by Will Curl on April 22, 2011
Since 2008 the State of Texas has been randomly administering steroid tests to High School Athletes. The latest results from last fall showed that over 2000 had been tested out of 135 schools and that only one person tested positive for the drug. The report also states that one person did not appear to take his test as ordered.
Here is some more about the subject:
The latest round of Texas high school steroids tests caught just one student taking performance enhancing drugs.
The University Interscholastic League on Thursday announced results of tests conducted last fall. Out of 2,083 tests at 135 schools, one student tested positive for steroids.
Athletes are chosen at random, and the UIL said one student failed to show up for a test. The most tested sports were football for boys and soccer for girls.
State lawmakers are debating whether to continue the 4-year-old program that has been cut back in recent years because of budget problems.
Texas has conducted more than 50,000 tests with less than 30 confirmed cases of steroid use.
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by Will Curl on April 20, 2011
It seems like you can find a piece in the news about steroids everyday. Either someone has been caught selling them or using them. Steroids are definitely big news in the world right now. Although steroids are used in various forms in the medical community; it is the ongoing use of anabolic steroids or performance enhancing drugs that is corrupting our world.
If there is money to be made from selling or using steroids someone is going to do it. That is just the way it is. It does not matter if there is question of the long term health effects or the fact that it is illegal or not. If there is money it someone is going to take advantage of it.
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by Will Curl on April 19, 2011
Now that the Barry Bonds steroid trial is over; all eyes turn to the Roger Clemens steroids trial in July. You can draw some comparisons to this trial; but you will find differences as well. Both of these major league baseball stars were legends of the game; Bonds as a hitter and Clemens as a pitcher. They were both accused of steroids use and denied it leading to separate trials with perjury charges as well as obstruction of justice charges as well. Now some differences.
Prosecutors accused Bonds, who was convicted Wednesday of obstruction of justice but not three counts of perjury, of lying to a grand jury after he was called to testify. Clemens, whose trial is scheduled to begin in July, has been charged with lying to Congress, and his statements were broadcast on national television.
Roger Clemens has been very confident about his case from the very beginning but he may very well have some cards stacked against him that Bonds did not.
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by Will Curl on April 16, 2011
I know it seems the conversation about steroids and its effect on baseball seems to be a never ending story that won’t go away. I can understand your sentiments; but this story is just not about baseball, or steroids; its about our youth and the future effects this problem will have on them and their futures.
My concern is not about baseball. Major league baseball survived two world wars, the 1919 Black Sox scandal, and Pete Rose betting on baseball, and it will survive the steroids era as well. There are moral issues here to think about. Recent news about this subject has surrounded Barry Bonds and his trial that ended without him being convicted of perjury charges of lying about knowingly using steroids. But this is not all about Barry Bonds.
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by Will Curl on April 15, 2011
Major League Baseball is on a journey to nip steroids use in the bud before it ever reaches the big show. One of the locations they are trying to stop steroids in its tracks at the grass level is in the Dominican Republic. A typical day in the Dominican Republic now goes like this for prospective players who want that contract and a chance at the big show.
The catcher’s mitt popped with 90-mile-per-hour fastballs. Wooden bats cracked as lanky teenagers sent balls whistling into the outfield. Scouts huddled around a picnic table behind home plate.
As Ramon Jayde Antonio, age 17, wheeled his sinewy frame and took off to steal second base, a scout glanced at his stopwatch, nodded, and jotted down a few numbers.
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by Will Curl on April 14, 2011
It took the federal government seven and a half years to get a guilty verdict on baseball home run king Barry Bonds; but they left the court room batting a miserable .250 getting only one conviction out of four charges. The federal prosecutors didn’t even hit a home run because they couldn’t get a guilty verdict on perjury; they had to settle for felony obstruction of justice.
At just after 2:30 p.m. PDT, a 12-person jury sitting just two miles from AT&T Park, convicted Bonds, perhaps the most feared hitter in Major League Baseball history, of one count of obstruction of justice but deadlocked on three perjury-related charges. Bonds was charged with four federal felony counts for denying under oath to a grand jury in 2003 that he had knowingly used steroids or human growth hormone and for maintaining that his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, had never injected him.
The obstruction count, like the other charges, carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence and a minimum of 15 to 21 months, although it is possible that Bonds won’t serve any jail time.
