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Chapter[ IV. Early Indications of Steroid Use in Baseball (1988 to August 1998) ]

Section[ Early Indications of Steroid Use in Baseball (1988 to August 1998) ]

IV. Early Indications of Steroid Use in Baseball (1988 to August 1998)

As noted earlier in this report, in 1994 Congress passed and the President signed

into law the Dietary Supplement Heath and Education Act. It was approved unanimously by the

Senate, without objection. I was the Majority Leader of the Senate when DSHEA was approved.

It was one of thousands of measures that the Senate considered during my tenure. Today,

thirteen years later, I have only a vague recollection of the Senate’s consideration of the Act.

However, with the benefit of hindsight, knowing what I now know, I regret that I did not speak

out against the manner of regulating supplements that resulted from enactment of that law.

I have had other similar experiences. As a result, I am well aware of the

difficulty, the complexity, and sometimes the unfairness of judging past actions with the benefit

of knowledge of later events. Nonetheless, when properly and carefully done, analysis of the

past can be a useful, sometimes indispensable, guide for avoiding mistakes in the future.

As the discussion in the following sections demonstrates, baseball’s response to

the use of performance enhancing substances was slow to develop and was initially ineffective,

but it gained momentum after 2002. A review of the early warning signals can be valuable in

evaluating the current program and, most importantly, in helping guide future actions.

Many baseball officials have pointed to the intense media scrutiny in August 1998

that followed the discovery of androstenedione in Mark McGwire’s locker as the event that

focused their attention on whether baseball had a problem with the use of performance enhancing

substances. There were earlier incidents and many published reports, but they were scattered

across several years and around the country. Collecting and reading them all at once, as I have

done, makes it obvious in hindsight what was happening.

There have been many estimates of use. In 2002, former National League Most

Valuable Player Ken Caminiti estimated that “at least half” of major league players were using

anabolic steroids. Dave McKay, a longtime coach for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Oakland

Athletics, estimated that at one time 30% of players were using them. Within the past week, the

former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Jack Armstrong estimated that between 20% and 30% of players

in his era, 1988 to 1994, were using large doses of steroids while an even higher percentage of

players were using lower, maintenance doses of steroids.182 There have been other estimates, a

few higher, many lower, all impossible to verify.

The players who used performance enhancing substances bear an obvious share of

the responsibility for the problem; but others, both in and out of baseball, share in that

responsibility. Even before 1998 many in baseball were aware of the problem; indeed, several

baseball officials talked publicly about it then. Those who knew about it should have insisted

that something be done. The issue did not receive the same degree of attention that later

followed the McGwire incident.

A. Jose Canseco and the First Public Speculation About Steroids in Baseball

In a widely reported incident during the Summer Olympics in September of 1988,

the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of a gold medal in the 100-meter sprint for

testing positive for stanozolol, an anabolic steroid sold under the brand name Winstrol.183 Days

later, the first public speculation appeared about a player’s use of steroids in Major League

Baseball.

In an appearance on the CBS program Nightwatch on September 28, 1998,

Washington Post baseball writer Thomas Boswell described Jose Canseco as “the most

conspicuous example of a player who has made himself great with steroids.” Boswell said he

182 See Wayne Coffey, Former All-Star Jack Armstrong Hoping to Set the Record

Straight on Steroid Era, N.Y. Daily News, Dec. 9, 2007.

183 Michael Janofsky, Johnson Loses Gold to Lewis After Drug Test, N.Y. Times,

Sept. 27, 1988, at A1.

based this assertion on comments made by Tony La Russa, then the manager of the Oakland

Athletics, to the effect that Canseco had made “some mistakes” earlier in his career. La Russa

said in response that he had not intended to imply that Canseco had used steroids, and Canseco

denied that he had done so.184

Soon after Boswell’s remarks, the Oakland Athletics began the American League

Championship Series against the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park. Canseco was met with loud

chants deriding him for his alleged steroid use, prompting Canseco to flex his biceps and tip his

cap to the Fenway fans for “their originality.”185 A spokesman for the Commissioner’s Office

said that baseball would not investigate Canseco’s possible steroid use because baseball had “no

information about his usage or the usage of any other player in the major leagues.”186

Sandy Alderson, Oakland’s general manager at the time, remembered the

chanting, but in our interview he said that he did not then believe that Canseco had used steroids.

