Alex Rodriguez
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With this weekend’s revelation that baseball superstar Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez had taken anabolic steroids, the furor over rampant doping in sports continues.
A three-time Most Valuable Player, Rodriguez now joins a pantheon of modern baseball greats tarnished by allegations of steroid use, including homerun “king” Barry Bonds and pitching ace Roger Clemens. But unlike those players -- the latter of whom denied steroid abuse under oath at a congressional hearing last year -- Rodriguez fessed up on ESPN Monday night. He apologized, saying that he was “stupid” for having taken performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez says he has stayed clean while wearing the signature pinstriped uniform of the New York Yankees as the team's All-Star third baseman, now entering his sixth season.
According to anonymous sources quoted by Sports Illustrated, Rodriguez allegedly tested positive for testosterone and the anabolic steroid primobolan. But the big league veteran told ESPN’s Peter Gammons that he’s not even sure what banned substances he used during the 2001 to 2003 seasons he spent with the Texas Rangers.
Rodriguez’s name turned up on the list of 104 major league players tagged for using performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 during tests given to gauge the need for mandatory testing to curb use of banned substances. The names have not been publicly released and none of the players were penalized. But the League imposed random drug testing and sanctions in 2004 after 5 percent of the players tested positive for outlawed substances.
During Rodriguez’s confessed era of doping, his homerun average jumped to a super-slugging 52 per season, compared with 36 during his first four seasons in the league and about 42 since. His runs-batted-in (RBI) statistics and total games played also peaked. Even so, his batting average has dipped over his career, from .315 to .305 during his steroid days to .303 over the past five seasons.
In 2003 – reportedly his last year taking anabolic steroids – the League honored him as its MVP. Rodriguez has continued to play Hall of Fame-caliber baseball, and he won two more Most Valuable Players awards in 2005 and 2007.
Anabolic steroids are not the same as prednisone prescribed by physicians for inflammatory and other disorders. Instead, anabolic steroids promote tissue growth, and, in particular, muscle generation – which is why they have become so popular in athletics.
To learn more about the boosting effects of anabolic steroids as well as their potential health risks, ScientificAmerican.com interviewed Jay Hoffman, a professor of health and exercise science at The College of New Jersey in Ewing. Hoffman, who has a PhD in exercise science, used steroids during his football days in the early 1980s, and he recently met Rodriguez.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Are you surprised by the news that Alex Rodriguez used steroids?
Not at all. I had heard rumors from coaches in the League that he had used them. What I don’t like is Alex coming off [in the ESPN interview] like he didn’t know what substances he took. I’m sure he knew exactly what he put in his body. I was very impressed when I met him in 2006 during a workout at Yankees Stadium, because he asked a lot of really good questions about training. I also admire his work ethic.
Rodriguez allegedly used a steroid called primobolan. What is that drug and how does it work?
It’s an anabolic steroid, also called an androgen, and it is a synthetic form of the male sex hormone testosterone. It increases muscle mass and strength, and also enhances recovery time after a workout. Primobolan is typically injected in the buttocks with a needle. You want to dissipate the steroid through some fatty tissue, because the steroid is fat soluble, and that way you also slow down the metabolism of it for a more sustained dose.
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16 Comments
Add CommentHe's lying.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA-Rod wasn't "stupid about it", he did a smart thing that got him millions of income.
The problem is that the rules have changed. A few years back professional sports was very cavalier about doping, so doping was the economically right thing to do. On the other hand, lying about it in front of a jury or a senate commission, under oath, isn't exactly the right thing.
