Ankiel Received 12 month supply of HGH in '04 (merged with TheBrewer's Ankiel's Punishment thread)

[Phenomenal Smith]

Where were all the people who were saying that Rodney Harrison's career is going right down the drain after he was suspended 4 games for HGH.

 

The thing I dont understand with fans is the general malaise towards football players being suspended left and right for drug use (Merriman, Harrison, Peppers) while the accusation that a baseball player taking drugs is the worst thing in the world.

 

Seems a little bit of a double standard to me.

Ditto. I just don't get it. The fans and the media hold baseball to a different standard.

[MJLiverock]

So you have no problem if Bonds comes out tomorrow and says I was embarrased to admit I have a low testosterone condition so I hid the condition for years but this quack doctor diagnosed the problem and prescribed steroids as the treatment.

 

I think this whole case just points out the hypocrisy of many Bonds haters.

[Patrick425]

Bonds comes out tomorrow and says I was embarrased to admit I have a low testosterone condition

You've gotta be kidding. Is this a common condition? http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/roll.gif

 

So, all these guys just have low testosterone conditions? Ok, I'm sorry, I take back everything I said, my bad.

[RyDogg66]

So you have no problem if Bonds comes out tomorrow and says I was embarrased to admit I have a low testosterone condition so I hid the condition for years but this quack doctor diagnosed the problem and prescribed steroids as the treatment.

 

I think this whole case just points out the hypocrisy of many Bonds haters.

I think we're losing sight of the point. My initial reaction to this story was to people's statements that Ankiel's career is now over or that he should somehow be shamed into leaving the game or something. It bugs me because no other athletes are held to the same standards. Football players are busted left and right and it is barely a story. A baseball player is simply suspected of something and the world seems to stop. Im not excusing it or denying it or approving of it, but Im curious as to why the double standard exists.

 

[MJLiverock]

sorry I wasn' t clear Rydogg. I was mainly trying to point the posters who say Ankeil is fine because he had some "prescription" and that is OK but and the same time trying to vilify Bonds.

 

I agree with your points Rydogg, baseball in general is like an old uptight Victorian era spinster. A certain segment wants to compare everything to the way it used to be and complains that anything new is bad for the game, or honestly believes the players of yesteryear wear saints. Football has survived steroids and HGH for probably 40 years. Baseball will go on despite the cries of foul everytime a record gets broken, a player watches a HR, or a wild card team wins the World Series.

[Bring Back the Stein]

Anybody suprised that this happened on a team managed by St. Tony La Russa? Be interesting to ask what Mark McGwire thinks about it, now that he's shrunk to the size of a healthy Prince Fielder stool. As for La Russa, he's probably too busy napping off a boilermaker on a side street. Seriously, La Russa's always posing for holy pictures as a manager, but never really has had to answer what's gone on in his houses.

[Patrick425]

baseball in general is like an old uptight Victorian era spinster.

...

Baseball will go on despite the cries of foul everytime a record gets broken, a player watches a HR, or a wild card team wins the World Series.

I prefer it when athletes hustle all the time for the mega millions that they earn and I prefer that an athlete let his accomplishments do the talking instead of his showboating. I prefer that an athelete acheive greatness through hard work, dedication, and god-given skills. I would appreciate if I had a son or daughter, who is gifted in altheletics, does not feel he or she needs to add any performance enhancing drugs to there body to keep up with the pack. If all these things mean that I'm a Victorean ere spinster, then so be it. I would rather be that than someone who believes it's ok for players to be self-indulgant "me monsters" that have no respect for the game, the fans, or fellow athletes.

[Tbadder]

It honestly does my heart good when stories like this appear. I love it when our "feel good" stories crumble. I swear, the amount of mythologies that sports fans create is devastatingly ridiculous.

 

And I also like simple answers to complex questions. And I love all the talk about how we should act instead of how we do act. Him good. Him bad. Kill the bad man! (metaphorically of course).

 

When the rewards and desire are great enough humans will do what they can to reach their hopes and dreams. I'd rather not lose this compunction even though it may lead us astray at times.

 

Moral this or moral that, technically, this or technically that. Neither of these points of view accurately describes humans beings. And punishment doesn't work either. Check out our empty jails. Banning or suspending players will never work either, when has it ever. It means too much to people. And if it means cheating, cheating that may end your life early, or ruin your reputation or standing with strangers, well, then it must be really important and meaningful.

