According to the NY Daily News, Jordan Schafer is the first victim of MLB’s new whistle-blower hotline.

“This is not something that came from a government investigation,” said an MLB source who requested anonymity, speaking about the Schafer case. “It came from a team of investigators following what Mitchell recommended.”

The source would not confirm if the Schafer investigation was an offshoot of the hotline, but the source did say the line was available to anybody in baseball with access to its private code, including players, managers and front-office personnel. Tipsters can also report rules violations through a secure Web site.

The hotline goes directly to the Department of Investigations, said the source.

“You can leave a message or speak to someone live if that is your choice,” the source added.

The Department of Investigations signals a radical departure in how Major League Baseball pursues leads about performance-enhancing drug use - in the past, allegations fell on deaf ears.

If the goal of performance-enhancement is to make a player relatively better than his peers, then those peers are going to be a valuable resource to the Department of Investigations.

Posted by JC as Steroids at 10:59 AM EDT

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Hmmm…

A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday charged that unidentified agents for baseball players steered clients to a California physician linked in media reports to supplying Troy Glaus and Scott Schoeneweis with illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

No players or agents were mentioned by name in the 11-count indictment returned by a grand jury against Dr. Ramon Scruggs and two of his alleged associates at the New Hope Health Center in Costa Mesa, Calif….

The indictment, dated March 5, was unsealed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif. It contains counts involving distribution of steroids, conspiracy, misbranding drugs, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment covers activity from September 2000 to May 2003, and charges the defendants with illegally distributing drugs to baseball players, law-enforcement officers and others.

“It was a further part of the conspiracy that, on occasion, sports representation agents for professional baseball players referred their client-players to defendants Scruggs, Danto and MacPherson for the purpose of obtaining anabolic steroids and other drugs which those individuals knew to be banned by Major League Baseball and therefore unavailable to the players through lawful medical channels absent the illegal prescriptions provided by Scruggs,” the indictment said.

Posted by JC as Braves, Growth Hormone (HGH), Steroids at 12:12 AM EDT

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I’m heading out the door to catch a plane to Memphis, so I don’t have much time. But, I want to briefly comment on the 50-game suspension of Braves prospect Jordan Schafer for violating MLB’s drug policy in regard to human growth hormone. I’ll offer a few thoughts.

— What the hell is this kid doing? Growth hormone doesn’t improve athletic performance, and it is very bad for you. It’s funny that I have yet to see any mainstream media bring this up, even though this fact was discussed in a widely-covered Congressional hearing two months ago. Maybe Jordan should be reading Sabernomics more and driving his Hummer less.

— When it comes to Schafer the baseball player, I’ve never seen what all the fuss is about. He could be good or drift off into nothing. His numbers aren’t that eye-popping and he is young. He is not good enough to garner the media attention he has been getting.

— The fact that no one will say how he was busted makes me think that he has been ratted out by a dealer. Maybe it’s someone we have already heard of, or it could be that this is just the first of several names to come.

UPDATE: Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus write the following.

Stories are beginning to come out of an investigation of Schafer and other Braves teammates that led to a confession from Schafer, but it sounds like this could get ugly, if these early stories are true.

Possibly, but keep in mind that early news reports are often tainted by incorrect rumors.

— What does the future hold for Schafer? This is going to be tough to shake, because the first time he doesn’t perform up to his hype—something that is likely to happen anyway—people are going to say, “see, he’s off the drugs.” He might even believe it. Damn placebos!

— Should Schafer be punished for using growth hormone, even though it lacks performance-enhancing benefits? Absolutely. The rules state you can’t do it. Corking a bat doesn’t increase the distance that you can hit a ball, but it is against the rules to do so. The rules must be enforced.

Posted by JC as Braves, Growth Hormone (HGH), Steroids at 6:27 AM EDT

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— Are you having trouble following your favorite Braves blogs from day to day? Check out The Tomahawk. It contains snippets and links to blog posts and Braves news.

— If you are looking for an easy way to link to all of my commentary on the lacking effectiveness of human growth hormone, I have now created a separate category for these posts.