Later, as one of the most senior executives in Major League Baseball, Alderson came to believe

that baseball had a problem with steroid use, but he did not come to that conclusion until

sometime after the 1998 articles appeared about McGwire’s use of androstenedione.187 In

congressional testimony in 2005, Alderson said that during the 1990s, other factors “obscured a

steroid problem”:

184 See Report That He Used Steroids Denied by Athletics’ Canseco, St. Louis Post-

Dispatch, Oct. 1, 1988, at C3.

185 Peter Gammons, Socking it to the Red Sox: With an All-Around Performance Worthy

of the A's of the 1970s, Oakland Beat Boston for the Pennant in Four Straight, Sports Illustrated,

Oct. 17, 1988, at 34.

186 Ken Rodriguez and Jorge Ortiz, Canseco Denies Using Steroids, Miami Herald,

Sept. 30, 1998, at D1.

187 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.

307 (2005) (statement of Sandy Alderson, then-executive vice president for baseball operations,

Major League Baseball).

Home runs and run production were increasing during the time but not

always year to year. At the same time, strength programs were in vogue

across baseball. Hitter-friendly ballparks were being built. Expansion had

occurred in 1993 and again in 1998. Two seasons, ’94 and ’95, had been

shortened by a players’ strike. Bat design had changed and there was an

emphasis with many clubs on having more offensive players even at

traditionally defensive positions.188

Just before the 1989 season began, David Valdez, Jose Canseco’s assistant and

traveling companion, pleaded guilty to possession of a handgun while clearing security in Detroit

Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. He was alleged to have been in possession of steroids

when the gun was seized. Canseco had been with Valdez at the time, but he later denied any

connection to the steroids or even knowing that Valdez was carrying steroids, explaining to a

reporter that: “From what I know when he was young he was anemic and they did prescribe

some pills for weight gain.”189 Valdez said that he admitted the gun charges to spare Canseco

embarrassment about the steroids. He explained that the steroids belonged to him, not Canseco,

but Valdez added that he did not know the pills he was carrying were steroids at the time of his

arrest.190

Given Canseco’s more recent and highly publicized admissions of his own steroid

use, the connection between Canseco and the steroids Valdez was carrying while traveling with

him now appears obvious. At the time, however, a report in the San Francisco Chronicle

described the connection as “tenuous” (although soon thereafter a Chronicle sports columnist

expressed some skepticism and also stated that baseball did “not even have a rule against steroid

188 Id.

189 David Bush, Steroids Found on Canseco’s Friend Incident at Detroit Airport, S.F.

Chron., Mar. 22, 1989, at D1.

190 John Castine, Friend Says He Pleaded Guilty to Protect A’s Canseco, New Orleans

Times-Picayune, Mar. 22, 1989, at C10.

use” and “[t]heoretically, a baseball player could keep a bottle of steroids in his locker in the

clubhouse and eat them during interviews”).191

Fay Vincent, who served as Commissioner from September 1989 to September

1992, said years later that he was “wrong not to jump all over the steroids issue”:

There were signs. There were rumors. We all heard about Canseco. But

the baseball world – and I was one of them – thought steroids was a

football problem, not a baseball problem. We were totally wrong.192

In hindsight, Vincent told me that he failed to notice the emergence of steroids because he was

focused on cleaning up the problem of cocaine use by major league players.193

In 2005, after Canseco’s memoir Juiced was published, former Oakland manager

Tony La Russa told “60 Minutes Wednesday” that when Canseco played for Oakland he “would

laugh about the time that other guys were spending [in the gym] and how he didn’t have to,

because he was, he was doing the other ‘helper.’ He was having help in a different way. You

know, the easy way.”194 The San Francisco Chronicle reported that La Russa said that when

Canseco got his contract, “he changed. He’d talk about the juice, and others would talk to him

about his health.”195 La Russa also reportedly said that in 1990 or 1991, Canseco “stopped

191 David Bush, Steroids Found on Canseco’s Friend Incident at Detroit Airport, S.F.

Chron., Mar. 22, 1989, at D1; C.W. Nevius, Thank you, Ben Johnson, S.F. Chron., Mar. 24,

1989, at D1.

