Rumored 2003 Steroid list revealed...

[DrungoHazewood]

I wouldn't shocked to find out that this is accurate.

I would be, because it's slanted heavily towards big-name players. There's no reason for that to be true, and lots of reasons for it to be wrong. Jay Gibbons is the type of player for whom a 10% performance gain might mean a 1000% gain in future earnings. Not so much for someone who's already earning $5M or $10M a year, or soon will be.

[TyCobb]

I would be, because it's slanted heavily towards big-name players. There's no reason for that to be true, and lots of reasons for it to be wrong. Jay Gibbons is the type of player for whom a 10% performance gain might mean a 1000% gain in future earnings. Not so much for someone who's already earning $5M or $10M a year, or soon will be.

There seems to be a ridiculous amount of Cub players too.

[Migrant Redbird]

... It's to the point where everyone could have done PED's and I wouldn't be surprised.

I would be flabbergasted if "everyone" did PEDs. However, there isn't a single player from the last half century -- or longer -- that I would be surprised to learn had done PEDs. Synthetic anabolic steroids have been available since the late fifties, and ballplayers with friends working in pharmaceutical laboratories would have had opportunities for 20-30 years before that.

... If there are players out there who truly haven't done any, then they should be really mad at the union and the people responsible for letting this go for too long.

This is a point which I made in the Don Fehr adulation thread which no one seems to have cared about. Everyone seems to focus on the poor, underprivileged wretches toiling on baseball fields for peanuts before Fehr came along.

It isn't just Fehr whom I hold responsible. Where were Tom Glavine and the other player representatives on this issue? Who among ballplayers, besides Curt Schilling, was speaking out against steroids use? Was even Schilling saying anything about it before 2005?

[beaner]

There seems to be a ridiculous amount of Cub players too.

And this was the "Bartman" season too.

[lovetoaster]

And this was the "Bartman" season too.

So you're telling me Steve Bartman was juicing? I had no idea it went that far!

[DrungoHazewood]

This is a point which I made in the Don Fehr adulation thread which no one seems to have cared about. Everyone seems to focus on the poor, underprivileged wretches toiling on baseball fields for peanuts before Fehr came along.

Yea, by all means, let's turn the focus back to "if you're not toiling at gunpoint for 18 hours a day for nickel I don't want to hear any complaints."

[Migrant Redbird]

I saw this a few hours ago. The list is bogus, Jason Grimsley is not on the list and he failed the test.

Maybe. Maybe not.

ESPN Article

According to court documents, Grimsley failed a league drug test in 2003. Grimsley claims in the affidavit that then-GM Allard Baird told him of the flunked test.

"That simply isn't true," Baird told ESPN. "The tests were anonymous, and none of us knew who tested positive. We had no information on the tests."

.... investigators who cracked the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative steroid scandal said Grimsley initially cooperated in the probe. He withdrew his assistance in April, but not before he allegedly made "extensive statements" about illegal drug use, "for the purpose of performance enhancement," according to the court documents.

If the only source on Grimsley was the federal affidavit, it sounds as though that was factually incorrect. One thing I think we do know now is that teams were not told who flunked; any information would have come through the Players Association.

[Spoonless]

I am not surprised about Pedro....due to the fact that Pedro hasn't signed with a team yet.

I thought he hadn't been signed because he wants too much money.

From Jayson Stark:

• The Pedro Watch: If you're hanging by the TV and waiting for that imminent return of Pedro Martinez, it might be safe to make other plans. The latest word on the Pedro front is that he's still looking for what one executive describes as "a Brad Penny contract" (a prorated $5 million, plus lots of incentives). And he's interested only in being a starting pitcher. An official of one team reports that in his workout last week, Martinez was "throwing 85 [mph] -- and it's soft." Asked what he could read into that, the official replied, "Let's say it's not what I had in mind to pay $5 million for."

If he wasn't asking for so much, and if he was willing to be a reliever, he'd have been signed by someone.

[BaltimoreTerp]

A LOT of big names on that list, though I agree that it probably isn't that accurate. Probably like when the Mitchell Report "lists" leaked just before it was released.

There do seem to be a lot of those second/third-tier group, though; guys like Gibbons and Roger Cedeno and Frank Catalanotto and Brent Abernathy and Ryan Franklin and Oliver Perez. I don't think it's THAT skewed, because the marginal ones would do it to get better while the great ones would do it to get even better.

