands out in an otherwise tame sport. This latest flurry of news stains the September races that are baseball’s lifeblood against the first few weeks of the NFL season. All parties in baseball are best served to move ASAP towards a policy that would tackle the issue of combating the use of HGH in the sport.
