Word: steroids
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...saddest part about Mark McGwire's insistence that he was naturally "given the gift to hit home runs" - even as he copped Jan. 11 to a near decade's worth of steroid use - is that it might just be true. He did, after all, smash the single-season home-run record for rookies with 49 long balls in 1987 - two years before, he says now, he first tried doping. Could he have edged out Sammy Sosa to crush Roger Maris' 37-year-old home-run record in 1998 - knocking 70 balls out of the park - even without juicing? Fans will...
Testing has since helped clean up the sport. But it still struggles to shrug off the stain of doping. "I wish I had never played during the steroid era," McGwire said in his confession. He may not be alone...
After refining his experiments, Ziegler hit upon the first anabolic steroid, known as methandrostenolone and marketed in 1958 by Ciba Pharmaceuticals as Dianabol. But there was already a dark side. Ziegler's test subjects quickly started abusing the drugs and developed such side effects as swollen prostates or shrunken testicles - an outcome that would prompt the doctor to condemn his own creation before his death in 1983. Nonetheless, by the early 1960s pharmaceutical companies had developed nearly a dozen rival steroids, which quickly gained popularity off-label with athletes. In 1976, the International Olympic Committee became the first sports group...
...rash of doping scandals in the sports world - from cycling to track and field - prompted authorities to crack down harder on drug use. But in many quarters, baseball was believed to be largely immune. In April 1988 the Los Angeles Times reported that America's pastime remained "essentially steroid-free." While Washington Post sportswriter Thomas Boswell would call Oakland slugger Jose Canseco "the most conspicuous example of a player who has made himself great with steroids" later that year, Canseco shrugged off the charge; he went on to be named American League MVP. (He would later admit to doping from...
...major league players and managers agreed to begin limited, anonymous testing for steroids. Two years later President George W. Bush took the unprecedented step of condemning steroids in his State of the Union address, saying the use of the "dangerous" drugs in baseball, among other sports, "sends the wrong message - that there are shortcuts to accomplishments, and that performance is more important than character." That same year, standards grew tougher and major leaguers submitted to their first mandatory steroid tests. Under the penalties first introduced for doping in 2005, 12 players were suspended for 10 days each...