— Charles at Cosellout uses the Sports Illustrated archives to track the magazine’s coverage of performance-enhancing drugs going back to 1969.

In the months to come we will be cataloguing their articles according to special categories as part of an SI Vault Series. Given the current climate on the subject, performance enhancing drugs (PEDS) seemed like a wonderful place to start. As accountability is being requested from players to managers to owners, there is one contingent that has answered to no one: The MEDIA. It is important for the public to know the same question asked of everyone else: “what did they know”? Given SI’s historical reputation America’s #1 magazine, it goes without saying that if Sports Illustrated printed it, then the rest of the sports media knew about it.

— Michael Shermer has an article in Scientific American that discusses the prisoner’s dilemma game that motivates steroid use in all sports (thanks to Freakonomics and The Sports Economist). Readers of The Baseball Economist (or bargain hardback) will recall the direct application of this game to baseball in Chapter 9 (The Steroids Game). To end doping in sports Shermer states that any solution must correct the incentives that lead players to use.

To end doping in sports, the doping game must be restructured so that competing clean is in a Nash equilibrium. That is, the governing bodies of each sport must change the payoff values of the expected outcomes identified in the game matrix. First, when other players are playing by the rules, the payoff for doing likewise must be greater than the payoff for cheating. Second, and perhaps more important, even when other players are cheating, the payoff for playing fair must be greater than the payoff for cheating. Players must not feel like suckers for following the rules.

I agree; and here is my solution for changing the payoffs in the New York Times.

In an effort to clean up the game, it is tempting to suggest the standard solutions that strengthen old rules and increase monitoring and punishments. The problem is that the scofflaws are always one step ahead of the police. We need a deterrence system that uses incentives to limit drug use.

Baseball should stop punishing steroid users with suspensions and small fines. Instead, the sport needs a system of significant fines and bonuses. The revenues generated by cheaters under the new fine-and-bonus system would be distributed to the players who passed their tests. In addition to punishing players who cheat, this system would have the advantages of rewarding players who stayed clean and of encouraging players to police each other. Players would continue to play while being punished, so that fans did not suffer for player sins.

More here. Steven Levitt favors a proposal that stores blood samples over a long period of time. I don’t think it is possible in baseball given the fear of tampering and alternate uses. The players will never allow this, and I don’t blame them for their opposition. In a world where I don’t blindly trust my mechanic, why would I trust a lab holding a blood sample that could ruin my livelihood?

Posted by JC as Braves, Growth Hormone (HGH), Steroids at 6:37 AM EDT

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From Vindicated, via Deadspin:

Right around this time, I ran into trainer that I knew from Canada, from my old days with the Toronto Blue Jays. I’ll call him Max, because I’m going to leave it to him if he wants to go public….The trainer was a fan of steroids, and he had connections with local steroids suppliers—we often traded information on where we got our stuff—and he knew almost as much about the subject as I did.

Blue Jays, trainer, steroids, and Max…. Could “Max” be “Mac”, as in former Blue Jays trainer Brian McNamee? I think it that is what Canseco wants us to think, even if it isn’t the case.

Posted by JC as Steroids at 6:50 AM EDT

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From ABC:

A month after House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., released a memo questioning whether former ballplayer Roger Clemens lied to Congress about his alleged steroid use, Republicans fired back Tuesday, releasing a report of their own that disputes some of the Democrats’ prior conclusions and likens the Democrats’ report to a “prosecutorial indictment” of Clemens.

The Republican rebuttal dismisses as irrelevant the Waxman memo’s outline of “seven sets of assertions, made by Mr. Clemens in his testimony, that appear to be contradicted by other evidence before the committee, or implausible.”

“The Democratic staff memorandum’s characterizations and conclusions regarding these other matters is simply not relevant to the core question of whether Clemens knowingly lied about using anabolic steroids and human growth hormone (HGH),” the minority report said.

