Really? Taurasi Denies Using PEDs After Testing Positive

In equal-opportunity cheating news, this week Diana Taurasi—maybe the best women’s basketball player in the world—joined the long, long list of elite athletes who deny having taken a banned substance they tested positive for. Taurasi didn’t invent an elaborate excuse, like when cyclist Tyler Hamilton claimed he had an unborn twin’s blood cells in his body; she just said "There's no way I've ever taken anything," and left it at that.

The drug she tested positive for is modafinil, which is used as medication for narcolepsy and other sleep-related disorders. It isn’t an amphetamine, but it has similar effects; people who take it can stay awake longer and feel less tired. The state of Maryland authorizes police officers to take it when they need to stay awake for long periods in emergencies. An athlete would take it to allow herself to exercise or play for longer without feeling fatigued—the effects appear to be similar to that of the “greenies” (amphetamines) that were in widespread use in Major League Baseball in the 1970s and 80s.

The positive test occurred in Turkey, where Taurasi was playing for the Fenerbahee club (female basketball players often earn much more money playing overseas). The team cut her after both of her urine samples tested positive for modafinil, and Taurasi could face a ban from the 2012 Olympics if the two-year suspension from the Turkish league isn’t overturned on appeal. It’s worth noting that the Turkish drug testing policy is far harsher than the WNBA’s, where positive tests for performance-enhancing drugs result in only a five-game suspension. No WNBA player has ever been caught by the league.

Taurasi is sticking to her story—she didn’t even know what modafinil was until she tested positive for it, she says. Even though both of her samples came back positive for the drug, it doesn’t rule out the possibility of a false positive, and the lab where the testing occurred has been suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency. But we’ve seen world-class athletes like Alex Rodriguez go on television and deny they ever used PEDs while keeping a straight face, only to have their lies revealed later. Unfortunately for Taurasi, the burden of proof is on her. 

Web of Deception: Lance Armstrong and His Prosecutor

This week’s Sports Illustrated has a long, deeply reported piece on allegations new and old that Lance Armstrong—he of the cancer-beating, product-endorsing, wristband-wearing fame—took multiple performance-enhancing drugs over the course of two decades. The article includes allegations that Armstrong used testosterone-boosting drugs while competing in the Olympics in the '90s, took the notorious and commonly-used drug EPO during his 1999 Tour De France run, admitting to using growth hormones, cortisone and steroids while in treatment for cancer, had boxes of the steroid Androstenedione lying around in 2004, and commonly carred around a suitcase of syringes and PEDs—taken individually, these stories could be dismissed as rumors or stories spread by vengeful and jealous former friends, but after reading the entire article, it’s hard for anyone to say, “Armstrong never used PEDs.” 

Armstrong’s camp has been trying to discredit the cheating rumors for years, painting former teammate and known doper Floyd Landis—who is the one who said, “Lance had a bag of drugs and shit” in a suitcase—as a liar out for money and personal fame. Armstrong also responded to allegations from a French anti-doping lab by going on Larry King and saying, “Do you think I'm going to trust some guy in a French lab to open my samples and say they're positive. . . and not give me the chance to defend myself?” in a PR move apparently designed to appeal to Americans’ xenophobic and anti-French feelings: some guy in a French lab, not a world-class, IOC-certified lab that clearly found EPO in Armstrong’s urine. The end of SI’s article indicates that Armstrong is going to try to discredit his accusers again, this time tweaking federal agent Jeff Novitzky, who has been spearheading the FDA’s investigation of Armstrong:  

Armstrong unleashed his cheeky Twitter alter ego, Juan Pelota (a pun on the English word one and the Spanish word for ball, in reference to Armstrong's testicular cancer surgery). Pelota tweeted: Hey Jeff, como estan los hoteles de quatro estrellas y el classe de business in el aeroplano? Que mas necesitan? Translated, the mangled Spanish tweaks Novitzky by asking, “How are the four-star hotels and business class in the airplane? What more do you need?”