 

Try and explain that to someone. Don't act on what is meaningful to you. Just accept that you'll never achieve your dreams because your body isn't up to the task. Hey if you can't be a baseball player you can be chimney sweep or a chemical engineer. And if being an engineer or a chimney sweep is your version of "living the dream" then I'm not gonna deny you your chance.

[MJLiverock]

Bonds comes out tomorrow and says I was embarrased to admit I have a low testosterone condition

You've gotta be kidding. Is this a common condition? http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/roll.gif

 

So, all these guys just have low testosterone conditions? Ok, I'm sorry, I take back everything I said, my bad.

 

Actually David Segui used this very reason for why his name came up in the Jason Grimsley HGH investigation. It has been hinted at that Segui knows of other players who have this low testosterone condition to justify their "prescription". http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/more/03/06/rx.trouble0312/3.html

 

A journalist in another article talks about getting "prescriptions" for HGH as an anti aging device.

 

I can go online and buy prescription drugs like Viagra, Vicodin, Oxycontin, etc. by agreeing to answer a couple questions and provide a credit card number. I am sure a pro athlete can get a prescription for any drug under the sun if they want it.

 

Heck, Johnny Drama got a prescription for weed by claiming he was nervous.http://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/happy.gifhttp://static.yuku.com//domainskins/bypass/img/smileys/pimp.gif

[TooLiveBrew]

Wait, pro athletes use steroids?

[TheBrewer]

We all know the story behind Ankiel, won't go into it.

Some or all may know that MLB is looking at if they can do anything about what he had done.

What he had taken was not banned by the MLB at that time obviously as we all know.

My question is, he was in the Minor Leagues during the time he had taken his "juice pills". So....if he was in the Minor Leagues during that time, what is Minor League Baseball's Policy on Drug Use / Roids etc? Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't or isn't the Minor League drug policy alot tougher since theres not a union in the Minor Leagues? Thats what I had heard again I might be wrong.

So then if say Minor League Baseball had HGH banned the past 5 years or whatever just an example, and he took it during that time while he was down there.... couldn't MLB do something about that then. Now I may be completely off in this, with there drug policy and what was and is banned etc, but if this theory checks out, theres no doubt that MLB should find a way to punish him etc. Am I right?

Feel free to just tell me I'm completely off on this, ... its just a theory I thought of...

[Fatter than Joey]

Ankiel had been a major league player -- it wasn't like he was some sort of minor league journeyman.

 

I suspect he didn't do anything wrong and nothing can or should be done.

[sbrylski]

I predict 90% or more of professional baseball players in the past decade "did something wrong", so I'm able to easily overlook this a bit.

[jason21nl]

I predict 90% or more of professional baseball players in the past decade "did something wrong", so I'm able to easily overlook this a bit.

I can't remember what I was watching today (maybe PTI) but someone had a good point. With so many players "doing something wrong" does it make what Bonds has done more OK than if he were the only one to use anything bad? Since most players have done something wrong, the playing field was level and nobody had a huge advantage over the next person. Just asking

[sbrylski]

I predict 90% or more of professional baseball players in the past decade "did something wrong", so I'm able to easily overlook this a bit.

I can't remember what I was watching today (maybe PTI) but someone had a good point. With so many players "doing something wrong" does it make what Bonds has done more OK than if he were the only one to use anything bad? Since most players have done something wrong, the playing field was level and nobody had a huge advantage over the next person. Just asking

Definately. The uproar is because it is believed he had a competitive advantage, which we may find out is not true.

 

[brettac1]

Well, here's the next one to be unveiled...

 

Jay Gibbons, come on down!!!

 

Gibbons got steroids and HGH

[mothershipconnection]

I don't, and never will, buy the "low testosterone" argument. Show me data that this diagnosis is as common in accountants as baseball players and maybe I'll come around.

 

Yep, these guys are "Doctors", just like people who promote useless fad diet pills on late night infomercials. Every quack who ever had his license revoked, or who was repeated sued successfully for malpractice was a "doctor" at one point. When you have such a big number of health practitioners, it's inevitable that quacks and charlatans looking to get rich will slip through the cracks.

