Chapter[ V. Androstenedione and Baseball’s Broadening Awareness of the Use of
Performance Enhancing Substances ]
Section[ Androstenedione ]
V. Androstenedione and Baseball’s Broadening Awareness of the Use of Performance Enhancing Substances
In late August 1998, Steve Wilstein, an Associated Press reporter who was
following Mark McGwire’s progress toward a new single-season home run record, noticed a
bottle in McGwire’s locker labeled “Androstenedione.” The ensuing AP news story led to
renewed scrutiny of the use of “andro” and other substances by major league players. As
previously mentioned, Commissioner Selig and others in baseball have said that this incident
more than any other caused them to focus on the use of performance enhancing substances as a
possible problem.231
Androstenedione is a steroid hormone produced in the body, where it is converted
into testosterone.232 In 1998, “andro” was sold in the United States as a dietary supplement and
was available without a prescription. The use of andro was not illegal in the United States, nor
was it a prohibited substance under baseball’s drug policy at the time.233 There was debate,
however, about whether androstenedione should be considered an anabolic steroid. In 1998, it
already was classified as such under Canadian drug laws,234 and the National Football League,
231 See Restoring Faith in America’s Pastime: Evaluating Major League Baseball’s
Efforts to Eradicate Steroid Use: Hearing Before the H. Comm. on Gov’t Reform, 109th Cong.
277, 333 (2005) (statement of Allan H. Selig, Commissioner, Major League Baseball); id. at 324
(statement of Sandy Alderson, then-executive vice president for baseball operations, Major
League Baseball).
232 Benjamin Z. Leder, et al., Oral Androstenedione Administration and Serum
Testosterone Concentrations in Young Men, 283 JAMA 779, 779 (2000). As a result,
androstenedione is referred to as a steroid “precursor.”
233 The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 expanded the definition of
“dietary supplements,” eased restrictions on the sale of certain dietary supplements and placed
limitations on the claims that could be made as to the potential benefits of using such substances.
See Pub. L. 103-417, 108 Stat. 4325 (1994) (codified at 21 U.S.C. § 321).
234 See Randy Starkman, East Germans Pioneered the Use of “Andro,” Swimmer: “It
was like a volcanic eruption,” Toronto Star, Aug. 25, 1998, at C2 (noting that androstenedione
was then classified as an anabolic steroid under Canada’s Controlled Drug and Substances Act).
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the International Olympic Committee, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association all
banned the substance because of its anabolic effects.235 Patrick Arnold, the Illinois scientist who
later allegedly developed “the clear,” the designer steroid at the center of the BALCO scandal, is
credited with being the “father of androstenedione production in the United States.”236
When Mark McGwire first was asked about the bottle of androstenedione in his
locker, he is reported to have admitted using it, as well as the over-the-counter amino acid
supplement creatine, to assist his workout regimen.237 McGwire was quoted as having said:
“Everything I’ve done is natural. Everybody that I know in the game of baseball uses the same
stuff I use.”238 He also reportedly stated that “[i]f somebody tells me that it’s illegal and
I shouldn’t be taking it, I will stop.”239
The initial public comments from others in baseball generally supported
McGwire, with players noting that andro was legal and not prohibited in Major League Baseball
and observing that McGwire always had been a power hitter and that strength alone could not
account for his home run hitting prowess.240 St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa viewed
the AP story as an invasion of McGwire’s privacy and said that he would seek to have AP
235 Kirk Johnson, As Drugs in Sports Proliferate, So Do Ethical Questions, N.Y. Times,
Aug. 31, 1998, at C1.
236 Id.
237 Steve Wilstein, McGwire Defends Use of Pill Designed to Build Muscle, Associated
Press, Aug. 22, 1998.
238 Id.
239 Joe Drape, McGwire Admits Taking Controversial Substance, N.Y. Times, Aug. 22,
1998, at C3.