[cmcgarvey]

I saw this a few hours ago. The list is bogus, Jason Grimsley is not on the list and he failed the test.

There are others who agree with you.

[blueberryale77]

Maybe. Maybe not.

ESPN Article

If the only source on Grimsley was the federal affidavit, it sounds as though that was factually incorrect. One thing I think we do know now is that teams were not told who flunked; any information would have come through the Players Association.

How exactly do we "know" that? Because team officials have said so? It's their word against a number of players who say they were warned by team officials. There's no way of knowing for sure who knew what. Everyone who was in any way involved has plenty of incentive to lie.

[blueberryale77]

A LOT of big names on that list, though I agree that it probably isn't that accurate. Probably like when the Mitchell Report "lists" leaked just before it was released.

There do seem to be a lot of those second/third-tier group, though; guys like Gibbons and Roger Cedeno and Frank Catalanotto and Brent Abernathy and Ryan Franklin and Oliver Perez. I don't think it's THAT skewed, because the marginal ones would do it to get better while the great ones would do it to get even better.

Exactly. It's no secret to the scam artists of the world that making up fake steroid lists is almost as profitable as being Bernie Madoff and won't get you 150 years in jail.

[Migrant Redbird]

How exactly do we "know" that? Because team officials have said so? It's their word against a number of players who say they were warned by team officials.

Where's your source? Grimsley is the only one whom I've seen reported as alleging he was notified by team officials.

A more credible source is Sports Illustrated

... That steroid survey list from 2003 was supposed to be anonymous, nameless and faceless. And the list of 104 player failures was supposed to be destroyed immediately after it was tallied up. That was the plan. The only need for the litany of names was to determine whether enough failures would mean that testing would begin in earnest, with penalties, in 2004.

The list wasn't supposed to last.

But here it is, six years later, and the list still exists. It exists on paper. And it exists in the minds of the tens of baseball people, and lawyers and lab people who have seen it.

That list would have been long gone if not for the union; according to three baseball sources familiar with the testing process, players union COO Gene Orza worked long and hard to try to pare down the list. Orza's mission, SI's sources say, was to find enough false positives on the list to drive the number of failures so far down that real testing wouldn't be needed in 2004 or ever.

Orza wanted to get the list down below the five percent threshold for testing to go away entirely. But after months of trying, Orza couldn't do it,....

So, if anyone would have told Grimsley he failed the 2003 test, it probably would have been Gene Orza. If that's the case, why would Grimsley implicate a team official? It's very unlikely that he would forget who informed him, which leaves us with two conclusions:

(1) Grimsley was covering up for Orza. Why would he do that?

(2) Grimsley was lying about being told he flunked the 2003 test, and said he was told by a team official because he didn't know the notifications were coming from the Players Association. It's difficult to figure out why he'd do this either, but maybe he was already spinning a web of lies to federal investigators and this was just one more. It would have seemed an apparently harmless falsehood, since he was already caught red-handed purchasing and receiving HGH and flunking an "anonymous" 2003 test wouldn't get him into any more trouble. Grimsley's agent says that fed investigators were trying to get him to implicate other players and he was unwilling to do that; maybe giving up Baird was a bone he tossed the feds to get them off his back?

[Boy Howdy]

Though nothing surprises me anymore, this is the one name that would kindve blow me away. Knowing him and his aversion to any kind of drugs or alcohol, I would highly doubt this. But then, I believed Raffy too!

I didn't even click the link because I feel like I'd be contributing to rumor mongering by doing so, but I completely agree with Roy and the others who believe the only PED's in Pedro are the first three letters of his first name.

Here's what Pedro himself had to say:

"When a report reveals that close to 100 players were using steroids, I thank God that I've always pitched clean,"

"Even when I felt pain in my arm, I got on the mound and pitched in that condition. I was a dominant pitcher in the steroids era," said Martinez. "That was a difficult period for pitchers and it makes me happy that all I have done in baseball has been clean. No one can question me."

"I continued my work without trying any of these substances that are available," said Martinez, who has 209 career victories. "No one can question my place in the game."

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2007/12/29/2007-12-29_pedro_martinez_proud_hes_stayed_clean-2.html

Pedro is my favorite player of the last 20 years, and it bothers me that he's being dragged into something like this. Baseball is almost at the point where no name would surprise me, but I believe Pedro is telling the truth.

[Gurgi]

I dont belive any of them anymore on just their word. If this is the real list then it is just a matter of time before there is someone to prove it.