[LouisEly]

If he had a prescription, and it wasn't against MLB rules, what is the big deal? You can still go to a doctor and get a prescription for steroids under the right circumstances, you know.

 

I don't, and never will, buy the "low testosterone" argument. Show me data that this diagnosis is as common in accountants as baseball players and maybe I'll come around.

 

 

I could write pages on this, but I'll try the abridged version.

 

I have some knowledge in this area because I work for a company involved in hormone replacement (albeit women's hormone replacement, but it has a lot of parallels and basically all hormones have similar effects on the body). Hormones, particularly testosterone, have an impact on strength, recovery, alertness, body fat, and other functions essential to playing sports (body fat makes you heavier, and thus not as fast/quick). Why do players skills decline somewhere in their 30's? It's because testosterone levels start declining during your 30's, therefore they are not as strong, fast, alert, and cannot recover as fast from physical activities and injuries. It's called "getting older". Conditioning is important, but if it was the only factor, then why do even the most supremely conditioned athletes eventually decline? It's because their testosterone levels are declining. Why do we get fatter as we get older, all other things being equal? One reason is because our hormone levels are dropping, and fatty tissue is another producer of hormones, thus our body reacts by putting on fat to make more hormones to support bodily functions. Hormones have a lot of receptors in the body, and the human body reacts to its needs; if it needs more hormones, it reacts by finding a way to produce it (increase appetite to put on fat, burns muscle to preserve fat to make hormones). Think about it - why do some guys who lift a lot of weights

get fat and some don't (like guys in the "World's Strongest Man" competitions)? It's because those with high testosterone levels don't need the extra hormones to build muscle, while guys with lower testosterone levels need more testosterone to do it, so their bodies react by putting on body fat. Look at the other end of the spectrum - do you know of anybody who spends a lot of time at the gym and works out rigorously but is still a little pudgy and never has been "ripped"? It's not effort, it's natural hormone levels, specifically naturally low. HGH is essentially the same thing - Human Growth Hormone - a hormone similar to testosterone that affects the body the same way - improves strength, speed, decreases body fat, increases alertness.

 

The reality is that most players, if given supplemental testosterone or HGH, would play longer and have better careers. Some guys are freaks of nature though - there are a couple of different scales used to measure testosterone levels and on some of them some guys can have testosterone levels 3x higher or more than another guy and both be considered "normal levels". That's nature and genetics. So not everyone who has a great physique and plays for a long time takes supplemental hormones - that's probably why they play professionally to begin with, because they have naturally high testosterone levels and thus are more naturally physically gifted than most. But comment #2 above is dead on - it is much less prevalent in athletes than accountants because in most sports you have to have high testosterone levels to be physically able to compete, and the reality is that testosterone levels decline when guys hit their 30's. And the thought that "low testosterone" levels even exist in professional sports, given how important testosterone is to physical ability, is almost a joke.

 

The other issue is that synthetic testosterone and HGH are very difficult to test for. They are catching up to synthetic testosterone and might be able to detect that now, as we found out with Floyd Landis and the Tour de France, however it is very difficult if not impossible to test for HGH. That is why the only reason you hear about it is if somebody gets busted for buying/selling/prescribing/dispensing illegally (Grimsley, the pharmacy in Florida linked to dozens of athletes and wrestlers). I think Harrison and Merriman are just the tip of the iceberg; you'd find a lot of it in football if suddenly they found a way to test for it. Steroids as a whole are easy to detect because they are not natural to the human body; testosterone and HGH are structurally identical to testosterone and HGH that occurs naturally in the body, thus making it very difficult to test for.

 

But the point is that if someone is taking supplemental hormones it is cheating nature; people have played baseball, football, whatever for 100 years, and who knows how many guys who played 30, 60, or 90 years ago would hold records or be in the Hall of Fame had they been given the same advantages that these players today have who are taking testosterone and HGH. How many players whose careers tailed off in their mid 30's would have played an additional 5 to 10 years if they had taken these "supplements"? The "legal/illegal" argument holds no water with me - the issue is that it creates a competitve advantage that not all players have or have had in the history of the game.

