Apparently doesn't work in submissions?

Anyway, I normally stay out of PED stuff, but thought this was good.

This is a pretty great piece.

Somehow I got depressed reading it because all I could think was "If I submit this to BTF, people will react by making fun of him and calling him a moron for ethically distinguishing amphetamines and steroids, and all the discussion will be about that instead of any of the interesting parts".

Read it anyway!

I’d felt like I was finally a legitimate member of and contributor to a major-league team, but I never made it back. That was my last big-league moment. I later received a letter from Bud Selig’s office expressing their regret that they were unable to bring me and some others back up when the rosters expanded due to the economic hardship of running the Expos. Terrmell Sledge hit 30 home runs that year in Edmonton and didn’t get called up. It wasn’t fair. Big-league teams weren’t supposed to operate like that, but the Expos did. I still have that letter somewhere in my papers and mementos from my career. I should burn it.

This is really a shame.

While I don't see a big difference between the two drugs (both are against the rules and clearly cheating if you feel you shouldn't be talking about it with ownership) I can understand why players felt more open with amphetamines via this story. Clearly greenies were very open but steroids, while talked about, were viewed as a higher level of cheating at least by players and trainers.

As to the story itself, it adds another ugly footnote to the Expos saga and more dirt on Selig's legacy. I remember those Expos final push pennant races - dreaming of seeing them get a final playoff appearance just before MLB pulls the plug just to have MLB say 'screw you' to the team and not let them have any September call-ups which cost players like Knott their best shot at a major league career. Going over Knott's stats I see a guy who only had a good K rate in the Pioneer league at age 22 (very old for that league) thus he never had much of a margin of error. Agreed with him that his biggest error was not signing with the Yankees when he had a shot at a month in AAA after being in the Mexican League - tired or not you gotta grab those chances - but it fits with the type who would've refused any steroids even when seeing the effects on players around him, and on how he resisted greenies at first. The guys who tend to make it will do anything to make it and few are honest about it afterwards - I really appreciate the honesty from Mike Schmidt that he probably would've used steroids had it been as prevalent in his era as in the late 90's, and get disgusted by guys like Reggie Jackson who moralize about it but I'd bet strongly would've used had their careers been in the late 90's as their ego's wouldn't have let them fall behind (ala why Bonds jumped in with both feet post-McGwire/Sosa).

Interesting bit about the relative advantages to pitchers and hitters.

In the short term, I think steroid use helped pitchers and hitters equally. However, I think pitchers broke down and were injured more frequently as a result of steroid use. The small ligaments and tendons in the elbow and shoulder couldn't handle the rapid increase in strength in the muscles that surrounded those areas.

I don't know if it's true but it sounds reasonable.

Apparently
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doesn't work in submissions?

You need < instead of [

Awesome article.

His thoughts on PEDs (particularly the clubhouse distinction between the two) are totally consistent with the ones shared by one of my closest friends in high school, who spent a couple seasons pitching in the minors in 89-90.

I was ejected from a Dominican Winter League game for mother-####### an umpire

I liked that phrase. I wonder if that's the common parlance.

I was ejected from a Dominican Winter League game for mother-####### an umpire

I thought cocksucker was the magic word

from TFA:

Getting “beaned up” was something that had been going on since the pills were introduced to the game. I heard that Latin players brought them over to the States at some point, and that that’s when their use took off. Latin players were usually the go-to guys to obtain them, just because they were not available in the United States

has anyone else heard THAT before? I certainly never have. I mean, Bouton asked, in 1969, "how fabulous are greenies?" He implied they had been around for years by then

I took amphetamines for a decade as a teenager, before the DEA happened, and dexedrine diet pills became controlled substances. The player/writer's description of what happened when he took greenies is EXACTLY what happened to me, although I was just playing neighborhood pickup baseball, so the athletic context is wildly different. I don't know what the heck Adipex is. It sounds like either amphetamines mixed with too much caffeine, or maybe something like Angel Dust. Actually, the effects he describes are what I remember happening, over months, to amphetamine addicts - speedfreaks, we called them. The shaking, the inability to eat even if you wanted to - that took a couple of years to get to on greenies, even taking way-too-large doses every day. How Adipex does that on the first dose, I don't know.