240 See, e.g., Buster Olney, Opponents Don’t Fault McGwire for Pills, N.Y. Times,
Aug. 5, 1998, at C3; Mike Rutsey, Strength Drug No Big Deal to Jays, Toronto Sun, Aug. 23,
1998, at Sports 4 (quoting Jose Canseco and reporting that Canseco was an “androstenedione
user himself”).
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reporters banned from the Cardinals’ clubhouse.241 The Cardinals organization issued a
statement that the club did not object to McGwire’s use of the supplement because it had “no
proven anabolic effects nor significant side effects.”242 Commissioner Selig told me that he was
not aware of andro before the AP story was published, but shortly thereafter he visited his local
pharmacy in Milwaukee where the pharmacist directed him to the bottles of the substance that
were openly for sale on the shelves.
Coverage of McGwire’s use of androstenedione continued for several days after
the initial story, with a number of articles questioning whether it would taint the single-season
home run record. On August 26, 1998, Commissioner Selig and Don Fehr of the Players
Association issued a joint statement in which they stated that the two organizations had asked
their medical experts to “gather the relevant scientific and medical data and to consult with other
experts on the general use of nutritional supplements by major league players.”243
Dr. Lewis Maharam, a prominent sports medicine practitioner who is now the
race doctor for the New York City Marathon, was a vocal critic, saying that “[i]f McGwire is
truly taking this, then he’s cheating.” He criticized McGwire for failing to warn young athletes
about the dangers of using andro.244 Sometime thereafter, Dr. Maharam received a call from
241 See Bernie Miklasz, AP Story Infuriates La Russa, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 24,
1998, at C1. La Russa told us that he told McGwire privately at the time that he thought it was a
shame that the media was trying to take away from his accomplishments. La Russa added that
the fact that McGwire’s bottle of andro was left in plain sight underscored the fact that McGwire
had nothing to hide about his use of the substance.
242 See William C. Rhoden, Sports of the Times: Baseball’s Pandora’s Box Cracks Open,
N.Y. Times, Aug. 25, 1998, at C1.
243 See Murray Chass, Baseball Tries to Calm Down A Debate on Pills, N.Y. Times,
Aug. 27, 1998, at C1.
244 See Tom Keegan, Slugger’s Little Helper Falls Fair, N.Y. Post, Aug. 24, 1998, at 7;
Kirk Johnson, As Drugs in Sports Proliferate, So Do Ethical Questions, N.Y. Times, Aug. 31,
1998, at C1.
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Dr. Robert Millman, a physician who at the time also served as the medical director for Major
League Baseball.
During the call, Dr. Maharam said in an interview, Dr. Millman told him that
“everyone in Major League Baseball is irritated with you” and that “if you don’t shut up, they are
going to sue you.” Dr. Maharam was unfazed, but a week later he received a second call in
which Dr. Millman told him that if he was willing to “shut up in the press,” he would be invited
to make a presentation to Major League Baseball and the Players Association about the dangers
of steroids and andro. Two weeks later, Dr. Maharam made a one-hour presentation to
Dr. Millman, another official from Major League Baseball, and Dr. Joel Solomon, the medical
director for the Players Association. Dr. Maharam recalled that, at the conclusion of the
meeting, Dr. Millman expressed the view that there was not sufficient medical evidence that
andro raised testosterone levels enough to be a cause for concern.
During baseball’s winter meetings in Nashville in December 1998, baseball
executives and team physicians heard a presentation from Dr. Millman and Dr. Solomon on
baseball’s drug policy. One attendee, Dr. William Wilder, was then the team doctor for the
Cleveland Indians. In a memorandum to then Indians general manager John Hart that he wrote
after the meeting, Dr. Wilder reported that the presentation focused on the benefits that could be
obtained from testosterone. He was disturbed by the presentation, observing in the memorandum
that whether or not testosterone increased muscle strength and endurance “begs the question of
whether it should be used in athletics.” He believed there was “no reason that some preliminary
literature can’t be sent out to the players concerning the known and unknown data about
performance enhancing substances,” and recalled that Houston Astros’ team physician Bill
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Bryan presented a good overview of these issues with respect to supplements at meetings the
previous year.245 Dr. Wilder reiterated these observations and views in our interview with him.
