The power of steroids
Dr. Linn Goldberg still remembers the conversation he had with a professional athlete in the mid-1980s, a time when steroids were hidden from the public eye.
The player's wife had found a vial with his uniform number on it. Considering her husband's behavior, she suspected steroids. So she went to Goldberg, now a professor of medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University, where he created a program to help prevent steroid use among high school athletes.
"I told him not to do them," Goldberg said. "I told him about the negatives. I told him he was already fast enough and strong enough. I told him how he could hurt himself and hurt his marriage.
"He looked at me and said 'OK.' He did them. A lot of [athletes] don't feel like they'll be affected by the side effects."
Despite the pitfalls of steroids, an issue that has received national attention in the wake of the ongoing BALCO scandal with Barry Bonds at the center, athletes continue using, opting for the short-term gains over long-term damage.
As steroids have become a major issue in baseball, the league has begun testing players in hopes of putting an end to the suspicion that players are using illegal substances to gain advantages.
Last season, according to Major League Baseball, between 5 percent and 7 percent of the players tested came up positive for steroids. That total forced the league to implement more mandatory testing.
It also began the talk of what to do with records set by players who have tested positive, with some suggesting the records be eliminated or an asterisk be placed next to the record.
Additionally, baseball began a move toward what commissioner Bud Selig called a "zero-tolerance" policy. Baseball has begun testing players for steroids and other banned substances in the Dominican Summer League.
"To achieve our goal of zero tolerance of performance-enhancing substances and drugs of abuse, it is important to prevent the use of these substances in the earliest stages of a player's career," Selig said in a statement.
Still, baseball remains mired in steroid controversy.
"They [the players] just think about quick fix, something that can give them an edge over their athletic competition," said Dave Davis, owner of McHenry County Strength and Sports Center. "They don't look at the negative side effects."
In it for the money
Last year, the average Major League Baseball player's salary was $2.5 million. That alone, Goldberg said, is motivation enough to disregard the potential pitfalls.
"They might not take them if money wasn't involved, but a lot of money is involved," Goldberg said. "Look, there was a guy [Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez] who signed a contract for a quarter of a billion dollars, so the money is a factor."
Home runs equal money. With a major-league season at 162 games, not counting more than a month of spring training and possible playoff games, players cannot avoid getting worn down.
"That's what steroids do, they allow the body to recover quicker," Davis said. "There's more anabolic hormones in the body, so there is more ability to build muscle at a rapid pace."
Goldberg said athletes typically take steroids in six- to 12-week cycles.
"So you're on them half the time, then off them half the time," Goldberg said. "You rarely have people who don't cycle. You can also stack them. When you stack, you use multiple different anabolic steroids [for extra effects]. Some are short acting, some are longer acting. So you stack them - you take orals and injections, water soluble and fat soluble. "
There are more than 100 types of steroids, but almost all are used for similar purposes.
"Bodies break down, muscle tissue breaks down, especially when you're playing game after game," Goldberg said. "They make you stronger, they make you faster, quicker. You have more muscle mass so you are able to do things that you otherwise might not be able to do - or at least be able to do them more rapidly, so you can make those gains, make those advances much more quickly."
With the help of science, a ball that went to the warning track might end up in the seats, a 94 mph fastball might hit triple digits on the radar gun.
"That is the attractiveness, because it allows people to do phenomenal things in a short amount of time," Davis said.
Dangers lurking
The dangers of taking steroids, Goldberg said, range from physical to psychological.
"The physical problems include high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol levels, increase in [blood] clotting, stimulation of certain types of tumors - prostate tumors, liver tumors," Goldberg said. "Another effect is called peliosis hepatas, where you get blood-filled cysts in the liver that can rupture."
The National Institute on Drug Abuse also sites body acne, balding, possible development of female characteristics in males (growth of breasts, increased tendency for fatty tissues and soft muscles), stunting of growth, headaches, kidney and liver problems and heart disease.