192 Jay Mariotti, Pleading the Fifth Can’t Hide the Truth, Chicago Sun-Times, Mar. 17,

2005, at 119.

193 In addition to Steve Howe, whose lifetime ban was overturned after Vincent was

removed as Commissioner, Vincent suspended pitcher Rick Leach, catcher Gilberto Reyes,

outfielder Otis Nixon, first baseman Leon Durham, and pitcher Pascual Perez for violating the

Commissioner’s drug policy. As mentioned above, Vincent amended baseball’s drug policy in

June 1991 to add anabolic steroids as prohibited substances, soon after the Anabolic Steroids

Control Act of 1990 became effective.

194 Associated Press, La Russa: Canseco Had Helper, Wash. Post, Feb. 17, 2005, at D9.

195 John Shea, Steroid Accusations Leave Former Teammates, La Russa Livid,

S.F. Chron., Feb. 7, 2005, at D1.

working, he got bigger than ever, and the coaches and I got suspicious and actually confronted

him.”196 Similarly, Dave McKay, an Oakland coach from 1984 to 1995, told the New York

Times that Canseco would speak openly about steroids and ignore advice to stop using them.197

He was also quoted in the Toronto Sun as having said that: “We had one guy who talked about

steroids and that was Jose. . . . The most common question I was asked was: ‘I won’t get too

big, will I?’”198

But when La Russa and McKay were interviewed in connection with this

investigation, they both denied having direct knowledge that Canseco had used steroids. La

Russa claimed that he had “exaggerated” in his CBS interview, that Canseco had never used the

word “helper,” and that, in fact, La Russa had never confronted Canseco about his use of

steroids. When asked why he would “exaggerate” on national television, La Russa said that he

questioned Canseco’s motives in making the statements he had made and he felt that Canseco

was trying to impugn the achievements of his former Oakland teammate Mark McGwire and the

Oakland teams of the late 1980s. McKay did not deny the accuracy of his reported statements,

but he claimed that the statements did not amount to an acknowledgment that he had first-hand

knowledge of Canseco’s use of steroids. McKay said that when he stated that “we had one guy

who talked about steroids and that was Jose,” he meant only that if any player might have used

steroids it was Canseco. McKay also heard other people mention that Canseco might have used

steroids.

196 Bernie Miklasz, Previous Defense of Canseco Hurts La Russa’s Case, St. Louis Post-

Dispatch, Feb. 14, 2005, at D1.

197 Tyler Kepner, La Russa Disputes Claims in Canseco’s Book, N.Y. Times, Feb. 7,

2005, at D1.

198 Bob Elliot, McKay: Anger to Pity: Ex-A’s Coach Tells Bob Elliot that He Expects to

Be Named in Canseco’s Controversial Book, Toronto Sun, Feb. 10, 2005, at Sports 6.

Even while providing these explanations of their prior statements, both La Russa

and McKay acknowledged that they had suspected Canseco of using steroids when he was

playing with Oakland. McKay said: “It just got to the point where you knew he [used them].”

Neither La Russa nor McKay shared their concerns with the Oakland front office, however.

According to La Russa, “I thought, what’s the use? So I didn’t say anything.”

Former Oakland general manager Sandy Alderson strongly denied a statement in

the book Juicing the Game that “[b]y 1992, even Alderson thought Canseco was a steroid user.”

Alderson had been familiar with the incidents reported in the media, but he still did not believe at

the time that Canseco was using steroids and did not look into it. Alderson did, at one point,

consider testing one or two players for steroids, possibly including Canseco (but, Alderson made

clear, not Mark McGwire). The club obtained testing equipment and arranged for a testing

laboratory, but the idea was abandoned out of a concern that the testing would violate baseball’s

collective bargaining agreement. Canseco was traded to the Texas Rangers in 1992 but,

according to Alderson, not out of any concern relating to his alleged involvement with steroids.

