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The Needle and the Damage Done:

A Six-Part Look at Steroids in Major League Baseball

by Joe Cantiello

I caught you knockin' on my cellar door,
I love you, baby, could I have some more
Ohhhhhh, ohhhhhh the damage done

I hit the city and I lost my band,
I watched the needle take another man,
Ohhhhhh, ohhhhhh the damage done

I sing the song because I love the man,
I know that some of you don't understand
milk blood to keep from running out

I've seen the needle and the damage done,
a little part of it in everyone,
but every junkie's like a setting sun...

-- Neil Young

PART 1: STEROIDS DEFINED AND SOME STEROID USES:

THE GOOD, THE BAD & SOMETIMES THE UGLY FACTS

PART 2: BASEBALL AND STEROIDS -- FACTS & MISCONCEPTIONS:

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY

PART 3: THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET:

WHO KNEW WHAT, WHEN AND WHERE

On December 10, 2000, Alex Rodriguez agreed to a ten-year contract with the Texas Rangers worth $252 million in guaranteed salary. Tom Hicks paid more for Alex Rodriguez than he did for the Texas Rangers franchise when he purchased it. He paid more for Alex Rodriguez than it cost to build the Ballpark in Arlington. Rodriguez was twenty five when he signed that historic contract. In this economic world in which we exist, salary is basically set or determined roughly by the value of what an individual can produce. Economists call this marginal revenue product. Rodriguez’ output is sports entertainment. By all accounts, it can and as has been previously illustrated that sports entertainment is a very lucrative product, generating great revenue and potential wealth for the worker as well as the owner of the venues that display the product. The simple fact is that watching baseball is entertaining and millions of people are willing to spend time and money to go to a major league ballpark and watch baseball at it supposed finest.

Watching the team in which you have an emotional investment is fun... watching your team play winning baseball is even more fun. And it is a fact more people will pay quantitatively more to watch good baseball (winning) over bad baseball (losing). Rodriguez produces value because he is a very good player who arguably makes the team he plays on a better team. Baseball teams make money in the following ways: ticket sales, local radio and TV, merchandise sales, MLB Central Fund, revenue sharing, postseason revenue, concessions at the ballpark, and through sales of private suites and club seats. If a team is competitive and produces wins, then more people will come to buy tickets and spend money.

The same is true regarding the media revenue -- if a team is “good”, then radio and television will pay more in future contracts for broadcast rights for the team because more people will be listening to or watching the games through these media. Thus, the advertisers will reach more potential customers and the radio and TV stations can charge more for those advertisements, improving their revenue stream and profitable bottom lines. And, if a team is really good and reaches the postseason, then everything -- ticket prices, merchandise, concessions, advertising, etc. -- goes up exponentially in value and price because it is now “the only (or best) show in town”.

So Hicks, who arguably had a somewhat decent team, was ready to invest in Alex Rodriguez to take his team to that next level and envisioned even greater rewards to gain in the process. Or so he thought. Richie Whitt, a Dallas area writer and columnist, recently wrote on February 10, 2009:

“Not that it manifested itself in any sort of team success, but there's no denying that the Texas Rangers now have more big-name stars linked to performance-enhancing drugs than any professional team this side of a European cycling club. Ruben Sierra. Jose Canseco. Ivan Rodriguez. Juan Gonzalez. Rafael Palmeiro. Alex Rodriguez. Huge individual numbers. Miniscule team results. Chalk one up for ‘cheaters never win ...’ For all their home runs and fireworks displays and MVPs and ‘Wows’ out in Arlington, the Rangers remain the only current franchise in Major League Baseball to have never won a playoff series. With the bulk of those players together on the 2002 team, the Rangers lost 90 games... Rangers owner Tom Hick’s reaction to yet another of his former players being linked to illegal performance-enhancing drugs is "I'm shocked." Seems to me the Rangers' problem with steroids shouldn't be considered surprising, but more so systematic.