I've never taken any steroids unless you count creatine or andro, so I'm not qualified to comment. But the description of greenies, I remember that. For me, the big effect was on weight. When dexedrine was made illegal, I gained about 60 pounds in 6 months, which was exactly what I was taking the dexedrine to avoid. I burned much more energy and had no appetite, so I ate fewer calories. My family is given to getting fat. Greenies kept me from that for a decade, like nothing else ever has. - Brock Hanke

I don't know what the heck Adipex is

phentermine--one of the 2 ingredients in the now banned "fen-phen". Phentermine is still prescribed but only for gross obesity, and it is recommended that it only be taken for a month or so, along with improvements in diet & excercise

Good read. He speculates too much about the effects of steroids on his competitors careers, but that's how he feels so I'm not going to drag the thread down by arguing with how valid his perception likely is.

For anyone with the time, he outs a few anonymous team-mates with enough detail that a little research can connect the dots on who he was talking about. Not earth shattering stuff, more just interested in knowing given he was on a team I watched at the time. Without doing a lick of research I'm going to tag Sean Burroughs is the guy who couldn't take off his shirt in the clubhouse cause of man-titties.

Take that Murray Chass!

He never played with Burroughs (AFAICT). The ass chunk guy might be Junior Spivey.

Somehow I got depressed reading it because all I could think was "If I submit this to BTF, people will react by making fun of him and calling him a moron for ethically distinguishing amphetamines and steroids, and all the discussion will be about that instead of any of the interesting parts".

Now what would possibly ever lead you to believe that?

This is a great article on many levels. Completely open and non-judgmental, and with an eye for detail that's the mark of a good reporter. Knott may not have the literary skills of a Bill Bradley or Jim Brosnan, or Jim Bouton / Leonard Schecter, but it's as good and balanced a contribution to the steroids question as we're likely to see from the inside of a professional baseball clubhouse.

On the "performance enhancement" effect of greenies:

Before I start looking back at what I observed and how I think steroids changed the game back then, I must admit that I used PEDs from time to time myself. I popped greenies occasionally before a start or a game. I also took Adipex, a prescription diet drug that I learned from my current personal physician is extremely powerful and a controlled substance. So I wasn’t perfect. Far from it. However, the clubhouse culture then was different. The training staffs, coaches, and veteran players I tried to pick up the game from regarded these drugs as a normal, accepted as part of baseball. Their use was sometimes encouraged and always accepted throughout baseball. They were there to help you get through the rigors of the long, grueling season.

However, the decision about whether to use or not to use steroids was a moral one, in my opinion...

A minor-league baseball season is a grueling test of endurance. You play 140 games in about 155 days. Off days are rare. The travel sucks, even if you fly (which happens mostly in Double-A and Triple-A). Long bus rides and 6 AM flights are the norm. A game called because of rain before you even get to the yard is a gift from God.

The average fan comes to the ballpark for a 7 PM game and doesn’t realize that the players have been there since 1:30-2:00 in the afternoon putting in the work necessary to get better and advance up the ladder. The visiting team may have flown in that morning after playing a game the night before, or arrived in town after a 10-hour bus ride and gotten into their hotel beds at 7 AM. The starting pitcher might have gotten four hours of decent sleep and spent the rest of the travel time in the middle seat of a crowded flight or crammed into a bus seat that isn’t big enough for the average professional baseball player. All of these factors make it easy for a player not to feel like he’s in the optimal position to perform at his best, and that’s why players sometimes look for a little assistance. This was where a “greenie” could help....

It might seem inconsistent that I had a moral objection to steroids but took greenies and Adipex often, but I never considering taking greenies cheating to gain an edge. I looked at it as a way to get through a long season and offset some of the fatigue that arose from traveling, working odd hours, and playing 20-plus days in a row. It seemed normal to me to take one, and no one was condemning it. My velocity didn’t increase, and I didn’t throw more innings or prevent fewer runs in games when I took one.

On the "performance enhancement" effect of steroids:

Everyone knows that steroids played a huge part in the game during the period when I played, if not well before. I was a witness to all of it at every level. Even though I never used and never seriously considered doing so at the time, I saw the effect it had on players who were. Steroids definitely enhanced performance. Pitchers were gaining velocity that they didn’t have and hitters with no pop started hitting balls out of the park with greater frequency. Players were gaining size at a rapid pace, and baseball was turning into a power game....