B. Lenny Dykstra Evokes Suspicions of Steroid Use

As with Jose Canseco, Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Lenny Dykstra was the

subject of several articles speculating about his possible use of steroids.199 The first appeared at

the start of the 1990 season, when Dykstra credited “real good vitamins” for adding 30 pounds of

muscle to his frame during the off-season. Similar articles appeared early in 1991 and after a

break-out season in 1993.200 During our investigation, Philadelphia’s then-general manager Lee

199 Dykstra’s name would come up years later in connection with a government

investigation of Kirk Radomski. See infra at 149-50.

200 See Rick Hummel and Dan O’Neil, Cox Hopes to Be Back in Month . . . Says 25 Starts

Are Possible This Season, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Apr. 16, 1990, at 4C; Ray Ratto, Opponents

Sense Giants Out-of-Kilter Rosen, Craig Suddenly Have Been Forced to Patch Roster with

Thomas confirmed that he had suspicions that Dykstra might have been using performance

enhancing substances when he arrived at spring training in 1993 noticeably bigger. Thomas told

Dykstra he hoped he had not done anything to jeopardize his health, and in response Dykstra

denied using steroids.

Philadelphia’s then-head athletic trainer Jeff Cooper told us that during this period

he observed a Phillies player whose use of steroids was “obvious.” Cooper would not divulge

the player’s identity to us. He told us that he approached the general manager (apparently

Thomas) to report his concerns, and the general manager advised Cooper that he should raise the

subject with the player directly. Cooper then did raise the issue with the player, who said it was

none of Cooper’s business. The matter went no further.

C. The 1991 Major League Baseball Alcohol and Drug Use Survey

In 1990, Major League Baseball commissioned a survey of alcohol and drug use

among player and non-player personnel. The project was a joint effort of the Players Association

and the owners’ Player Relations Committee. Most of the responses were gathered during spring

training in 1991.201

Approximately 80% of major league players participated in the survey. Of the

880 players who responded (including some minor league players), only 1.5% reported using

anabolic steroids during their lifetime, and only 0.5% reported use of steroids in the preceding

Bodies from Waiver Wire, National League Notebook, S.F. Chron., Apr. 7, 1990, at D3 (“Center

fielder Len Dykstra, who was supposed to be trade bait last winter, came back 26 pounds heavier

and proceeded to go 4-for-4 with a double Sunday in his first official game of the season.

Reason: ‘I did a lot of lifting and free weights. And I took some very good vitamins.’ Uh-oh.”);

Stan Hochman, Thomas: Blame Union, Not Phils, Phila. Daily News, Mar. 16, 1991, at 45

(“Guys saying that if Lenny Dykstra hits .325 we’re not worried about what happens off the

field. We are very concerned. But our hands are tied. We’re handcuffed by the union.”); Ross

Newhan, In Your Face if Not Your Hair, L.A. Times, Mar. 20, 1994, at Sports 3.

201 George De Leon, Ph.D., and Stanley Sack, Ph.D., Major League Baseball Alcohol and

Drug Use Survey, 1991, Final Report (Draft 3/93).

12 months. While the study’s authors acknowledged that underreporting was certainly a

possibility, participating players admitted use of amphetamines and certain serious drugs of

abuse at much higher rates. The study’s authors concluded that “there is little indication of lying

and the obtained rates should be taken as reliable but conservative estimates.”202

The survey, and the cooperation between owners and the Players Association that

brought it about, reflected an admirable joint commitment to self-examination of drug use in the

game at the time. The authors concluded that “[t]he major purpose of this project has been

accomplished. MLB has established a scientific data base to inform alcohol and drug policy and

planning.”203 The study’s authors made several recommendations, most notably that “MLB

should develop a comprehensive integrated health-oriented preventive education, treatment, and

aftercare program for the entire MLB community” and that “MLB should launch periodic

surveys to monitor changes and trends in substance use . . .”204

D. Baseball Writers Address the Issue, 1992-95

In March 1992, Pittsburgh columnist Gene Collier addressed the perception that

baseball was not a sport for steroids users. Collier derided the suggestion that the game of

baseball “is simply too complex to be positively augmented by some injectable.” He quoted

Penn State professor Charles Yesalis, an outspoken critic of steroid use, who said that steroids

were a “natural” fit for baseball:

I don’t know how common it is, but I have colleagues in the sports

medicine community who say “Yeah, they’re doing it. . . . You know

baseball players are lifting weights. They’re in gyms where the steroids

are, and pro baseball players know pro football players.”