“First time I made the connection between steroids and baseball was the spring of 1990. Ruben Sierra, coming off a season in which he was second in MVP voting, arrived with a bulked-up body that looked more Lou Ferrigno than Lou Brock. Seriously, the dude gained 30 pounds of muscle. In between Sierra and A-Rod, the Rangers had three AL MVPs (Juando, I-Rod and A-Rod) - each saturated with steroid suspicions. And, remember, Canseco, who played in Texas from 1992-94 says he introduced Gonzalez, Rodriguez and several other Rangers to steroids. And at this point he's the most - only? - believable voice in the whole syringed saga.

“I don't believe Hicks when he says ‘I'm shocked.’ ... To appease players like Rodriguez and Gonzalez and A-Rod, the Rangers routinely gave free run of their clubhouse and facilities to personal trainers. Those are the guys that know. And probably an equipment manager. And maybe a bench coach. Manager Buck Showalter. GM John Hart. And, yes, even Hicks.

“... with steroids illegal but no testing or punishment in place - the Rangers and all of baseball were handcuffed. That is, if they wanted to know in the first place. ….. We'll probably never pinpoint the Rangers' level of culpability. But, to some degree, they all knew then what we all know now: That the Texas Rangers are baseball's Steroid Sluggers. Today, their accomplishments ring more hollow than ever.”

"Yes. We spoke and educated three or four players there… Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez, Ivan Rodriguez. I injected them. Absolutely."

-- Jose Canseco: 60 Minutes, Aug. 7, 2005

Tom Hicks has to be one of the most disingenuous people in Major League Baseball. For his team to have had this many players associated with steroid use -- either by being an admitted user, by implications of others, by a positive test or by anecdotal evidence or hearsay -- and for him not to even have had a casual conversation with any other club official regarding any of these players connection is beyond belief. The question begs to be asked: Has the man lived in a vacuum from the moment he purchased the Texas Rangers until this present time when Alex Rodriguez has been first accused of and then to have admitted to using steroids?

In October 2001, Canadian Border service officers discovered steroids and syringes in a duffel bag that belonged to a person in the entourage of Juan Gonzalez, an outfielder for the Cleveland Indians. When Gonzalez was questioned about the drugs and the paraphernalia he told the officers the duffel bag belonged to Angel Presinal, his personal trainer. Presinal denied the allegation and said the bag belonged to Gonzalez. Presinal did admit he packed the steroids and the syringes in the bag but he said he carried the bag specifically for Gonzalez. Presinal also was alleged to have admitted he had assisted other noted major league players with steroids. Though declared more or less persona non grata by the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig, Presinal continued to be connected to Gonzalez and was around the Texas clubhouse after Gonzalez was traded in 2002 to the Rangers. The Rangers also were responsible for reserving rooms for Presinal at the team’s hotels during the 2002 season. MLB security eventually alerted all teams to Presinal’s persona non grata status and Presinal was removed and banned from the Texas clubhouse.

(Recently, Presinal’s name has arisen once again in connection with MLB and the Alex Rodriguez steroid revelations. Presinal has been connected with the training of the Dominican Republic team entered in the World Baseball Classic and many Dominican and MLB players as recently as January 2009. In addition to Rodriguez, Presinal has worked with: Juan Gonzalez, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, Vladimir Guerrero, Bartolo Colon, Miguel Tejada, Adrian Beltre, Moises Alou, Jose Guillen, Ervin Santana, Rueben Sierra, Francisco Cordero, Jose Mesa, and Juan Guzman, Robinson Cano and Melky Cabrera as well as many others from MLB and the Dominican Republic.)

Ranger’s general manger, Jon Daniels, has said the Sports Illustrated report was the first time he had heard of Alex Rodriguez having tested positive. He was asked by reporters if he ever had any suspicions that Rodriguez might be connected to steroids and he obtusely stated: “It was not a topic of conversation.” Fernando Montes, who was the Rangers strength coach from 2003 to 2005, said that Daniels specifically asked him during spring training in 2003, “Do you think Alex is on steroids?” Montes said he replied, “My suspicion is yes. There is some chemical issue here.” Daniels says he has no recollection of that conversation. Daniels became the GM of the Rangers in 2005 and his first move as GM was to fire Montes.