In the short term, I think steroid use helped pitchers and hitters equally. However, I think pitchers broke down and were injured more frequently as a result of steroid use. The small ligaments and tendons in the elbow and shoulder couldn't handle the rapid increase in strength in the muscles that surrounded those areas. For all players, the increased torque produced as a result of greater strength and faster muscles caused breakdowns in the core and back area. Many users didn’t know how to take steroids correctly and neglected to strengthen the areas that supported the major muscle groups....

Moral objections aside, players who used steroids proved they would do whatever it took to get to the big leagues, and I didn’t. I could have ordered them and learned how to use them just as easily. Maybe I would have jumped from 87-91 to 90-93. That would have been enough velocity to get the ball by hitters from the left side. Control was never an issue for me, and neither was keeping the ball on the ground and in the park. Would that extra velocity have gotten me more swings and misses, more time in the bigs, and therefore more career earnings? As I sit here and reflect on it frankly, I think the answer is probably yes.

But I couldn’t let myself do it. I was scared of the long-term effects, and so was my wife. I didn’t want my father to label me a cheater. My wife knew about and hated my greenie use, but I haven’t told my Dad. I won’t tell him now, either—he can find it on Google if he wants to look. I didn’t think of it at the time as a performance-enhancing drug or as cheating the game. I think I made the right choices. I think I left it all out on the field. But I’m not sure.

There's much more that doesn't related to PEDs, and those parts are equally interesting. Thanks to DerK for posting it, and it's nice to see that it wasn't behind a paywall. It's an article that deserves the widest possible distribution.

Now what would possibly ever lead you to believe that?

Maybe he guessed that someone would try to start an argument about the distinction.

The ass chunk guy might be Junior Spivey.

I was thinking Durazo. Top ten in batting average once, hit .330 with power as a rookie.

Now what would possibly ever lead you to believe that?

Maybe he guessed that someone would try to start an argument about the distinction.

Now what would possibly ever lead you to believe that?

More seriously, the value of the article is that it's not written by a player who's on any moral crusade to condemn steroid users. It's written by a player who's both the fly on the wall and who also was faced every day with a conflict between his personal values and his possible career enhancement, and is willing to write about it openly. Combine that with the ability to write well, and the result isn't so much a unique perspective, as it is a perspective that hasn't been presented previously with this degree of skill to a broad audience. This isn't just another version of Goose Gossage yelling at a cloud.

What might be even more interesting would be to get Knott and Bob Tufts together for an unscripted and open ended discussion about the whole PED question, and the practical and moral dilemmas it presented to players in their precarious career positions. I say that because Bob has also written about PEDs here on BTF from a similar vantage point, and it'd be interesting to see how they'd interact.

But he didn’t get those miles per hour, and he didn’t try PEDs in an effort to do so.

Andy Pettitte didn't either. I know, because he said so.

Great post, David. I'd have expected no less.

And we know that you've never lied in court, because you've never been convicted of perjury.

I was thinking Durazo

Yeah, me too. Great great read, this FA. Highest recommend.

David, Andy? STFU? Thanks.

I got my first greenie from another starting pitcher who had obtained them from a Dominican veteran reliever on our team.

Martin Sanchez, come on down! (23-year-old Dominican in his third pro season, and the only Dominican pitcher on the team)

In the short term, I think steroid use helped pitchers and hitters equally. However, I think pitchers broke down and were injured more frequently as a result of steroid use. The small ligaments and tendons in the elbow and shoulder couldn't handle the rapid increase in strength in the muscles that surrounded those areas.


I don't know if it's true but it sounds reasonable.

Look at it more closely though. "The small ligaments and tendons" are supporting joint structures which are attached to "small" muscles. If it were reasonable, the "large" ligaments and tendons around other joints would be just as vulnerable because they are attached to relatively "large" muscles. Pitchers have always been prone to injuries of the elbow and shoulder. Why? Because it's a highly stressful motion repeated thousands of times per year, not because they use AAS.