202 Id. at 53 (emphasis in original).

203 Id. at 70.

204 George De Leon, Ph.D., and Stanley Sack, Ph.D., Major League Baseball Alcohol and

Drug Use Survey, 1991, Presentation Report, at 23.

After discussing the problems posed by human growth hormone and other substances that were

difficult to detect in drug tests, Collier concluded that baseball “should consider testing if only to

show how it feels about a level field being mandatory.”205

In August 1992, Peter Gammons reported in the Boston Globe that while there

was not much discussion of steroid use in baseball, “there’s a growing suspicion that it’s much

greater than anyone lets on.” Ten years before Rob Manfred’s 2002 Senate testimony, Gammons

wrote that a recent increase in injuries in Major League Baseball could be the result of steroid

use, as “players’ muscle mass becomes too great for their bodies, resulting in the odd back and

leg breakdowns . . .”206

The issue was mentioned from time to time in articles over the next several years.

One Long Beach, California reporter asserted in June 1993 that the use of steroids in baseball

was “starting to run rampant.” A law review article in spring 1994 argued for separate drug

testing programs in baseball for drugs of abuse and performance enhancing substances.207

A vocal early observer of the growing steroids problem in baseball was Bob

Nightengale, who was then a baseball writer with the Los Angeles Times (and now covers

baseball for USA Today). In a July 1995 article entitled “Baseball Still Doesn’t Get It,”

Nightengale observed:

205 Gene Collier, Baseball’s Field May Not Be Level, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mar. 22,

1992, at C1.

206 Peter Gammons, They’ve Met Disappointment, Boston Globe, Aug. 16, 1992, at 48.

207 See David Cunningham, More Than a Few Make Much Ado Over Voodoo, Long

Beach Press-Telegram, June 28, 1993, at E3; Edward Rippey, Contractual Freedom Over

Substance-Related Issues in Major League Baseball, 1 Sports Lawyers J. 143, 156 (Spring

1994); see also Bob Nightengale, Herzog, Others Say Lamont Was Right to Look for Cheating,

L.A. Times, July 20, 1994, at Sports 1 (“Said Angel second baseman Harold Reynolds: ‘You

hear about some guys using steroids for some extra pop, but not cork.’”).

Come on, you know there’s no steroid use in baseball. Those bodies and

dramatic increases in strength and bat speed are only the byproducts of

these athletes dedicating their bodies to the gym all winter. That’s what

baseball tells us.208

Several weeks later, a Nightengale story quoted a number of major league players

and front office executives who expressed concern over the prevalence of steroid use in Major

League Baseball.209 Originally published in the Los Angeles Times, the story was picked up by

wire services over the next few days and a revised version ran in the next issue of the Sporting

News, in which steroid use was called “baseball’s deep, dark, sinister secret.”210

In the article, Randy Smith, then the general manager of the Padres, was quoted as

having said that “[w]e all know there’s steroid use, and it’s definitely become more prevalent.”

He estimated that “10% to 20%” of players were using steroids. Another unnamed general

manager said that he “wouldn’t be surprised if it’s closer to 30%” and that he thought the entire

lineup of one American League team a few years earlier “may have been on it.” He said he was

“seeing guys now who were washed up five years ago, and now they’ve got bat speed that

they’ve never had before. It’s insane.” Kevin Malone, then-general manager of the Montreal

Expos, said that he heard “rumors that usage is way up, and it would be nice to know if those are

accurate.” Players also were quoted in the article, with Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox

208 Bob Nightengale, Baseball Still Doesn’t Get It, Palm Beach Post, July 2, 1995, at C13.

209 Bob Nightengale, Steroids Become an Issue, Baseball: Many Fear Performance-

Enhancing Drugs Is Becoming Prevalent and Believe Something Must Be Done, L.A. Times,

July 15, 1995, at C1.