In March 2005 Ken Towers, then the general manager of the San Diego Padres, admitted to feeling a little bit of guilt for suspecting that some of his players were taking steroids but not doing anything about it. Towers said in response to the death of Ken Caminiti, who played for the Padres from 1995 to 1998: “I feel somewhat guilty, because I felt like I knew. I still don’t know for sure, but Cammy came out and said that he used steroids, and I suspected. Selfishly, the guy was putting up numbers, and I didn’t do anything about it. That’s just the truth. The truth is, we’re in a competitive business and these guys were putting up big numbers and helping your ballclub win games. You tended to turn your head on things... I hate to be the one voice for the other 29 GMs, but I’d have to imagine that all of them, at one point or other, had reason to think that a player on their ballclub was probably using, based on body changes and things that happened over the winter. I think we all knew it, but we didn’t say anything about it.” In 2002 Caminiti admitted to using steroids. Caminiti played for a little over 50 games for Texas in 2001.

In 1995 Randy Smith, Towers’ predecessor as general manager of the San Diego Padres unequivocally stated: “We all know there’s steroid use, and it’s definitely become more prevalent... I think 10% to 20%. No one has any hardcore proof, but there’s a lot of guys you suspect.” In the mid 1990s Federal investigators warned Major League Baseball that some of its players were using steroids. Special Agent Greg Stejskal, who oversees the Bureau's Ann Arbor, Mich., office, said he told baseball security chief Kevin Hallinan that Jose Canseco and many other players were using illegal anabolic steroids. Stejskal alleges: “I alerted Major League Baseball back in the time when we had the case, that Canseco was a heavy user and that they should be aware of it.... I spoke to the people in their security office. Hallinan was one of the people I spoke to. There's little question the use of steroids was very widespread in baseball. And Major League Baseball in effect, they didn't sanction it, but they certainly looked the other way. The first time I talked with Kevin about it was in the mid-to-late `90s. I'm guessing probably `95, `96 at the earliest.”

Baseball officials denied then that they were informed of steroid use, and angrily denounced Stejskal's charges. “It did not happen," Hallinan said. "Not with this guy, not with anybody else.” Stejskal said the FBI's investigation into steroid use was centered in Michigan but reached as far as Canada, Mexico, Florida and California and revealed widespread steroid use in baseball during the 1990s.

With just these few facts and allegations alone, how is Hicks’ persistence with his current attitude -- “I didn’t know! How could I know!” -- plausible? Is Tom Hicks the only owner who never talks with any of his management people? Or is it that Tom Hicks has no contact with the Commissioner’s office and is he the only owner that doesn’t get informed or briefed of the latest security efforts that are discussed or about to be placed into effect to protect the owners and their franchises? It is incredulous to believe that at least two MLB general managers in the nineties mentioned knowledge or suspicions of steroids, with one mentioning it in the press about a player who was a Texas Ranger while Alex Rodriguez was a Texas Ranger.

Therefore, for Hicks to not even have a single inkling that maybe he should wonder if “any my other players” might be involved or might have been involved in this steroid stuff is at best doubtful. If Hicks is being truthful then he may be, by far, the most ignorant owner in MLB. The fact is that the owners through their management hierarchies are diligently concerned and they closely keep tabs on the physical condition of their players/workers. It is the players, after all, that represent the single most important investment, both competitively and financially, that an owner possesses as regards the ultimate profitability of their franchise. (There are some teams that use revenue sharing to minimize their payrolls and still make money in MLB. In the future I hope to present an in-depth discussion regarding this and other financial details of MLB owners.)

The fact is, the players represent the largest amount of revenue outlay per year for any owner, and for that owner not to be concerned over the latest possible news could adversely affect that investment is complete balderdash... an unmitigated absurdity. When contracts are negotiated with players, the negotiators for the owners insert language in these contracts that address the health and physical condition of the player and these clauses are enforced. They have trainers, nutritionists and various other health and physical fitness advisors that monitor the players and they know of every little injury, no matter how minor or seemingly inconsequential.

Weight gain is noticed. Muscle mass is noticed. Increased strength is noticed. Nothing escapes, or at least nothing should escape, these professionals that are paid to watch and listen for any little nuance of any change in the most prized commodity of an owner’s franchise. If a change happens in a player, for good or for bad, an owner is going to want to know why. Therefore even with the few pieces of evidence presented here it is impossible for the people in charge of the business of knowing not to know about the issue of steroids. And by extension, then, Hicks had to know of at least the rumors of steroid use and the possibility his players could and might be using steroids and, therefore, that the possibility Rodriguez was a user of performance-enhancing drugs.

