He's definitely a better actor than Madonna.

He's definitely a better actor than Madonna.

According to the official in charge of the agency which regulates pharmaceutical drugs in the Dominican Republic, Primobolan was not available for legal purchase, over-the-counter or with a prescription in his country between 2001 and 2003.

Dr. Pia Veras, who oversees the regulatory agency, told ESPNdeportes.com that Primobolan is known as "boli" in the streets of Dominican Republic, and was not legal for purchase during the aforementioned years.

No hard evidence that these various substances help you play baseball better. *REPEAT*

"Guys have always been cheating. Period. It just takes a little different form today. I'm just glad they didn't have steroids when I was playing. I don't know what I would have done. It's very difficult to go out and perform when you know the guy next to you is taking steroids or some kind of drug to make you perform better and not do it yourself, to let this guy get an edge on you.

"I don't know that I really criticize the guys. Whoever the first guy is that started it, that's the guy I criticize. The rest of the guys just followed suit. I don't think it's OK. I'm not sanctioning it, but I understand why it happens."

When asked if players known to take performance-enhancing drugs should be in the Hall of Fame, Gibson responded, "Oh yeah, I think so."

Arroyo, who pitched for the Red Sox from 2003 to 2005, said he took androstenedione, which was banned in 2004, as well as amphetamines, which were banned in 2006, according to the Herald report. He said he gave up taking andro, a steroid precursor, when a rumor spread through baseball that due to lax production standards, some of it was laced with steroids.
* * *
Arroyo said he started taking taking andro after 1998, after a season with the Pirates' Double-A affiliate. "Andro made me feel great, I felt like a monster. I felt like I could jump and hit my head on the basketball rim," he said, according to the report.

Major League Baseball opened an investigation into performance-enhancing drugs inside the Red Sox clubhouse at the height of last year’s pennant race after two members of the team’s security staff were implicated in steroid use.

Both men were fired in a case that speaks to both Major League Baseball’s new intolerance for steroids and its inconclusive efforts to investigate suspicious cases.

The security staffers said they were dismissed after what they termed a cursory inquiry by Major League Baseball, and very limited questioning by the team - even though one of the guards says he swapped advice about steroids with David Ortiz’s close friend and personal assistant.
* * *
The major league inquiry began after State Police confiscated a vial of steroids from the car of Nicholas Alex Cyr, a securi ty staffer who was returning from a Red Sox-related event just before last year’s All-Star break in mid-July. Cyr told police he had bought the drug from Remy, the son of Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy.

Jared Remy denied being the supplier, but acknowledged in interviews with the Globe that he has been a steroid user.

Before they were fired, both men were first suspended and questioned about whether the drug was being used by Red Sox players.

“[The MLB investigator] asked: Is it being sold in the clubhouse? I’m like, ‘I don’t believe so,’ ’’ said Cyr, 27, who was found asleep at the wheel of his car in the middle of Quincy Shore Drive last summer. He was returning to his Weymouth home from the Beckett Bowl, a fund-raiser in Malden hosted by Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett.

I have a lot of guys in (the locker room) who think I'm out of (my) mind because I'm taking a lot of things not on the (MLB-approved) list. I take 10 to 12 different things a day, and on the days I pitch, there's four more things. There's a caffeine drink I take from a company that Curt Schilling introduced me to in '05. I take some Korean ginseng and a few other proteins out there that are not certified. But I haven't failed any tests, so I figured I'm good....

I took androstenedione the same way I took my multivitamins. I didn't really know if this was a genius move by Mark McGwire to cover up the real shit he was taking, but it made me feel unbelievable. I felt like a monster....

I can see where guys like Hank Aaron and some of the old-timers have a beef with it, But as far as looking at Manny Ramirez like he's Ted Bundy, you're out of your mind. At the end of the day, you think anybody really gives a shit whether Manny Ramirez's kidneys fail and he dies at 50?

You were happy if the Red Sox won 95 games. You'd go home, have a cookout with your family. No big deal.

Bronson Arroyo's kind of dumb for speaking this frankly, but at least it's a break from mealy-mouthed sanctimony:

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/2009081...B+s+drug+policy

(Director Todd) Graff told MTV.com, "If a character like Joe Hardy — who's the character in 'Damn Yankees' — sprung out of nowhere and was hitting 70 home runs in a season, who would not think immediately 'steroids'? . . . So [steroids] is not even a side character for us; it's our main character. No one is going to think, 'Oh, it's because he made a deal with the devil!' They'd think, 'He's juicing!'" Graff also said that the subject of steroids may be addressed in one of the new songs that will be penned for the film. Some of the original Richard Adler and Jerry Ross songs will remain, including "Whatever Lola Wants."

Among the other changes: While the original musical concerned the Washington Senators, the new version will likely focus on the Chicago Cubs.
* * *
"My whole pitch was that it should feel like 'Jerry Maguire' with songs," Graff said.

Manny Ramirez walked away from baseball on Friday, abruptly ending the mercurial career of one of the most talented -- and tainted -- hitters to ever play the game.

The slumping Tampa Bay Rays slugger tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug during spring training, sources told ESPN.com, and informed Major League Baseball that he would retire rather than face a 100-game suspension.

