Javy Lopez speaks rather candidly

[TakebackOPACY]

Do you share the opinion that McGwire expressed to Costas that he wished he had never played in the steroid era?

Unfortunately, everybody's gonna look at us now, the fact that we played in that era, everybody's gonna look at us that we all used steroids and unfortunately we all have to pay that consequence. I don't blame him for saying that. Unfortunately he did use the steroids but steroids wasn't... I wouldn't say wasn't illegal but it wasn't a concern. I guess that's the right thing to say. Major League was actually looking at players for drugs to make sure they don't have any drugs like marijuana, cocaine, whatever. You know that's why Dwight Gooden got suspended. A lot of players got suspended for drugs but never for steroids until the Canseco comments in what? 2002? 2003?

You say there wasn't that much concern or spotlight on it. Was it around? Was it something the players knew throughout the '90's and early 2000's?

Was it something that the players knew?

Yeah, was it spoken about?

Well, everybody seen players getting big, hitting the ball harder. You know, HR's and stuff. All of a sudden, Boom. They got the big contract. And everybody's like, 'You know what? He did that. It worked for him. Why not do it.' Especially from the minor leagues. The minor leagues are the first one to try all that because they got the hunger to be big leaguers so bad. They'll do whatever it takes to make it to the big leagues... not only to make it to the big leagues but to be the best in the big leagues. And that's what steroids do to you. That's what steroids were doing to a lot of players in the big leagues.

Right, so people were looking at it and saying 'this is an option and this is an opportunity' and people were doing it.

Yeah. In my opinion, yeah. How can I explain this? {pause} It's like if you're gonna race cars and some people are using Nitro in the fuel and you see them winning all the time and your using regular gas. You know what? If they're using Nitro and are winning, I'd be stupid not to use Nitro too. You know?

This section starts around the 37 minute mark:

http://www.atlantabaseballtalk.com/?p=211

The link doesn't go straight to the interview.

Here's a link to a short article on it:

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/02/javy-lopez-on-steroids-i.html.php

[TakebackOPACY]

For those who don't know, Javy spoke rather candidly in a March 2003 Washington Post article in which he admitted trying steroids and using greenies.

The O's signed him in Jan. 2004.

[GoldGlove21]

Steroids were illegal in the US and still are for that matter. We are not talking about a performance aid that is legal, but frowned upon. People were cheating and I see no other way to compare players in the steroid era without comparing players to one another.

If we are comparing Barry Bonds to Ken Griffey jr. then the comparison is simple, both guys get into the Hall of Fame. The problem might come in when you need to compare Frank Thomas to Jeff Bagwell or Andy Pettite to Mike Mussina. When you get those guys that are fringe Hall of Famers when you consider they used steroids. How about Jeff Kent to Craig Biggio?

Players have always pushed the envelope to increase their level of performance. My issue is that players used banned substances that were illegal per the US government. Both are examples of cheating, but MLB did a poor job of enforcing the issue because at the time it would have been bad for the game. MLB and the MLBPA should have resolved this issue a long time ago and kept it in house.