Maybe he didn’t specifically ask if a particular player was using steroids... but the question, that small vestige of doubt or concern or even curiosity, had to have crossed his mind and on some level Hicks had to have known something, because the evidence says even in the 1990s that the players were using PEDs. And with the facts that players associated with the Texas Rangers were known users of steroids, it is nearly impossible for Hicks to not at least entertain the idea that Alex Rodriguez might be also using PEDs. But in one of the more revealing statements made by Tom Hicks, in a television interview in 2007, he casually stated that the signing of Juan Gonzalez after the 2001 season was one of the team’s biggest errors: “Juan Gonzalez for $24 million, after he came off steroids, probably, we just gave that money away.”

This is the same Juan Gonzalez who was connected, through his personal trainer, with having his duffel bag containing steroids and syringes seized during a customs check at a Toronto airport in 2001. So is Hicks actually alluding to the fact that he knew Gonzalez was using PEDs and was secretly hoping Gonzalez would stay on the drugs to validate the size of the contract he was given? And then, when Gonzalez failed to produce as Hicks was expecting, is he expressing sour grapes for having his calculated risk fail? And how does he reconcile his suspicions of one player but not of another player on his team at that time?

Life does not happen in a vacuum. The Texas clubhouse had a history of players associated with PEDs, by either admission, failed testing or associated allegations through testimony or anecdotal statements, starting from Canseco to Palmeiro and then Gonzalez. For Hicks to express disdain about Gonzalez and his suspicions about Gonzalez using steroids and then saying he was blindsided by the Rodriguez’ admission of steroid use during that same period does not follow. Tom Hicks is at best out of his league in the rarefied air of baseball and all of its entrapments, or he is a patent liar. The plain fact is that the members of the Major League Baseball cartel -- the owners of the thirty teams -- act, even in their very dysfunctional and argumentative manner, as a unified group. If one member of that cartel knows of some pertinent information, then eventually all the members of the cartel knew that information.

The fact that their commodities were beginning to produce numbers that heretofore had not been attained at such a fast and furious rate, and were because of this situation bringing in more and more people to watch these records be set and spend more and more of their dollars, did not escape the owners’ attention. The evidence points to the fact they had a damn good idea why their workers were producing in record-breaking fashion, so to plead ignorance now is just not an option. At some point in time, management, and ultimately the owner, has to take responsibility for what happens to their businesses. Businessmen eventually have to take ownership of their businesses’ failures or successes. It becomes harder and harder to conceive that these men, like Hicks, can be so inept running a baseball team when they were so diligent and successful managing their businesses that made them millions and millions of dollars. The union, the commissioner, the players are all central in the sharing of the blame in the steroids debacle but at some point the owners of the teams have to admit that, either through either total ignorance or incompetence or their own callousness, they failed to run their team’s business responsibly and hid from the reality that confronted them in the realization that these records were broken not by the greatness of the players but by chemically-enhanced attributes that were derived from steroids.

The fact is, though, the owners were delighted that the union stonewalled steroid testing because they could now plead innocence by saying we didn’t know and besides... we always wanted testing but the players wouldn’t agree to it. Tom Hicks may be the epitome and the personification of the owners in this whole steroid issue but he is not alone. Peter Magowan, who recently stepped down from his controlling interest in the San Francisco Giants (some say because of his knowledge and involvement of steroids and Barry Bonds), is another owner with knowledge of players using PEDs.

Magowan told George Mitchell that Barry Bonds admitted using steroids. Magowan later attempted to withdraw the statement. Magowan’s words directly contradict what Bonds told a federal grand jury, i.e., that he unknowingly used steroids provided him by BALCO.

According to Mitchell's report, in February 2004 Magowan called Bonds and asked Bonds, “I've really got to know, did you take steroids?" Bonds initially said he took substances that he didn't know were steroids and found out later they were. Bonds said he had a variety of reasons for taking the drugs, both for physical reasons and for sleeping problems, and that he used the drugs in full view of others in the Giants clubhouse. Two days after Magowan met with Mitchell, lawyers representing Magowan said Magowan misspoke when he said that Bonds knew later the substances were steroids. According to Magowan’s counselors, Magowan only admitted that Bonds didn’t know he was taking steroids and that Bonds conversation regarding the issue was consistent with what Bonds testified to the grand jury.