It's time we got clear rules. Either there is 100% surprise blood/urine sampling with samples frozen for X years (so that new drugs that aren't detected today can be found later) or doping is OK. You can't have anything in between. What I'd like to see are "pro" and "natural" divisions like in bodybuilding.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHoffman did an interesting study on whether teenagers use steroids because their role models like A-Rod use them. Check out the results here: http://sportsanddrugs.procon.org/viewanswers.asp?questionID=1240
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOver time I'm seeing less overall improvement in a person taking steroids. By comparing nearly forty years of progression of track athletes, specificially the dash events, look at the lowering of times and look at the number of total athletes being tested positive. Then, check back with tested positive athletes and clean athletes and the times are still lowering. So maybe there are steroid athletes who are benefitting on the short term from the drug due to repetitive injury. But overall, the steroids aren't giving a benefit. There are so many testings now being done on the high performance athletes that getting caught is too easy. Recently, femaleUS tennis star was complaining about the total number of testings being done in a calender year. But records are still being broken by clean athletes, and lowering standards that were being won by "steroid" athletes such as a Ben Johnson. So did the steroids really benefit a Ben Johnson during his time, compared to the last summer Olympics won by the Jamiacan who was clean.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd say that better training methods, combined with improved understanding of sports science is improving sports records in physical events like dash events.
Maybe its time we dropped this steroids war, and let those that do use the drug die from cancer and all the other associated problems associated with the long term use of the drug.
What an insipid article. A-Rod's numbers were marginally higher in 2001-2003. Of course, that must be steroids. Let's just ignore that those were his peak age years and he was hitting in a Texas bandbox. And how does he know the Mets weren't taking steroids? Have all the teams in history that have surged in September been on the juice? Is there any historical evidence that power hitters fade over the season (no)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm not saying steroids don't make players perform better. But you have to look at the evidence as Baseball Between the Numbers did. This is just someone talking off his hip about something he knows little about, despite his admitted use. Scientific American should be ashamed for running it.
Do you know what you're talking about? Hal_10000 raises the point I was going to bring up in his "Let's just ignore..." sentence. You CAN'T ignore that. He moved to the best home run hitting park in the American League and played there for three PRIME years. Those were the years you would have expected him to have career highs in home runs, in a park that only added to his total. You have to know a little bit about baseball if you want to have credibility in the discussion. You whiffed on this one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRalf123, he didn't get the millions by using steroids. If you're a baseball fan, you know the timeline. You are ignorant or dishonest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo you say the fact that he was able to train harder and stay injury free early in his career didn't have anything to do with him becoming a superstar?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd you assume that he's saying the truth about not taking anything while with the Yankees? What exactly does "clean" mean? Not taking anything that's currently illegal I guess - he didn't say anything about other performance enhancing drugs. Which he better didn't because every professional athlete takes them.
A point of contention: a person who artificially enhances performance with drugs is not 'maximizing their potential', they are exceeding their potential. I don't care about drugs, or morality, or role models or any of that b.s. Just don't try to pass this off as someone doing the best they can with what they have. It's artificial. It's fake. It's a lie. It makes great ad copy and fits into a rousing locker room speech, but there is no such thing as 110%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe naivete--putting it charitably--expressed in this essay is astonishing. To pick just one grain of sand off the beach, while most effects of steroid use normally do reverse on discontinuation, gynecomastia often does not, and may even require corrective surgery of a nontrivial nature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut that greater errors are in unvalidated (and falsifiable) presumptions about steroidal effects. The web site steroids-and-baseball.com documents at some length the scientific literature on the key points, from medical effects to adolescent use to actual baseball statistical analyses. But the belief in the "eveil empire" of steroidal "cheaters" in baseball has now become not a science but a religion, and thus data and reasoning have correspondingly become irrelevant.
Does anyone know the volume #, issue #, and pages of the article?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHelp Please?!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is the volume #, issue #, and pages of the article?
There's been a research said that abusing anabolic steroids can carry numerous health risks. In a new study of bodybuilders who abused the substance, a link may have been found between that misuse and serious kidney problems.
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There's been a research said that abusing anabolic steroids can carry numerous health risks. In a new study of bodybuilders who abused the substance, a link may have been found between that misuse and serious kidney problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this<b><a href="http://www.sheeparcade.com">Free Games</a></b>
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