That being said, anecdotally bodybulders have related issues with tendon tears (never heard of any issues with ligament tears) which they relate to AAS use in the same manner. The theory is the muscle grew and strengthened more rapidly than the tendon did and the greater contractile force of the muscle contributed to the tendon tear. Bodybuilders are engaged in a far different activity and train in a manner far different (and for that matter, use AAS in a manner FAR differently) than a baseball pitcher though. So even if their anecdotal evidence is valid, I don't know that there would be any carry over to baseball pitchers.

I saw a guy who was embarrassed to take off his shirt in the clubhouse because his breasts had begun to soften as a result of the estrogen that was included in some mixtures of steroids. He started out as a power-hitting prospect but never hit with the power people thought he would have. To his credit, he stuck around in the bigs as a backup and made a decent career for himself after the new policy took effect.

This is a tough one. The Bonds thing in the prior paragraph probably slots it in for 2002 or 2003. The closest fit among Knott's teammates in those years is probably David Dellucci, but he was already an established ML player at that point, only playing at AAA for a couple of games as part of a rehab assignment. Could also be Terrmel Sledge - I don't think he was touted as a power prospect by scouts, but he did hit for good power in 2003, which might have shaped Knott's perceptions, he did spend a few seasons in the majors as a backup, and he was listed in the Mitchell Report for steroid use. Alex Cintron wasn't a power prospect, Rod Barajas and Lyle Overbay were starters instead of backups, and Andy Green didn't exactly look built (and was a relatively unheralded 24th-round pick, to boot, instead of a traditional "prospect").

I thought maybe Antonio Perez. Also not really a power prospect, but he was a top prospect who failed. I think if it was Sledge he would have mentioned something about Japan.

I have a friend who played minor-league baseball for seven seasons before he made it. He’s in the Mitchell report. Pitched full seasons in the majors in 2003 and 2004. He’s a tremendous athlete with or without steroids, and he put up numbers in Triple-A and elsewhere after testing took place. He never talked about steroids, and he was such a good athlete beforehand that you couldn’t tell if he was using or not. I’m not sure what he was taking when I played with him, if anything—I first heard of his use in the Mitchell Report, like everyone else. He earned over two years of service time and banked over $700,000 in those two seasons.

The description fits Steve Randolph, who played alongside Knott for several seasons as both came up through the minors.

I thought maybe Antonio Perez. Also not really a power prospect, but he was a top prospect who failed.

That could work, though it means pushing the timeline back to 2004.

None of these deductive revelations are as shocking as what we learned four in 2009 about Hector Carrasco's car insurance.

I played with a player who cried in the clubhouse after being part of blowing a nine-run lead late in a game. The guy was soft. He was more dedicated to pulling chicks after the game than getting hitters out, and he was traded because the organization didn’t like that some of its young prospects were hanging out too much with him after games. When he took steroids, his performance changed, but so did his confidence and demeanor. He was one of the players who wasn’t afraid to let everyone know what he was doing. He was proud of how he’d changed. He went from being someone who couldn’t handle pressure to a key contributor for a time, before he was injured and never got his velocity back.

I initially thought he was talking about this game, in which the Reds blew a nine-run lead against the Brewers. That game has two of Knott's former teammates in it - Spivey and Overbay. Spivey contributed to the lead-blowing by making two errors. The reference to velocity makes it sound like he's talking about a pitcher, though...

Tampa blew a nine-run lead in this game, but as near as I can tell none of their pitchers were ever on the same team as Knott.

I thought he was referring to a minor league game in that paragraph.

I agree with everyone, btw, this is a fantastic read.

I thought he was referring to a minor league game in that paragraph.

Probably - I'm still working through the research.

This game was not actually a 9-run lead, but Knott was on the team.

I'm waiting with baited breath to see how many Primates are going to accuse Knott of being "dishonest" for not "admitting" that steroids and amps are equivalent PEDs. But sometimes silence speaks louder than words.

I was looking at Spivey's BBRef page when Knott was talking about the guy who was a little boastful.

The power hitting prospect that was well endowed - I would guess that would be Jack Cust...he sort of bounced around before having some good years in the Major Leagues.

I'm waiting with baited breath to see how many Primates are going to accuse Knott of being "dishonest" for not "admitting" that steroids and amps are equivalent PEDs. But sometimes silence speaks louder than words.

