Doping Corner

An Established Neighborhood in Sports

By Matt Chaney

March 14, 2009

The faulty redemption theme, a staple of stupid press coverage on doping in American sport, began decades ago with media tales of contrition by athletes coming off steroid suspensions.

In the 1990s, for example, drug-tainted football players cried in familiar refrain when returning to the game: Waa. I used steroids and made a mistake. I’m sorry. From now on I do things the right way. Writers lapped up the PR slop, repeating dubious claims as factual.

Today the redemption storyline has escalated into heartwarming portrayals of drug reform for an entire sport, Major League Baseball, although writers still run the message through personal profiles of jocks.

Sportswriters increasingly tell us MLB is miraculously moving beyond its steroid era. In simplistic fashion, scribes cite declining power numbers as conclusive evidence. In ridiculous fashion, they choose and construct suspect Mr. Cleans from bulky power hitters, by extension implying baseball is somehow capable of reversing rampant use of steroids and growth hormone.

Redemption theme works as a fan-pleasing response to doping scandal in baseball, but the angle also backfires on media.

In 2005, with Mark McGwire branded as drug cheat, media briefly glorified Rafael Palmeiro as symbol of baseball goodness. Then he tested positive for steroids. In 2007, when steroid pariah Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s career homerun record, sportswriters gravitated to Alex Rodriguez, anointing him as the game’s drug-free savoir.

Now, with A-Clod exposed as steroid liar, writers frame Mr. Clean stories around sluggers Albert Pujols of the Cardinals and Josh Hamilton of the Rangers. Pujols embraces the attention, promising media and fans they can “believe” in him.

But anti-doping technology is invalid and both Hamilton and Pujols are abnormally large specimens. More factors, personal histories, invite skepticism about each player. In sum, Hamilton and Pujols are among baseball’s last to uphold as role models within present-day context, or the wealth of public information on muscle substances, particularly in MLB, and the impossibility of proving abstinence by any individual.  

Sportswriters should drop foolish redemption stories. They can wish away widespread use--and the reality that won't change anytime soon--without trying to absolve any athlete or game.

Slugger tales of baseball can be produced without mentioning drugs. Most fans want the sanitized versions, anyway.

…

Looks Like Truth Lite

So now former football behemoth Tony Mandarich reveals truth about his steroid use? Does he really?

I think Mandarich tells parts of the whole truth, not all of it. Based on early reports, his new confessional book doesn’t fully jibe with me, this old football juicer, not about steroids and HGH. I believe some of what Mandarich says today about his juicing past at Michigan State, despite unified denial 20 years ago by him, football coach George Perles, and MSU administrators. But he still covers for the coaches and university, and he goes totally downhill by insisting, still, that he didn’t use muscle dope in the NFL.

That’s illogical. Testing was and remains a joke in college football, but it’s just as useless in pro football or any other sport, as Mandarich surely knows. Given his NCAA football experience, Mandarich assuredly didn’t fear NFL urinalysis, as he feigns today during interviews for the book. Moreover, he regained massive weight following an illness, including muscle, to come back at 311 pounds for Indianapolis in 1996.

Typical of NFL players turned authors, Mandarich maintains the classic insider position. He doesn’t cross a certain line by alleging pervasive muscle doping in The League. He acknowledges problems both personal and institutional, like abuse of pain-killing drugs, yet he suggests anabolic steroids and HGH don’t impact competition.

Right, Tony. As a former steroid user in NCAA football who’s sought open discussion on this issue for 20 years, I thank you for nothing, still.

…

Speaking of Lousy Testing

Pretty pathetic when we can't trust the word of anti-doping crusaders or drug testers any more than the so-called cheating athletes they pursue. Testers proclaim they prevent doping in sports when they know they cannot.

But anti-doping as we know it stands imperiled financially while its credibility continues to erode, a crumbling facade of half-truths, bad science and outright lies.

A Swiss research team recently debunked the standard testosterone-epitestosterone assay, known as the T/E ratio urinalysis, labeling it useless other than to signal need for more sophisticated scanning on a sample.

A genetic variation identified among ethnic groups means no universal baseline in testosterone level exists for the human race. East Asian athletes with the variant, for example, could really load testosterone injections without exceeding the T/E ratio of 4:1, the violation threshold set by the World Anti-Doping Agency, the NCAA, NFL, MLB and other sport organs. The T/E test for steroids has been in operation since 1983.

The instrument’s documented fallibility begs the question: Why don’t testers employ the carbon-isotope ratio scan for synthetic testosterone on every A sample of athletes’ urine, instead of typically utilizing the CIR as follow-up on a B sample?

Dr. Don Catlin, engineer of the CIR scan, told me his test could be utilized for mass implementation as easily and cheaply as other applications. But officials apparently disagree, and criticism of the scientific vetting process for Catlin's CIR, among other anti-doping tools, has emerged from Dr. Donald Berry, expert on bio statistics at the University of Texas-Houston.

Berry blasts the lack of independent validation and peer review for all current testing methods, including the new blood-profiling or “biological passport” system struggling to get underway in cycling and Olympic sports. Berry says groups like WADA are closed systems to the general scientific community--a criticism echoed by Catlin, a respected scientist who works with but not for the anti-doping tribes.

“If conventional doping testing were to be submitted to a regulatory agency such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to qualify as a diagnostic test for disease, it would be rejected,” Berry wrote for Nature journal.

To order Matt Chaney's book Spiral of Denial: Muscle Doping in American Football, visit: http://shop.4wallspublishing.com