Novitzky is an interesting character. Perhaps more than any other law enforcement agent, he’s been crusading against American athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs. He’s been responsible for the charges against Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Marion Jones, and Victor Conte, the founder of the steroid-manufacturing BALCO lab. He’s also, as Deadspin notes, well known for prosecutorial overreach. He and his agents seized thousands of computer files with data on steroid users from BALCO in 2004—files that many say they did not have the authority to seize. (A court case on whether the seizure was illegal is going through the torturous appeals process.) Novitzky’s also the person suspected of creating the infamous list of baseball players who had used steroids, and then leaking some of those names to the press, all of which is illegal.

There’s no sign that Novitzky is up to his old, rule-circumventing tricks as he gathers evidence against Armstrong. There seem to be more than enough people who are willing to testify against Armstrong, who, because he received government support in the form of the USPS’s sponsoring of his team, could face charges of money laundering, racketeering, drug trafficking, and defrauding the US government. Even if the Armstrong beats the charges, perhaps on a technicality, or if the validity of Novitzky’s evidence is questioned, there’s no doubt that he’ll be disgraced; the fact that the cyclists he competed against were also likely using PEDs won’t save his public reputation.

But Novitzky could also face public humiliation if the court decides to throw out the evidence he acquired from the BALCO raid during the upcoming Barry Bonds trial. And if it ever comes out that Novitzky was the one leaking steroid users’ names, he could face jail time—cheating the U.S. judicial system being much more serious than cheating in sports. We might look back on this period of steroid wars in sports as not only marred by athletes cheating, but by the cheating of their persecutors—and prosecutors—as well.  

IOC Confirms Olympic Ban for LaShawn Merritt

Yesterday, the International Olympic Committee announced their decision—or rather, reaffirmed an already existing rule—to keep American track star LaShawn Merritt from competing in the 2012 Olympics because of a ban resulting from Merritt’s failing a drug test. The 21-month ban ends before the games start in London, but an IOC rule adopted in 2008 bars any athlete who has received a drug suspension lasting six months or longer from competing in the next Olympics.

Merritt failed multiple drug tests shortly after winning the 400-meter sprinting events in the 2008 Olympics and the 2009 World Championships. He claimed that the positive test was the result of his using an over-the-counter penis enhancement drug called ExtenZe and not reading the “fine print” which said the drug contained Dehydroepiandrosterone, a banned substance. Using over-the-counter male enhancement drugs is foolish; using them without reading the ingredients when you are a world-class athlete subject to some of the strictest drug testing in the world is breathtakingly stupid.

Not letting Merritt defend his Olympic gold medal is a harsh punishment for what he says was a lapse in judgment rather than a malicious attempt at cheating. The sprinter will probably be too old to compete in 2016, and he will probably be more remembered for his suspension—and the ridiculous reason behind it—than his success on the track. But track and field events have a necessary zero-tolerance policy in regards to steroids. An Olympic career cut short because a 23-year-old decided to buy a snake-oil penis pill endorsed by porn star Ron Jeremy is simply collateral damage resulting from that zero tolerance.

What Should Major League Baseball Do With Cheaters Eligible for the Hall of Fame?

Major League Baseball has a problem that may be unique in the history of organized sports leagues: Pretty much all of the best baseball players of the 1990s and early 2000s cheated by using performance enhancing drugs. Some players, like Alex Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro, and Mark McGwire, are confirmed steroid users; others, like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, are generally assumed to have used steroids but have denied it in court (both Bonds and Clemens are scheduled to be tried for perjury in 2011 as a result of these denials).

The question of who was using steroids in the 1990s is a murky one, because MLB, shockingly, didn’t make random steroid testing mandatory until 2004, after nearly 7 percent of players subjected to anonymous testing were found to be using PEDs. Before that, the names of steroid users weren’t release--there was no public shaming and little consequences for using drugs that could improve a player’s performance and earn him millions of dollars in extra salary. 