The conflicting stories pose a real problem in establishing Magowan’s veracity regarding the steroid issue. To further complicate the issue from Magowan’s perspective, the Giants chose to resign Bonds despite the increasing clamor that Bond should be released due to the media frenzy and the anti-steroid fans that followed the Giants wherever they played. In 2006 the Giants and Magowan chose to ignore the clamor for the Giants to divest themselves of Bonds and the negative publicity and baggage that Bonds brought to the Giants and signed Bonds to a one year, $16 million contract. Because of the testimony Magowan delivered to the Mitchell investigation it appears that the Giants knew of Bonds’ PED usage and chose to ignore that reality to instead reap the huge economic benefits of Bonds breaking Hank Aaron’s career home run record and then use the strategy of dumping Bonds shortly thereafter -- which is exactly what did happen. Two things become evident here:

1. the player is indeed a commodity, a thing, that is used to hopefully gain profit for management, and

2. management is not concerned with how or why a player produces that profit as long as he produces it. The ethical, the moral and the ultimate health of the player is inconsequential to the equation of profit making.

And now it appears that, because of the Giants’ association with the steroid issue under Magowan’s watch, Magowan himself is being nudged out the door as the figurehead and basically the man in charge of the running of the then Giants’ affairs. Even management is subject to being alienated from the economy once its usefulness is exhausted and the overall profit generating mechanism needs to change for the optimal gain of the corporate entity.

But in this instance there is a distinct diversion from the normal ineptness that seemingly existed in the Tom Hicks’ situation. The fortunes of the Giants club were actually enhanced by Magowan’s work and association with the Giants. And maybe part of the problem is what Magowan actually did that may have perturbed the other 29 MLB franchise owners. Who actually knows why Magowan is being “fired”, but in this age of MLB franchises looking for the building of new ballparks to be publicly subsidized, Magowan heard a different drummer. The China Basin project was unlike anything that had come before, and has since.

It came right after the catastrophe of the Loma Prieta earthquake. This disaster gave Magowan the chance to spearhead development plans for a new Giants ballpark away from the ill-placed Candlestick Park and opened the door to the public being sympathetic to funding the process. Add the economic boom of the nearby Silicon Valley and a perfect storm, so to speak, was created to stop the Giants from fulfilling their threat to leave the Bay Area. And maybe the total bill for the construction of the new stadium was not a total private enterprise, but nevertheless it was an enterprise that used the least amount of public money to get built. By some estimates more than 85% of the new stadium for the Giants was from private sources.

Peter Magowan was the face of the club that led this mission to get the ballpark built without demanding the use of public money to accomplish its construction. This is a fact not lost on other communities when the other owners arrive, hat in hand, to secure financing for their ballparks that will contribute to increased revenues for their personal pockets. This fact is also not lost on the other 29 owners. So is Magowan being forced to impale himself upon his own petard as a sacrifice by the Giants to the other 29 entities that rule MLB? Again, who does actually know?

But, it is also Peter Magowan, managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants, who on one hand admits that steroid problems were overlooked for too long but then says: “I’ve never in 12 years gone to an owners meeting and heard a discussion on how to market the game better which said, ‘Let’s have more home runs in the game.’” Maybe not in those distinct words, but contradictory evidence seems to say that yes, they did. We can see through the Mitchell Report and other pieces of evidence that there were prominent executives and owners who had knowledge of PED use and stood idly by and willfully did nothing to either bring attention to the situation or to change the situation.

(Following the 2008 season Magowan wrote a letter to Giants season ticket holders apologizing for re-signing Bonds for the 2007 season and all images of Bonds have been removed from AT&T Park.)

The Mitchell Report gives us even more evidence of three other prominent heads of baseball management and their knowledge of steroids: Boston Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein, San Francisco Giants GM Brian Sabean and former Minnesota Twins manager Tom Kelly.

