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Steroids in baseball: Will the controversy ever end?

by Tim Anderson

Created on: September 17, 2009   Last Updated: September 18, 2009


When you tell me something I didn't already know, I'll be surprised, Canseco told ESPN. And I'll tell you this, Major League Baseball is going to have a big, big problem on their hands when they find out they have a Hall of Famer who's used.

After the groundbreaking news came through in ripples through the baseball and sporting world, surprising many and leaving others in disbelief, Jose Canseco didn't even have to think twice about it. The news of David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez testing positive in 2003 of some sort of substance believed to enhance the performance of an athlete did nothing but bolster the case and ego of Canseco. And that ego sure needed the monthly injection for it had been since June that Jose had last been proven correct with the busting of long-time Cub's slugger Sammy Sosa.

Players such as Rafael Palmeiro, Miguel Tejada, and Jason Giambi as well as the previously mentioned names of Sammy Sosa, Manny Ramirez, and David Ortiz have been predictions from the mouth and out of the pen of Jose Canseco.

Call him baseball's bad boy or the man who ruined the sport. However, you must also recognize the fact that he has been right and truthful on oh-so-many cases. By now claiming there is a Hall of Famer that has used, Canseco has created a guessing game on the national scale. Let the over-sized game of Guess Who? begin.

Obviously, the names of players such as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Cy Young, and others playing in the late 1800s, early 1900s, and into the 1960s can just about be eliminated from this conversation. But there is a small chance that someone from decades long gone also used steroids. In a 1991 book by Bruce Nash, Allan Zulo, and Bob Smith titled The Baseball Hall of Shame's Warped Record Book, the use of performance enhancers in the form of testosterone was mention as early as the 1920s involving who many regard as the best pure power hitter in baseball's history:

The Bambino fell ill one year attempting to inject himself with extract from a sheep's testes. This effort by more than a few athletes of his era to seek the healing and strengthening properties of testosterone prefigured the craze for steroids. When Ruth fell ill from his attempted enhancement, the media was told that Ruth merely had 'a bellyache.'

The direct quote from a book nearly two decades old can raise some questions about the era of the past. However, the players from Ruth's era, before, and beyond should not be investigated in this scandal. You must only look at the accuser

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