Baseball’s mismanagement of the steroid issue is coming up now because those stars whose artificially-aided hitting brilliance is generally credited with keeping the sport popular and viable in the late 1990s are now eligible for the Hall of Fame, and baseball writers are tasked with deciding not only whether or not steroid users should be banned from the Hall, but also who used steroids--an impossible task.

For an example of how messy the next decade of Hall of Fame ballots will be, look at the case of Jeff Bagwell. He was one of the best players in Houston Astros history, and the only MLB baseball player to ever hit 400 home runs and steal 200 bases in his career. Yet he wasn’t voted in this year, largely because he is suspected of using steroids. Some HOF voters, like ESPN’s Jayson Stark--who wrote a long, insightful column explaining his voting philosophy—think that steroid users should be admitted to the Hall with a note explaining that they used steroids. Others, like Dan Graziano, say that the whole era was tainted by the rampant cheating and want to reserve judgment until. . .well, that isn’t clear. Presumably until Bagwell proves his innocence, although how he can do that is beyond me, since there were many years when he wasn’t even being tested for steroids.

Should the Hall of Fame ban everyone who tested positive? What about those players like A-Rod and Bonds, who probably would have had HOF-caliber careers without the aid of drugs? Since both hitters and pitchers were using steroids, do the resulting effects cancel each other out at all? In what way was steroid use different from the use of amphetamines (“greenies”) that previous generations of ballplayers used? Wasn’t the widely accepted use of spitballs in an even earlier era a form of cheating? 

Nearly every writer who votes for the HOF has a different set of opinions on these subjects, and that’s a problem, because MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and Hall of Fame chairman Jane Forbes Clark refuse to make a judgment call on any of the above questions. Just as MLB ignored the steroid scandal until they couldn’t, they seem to be fine letting the votes fall where they may. Consider this quote from an article on the controversy: 

Clark says she doesn't make her own evaluations.

“The lovely thing about being chairman of the Hall of Fame is that you don’t need to,” she said. “That's the writers’ job.”

Meanwhile, Pete Rose, who many writers would probably vote for and who never cheated while on the field, remains banned from baseball, and the Hall. Why is he banned while an entire generation of cheaters and maybe-cheaters get their legacies decided by a fickle and often self-contradicting group of sportswriters?

It’s too late to take away the highlight reels, endorsement deals, and nine-figure contracts from players like A-Rod and Bonds. The most viable tool for punishing the cheaters is taking away or restricting their Hall of Fame eligibility, but MLB refuses to even address this issue. Until Selig or the next commissioner does, expect the same arguments about Bagwell, Palmeiro, et al. to be repeated every year. World Series ratings have been declining for years, and baseball’s popularity is steadily waning. Does the sport really need a new crop of negative news stories every winter?

Dominican Police Try to Crack Down on Baseball Age Forgery

This week, Dominican police arrested Victor Antonio Baez Garcia, a well-known Major League Baseball talent scout who has been responsible for sending dozens of young players to the US to play baseball. He’s charged with fraud and document forgery—chiefly, the falsification of the players’ ages, which is a common practice in the Dominican Republic.

The younger a player is, generally, the more attractive he is to Major League teams and the more money he can make for the scout who finds him. (Scouts generally receive a portion of players’ signing bonuses.) This leads to a widespread practice of falsifying visas and passports to make the players appear younger on paper. This leads to situations like the one star shortstop Miguel Tejada faced two years ago, when it was revealed he was 33 at the time, not 31 as he claimed to be. Or nine years ago, when Little League World Series ace Danny Almonte turned out to be 14, not 12.

The Dominican Republic says it is cracking down on document forgery, which would be a step on the road to making baseball recruitment in Latin America less corrupt.  That’s going to be a long road, however; there are still plenty of incentives for players--and the agents, scouts and buscones who represent them—to lie about their ages.