Rumored 2003 Steroid list revealed...

[Gurgi]

Didnt Pettite say he only took HGH and not steriods?

And only to comeback from injury? IF this is a real list then he has some more explaining to do.

[Migrant Redbird]

What's interesting about the list and gives it just a modicum of credibility is how Robbie Alomar and Gary Matthews Jr. are listed.

Matthews was with the Orioles during spring training, yet he's at the bottom of the list along with another Padre. Gary was claimed off waivers by the Pads on May 23rd.

Robbie Alomar also switched teams that season, being traded by the Mets to the White Sox on July 1st. Yet he's listed with the Mets.

This implies that the list was assembled between May 23rd and July 1st in 2003, which would make sense if it was put together for use by Gene Orza as he traveled around from team to team, informing players that they'd tested positive and trying to develop a case for claiming the tests were "false positives".

As for the dearth of "no names", it would have been a little more difficult for minor league players to get steroids then than it would have been for major league players. Minor league players never got to see the inside of the Mets Visiting Team clubhouse (Kirk Radomski's lair) and few of them played teams along the Mexican border where they could pop across the line to buy steroids at laxly regulated pharmacies. As the internet pharmacy market developed in the mid-oughts, minor league players with laptops and dial-up internet access could have ordered steroids from internet pharmacies and received the products via the mail (like Rick Ankiel's HGH in late 2003 or early 2004), but that option may not have been very practical in 2002, when the guys who tested positive in spring 2003 would have been using steroids.

[Dr. FLK]

I will be leaking my "rumored list" later this afternoon...

[Why Not?]

I'm not buying this list. It's essentially a compilation of every guy even tangentally connected to steroids. Somebody out there is getting a big kick out of the traction their fabricated list is getting.

[ShaneDawg85]

A lot of names on the list wouldn't surprise me. The only guys I'd really be surprised about or want to know if they were on the list are:

Griffey

Mussina

Pujols

Palmeiro

If this list is correct then Palmeiro failed the test at the time. I've still maintained some support for him, but if this is true then that would probably change my opinion.

[Migrant Redbird]

I'm not buying this list. It's essentially a compilation of every guy even tangentally connected to steroids.

No it's not. There are numerous players who've been linked to steroids or HGH who didn't appear on this list. Just to name a couple of Orioles who were confirmed users and who would have been tested in 2003: David Segui and Larry Bigbie, who were involved in the connection between Kirk Radomski and Brian Roberts. I could probably come up with several dozen other names if I went through all the 2003 team rosters.

[RVAbird]

What's interesting about the list and gives it just a modicum of credibility is how Robbie Alomar and Gary Matthews Jr. are listed.

Matthews was with the Orioles during spring training, yet he's at the bottom of the list along with another Padre. Gary was claimed off waivers by the Pads on May 23rd.

Robbie Alomar also switched teams that season, being traded by the Mets to the White Sox on July 1st. Yet he's listed with the Mets.

This implies that the list was assembled between May 23rd and July 1st in 2003, which would make sense if it was put together for use by Gene Orza as he traveled around from team to team, informing players that they'd tested positive and trying to develop a case for claiming the tests were "false positives".

As for the dearth of "no names", it would have been a little more difficult for minor league players to get steroids then than it would have been for major league players. Minor league players never got to see the inside of the Mets Visiting Team clubhouse (Kirk Radomski's lair) and few of them played teams along the Mexican border where they could pop across the line to buy steroids at laxly regulated pharmacies. As the internet pharmacy market developed in the mid-oughts, minor league players with laptops and dial-up internet access could have ordered steroids from internet pharmacies and received the products via the mail (like Rick Ankiel's HGH in late 2003 or early 2004), but that option may not have been very practical in 2002, when the guys who tested positive in spring 2003 would have been using steroids.

So much speculation in this post my head hurts.

Does anyone really still care about this witch hunt anymore? I guess I'd like to get a clear picture of just how rampant the problem was, but I'm sick of the blame game at this point.

[RVAbird]

No it's not. There are numerous players who've been linked to steroids or HGH who didn't appear on this list. Just to name a couple of Orioles who were confirmed users and who would have been tested in 2003: David Segui and Larry Bigbie, who were involved in the connection between Kirk Radomski and Brian Roberts. I could probably come up with several dozen other names if I went through all the 2003 team rosters.

So the fact that several players who were probably on steroids are not on this list gives it credibility?

[Migrant Redbird]

So the fact that several players who were probably on steroids are not on this list gives it credibility?

It neither gives the list credibility nor detracts from its credibility. Players knew the tests were coming and knew that too many positive tests would trigger mandatory, on-the-record testing and penalties. It's entirely possible that some players who were using steroids stopped long enough to test negative. It's also possible that some players used masking agents to get through the testing without failing. Amateur track and field athletes were already getting pretty good at that by 2003.

I'm not assuming the list is a fake, but I'm not assuming that it's authentic either. It has a couple of characteristics which imply some credibility, but don't prove anything.

MLB and the Players Association will have to address the list sooner or later; I'm a little surprised that neither organization released a statement today. The longer they ignore it, the more credibility they will impart to the list.

If the list is a complete fake, it's easy. Gene Fehr simply releases a statement saying that this list is not the list of players who had positive tests, then refuses to discuss the possibility that some names on the fake list might be on the real list. The PA could have done that today; why didn't they?

If the list is nearly correct and might actually be copied from the real list, but with a few mistakes, the issue becomes more difficult. If the PA says the list is a fake and the feds know it's real, the PA could be in a worse mess than they are now.

Remember that Gene Orza was using this list to try and establish players whose tests might have been false positives. If Orza showed the list to other people without giving them any copies, someone could have reconstructed the list. Most people don't have that kind of recall, but some do. I suspect that I could go through the list a few times and then reconstruct about 90 percent of it accurately; many people have better recall than I do.