210 Bob Nightengale, Steroids in baseball? Say it ain’t so, Bud., Sporting News, July 24,

1995, at 16; see, e.g., Bob Nightengale, Steroid Use Said Rampant in Baseball, New Orleans

Times-Picayune, July 16, 1995, at C1; Bob Nightengale, Steroids Muscling Their Way Into

Baseball, Lack of Testing Fuels Suspicions Among Players, N.J. Record, July 18, 1995, at

Sports 3.

saying that he’d “love to see testing” and future Hall of Fame member Tony Gwynn of the

Padres calling steroids “the big secret we’re not supposed to talk about . . . .”211

Commissioner Selig was quoted in the article as having said that “[i]f baseball has

a problem, I must say candidly that we were not aware of it . . . . It certainly hasn’t been talked

about much.” Nightengale reported that, according to Selig, the issue had been discussed among

the owners at a meeting eighteen months earlier and that “no one had any evidence that steroid

use should be a concern.”212 Kevin Hallinan, baseball’s longtime security director who retired in

2007, confirmed that no inquiry was conducted in the wake of this article or other early press

reports about the issue.

E. The 1996 Offensive Explosion and Ken Caminiti’s MVP

The 1996 season began with an outbreak of hitting so dramatic that Commissioner

Selig considered it to be “startling.”213 Immediately, speculation turned to the use of steroids by

baseball’s big hitters, with pitcher Tim Belcher saying: “Everybody’s blaming the pitchers, but

it’s smaller strike zones, smaller parks and steroids. That’s not a good combination.”214

In a May 1996 article, Sporting News writer Steve Marantz compared baseball’s

drug policy to the policies of other sports, concluding that baseball’s “failure to screen for

211 See Bob Nightengale, Steroids Becomes an Issue, Baseball: Many Fear Performance-

Enhancing Drugs Is Becoming Prevalent and Believe Something Must Be Done, L.A. Times,

July 15, 1995, at C1.

212 Id.

213 Ross Newman, Pitchers Hit the Showers in April, L.A. Times, May 5, 1996, at Sports

10. On the phenomenon generally, see Chuck Johnson, Season Starts with a Bang, USA Today,

May 1, 1996, at C3; Howard Thomas, Baseball’s Offensive Punch Too Much?, Capital Times

(Madison, WI), May 1, 1996, at B1; John Steigerwald, Power Play Aren’t All These Home Runs

Exactly What Baseball Needs?, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 4, 1996, at B3; Jack Etkin, Is All

This Scoring Good for Baseball? Offense Runs Game in 1990s, Denver Rocky Mountain News,

May 30, 1996, at C15.

214 Ross Newhan, Pitchers Hit the Showers in April, L.A. Times, May 5, 1996, at Sports

10.

steroids” was the most glaring failure of its drug policy. “Look around at baseballs flying over

fences, and at the pumped-up torsos swinging bats, and ask yourself if everybody is playing

fair.” He quoted Dr. Robert Voy, formerly the physician for the U.S. Olympic team and the

author of a book published after the 1988 games that analyzed the steroids problem, who said:

“One has to question the sudden prowess of certain athletes. . . . It may come from the weight

room, but in my experience weight rooms are where steroid use starts.”215

In a July 1996 article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ron Cook analyzed the

possible explanations for the season of dramatic power hitting. Among other possible reasons,

Cook wrote: “There are other factors, to be sure. Hitters are bigger and stronger. (Can you say

steroids, ladies and gentlemen).” He quoted Jim Leyland, then the manager of the Pittsburgh

Pirates, as saying: “I’d swear on a stack of bibles we don’t have steroids on this team . . . but

I wouldn’t know about the rest of baseball.” The article also reported estimates that as many as

35% of major-league players were using steroids and noted that Jose Canseco and Lenny Dykstra

had been taunted by fans for their alleged steroid use.216

Years later, in a summer 2002 Sports Illustrated article, Ken Caminiti would

acknowledge that his breakout offensive performance in 1996 was aided by the use of anabolic

steroids.217 But that revelation was six years in the future in November 1996, when Caminiti was

chosen the National League Most Valuable Player in a unanimous vote after hitting 40 home

runs and driving in 130 runs.218

215 Steve Marantz, Addiction by Distraction, Sporting News, May 27, 1996, at 10; see

Robert Voy, M.D., Drugs, Sport, and Politics (Leisure Press 1991).