Bill Stoneman, who retired in 2007 as the general manager of the Los Angeles
Angels, had a similar recollection of a presentation by Drs. Millman and Solomon. He
remembered wondering at the time why Major League Baseball had permitted the presentation,
which to his recollection included the assertion that there was no evidence that anabolic steroids
were bad for you. He said that the baseball executives in attendance were universally frustrated
with the message of leniency that was being conveyed.
At the meeting, Dr. Wilder discussed the issues directly with Gene Orza of the
Players Association, who responded that any effort at education about supplements should wait
until additional data were available. Wilder observed in his report that “That will be never!
Orza and the Players Association want to do further study . . . so nothing will be done.”246
After the events of the 1998 season, Major League Baseball and the Players
Association jointly funded a grant for a medical study to determine whether ingesting
androstenedione tablets would raise testosterone levels in young adult males. Some had the
same reaction to the study that Dr. Wilder had, viewing it as a stalling tactic that allowed
widespread use of andro to continue in Major League Baseball despite growing concerns about
its safety. A 1999 article cited Orza and others in concluding that “a good number” of major
league players – and as many as 5% to 10% by some estimates – were using the supplement a
year after the McGwire story broke.247 The androstenedione study was conducted by several
245 See Memorandum from Dr. William Wilder to John Hart, dated Jan. 21, 1998, at 1-2.
246 Id.
247 See Bill Pennington and Jack Curry, Andro Hangs in a Quiet Limbo, N.Y. Times,
July 11, 1999, at Sports 1.
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prominent endocrinologists who concluded in a paper published in early 2000 that taking certain
doses of oral androstenedione did, indeed, increase serum testosterone and other hormone levels
in healthy men.248
The day that the results of the study were reported, Dr. Maharam wrote to
Dr. Millman, urging Major League Baseball to ban andro to set an example for young athletes.
After several months had passed and he had not received any response to that letter,
Dr. Maharam wrote a second letter in which he offered his assistance to develop a steroids
awareness program for baseball players.
Thereafter, Dr. Maharam told us, he received a telephone call from Dr. Millman.
Dr. Millman said that he was very proud of the andro study. He reported that the
Commissioner’s Office was in the process of banning the use of androstenedione in baseball’s
minor leagues but that the Players Association objected to a similar ban for players on major
league rosters. At Dr. Millman’s invitation, Dr. Maharam visited a number of minor league
clubs in Florida to discuss the hazards associated with the use of steroids and androstenedione
and explain why andro was being banned in the minor leagues.
As noted above, the 2002 Basic Agreement included for the first time a
mandatory random drug testing program in Major League Baseball. It also banned the use of
anabolic steroids by players on the 40-man rosters of the major league clubs. However, that
agreement did not prohibit the use of androstenedione, despite the conclusion of the study two
years earlier that andro raised testosterone levels. Instead, the parties agreed “that they [would]
encourage Congress to revisit the question whether androstenedione should be categorized a
248 Benjamin Z. Leder, et al., Oral Androstenedione Administration and Serum
Testosterone Concentrations in Young Men, 283 JAMA 779, 782 (2000); see John Fauber,
“Andro” pill found to increase testosterone like anabolic steroid, Milwaukee J. Sentinel, Feb. 9,
2000, at A1.
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Schedule III substance,” which would result in including andro among the program’s prohibited
substances.249 That year, however, andro was added to the list of prohibited substances under the
minor league drug program.250
In January 2004, the United States Anti-Doping Agency announced that Derrick
Turnbow, a pitcher who then played for the Anaheim Angels, failed a drug test administered
during training camp for the U.S. Olympic baseball team the previous October. In its
announcement, USADA said that Turnbow had tested positive for “a steroid violation, which
resulted from taking nandrolone, norandrostenedione or norandrostenediol.”251
Turnbow was subjected to a two-year ban from international competition, but he
was not disciplined under the Major League Baseball joint drug program. According to
statements by Gene Orza, chief operating officer of the Players Association, Turnbow had tested
positive as the result of taking androstenedione, which was not a prohibited substance under the
Major League Baseball joint drug program at the time. Orza reportedly said: “Derrick Turnbow
did not test positive for a steroid. He tested positive for what the [International Olympic
Committee] and others regard as a steroid, but the U.S. government does not.”252
Later in 2004, Congress passed the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 2004, under
which (among other things) the definition of anabolic steroids was amended to include
androstenedione and other substances, which thereby were added to Schedule III of the
249 See Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program,
§ 2(C)(2) (2002).