I don't think it's dishonest, per se, but it certainly is convenient that he decided that the PEDs he took were OK (even if he's ashamed that his father might find out he took them).

The power hitting prospect that was well endowed - I would guess that would be Jack Cust...he sort of bounced around before having some good years in the Major Leagues.

Knott said that guy never hit for the power that people expected, though, and Cust had pretty good power.

I'm waiting with baited breath to see how many Primates are going to accuse Knott of being "dishonest" for not "admitting" that steroids and amps are equivalent PEDs. But sometimes silence speaks louder than words.

I don't think it's dishonest, per se, but it certainly is convenient that he decided that the PEDs he took were OK (even if he's ashamed that his father might find out he took them).

Knott gave several strong reasons for distinguishing "the PEDs he took" from those he didn't. To call that merely "convenient" is effectively to dismiss his reasoning as being little more than a rationalization of his own behavior, which in turn is in so many words accusing him of being dishonest.

If you have any specific reason other than a generic suspicion of all ballplayers to doubt the motivation behind Knott's reasoning, you should say so directly, rather than ducking behind weasel words like "convenient". The fact that he never told his father about his amp use may simply reflect the distance between his experience of the culture of the baseball clubhouse and the different experiences and outlook of his father. I don't see that it's much different from the offspring of a strict Catholic not owning up to the fact that he or she has been sleeping around before getting married. It's just one of those things that can never been explained without opening up a whole can of intergenerational worms.

I played with a player who cried in the clubhouse after being part of blowing a nine-run lead late in a game. The guy was soft. He was more dedicated to pulling chicks after the game than getting hitters out, and he was traded because the organization didn’t like that some of its young prospects were hanging out too much with him after games. When he took steroids, his performance changed, but so did his confidence and demeanor. He was one of the players who wasn’t afraid to let everyone know what he was doing. He was proud of how he’d changed. He went from being someone who couldn’t handle pressure to a key contributor for a time, before he was injured and never got his velocity back

I wonder if this was Duaner Sanchez. He was not much of a prospect, but went on to have a few really good seasons out of the bullpen before injury wrecked his career. He was traded away while on a team with Knott.

I'm not sure where to find old Sidewinders results. The Aces site doesn't have them.

If we could get a couple dozen more articles like this one, including some from steroid users, we might finally be able to have a real conversation about the issue.

If we could get a couple dozen more articles like this one, including some from steroid users, we might finally be able to have a real conversation about the issue.

I totally agree, which was why I was hoping that Bob Tufts might see the article and add his two cents worth. For an issue that's been the subject of more agonizing and debate than practically anything this side of the various strikes, it's sad how seldom the conversation here gets much beyond dead end exchanges about Babe Ruth's goat testicles habit and speculations about cap size, not to mention the immortal subject of Mike Piazza's bacne. AFAIC this article is worth every one of Repoz's pinata posts put together, and it'd be great to see ESPN or some other network use it as a springboard to delve into the serious ethical points that it raises. My feeling is that there are a lot of people who are superficially on both "sides" of this issue, but whose views are wholly unrepresented by the snarkers and the other assorted imbeciles on both "sides" who seem to have dominated the conversation up to now.

Knott gave several strong reasons for distinguishing "the PEDs he took" from those he didn't. To call that merely "convenient" is effectively to dismiss his reasoning as being little more than a rationalization of his own behavior, which in turn is in so many words accusing him of being dishonest.

Well he talks extensively about why he thought it was OK at the time. He doesn't really comment on what his current feelings are. If they have changed, or he still feels the same way. At no point does he say, this is what I and many others thought at the time, and I still believe it. Could be he does not want to say he thinks illegal supplements are still OK, or it his opinion may be evolving and he does not want to sat so for other reasons. My guess is he still feels the same, but may be more conflicted about it than he was then. Who knows though.

Knott's opinions on PEDs may eventually evolve in either direction, but from this article I don't see any indication that he's changed his overall opinion on them. He clearly distinguished / distinguishes amps from steroids both then and now, but he also makes the point of not condemning those who used steroids, again both then and now. He speculates about what he might have been able to accomplish with a more level playing field, but he also acknowledges that he never had more than marginal Major League talent, and that questions of morality / ethics aside, the players whose steroid-aided performance got them into the Majors still had to produce on the field, and he respects them for that in spite of his misgivings about their steroid use.