216 Ron Cook, Slam Dance, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 9, 1996, at D3.

217 Tom Verducci, Totally Juiced, Sports Illustrated, June 3, 2002, at 34.

218 See Murray Chass, Caminiti Gets MVP; Williams Gets Traded, N.Y. Times, Nov. 14,

1996, at 17.

Both Kevin Towers, the Padres general manager at the time, and Larry Lucchino,

then the Padres’ chief executive officer and president (who is now chief executive officer and

president of the Boston Red Sox), said that they were surprised by the 2002 Sports Illustrated

revelations of Caminiti’s use of steroids. The Padres manager at the time, Bruce Bochy, also

claimed never to have suspected Caminiti of using steroids before the 2002 article (although in

another article he was quoted saying that the revelations were “certainly not a big surprise”).219

During our investigation, however, a number of Caminiti’s former teammates recounted

incidents describing his open use of steroids as early as 1995. It appears that Caminiti began

researching the possibility of using steroids as early as 1993 or 1994, when he discussed the

issue with one of his teammates on the Houston Astros.

One of Caminiti’s later Padres teammates, Wally Joyner, acknowledged that he

discussed using steroids with Caminiti in 1998, when Joyner was feeling the effects of the game

on his aging body. In an interview for this investigation, Joyner told us that he struggled with the

decision whether to try steroids, but eventually he decided to use them. After taking the drugs

three times, Joyner decided that he had made a mistake, discarded the rest of the pills, and never

tried illegal performance enhancing substances again.220

F. Reporting on the Issue Continues, 1996-98

Days before the results were announced of voting for the 1996 most valuable

player awards, Bob Nightengale wrote another article on the topic, asserting that baseball needed

219 See Nick Canepa, Caminiti’s Admission to Sports Illustrated Taints MVP Season, San-

Diego Union-Tribune, May 29, 2002, at D1 (“‘I’m not surprised – maybe a little bit, I guess, but

it’s certainly not a big surprise,’ says Padres manager Bruce Bochy, who was on the bridge

during the ’96 season when Caminiti carried his team to the NL West title. ‘Players are using

steroids. With Cammy’s injuries that year, that rotator cuff injury, and his build no, it doesn’t

shock me.’”).

220 See also Shaun Assael and Peter Keating, Who Knew? Part II: the Tipping Point, the

Friend, ESPN the Magazine, Nov. 9, 2005.

to “pull its head out of the sand and start checking for steroids” and that the problem was “raging

out of control.” “Want to know why there were so many home runs this season?,” Nightengale

asked. “It’s not that the pitching is so bad, but that the players are so juiced.” Nightengale

observed that the “ones being penalized are the players who refuse to use steroids . . .”221

Peter Gammons also revisited the issue in a pre-season roundup before the 1997

season began, reporting that “physicians and GMs are increasingly concerned about steroid use

in baseball. As one team physician said last week, ‘The owners won’t do anything about it

because the cost of testing for steroids is very high, and they don’t want to face the costs or the

circumstances.’” Gammons criticized the Commissioner’s Office for “turn[ing] its back on such

issues.”222

Other articles appeared throughout the 1997 season.223 An April 1997 Sports

Illustrated article called the use of steroids and other performance enhancing substances,

including human growth hormone, the “dirty and universal secret of sports, amateur and pro, as

the millennium draws near.” It listed Major League Baseball among the sports where that use

221 Bob Nightengale, Baseball Is One Industry Badly in Need of a CEO, Sporting News,

Mar. 24, 1997, at 22.

222 Peter Gammons, Birds Have Feathered Their Nest, Boston Globe, Mar. 2, 1997, at

C8. The suggestion that owners avoided testing because of its high cost has been repeated since

then by others who write about baseball. Despite extensive inquiry I found no evidence to

support this assertion. All of the owners and other baseball officials I interviewed strongly

denied it.