The 109-page Republican report includes new testimony about Clemens’ former trainer Brian McNamee’s allegations that Clemens attended a 1998 party at then-teammate Jose Canseco’s house, Clemens’ statements that he received vitamin B-12 injections from McNamee, and McNamee’s accusations that Clemens developed an abscess on his buttocks, an injury that could have been the result of steroid injections.

When I first heard news of this yesterday, I scoured the web for the actual 109-page report. I figured it would be up by this morning, but I still cannot find it. If you know of a link, or if you have a copy of the report that you could pass along, please let me know. I am eager to read it.

UPDATE: The report is now available online here.

In a “related” story, President George W. Bush pardoned 15 people yesterday. What does this have to do with Roger Clemens?

Most of those on Bush’s most recent pardon list were convicted of white-collar or drug offenses.

One name notably absent from the list was star pitcher Roger Clemens. The FBI is investigating whether Clemens lied to Congress about steroid use. An attorney for his trainer has predicted Clemens will be pardoned because of his friendship with the Bush family.

Clemens has not been charged with a crime.

What on earth is this line doing in this article? Why would anyone expect Bush to pardon Clemens? Because Brian McNamee’s lawyer suggested it might happen? Come on. In other news, the Trilateral Commission has yet to enact its plan to whisk Clemens away to an unmapped island aboard a black helicopter. I wish reporters would follow the story instead of the propaganda.

Posted by JC as Media, Steroids at 6:15 AM EDT

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As has been reported on Deadspin, Baseball Primer, and soon-to-be everywhere on the internet, Jose Canseco’s latest list of names in his new book Vindicated has been leaked by Joe Lavin. The big names are Magglio Ordonez, Roger Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez. Even by Canseco’s standards, the evidence is weak. Ordonez is the only player whom he claims to have witnessed use, but we already knew about this story from Ordonez’s side. He accuses Clemens of telling jokes about steroids, and he says he introduced A-Rod to a steroids supplier. Basically, it’s a big bunch of nothing.

In light of these new claims, I want to point to a study that I did of Canseco’s influence on steroid dissemination throughout baseball (Was Jose Canseco the Johnny Appleseed of Steroids?). Canseco claims to have helped many players learn how to use the drugs. The problem is that there is not a lot of evidence that his teammates improved when playing with him. After reading a study by two economists that claimed to show Canseco’s teammates improving, I decided to look at the evidence and reached the following conclusion.

After reading the study, I am not convinced by the authors’ conclusions. It’s not just one thing, but a collection of issues that form my opinion. I have problems with both the study’s design and the interpretation of the reported results. My disagreement does not mean that the effect does not exist, only that I do not see a pattern consistent with Canseco spreading steroids to his teammates….

To concur with the conclusions presented in the study you have to interpret the findings in a way that I do not believe is correct. Upon further examination, I believe the significant effect on home runs after playing with Canseco identified in the Gould and Kaplan study is a product of spurious correlation, and thus this tells us little about Canseco impact on disseminating steroids throughout baseball.

Of course, there are many possible reasons why the data don’t indicate an influence even if he did transmit his steroid knowledge to others. Still, when evaluating he-said-he-said allegations, it’s nice to have some other corroborating evidence.

The real bad news for Canseco: as of 11:22am his Amazon sales rank (16,302) is not as good as mine (14,548), and no one is booking me for television interviews.

Posted by JC as Steroids at 10:50 AM EDT

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Headline: Growth hormone doesn’t boost athletic abilities: HGH may actually impair performance, review of studies finds

While growth hormone adds some muscle, it doesn’t appear to improve strength or exercise capacity, according to a review of studies that tested the hormone in mostly athletic young men.

“It doesn’t look like it helps and there’s a hint of evidence it may worsen athletic performance,” said Dr. Hau Liu, of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in San Jose, Calif., who was lead author of the review.

Of course, this doesn’t stop the AP reporter from offering several qualifiers.

But the new research has some limitations and sheds no light on long-term use of HGH. The scientists note their analysis included few studies that measured performance. The tests also probably don’t reflect the dose and frequency practiced by athletes illegally using the hormone. Experiments like that aren’t likely to be conducted.