The equivalency between amphetamines and steroids has always been finite, and centers on the act-- mostly about the covertness in taking an illegal drug, and the ethical intent of taking them at all.

"Yes, we lied to the public, and we perjured ourselves in the courts, but it was general knowledge in the clubhouse" vs. "yes, we lied to the public, and we perjured ourselves in the courts, but it wasn't discussed that much in the clubhouse." Anyone who sees wide open moral or legal space between those two statements has got more talented eyes than me.

The equivalency between amphetamines and steroids has always been finite, and centers on the act-- mostly about the covertness in taking an illegal drug, and the ethical intent of taking them at all.

I would say that the equivalency is weak, and relies on looseness in the definition of "Performance Enhancing." If you set some minimum threshold of enhancement for a drug to meet before it became an ethical concern (which everybody does), you could with perfect consistency oppose steroids and be indifferent to greenies.

The equivalency between amphetamines and steroids has always been finite, and centers on the act-- mostly about the covertness in taking an illegal drug, and the ethical intent of taking them at all.

That completely omits the distinctions that Knott draws between them, as I copied in #16 above.

-------------------------------------------

I would say that the equivalency is weak, and relies on looseness in the definition of "Performance Enhancing." If you set some minimum threshold of enhancement for a drug to meet before it became an ethical concern (which everybody does), you could with perfect consistency oppose steroids and be indifferent to greenies.

And if you define "performance enhancing" in the almost comical ways that have been attempted in previous threads, you can put on your best straight face and say that steroids are no different than Tommy John surgery or bootleg gin.

Part of the problem is that great numbers (though not everyone---let's be clear about that) on both "sides" of this issue have seen either steroids themselves or the backlash against them as a not-so-covert attack on their favorite players. The Chasses see steroids as an attack on Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson, and many here see any sort of ethical questions surrounding steroids as nothing but a hypocritical attack on many of the stars of the 1990's, conducted by people who sleep cuddled up to a stuffed Roger Maris teddy bear. It's easy for the Chasses to ignore the genuine ethical dilemmas that confronted players such as Knott, but never faced Aaron and Robinson. And it's easy to come up with a thousand one liners to dismiss the issue that Knott poses and see him essentially as a sucker for not buying into the steroids program.

Yes, we all know that the reputations of ballplayer heroes of all generations are largely the product of media hype, and that the media are by their nature almost compelled to create mythical heroes and cartoon villains. They do it for actors and they do it for CEOs, and why should ballplayers be any different? Anyone with a computer and time on their hands can find many hundreds of stupid stories written in 1998 that glorified the same set of players that were being vilified just a few short years later, but again, how does that sort of easy mockery address the ethical points that Knott had to deal with? In spite of all the rhetoric, this was never a contest between angelic 1960's stars and asterisked 1990's stars. It was about the daily contests that took place (and still take place) between players like Knott and players who lacked his ethical concerns, and no time travel was ever involved. Knott doesn't mention Roger Maris, and the ethical points he raises don't have a damn thing to do with anything but the here and now questions that he confronted every day.

I'm waiting with baited breath to see how many Primates are going to accuse Knott of being "dishonest" for not "admitting" that steroids and amps are equivalent PEDs. But sometimes silence speaks louder than words.

Ordinarily, I would correct this by pointing out that your breath was bated, not baited. But given the content of the post, I think your misspelling is actually more accurate.

My feeling is that there are a lot of people who are superficially on both "sides" of this issue, but whose views are wholly unrepresented by the snarkers and the other assorted imbeciles on both "sides" who seem to have dominated the conversation up to now.

So do you put yourself in the snarker category or the assorted imbecile category?

Part of the problem is that great numbers (though not everyone---let's be clear about that) on both "sides" of this issue have seen either steroids themselves or the backlash against them as a not-so-covert attack on their favorite players. The Chasses see steroids as an attack on Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson, and many here see any sort of ethical questions surrounding steroids as nothing but a hypocritical attack on many of the stars of the 1990's, conducted by people who sleep cuddled up to a stuffed Roger Maris teddy bear.

Yes, but the important thing...