ATLANTA (CNNSI.com) -- Former major leaguer Ken Caminiti says he was on steroids when he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1996, according to an exclusive report in this week's issue of Sports Illustrated.
But even though it left him with health problems that continue to this day, Caminiti defended his use of steroids and told SI's Tom Verducci the practice is now so rampant in baseball that he would not discourage others from doing the same. Caminiti told Verducci that he continued to use steroids for the rest of his career, which ended last season when he hit .228 with 15 home runs and 41 RBIs for the Texas Rangers and the Atlanta Braves.
"Look at all the money in the game," Caminiti said. "A kid got $252 million. So I can't say, 'Don't do it,' not when the guy next to you is as big as a house and he's going to take your job and make the money."
Snip,
Steroids are illegal in the United States unless prescribed by a doctor for a known medical condition. But they are easily obtained, most commonly over the counter at pharmacies in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Former major leaguer Chad Curtis, who retired after last season, estimated that 40 to 50 percent of major league ballplayers use steroids -- sometimes supplemented with joint-strengthening human growth hormone -- to suddenly become stronger and faster.
"You see guys whose facial features, jaw bones and cheek bones change past [age] 30. Do they think that happens naturally?" Curtis told SI. "You go, 'What happened to that guy?' Then you'll hear him say he worked out over the winter and put on 15 pounds of muscle. I'm sorry, working out is not going to change your facial features."
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_online/special_report/steroids/
Preliminary reports say that Ken Caminiti died of a massive drug overdose. You can blame that on his addictions, you can blame that on human frailty, and you can blame that on the Players Union.
Yes, it’s true that Ken Caminiti retired in 2001 and that he had not been under the umbrella of the Union for many years, but it was the Union that let a former MVP reach this stage in his life and they have let far too many player get into harms way. It has been a part of the Union culture for too long – shielding the players from any meaningful drug testing, from crack to steroids. The policy has been to try to shelter players from ownership and ownership control and meddling, but in that attempt they’ve blinded themselves to the harm they were doing to their own membership.
The Union has had other drug addictions laid at their door – remember Steve Howe, Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Vida Blue, and Ferguson Jenkins - to name a few of the more prominent ones, but this is the first time that a recently retired Major Leaguer has died of an overdose. There has been rehab, jail time, and treatment for some players and former players but virtually every single time drug use has been an issue the Union has attempted to hide and protect the offenders rather than seeing them suspended and getting proper treatment.
Most of us recognize that drug addiction is a disease, but not all drug use is addiction. The MLBPA (the Major League Baseball Players Association - aka the Union) recognizes that and believes that the majority of drug use in the game is either recreational or for personal enhancement. Because of that they have opposed drug testing based upon the right to privacy and the fact that MLB players are not in a position to endanger others through their drug use.
http://www.athomeplate.com/caminiti.shtml
He cheated the sport and he cheated in life and now he's dead.
TGH, the "clear," wasn't illegal. Designer drugs aren't illegal until they're discovered and outlawed. Baseball needs vigorous testing of known substances, and it needs to improve testing for them, and it needs to cooperate with other sports bodies in identifying and restricting new substances.
I predict that Victor Conte will earn big fees as a consultant, much as early computer virus writers once did.