Peter Keane, a law professor at Golden Gate University, said he believes Illston will have to send Bonds to jail.
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by Will Curl on April 14, 2011
Last Friday Manny Ramirez said so long to his 19 year Major League Baseball career. There is no doubt that he will go down as one of the best right handed hitters the game has ever known. His 555 home runs and .312 lifetime batting average would normally make him a cinch for the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY; but now who knows. You see Manny chose to get rich off of baseball by using steroids. He just recently got caught and it was not the first time:
Manny was dealing with what Major League Baseball described as an “issue” with a drug test. He had already served a 50-game suspension for violating the league’s drug policy in 2009. This time, he was looking at a 100-game suspension. Why bother? He abruptly retired from the Tampa Bay Rays.
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by Will Curl on April 12, 2011
Nothing makes the hair stand up on the back of a baseball fans neck then the mention of anabolic steroids and the affect they have had on the sport. If you want to instigate a heated discussion all you have to do is ponder out loud whether the steroids superstars should find a home in Cooperstown, New York and the argument is on.
The opinions are varied and often very passionate. As a lifetime long baseball fan it is hard for me to determine what was more important to these idols of the game. Were they in baseball just for the money? Does induction into the hall of fame ever cross their minds? The most respected players are those who relied only on their natural god given talent to succeed. The ones that did not have to be “juiced” with steroids to accomplish their goals. But to really draw a conclusion we must look at the big picture. Here is what another respected author had to say:
Now there seems to be wide consensus that all the steroid users, every last one of them, need to be barred from the Hall of Fame as a way to try to move forward and try to forget the shame and ignominy of the Steroid Era. So it’s now taken as a given that Manny Ramirez, smiling even now as he makes a spectacularly clownish departure from the game, and Barry Bonds, awaiting a verdict in California that may come any hour now, or at least any day, have as much chance of ending up in the Hall of Fame as, well, you do — or I do — or Matt Damon.
That may be true. But I have a question: Doesn’t this new consensus on the need to condemn these tainted players suggest that we are through this era, that it is over and behind us, and that with the Bonds trial all the big questions have been asked, been confronted and answered, as best we could? I think that is the clear implication. And I think clearly it is a mistake to imagine such is the case.
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by Will Curl on April 12, 2011
After 2 full days of deliberation the jury in the Barry Bonds Steroids perjury trial have yet to reach a verdict in San Francisco, California not far from where Bonds broke Hank Arron’s Home Run record just 4 years ago. On Tuesday, they will try again on day 3. This morning they began their Monday deliberation by doing this:
They listened to a re-reading of the testimony of Kathy Hoskins, Bonds’ childhood friend and later his personal shopper, Monday morning and then returned to the jury room for deliberations.Hoskins testified in the trial that she saw Bonds’ trainer inject him with a syringe at his home in 2002.
Defense lawyers argued that the woman lied about the incident to help her brother Steve Hoskins, also a key witness, who had a bitter dispute with Bonds that could have resulted in criminal charges.
Barry Bonds who finished his career with 762 home runs is on trial for perjury because it is assumed he lied under oath in 2003 in front of a grand jury when he stated that he never knowingly took anabolic steroids.
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by Will Curl on April 4, 2011
Are we placing too much pressure on our American youth? Or are we simply not placing enough? In America our youth have long idolized our sporting stars. From the days of Shoeless Joe Jackson and Babe Ruth to the superstars of today like Peyton Manning, LaBron James, and Derek Jeter; our youth pick out their idols and mock their every move.
Now in some cases that might be acceptable; but in today’s world of professional sports; idolizing our superstars can be risky business. Today our sports hero’s make millions of dollars and way too often get caught up in their own fame. Steroids has been haunting the NFL and MLB for years and is invading the remaining sports world like a cancer. Our youth have long been watching the evolution of this drug and have been evaluating the benefits it offers over the negatives it can produce. The results are not encouraging:
The 21st century seems to be coined the ‘Age of Excellence,’ where pressures to succeed hit hard amongst American youth. That combined with college admission rates on heavy decline and the idolization of professional athletes make for a combination directly linked to major steroid abuse. The Recovery Place fears this is an equation for addiction that will get overlooked in the excitement of sport and constant need to be the best.
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