“It’s dangerous, unethical and it’s never going to be done,” said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a spokesman for the American College of Sports Medicine.

Consequently, those in the field have to depend on such reviews or “what we hear on the ground,” he added.

You know, I don’t recall the media being so vigorous on catching up on the science when all of the stories were reporting on growth hormone as a performance-enhancer.

There is no doubt that the perfect study on the subject has yet to be done, nor will it ever be done. But, the studies that have been done lead me to believe that were such a study to be done I would expect it to find minimal ergogenic effects. It’s not just that some empirical studies have been done on strength, but that when the muscles themselves are studied, they are developing differently from normal muscle. Thus, when we hypothesize about larger doses, I think the current studies give us a good idea about would occur.

The problem going with WADA scientist Gary Wadler hears “on the ground” is that in uncontrolled experiments, the placebo effect rears its head.

Posted by JC as Growth Hormone (HGH), Steroids at 6:41 AM EDT

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Mike Greenwell says that he was tempted to use steroids, but his wife talked him out of it.

Had it not been for his wife, Greenwell said he probably would have used them, too. He studied steroids “because I was very, very tempted as a player to do it,” he said Tuesday.

His wife convinced him not to.

“My wife’s a nurse, and basically told me she’d kill me if she caught me doing it,” Greenwell said. “I think there’s many, many players out there that were tempted to do it. Probably if I didn’t have my wife, I would have done it to try to perform at that level.”

Posted by JC as Steroids at 6:45 AM EDT

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I hear this question quite a bit when I point out that growth hormone does not improve athletic performance. One plausible explation is that players are not well informed on the subject, given that most of their information comes from drug pushers (see Andy Pettitte’s and Chuck Knoblauch’s depositions) and the ill-informed media. But, Justin Wolfers at Freakonomics points to a new study that offers another possible explanation: the placebo effect.

A placebo is a benign substance used in medical trials to control for psychological responses to drugs. For example, a drug given to arthritis patients may cause them to feel better just because they expect to feel better, not because the drug actually worked. Similarly, players who use human growth hormone may notice themselves feeling stronger and more productive after taking a substance that is supposed to have this effect. A colleague of mine who conducts clinical trials on athletes tells me it is common for his placebo subjects to insist they are getting the real stuff.

It turns out that the placebo effect of human growth hormone could be even stronger than previously expected. New research by economist Dan Ariely finds that the placebo effect is exacerbated by the price of the drug.

A higher price can create the impression of higher value, just as a placebo pill can reduce pain.

Now researchers have combined the two effects. A $2.50 placebo, they have found, works better one that costs 10 cents.

The finding may explain the popularity of some high-cost drugs over cheaper alternatives, the authors conclude. It may also help account for patients’ reports that generic drugs are less effective than brand-name ones, though their active ingredients are identical.

Why is this relevant? Human growth hormone is very expensive relative to other performance-enhancing drugs. According to the Mitchell Report, Kirk Radomski charged his clients $1,600 for a one-month supply of human growth hormone, while he only charged $400 for Winstrol.

Radomski typically paid at least $1,000 or more for one “kit” of human growth hormone, which included seven vials of distilled water and the same number of packages of lypholized human growth hormone powder, but the price depended on availability. He generally resold kits for $1,600 each, but in some instances charged less depending on his relationship with the player (pp. 144–145).

Radomski believed he made between three and five sales to [Chad] Allen involving Winstrol, testosterone, and Deca-Durabolin. According to Radomski, Allen could not afford human growth hormone…. Radomski mailed a one or two-month supply of Winstrol to Allen at his home in Texas. Allen paid Radomski approximately $400 by check (pp. 225–226).

Players who use performance-enhancing drugs have a strong reason to believe that a drug that is four-times as expensive as a common anabolic steroid is also going to improve performance. Thus, in light of Ariely’s study, it is not surprising that some players have convinced themselves that human growth hormone is responsible for improved performance.

Posted by JC as General, Growth Hormone (HGH), Steroids at 9:51 AM EST

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