Chapter[ VI. Incidents Providing Evidence to Baseball Officials of Players’ Possession
or Use of Performance Enhancing Substances ]
Section[ C. Discovery of Steroids in Florida Marlins Player’s Locker, June 2000 ]
C. Discovery of Steroids in Florida Marlins Player’s Locker, June 2000
In late June 2000, a clubhouse attendant with the Florida Marlins brought a paper
bag to the club’s athletic trainers that had been found in the locker of Marlins pitcher Ricky
Bones. The bag contained over two dozen syringes, six vials of injectable medications –
stanozolol and nandrolone decanoate, two anabolic steroids that are sold under the names
Winstrol and Deca-Durabolin, respectively – and a page of handwritten instructions on how to
administer the drugs. Soon thereafter, the athletic trainers returned the bag and its contents to
Bones at his request.
Bones is now employed by a minor league affiliate of the New York Mets and so
was required by the Commissioner to meet with us. In his interview, he acknowledged the
incident and explained that he had been self-administering steroids and painkillers pursuant to
prescriptions that he obtained from a physician in his hometown in Puerto Rico. At the time,
262 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. 86
(2005).
92
Bones had a degenerative hip condition that later led him to retire from baseball and, in 2003, to
undergo dual hip replacement surgery.263
While this incident occurred before the 2002 Basic Agreement, baseball’s drug
policy at the time nevertheless: expressly prohibited “[t]he possession, sale or use of any illegal
drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel”; expressly included
anabolic steroids among the substances that were subject to this prohibition; required any player
who was taking a drug pursuant to a physician’s prescription “to notify the team physician of this
fact and of the drug(s) prescribed”; and required clubs to report “any information concerning
drug use by a player” to the Commissioner’s Office.264
The athletic trainers’ initial reaction not to report the discovery of steroids in a
player’s possession did not comply with this policy. The next day, however, the matter was
brought to the attention of Dave Dombrowski, the Marlins’ general manager, who immediately
reported it to the Commissioner’s Office, which said its staff would “take it from here.”
According to Bones, several weeks after the incident he was asked by the Players
Association to attend a brief meeting with Dr. Joel Solomon of the Players Association and
another physician, likely Dr. Robert Millman. The physicians reviewed the pros and cons of
using steroids and asked whether Bones was having any problems in his personal life. Bones
said that his family life was fine. No physical examination was conducted by either physician.
Bones also was subjected to a “reasonable cause” urine test several months after the incident.
263 Bones granted us an express waiver of any claim of medical privacy as to this
information for purposes of this investigation.
264 See Memorandum from Bud Selig, Chairman of the Executive Council of Major
League Baseball, to All Major League Clubs, etc. Re: Baseball’s Drug Policy and Prevention
Program, dated May 15, 1997.
93
Bones never heard that the test showed steroids in his system and therefore assumes that it was
negative.
Rob Manfred confirmed that after he learned about the incident he contacted Gene
Orza of the Players Association and sought his agreement to “reasonable cause” drug testing of
Bones. Manfred did not advise anyone in the security department about the incident because it
was “heading down the reasonable cause testing path.”
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