Baseball steroid scandal widens.
As baseball struggled to come to grips with the latest and most damaging permutation of its ongoing steroid scandal -- the revelation that New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi admitted to using the drugs for three years beginning in 2001 -- Commissioner Bud Selig yesterday vowed to strengthen the sport's three-year-old testing program, while the Yankees began examining the feasibility of voiding the remainder of Giambi's contract.
Meanwhile, San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds also reportedly told a federal grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream but that he never thought they were steroids, according to the San Francisco Chronicle Web site.
Federal prosecutors charge that the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, known as BALCO, distributed undetectable steroids to elite athletes, including several track and field participants who have already admitted to their use.
Bonds reportedly testified that he received and used clear and cream substances from his personal strength trainer, Greg Anderson, during the 2003 baseball season but was told they were the nutritional supplements for arthritis, according to the report on the Web site.
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According to Giambi's testimony as reported in the Chronicle, his steroid use began in 2001, when he was still playing for the Oakland Athletics, and increased after Bonds introduced him to Anderson, while the three were on an all-star barnstorming tour of Japan in November 2002.
Anderson, according to Giambi, provided him with various injectable steroids, plus "the cream" and "the clear" -- supposedly undetectable drugs that were applied in cream form to the skin and in liquid form under the tongue, respectively. Giambi also acknowledged using human growth hormone (HGH), which he acquired from a Las Vegas gym.
"So I started to ask him, 'Hey, what are the things you're doing with Barry? He's an incredible player. I want to still be able to work out at that age and keep playing,' " Giambi testified about his first meeting with Anderson, according to the Chronicle. "And that's how the conversation first started."
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After winning the American League most valuable player award for Oakland in 2000 and averaging more than 40 homers per season from 2000 to 2003, Giambi hit just 12 homers in 80 games in an injury- and ailment-marred 2004 season, and the Yankees left him off their postseason roster.
Two months after his grand jury testimony, Giambi reported to spring training looking noticeably thinner, leading to speculation he had gone "off-cycle" as baseball's drug-testing policy was about to enter its second phase, with penalties for positive tests. However, Giambi said he had lost only four pounds over the winter and again denied steroid use.
Among Giambi's medical problems in 2004 was a benign tumor, a condition the Yankees cloaked in secrecy, declining to reveal the tumor's location or the treatment of it. However, the New York Daily News reported the tumor was in Giambi's pituitary gland, which controls growth. Despite persistent questioning, Giambi refused to discuss the tumor.
Among the revelations in the Chronicle story was that Giambi said he believes Anderson gave him Clomid, a female fertility drug that can enhance the effects of steroids and that can also exacerbate a pituitary gland tumor.
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It's been clear to me since at least [link|http://espn.go.com/mlb/news/2002/0606/1391783.html|Jose Canseco]'s playing days that many baseball players were taking things like this. I'm surprised it's taken this long to be acknowledged. Selig's saying they'll take it "seriously", but we'll see. :-( I'll believe it if they apply sanctions to Bonds that keep him from breaking Aaron's home run record.
Cheers,
Scott.