"I'm at ease," Ramirez told ESPNdeportes.com via phone from his home in Miami. "God knows what's best [for me]. I'm now an officially retired baseball player. I'll be going away on a trip to Spain with my old man."

Ramirez served a 50-game suspension for violating the drug policy in 2009 while he was with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and second-time offenders get double that penalty.
* * *
Ramirez's positive test for a banned substance comes as baseball, which has been working hard to put its so-called Steroids Era in the past, has another of its great hitters, Barry Bonds, on trial in San Francisco. Bonds is facing federal charges that he lied to a grand jury in 2003 by denying that he willfully used performance-enhancing drugs.

National League MVP Ryan Braun, who last season led the Milwaukee Brewers to their first division title in nearly three decades, has tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug and faces a 50-game suspension if the initial finding is upheld, two sources familiar with the case told "Outside the Lines."

Major League Baseball has not announced the positive test because Braun is disputing the result through arbitration.

* * *

The 28-year-old Braun had to provide a urine sample for testing during the playoffs, and he was notified of the positive test sometime in late October -- about a month before he was named the National League's most valuable player.

The positive result was triggered by elevated levels of testosterone in Braun's system, the sources also told "Outside the Lines." A subsequent, more comprehensive test revealed the testosterone was synthetic -- not produced by Braun's body.

When Aaron Rodgers heard the report tying Milwaukee Brewers star and reigning National League MVP Ryan Braun to the use of a performing-enhancing substance, he immediately was incredulous.

Rodgers considers Braun one of his closest friends, even his best friend. Braun has publicly denied the test results and is disputing it through arbitration.

And that's all Rodgers needs to know.

"I 100 percent support Ryan and believe in him and it's not going to affect our friendship in the least," Rodgers told Milwaukee's WAUK-AM on Wednesday. "I'm 100 percent supporting him and behind him and believe in everything that he says."

National League MVP Ryan Braun's 50-game suspension was overturned Thursday by baseball arbitrator Shyam Das, and sources told ESPN that Major League Baseball is weighing the possibility of suing in federal court to reverse the decision.

Braun's case marks the first time a baseball player has successfully challenged a drug-related penalty in a grievance.
* * *
Two sources told ESPN that Braun testified he never used performance-enhancing drugs, but that he and his representatives never disputed the fact that a second test on his urine sample showed exogenous testosterone in his body, meaning it came from an outside source.

Braun didn't argue evidence of tampering and didn't dispute the science, but argued protocol had not been followed. Multiple sources confirmed to ESPN investigative reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn that Braun questioned the chain of custody and collection procedure.

Speaking softly, nervously and in detail, Brian McNamee testified about the life-changing moment when, he said, he first gave Roger Clemens a "booty shot" of steroids.

The government's star witness in the Clemens perjury retrial took the stand Monday and told the jury that he injected one of baseball's most successful pitchers with steroids about eight to 10 times when they were with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1998.

"I knew what I was doing was illegal," McNamee said. "I wish to God I could take it back."

Clemens is charged with lying to Congress when he testified in 2008 that he had never used steroids or human growth hormone. The first attempt to try him last July ended in a mistrial when prosecutors showed the jury a snippet of videotaped evidence that had been ruled inadmissible.

The retrial took until its fifth week to get to the heart of the government's case: McNamee is the only person who will claim firsthand knowledge of Clemens using performance-enhancing drugs.

Amid his year-by-year narrative of his complex relationship with Roger Clemens and performance-enhancing drugs, Brian McNamee weaved in a tale of two wives. He said it was his own wife who nagged him into keeping evidence that has become crucial in the trial of the storied pitcher, and it was a request from Clemens' wife that led to what McNamee called a "creepy" injection scene in a bathroom.

Clemens' longtime strength coach testified Tuesday for a second day in the perjury trial, pushing his running total to roughly 10 hours on the stand, including the first few moments of what portends to be a grueling cross-examination that will continue Wednesday. The broad outline was familiar from McNamee's previous statements: He said he injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone in 2000 and with steroids in 2001, and he gave Debbie Clemens a shot of HGH in 2003. That was in addition to the testimony he gave Monday, when he spoke of a series of steroid injections he said he gave Clemens in 1998, when he was pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays.
* * *
"You're going to go down! You're going to go down! You're going to go down!" Brian McNamee said his wife, Eileen, told him in the "middle of a battle royale" argument.

McNamee said he thought "she might be right," so he kept the needle, swab and cotton ball from a steroids injection he said took place in Clemens' New York City apartment in 2001. He said he put the items in a beer can that he salvaged from the recycling bin in Clemens' kitchen -- a means of protecting the used needle from accidently stabbing himself -- and brought the can home. It was put in a FedEx box and kept in the house, an effort to "keep the home front nice and smooth," McNamee said.
* * *
McNamee said he kept the evidence a secret -- even when he was telling investigators about injections he gave pro baseball players -- because he was hoping he could minimize the impact on Clemens. It wasn't until 2008, after McNamee was angered by a news conference at which Clemens' lawyers played a taped phone call that contained medical details about McNamee's oldest son, that McNamee retrieved his collection of medical waste and turned it in.

It was "beyond inhuman to do that to a kid," McNamee said. "He had nothing to do with steroids in baseball, my son."