The Mitchell Report specifies that Theo Epstein and Red Sox scout Mark Delpiano exchanged emails regarding steroids and a player the Red Sox were contemplating trading for: “In a November 1, 2006 email to a Red Sox scout, general manager Theo Epstein asked, ‘Have you done any digging on Gagne? I know the Dodgers think he was a steroid guy. Maybe so. What do you hear on his medical?’ The scout, Mark Delpiano, responded, ‘Some digging on Gagne and steroids IS the issue. Has had a checkered medical past throughout career including minor leagues. Lacks the poise and commitment to stay healthy, maintain body and re invent self. What made him a tenacious closer was the max effort plus stuff.... Mentality without the plus weapons and without steroid help probably creates a large risk in bounce back durability and ability to throw average while allowing the changeup to play as it once did.... Personally, durability (or lack of) will follow Gagne.’”

It is curious why Theo Epstein eventually made the trade for Gagne in light of this scout’s opinion. It is also curious why Epstein did not report any of these suspicions or findings to any authorities in MLB. Did Epstein, like maybe Hicks may have done with Gonzalez, secretly hope that the Gagne would continue his steroid use only to see Gagne then play like a mortal player with all the fragilities of other mortal players who fail to adhere to good training efforts and discipline?

The Mitchell Report says that Brian Sabean basically ignored Giants trainer Sam Conte when he told him a player asked Conte about acquiring steroids from personal trainer Greg Anderson: “... when he received the report from Conte, Sabean did not report the issue to anyone in the Giants organization or the Commissioner’s Office, he did not confront Bonds or Anderson, and he did not take any steps to prohibit Anderson from gaining access to Giants facilities. Sabean said that he was not aware at the time of the Major League Baseball policy that required him to report information regarding a player’s drug use to the Commissioner’s Office.”

Here is direct information and possibly confirmation that one of Magowan’s trusted lieutenants in the front office knew about steroids and knew that they were a problem and yet did not care enough to report it to any authorities regardless of whether policy required him to do so or not.

1. Sabean, as a general manager for a major league ballclub, should know this policy... and if he doesn’t then because of the gravity of the situation should have been concerned enough to be in contact with the legal people for the Giants for an explanation, and

2. He had a responsibility to report it anyway considering all the hullabaloo surrounding these issues of BALCO, Bonds, Anderson and the federal grand jury. Was he more concerned with his team losing the incumbent benefits that Bonds was about to bring to the Giants?

Tom Kelly was also noted in the Mitchell Report as follows: “In 2000 or 2001, a visiting clubhouse manager working for the Minnesota Twins found a used syringe on top of a trash can in the visitors’ clubhouse. He brought the incident to the attention of the Twins manager, Tom Kelly, who told him to dispose of the syringe.... Kelly confirmed the incident and said that he did not report the incident to anyone because he felt it “wasn’t any of [his] business” and that it was the other team’s issue to address.” Kelly blatantly ignored a visible and significant warning sign on Twins property. Kelly has possible direct evidence that someone on the opposing team may be utilizing artificial methods to enhance their baseball abilities.

Granted, the used syringe could have been used for anything from injecting needed insulin to vitamins to performance-enhancing drugs -- but isn’t the fact that a used syringe was found suspicious enough that it should have occurred to Kelly to report to someone? And the use of the excuse, “it wasn’t any of his business,” is appalling and sad. Thinking like that is what gets people hurt or even killed. Anyone remember the Kitty Genovese story in NYC so many years ago? Because no one thought it was any of their business to even call the police a woman was agonizingly assaulted in public within earshot of many citizens over a period of time until she was murdered.

These facts all present evidence that baseball people, from the field mangers up to the very ownership of the teams, are at least guilty of abetting the use of steroids and other PEDs in MLB before, during and after the fact. They made a decision, on some level, to allow steroid/PED use in the game. They made a conscious and direct decision to either act or not act, and by their decisions the owners said steroids for whatever reason are okay and implicitly allowed in baseball. They then are guilty of allowing the dealers and the users of illegal drugs into the game of baseball, and if their acts aren’t criminal they are at least reprehensible and unethical. It also raises the often asked question by many other journalists and fans: How many other managers, both on the field and in the front office, executives and owners, had knowledge of steroid use among players yet kept quiet about it?

Submitted 5/18/2009

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