For athletes who have been using for an extended time, the problems do not go away by simply stopping.
"Depending on diet and training, and how long you were on them, it could alter your pituitary-testicular axis," Goldberg said.
Wives or girlfriends of steroid users would notice a significant decline in their partner's sexual drive, Goldberg said, and their partner's testicles could get smaller.
That is what happens when steroids mess with the body. There is also the "roid rage" that messes with the mind.
"The psychological dangers include paranoia; over-aggressiveness to the point of not being able to be controlled," Goldberg said. "You can have problems with depression. They can make you very anxious."
Goldberg, who recently took part in a roundtable discussion on steroids on ESPN's "Outside the Lines," has argued that society has played a part in downplaying the dangers of using performance-enhancing drugs.
"If you take a look at the way marketing goes, the term 'on steroids' means good," said Goldberg, who received a $2.9 million grant from NIDA to construct the Atlas Program, which is focused on preventing steroid use in high school students. "The 3M Corporation had the picture of the big post-it on an easel, and they said, 'Think of it as a post-it note on steroids.' Saab had a large campaign. It was 'Saab vs. Steroids' and the lettering for steroids was three times as large for steroids. It said 'Steroids build big muscles, likewise Saab builds big engines.' "
Growing suspicions
In 1986, when Barry Bonds made his major-league debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he weighed 185 pounds. Now, at age 39, he is listed at 228 pounds with approximately 4 percent body fat.
"He used to be 180 or so, then all of a sudden he's up to 220, 230," Davis said. "He's just solid muscle."
It is that change in body type, along with his eye-popping home run totals - over the past four years, he leads baseball with 213 home runs - that has raised suspicion.
"Granted, it's not uncommon for high school athletes to put on 20 pounds in a summer, but that's because they hit a growth spurt," Davis said. "Someone who is a matured athlete, someone who is at a professional level, to make those kind of gains in a short amount of time, is something that certainly can be looked at [with suspicion]."
It has become a common game now, looking at athletes and wondering: Is he on the juice?
"Mark McGwire, soon after he admitted to using [androstenedione], he was gone," Goldberg said "Why? That's what he said he was on. What would you think? Really? He says, 'I was on androstenedione, and I took a lot of it.' It does convert into testosterone. It is very metabolically active. I don't know if he was taking other stuff, he never verified it. Nobody ever drug tested him. He could have taken anything he wanted."
Shortly before he retired, McGwire said he stopped taking andro, hoping to distance himself from the notion he was cheating.
With Bonds, the body overhaul late in his career - changing from a wiry singles hitter to a player likely to threaten Hank Aaron's all-time home run mark - has raised questions.
Davis said after a male athlete's 21st birthday, it becomes increasingly more difficult to make rapid changes in physical makeup.
"That's when their body is producing a lot of natural testosterone and anabolic hormones naturally through the body," Davis said. "They can hit those growth spurts and get large quantities of muscle or height fairly rapidly. After about 21 or so, they'll start to slow down and that production will level off."
For someone in his late 30s to undergo a body transformation is nearly impossible.
"When you're already 30, 32, then all of a sudden at 35 you're humongous compared to what you were at 32, the changes later on that are that dramatic, those would ring suspicion," Goldberg said.
And when the frame gets too big, too quick, there is more trouble.
"For males, you go beyond your physiological limits," Goldberg said. "Some people take up to 100 times what the dose is supposed to be. Usually the tendon strength slowly increases as you increase the exertion. There is a normal tempo for that. If you automatically increase the ability to contract and the force with which you are able to do it, you can then have tendon injuries - tendon injuries and soft tissue injuries, pulled muscles."
Davis admits most of the athletes he deals with, even the ones still in high school, know about the dangers - to the mind and body.
"What they don't realize is the negative aspects are going to outweigh those positive ones," Davis said.
& amp;#x2022; Nick Pietruszkiewicz covers Major League Baseball for the Northwest Herald.
