The 'Roid Report for the week of October 12

by Gary Gaffney, MD, Steroid Nation

As baseball slides inexorably toward the October World Series, we reflect on the past several weeks of steroid stories in baseball. Interestingly that one of the men to start the huge brouhaha is up to his liver in steroid troubles...that is Jose Canseco, who is out of favor in his home town of Miami, as well as up for more legal charges in San Diego.

The Florida Times-Union tracked down a homeless Rusty Tillman to interview the Ex-Oakland Athletic player about his life and high times in the big leagues. Tillman delivered the startling claim that he introduced Jose Canseco to big league steroids, and that he ran the illicit drugs to the team from Mexico. Interesting to note that Tillman was not given credit (or blame) in Canseco's book 'Juiced' for the juice deliveries. Tillman thinks that he took the moral high ground because he didn't sell out at least four as juicers who used his steroids, unlike one of his Bash Brother teammates.

Apparently Tillman's confession rekindled interest in Mexico as Canseco found himself snarled in a nasty drug smuggling stop at the Mexican-USA border last week. Canseco was nailed with HCG (*human chorionic gonadotropin) which is a fertility hormone that also boosts natural testosterone production. Canseco says he suffers a dramatic drop in natural testosterone due to his years of artful androgen steroid use. Canseco blames a loss of libido, and a loss of his fighting career on the steroids addiction and withdrawal he suffered over the years. Canseco (who says he sought out medical treatment for the low testosterone condition) decided to take the matter into his own sneaky hand when he acquired Mexican HCG. Canseco appeared in San Diego federal court where he was charged with a misdemeanor charge related to mislabeling the HCG. Reports also indicate federal agents searched what's left of the ex-MLB All-Star's house.

The major league baseball season itself seemed remarkably free of steroid and drug charges (although minor league teams seem to be warned in advance of dope testing perhaps keeping the minors clean). Most of the noise about juicing belonged to old 'roiders like Roger Clemens, Jose Canseco, and at times Barry Bonds. It has been noted that when the PED test numbers increased, power numbers in the MLB decreased. The Washington Post linked 2008 playoff advantages of the teams with younger stars to the juicing draught: successful 2008 teams moved to a youth movement which paid off when older players artificially propped up by steroids -- and other PEDs -- dropped out of the league. Like the stock market that was propped up by subprime mortgages on steroids fell, several MLB teams who played older juicers fell on hard times when the 'roiders retired. Interesting that both MLB power and the Dow Industrial Average came tumbling down the same fall.

Barry Bonds just doesn't go away. The MLB Players Union announced that the organization will be filing an accusation of collusion because the former-alleged juiced Bonds found his services were not employed by any MLB team this year. Interesting that Bonds must not consider that teams are not likely to sign a broken-down, once-juiced, 44 year-old former slugger with a bad attitude. Bonds should concern himself with the legal consequences of truthfulness in the BALCO case; former 'roided up cyclist Tammy Thomas will be spending 6 months at home for her deceptions during the BALCO investigation. Fellow BALCO juicer Marion Jones served time in federal pen as retribution in her untruthfulness. Which sentence might Bonds be looking at if convicted of deceiving investigators during the BALCO grand jury Inquisition?