223 See, e.g., Bob Molinaro, Steroid Alert: Some Might Be Corking Their Biceps, Virginia

Pilot and Ledger-Star, Mar. 7, 1997, at C1 (“The next scandal in Major League Baseball may

relate to steroid use by players, a story that is starting to leak out.”); Bob Nightengale, Baseball

Is One Industry Badly in Need of a CEO, Sporting News, Mar. 24, 1997, at 22 (“This is an

industry so naïve that it still believes steroid use is not a problem when, in fact, it rages out of

control.”); John Steigerwald, Lemieux’s Way Out Mario Just Got Tired of Waiting for NHL to

Open Up Game, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mar. 29, 1997, at C3 (“It has taken longer than it

should have, but more and more the media are beginning to realize that Major League Baseball

has another major problem beyond the familiar ones: Steroids.”).

was an issue.224 In a July 1997 article, Ken Caminiti reportedly told the Denver Post that:

“There’s a lot of monsters (muscular players) in baseball. You don’t want to tarnish the

reputation of the sport, but I don’t think the fans are naïve either.”225 In August, Jim Bowden,

then the general manager of the Cincinnati Reds, told the Rocky Mountain News that there

should be testing for steroids in baseball: “I think there’s a lot of people in baseball using

steroids, and that’s not fair to those who don’t use steroids.”226 And a November 1997 article in

the Los Angeles Times cited a “well connected source” for the assertion that “half the position

players in the major leagues use steroids . . . .”227

The public speculation continued into the 1998 season. In a first-person article in

the Birmingham News, Detroit Tigers pitcher Todd Jones wrote:

This week’s topic is a tough one to write. I enjoy the game so much it

hurts me to defame it, but as a somewhat member of the media, I believe it

is my job to tell you the stuff that is uncomfortable for me as a player. I’m

talking today about the use and abuse of steroids and uppers. In my time

in the big leagues, I’ve never seen anyone take steroids. But I have seen

teammates come to spring training 40 pounds heavier, then tell me: ‘Not

me, man, I used creatine.’ Yeah, right! I don’t know the exact number,

but probably two or three players on every team take ‘roids. More

position players take them than pitchers. Steroids I don’t think help arm

speed.228

224 Michael Bamberger and Don Yeager, Over the Edge: Aware that Drug Testing Is a

Sham, Athletes to Rely More than Ever on Banned Performance Enhancers, Sports Illustrated,

Apr. 14, 1997, at 60.

225 Jerry Crasnick, Get a Load of This! Baseball Players Are Taking a Powder –

Creatine, Denver Post, July 28, 1997, at D1.

226 Tracy Ringolsby with Jim Bowden and Alan Meersand, Drug Policy Skirts the Issue

Should Baseball Test for Steroids?, Denver Rocky Mountain News, Aug. 28, 1997.

227 Randy Harvey, The Inside Track, L.A. Times, Nov. 4, 1997, at Sports 2.

228 Todd Jones, Using Drugs Same as Deal with Devil, Birmingham News, May 31,

1998, at Sports 11.

Similarly, in an article that appeared in early August, days before stories first

appeared about Mark McGwire’s use of androstenedione, then-Milwaukee Brewers manager Phil

Garner told a reporter of his first-hand knowledge of a player’s steroid use:

There was one kid, 27, who was cycling steroids, and I asked him, ‘Do

you realize you could need an artificial heart when you’re 40 years

old?’. . . He said, ‘I don’t care what happens at 40. All I want to do is be

the biggest, baddest, guy I can be right now.’229

In his interview with our investigation, Garner acknowledged that he had known one major

league player who used steroids while playing for him, but Garner refused to identify the player

because it was more than five years prior to the interview and Garner did not believe it was

necessary for this investigation to look that far back in time.

In the same August 1998 article, Mike Spinelli, a former Boston Red Sox minor

league player, admitted his use of steroids and was quoted as having said: “I just thank God I

was able to get out of this . . . before it killed me.” The article noted the lack of a drug-testing

program in baseball and reported that “some say, anonymously, that about 30 percent of the

hitters include [steroids] in their muscle-building program.”230

229 Alan Truex, The Creatine Craze / Steroids Mortgage Future for Muscles, Glory,

Hous. Chron., Aug. 11, 1998, at A1.

230 Id.

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