 

I think people don't have as much issue with it in football as in baseball because football is far less traditional than baseball. Football is about being new and innovative and we KNOW in football that guys today are much, much bigger than guys even 25 years ago; baseball is much more traditional and many more comparisons are made across genres than football. There is a much greater comparison of statistics in baseball than football; in football I can probably count on both hands the number of stats that are kept (rushing yards, passing yards, receiving yards, TDs are pretty much the only stats anybody gives a crap about... hell, sacks weren't even a statistic 30 years ago). Baseball has many, many more stats and the plethora of stats makes it easy to compare players across generations... thus more scrutiny to make sure that players across generations aren't taking competitive advantages.

 

Wow, I'm pooped after that. Time to grab the Nyquil and go to bed.

[sbrylski]

Good post, Louis.

 

The "legal/illegal" argument holds no water with me - the issue is that it creates a competitve advantage that not all players have or have had in the history of the game.

 

What makes Ruth's 1.113 OPS in 1919 better than Bonds' 1.128 OPS in 2000? Ruth's OPS+ was 219 that season compared to Bonds' 191. You have to compare a feat, be it Bonds' HRs or Roger Clemens' Ks, to the state of the league if you are going to to compare across different eras. The state of the league over the past decade was one full of PED's, and I don't think that makes the stats any less valid.

 

It would be a lot more complicated if only ~30% of players were using PED's, but I think its actually in baseball's favor to find more and more players that were using. If it can be shown PED's were being used by as many as 80% or more, which I think is actually fairly likely, I think it restores a sort of even playing field, however distorted it is.

[TooLiveBrew]

How many players whose careers tailed off in their mid 30's would have played an additional 5 to 10 years if they had taken these "supplements"? The "legal/illegal" argument holds no water with me - the issue is that it creates a competitve advantage that not all players have or have had in the history of the game.

 

This is perhaps the most eloquent argument I have ever encountered regarding HGH. A+ post, and thanks for sharing your better knowledge and understanding of PEDs (HGH in particular). I had no idea why HGH couldn't be reliably tested, and now I do. Thank you for that post.

[Patrick425]

The other issue is that synthetic testosterone and HGH are very difficult to test for. They are catching up to synthetic testosterone and might be able to detect that now, as we found out with Floyd Landis and the Tour de France, however it is very difficult if not impossible to test for HGH. That is why the only reason you hear about it is if somebody gets busted for buying/selling/prescribing/dispensing illegally (Grimsley, the pharmacy in Florida linked to dozens of athletes and wrestlers). I think Harrison and Merriman are just the tip of the iceberg; you'd find a lot of it in football if suddenly they found a way to test for it. Steroids as a whole are easy to detect because they are not natural to the human body; testosterone and HGH are structurally identical to testosterone and HGH that occurs naturally in the body, thus making it very difficult to test for.

I'm not an expert on this by any means. However, can there be any tests done for HGH by doing blood tests? There was a guy on XM's baseball chanel the other morning (did not catch the name, it might have been Rosenthal), that was arguing that MLB currently does not do blood testing and that sooner or later, if they want to take further steps to "clean the game up", they are going to have to. He stated that there is not to many other professions that require blood tests and the Union would fight any proposal to do this. However, he also stated, this isn't another profession and if the players are tired of having their accomplishments scrutinized by the fans, media, etc and are serious about fighting the issue, then they need to start allowing blood tests.

 

Also, I thought someone mentioned to me that in other sports (cycling?), they take a measure of the athletes for levels of testosterone (maybe this is what blood tests do?). If the levels are above a level that would be considered reasonable (that would be naturally produced by the body), then they are assumed to be taking some form of PEDs.

[mothershipconnection]

I'm not an expert on this by any means. However, can there be any tests done for HGH by doing blood tests?

 

There technically is a test, but it's not practical at all.

 

Major League Baseball doesn't test for HGH. The International Olympic Committee brags it has had an HGH test since before the 2004 Olympics, but that is semantics.

 

Yes, there is a blood test for HGH. But because antibodies necessary for the process are in such short supply, virtually no HGH testing is conducted. In addition, the test only detects HGH right after injection so it's impractical for in-competition testing. As a result, there never has been an HGH positive.

 

There have been just a couple hundred HGH tests, according to experts such as Christiane Ayotte, head of the Montreal Olympic-testing lab, and Gary Wadler, a physician and author who has advised the World Anti-Doping Agency.

[wisconsinfan47]

Ankiel is imploding.

 

He has 1 hit since Friday, and made 2 horrible plays in the field tonight.

 

Good-bye feel-good story.