250 See Memorandum from Commissioner Selig to All General Managers, Farm
Directors, Club Physicians and Employee Assistance Professionals Re: Minor League Drug and
Steroid Testing, dated Jan. 2, 2002.
251 See Associated Press, Pitcher receives two-year international ban, espn.com, Jan. 6,
2004.
252 Id.
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Controlled Substances Act.253 As a result, those substances automatically became substances
that were banned under the Major League Baseball joint drug program.
In the spring of 2006, shortly after this investigation was announced,
Dr. Maharam received another call from Dr. Millman, who was by then no longer affiliated with
Major League Baseball. According to Dr. Maharam, during that call, he said that he planned to
speak with Senator Mitchell’s investigative team. Dr. Millman replied that he should be careful
what he said about Major League Baseball because “[t]hey have a lot of power.” Dr. Millman
did not respond to repeated requests by telephone and in writing to be interviewed as part of this
investigation.
In his memoir Juiced, Jose Canseco discussed the 1998 andro story and made
repeated allegations about McGwire’s use of steroids. Canseco asserted that he was treated
differently than McGwire because of his Cuban heritage even though, according to Canseco,
both he and McGwire allegedly used steroids to enhance their performance.
After Canseco’s allegations about McGwire appeared, the House Committee on
Government Reform included both McGwire and Canseco among the current or former players
that it subpoenaed to appear for a hearing held on March 17, 2005. At the hearing, McGwire
said that he would not “dignify Mr. Canseco’s book” with a response and that his lawyers had
advised him that “I cannot answer these questions [about steroids use in baseball] without
jeopardizing my friends, my family and myself.”254 McGwire refused to answer a number of
253 Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004, Pub. L. No. 108-358, 118 Stat. 1661
§ 2(a)(1)(B) (2004) (codified as amended at 21 U.S.C. § 802-11). As noted above, the
androstenedione precursor DHEA was excluded from the amendment and therefore was not
added as a prohibited substance under the program. See supra at 24.
254 Restoring Faith in America’s Pastime: Evaluating Major League Baseball’s Efforts
to Eradicate Steroid Use: Hearing Before the H. Comm. on Gov’t Reform, 109th Cong. 220
(2005).
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specific questions from members of the committee, stating repeatedly that he was “not here to
talk about the past.”255 His testimony, broadcast live on television, was widely criticized. Many
writers later expressed the view that McGwire’s lack of candor was a significant reason for his
surprisingly low vote total in early 2007 in his first year of eligibility for election to the National
Baseball Hall of Fame.256
During the course of this investigation, we interviewed a number of coaches, club
personnel, former teammates, and other persons who know McGwire. Only Canseco, who
repeated the allegations from his memoir, said he had knowledge of McGwire’s alleged use of
steroids. Through his personal lawyer, I asked McGwire to meet with me for an interview about
these issues, but he declined to do so. I then sent his lawyer a list of specific questions about
whether McGwire had ever used steroids or other performance enhancing substances without a
prescription during his major league career, in the hope that McGwire would be willing to
provide a response outside of the context of an interview. Neither McGwire nor his lawyer
responded to that letter. (I sent similar letters with specific questions to lawyers for Barry Bonds,
Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, and Gary Sheffield, none of whom provided answers to my
questions either.)
255 Id. at 242-43, 264, 266, 273.
256 See, e.g., Jack Curry, 2 Stars Leap to Hall of Fame, But Steroid Cloud Stops 3rd,
N.Y. Times, Jan. 10, 2007, at A1.
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