"Mark is one of those players who is so special, you cannot put limits on what he can do," says Cardinals manager Tony La Russa. "He might hit 40, 50 or 60 this year. He might hit 70."

McGwire came up just short of the record last year despite hitting only three home runs while in a 33-day fog.

...

"I've always appreciated how difficult it is," McGwire says of hitting 61, "and now I know how possible it is. I hit 58 and had a terrible July. But it would have to be almost a perfect season for it to happen."

...

For instance, the gym he frequents is a busy but ordinary family fitness center tucked in a strip mall near a sushi joint and a dry cleaner. Mothers in spandex lug their toddlers to the baby-sitting room, and off-duty policemen and firemen want to know the secret for developing forearms like his. "Genetics," he tells them. "You should see my father."

...

No matter where you sit or stand in Mark McGwire's house, it is impossible not to have within sight a framed picture of his son. On the last day of the 1987 season, needing one home run for 50, McGwire excused himself to be by his wife's side when Matthew was born.

...

In '91 McGwire hit 22 home runs, drove in 75 runs—and didn't ask for a raise. That year he also hit .201, quit lifting weights out of sheer laziness, suffered through a miserable live-in relationship and finally telephoned the A's employee-assistance department and said, "I want to get some help." He found a therapist, learned to like himself, rededicated himself to year-round iron pumping and showed up at camp the next season with 20 pounds of new muscle.

Though McGwire did smash 42 home runs in that comeback year, it was also the first of five consecutive seasons in which he could not stay off the disabled list. He missed 40% of his team's games during that stretch; his enormously muscled body seemed to be too big for the rigors of playing baseball. A rib-cage strain, a torn left heel muscle, a sore lower back, a left heel stress fracture, a torn right heel muscle...hose seemed to many observers to be the natural consequences of a body made unnaturally large. Many, including opposing players, believe he uses steroids. He denies the charge. Vehemently.

"Never," says McGwire, though he admits he'll "take anything that's legal," meaning dietary supplements. "It sort of boggles my mind when you hear people trying to discredit someone who's had success. Because a guy enjoys lifting weights and taking care of himself, why do they think that guy is doing something illegal? Why not say, 'This guy works really, really hard at what he does, and he's dedicated to being the best he can be.' I sure hope that's the way people look at me."

...


The last time McGwire's body gave out, two years ago, it nearly prompted him to leave the game. After his third foot injury McGwire felt he'd rather quit than go through another rehab. Friends and family talked him out of it.

"I always hear that I'm a 'physical specimen' and a 'superman,' " Canseco says. "I weigh 225 or 230; so does [A's first baseman] Mark McGwire. I don't have Bo Jackson's ability. I did what I did last year, and what did I hear? 'He's just scratching the surface. He can do a lot more.' Can I? I don't know. I want to do more, but I'm afraid that no matter what I do, it won't be enough and people will say, "Jose Canseco could do more if he used his full ability.' When I retire, some people will say, 'He should have done more.'

...

"We can point to some immaturity and some irresponsibility when we start talking about Jose's so-called problems," says A's manager Tony La Russa. "But we're not talking about serious problems, not like so many in sports or society. When we talk about Jose Canseco, we're talking about a person who is completely clean. He doesn't drink. He doesn't smoke. He doesn't do drugs. You never have to worry about his being out of shape. And he's intelligent, which is why he will learn from all of this."

...

Rumors last fall that Canseco had used steroids stemmed from the fact that this 165-pound weakling became a 230-pound hunk. There was a report that Ozzie was 30 pounds lighter than his twin; in fact, Ozzie is only five pounds lighter than his younger (by four minutes) and one-inch-taller brother. "The steroid thing is a bunch of bull," says Karl Kuehl, Oakland director of player development. "Right after Jose signed, he sprouted up to 6'3". Then, in the Instructional League in 1983, he was introduced to rigorous weight training." Canseco's medical records show that he never gained more than 15 pounds in an off-season. "Anyone who knows Jose knows that he won't put anything into his body he doesn't think is right," says Kuehl. "He's very opinionated on the subject of any kind of abuse."

Finally, it's not as if McGwire is alone. He says at least nine or ten St. Louis Cardinals teammates use andro (as it's known to muscleheads), and Houston Astros star Jeff Bagwell told The Houston Chronicle, two weeks before the McGwire storm erupted, that he had taken it.

One of the six holdouts who kept Ryan from notching another perfecto was Philadelphia Daily News columnist Bill Conlin, a Hall of Fame voter since 1975. Conlin considers the alltime strikeout king Hallworthy but didn't think he deserved the highest vote percentage ever—an honor Ryan would have received had he gotten Conlin's vote. "People say he must have denied me an interview or something, but that's not it," says Conlin. "I have nothing bad to say about the man—except that he was only 32 games over .500 and wasn't in the top 100 in career earned run average. I am astounded so few people left him off their ballots."

Conlin, who often votes for first-time candidates, believes Cooperstown will welcome its first unanimous choice early in me next century. "I think Mark McGwire will be the first," he says. "By then, most of the old farts who keep reminding us that Ruth and Cobb weren't unanimous will be gone."

Conlin, who often votes for first-time candidates, believes Cooperstown will welcome its first unanimous choice early in me next century. "I think Mark McGwire will be the first," he says. "By then, most of the old farts who keep reminding us that Ruth and Cobb weren't unanimous will be gone."

I wouldn't be thrilled with a futuristic pill a guy could pop with two outs, bases loaded, down a run in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 that makes him impervious to nerves, either.

Arizona Diamondbacks righthander Curt Schilling thinks twice before giving a teammate the traditional slap on the butt for a job well-done. "I'll pat guys on the ass, and they'll look at me and go, 'Don't hit me there, man. It hurts,' " Schilling says. "That's because that's where they shoot the steroid needles."

...

Schilling says that muscle-building drugs have transformed baseball into something of a freak show. "You sit there and look at some of these players and you know what's going on," he says. "Guys out there look like Mr. Potato Head, with a head and arms and six or seven body parts that just don't look right. They don't fit. I'm not sure how [steroid use] snuck in so quickly, but it's become a prominent thing very quietly. It's widely known in the game.

"We're playing in an environment in the last decade that's been tailored to produce offensive numbers anyway, with the smaller ballparks, the smaller strike zone and so forth," Schilling continues. "When you add in steroids and strength training, you're seeing records not just being broken but completely shattered.

"I know guys who use and don't admit it because they think it means they don't work hard. And I know plenty of guys now are mixing steroids with human growth hormone. Those guys are pretty obvious."

I wouldn't be thrilled with a futuristic pill a guy could pop with two outs, bases loaded, down a run in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 that makes him impervious to nerves, either.

"Everything I've done is natural. Everybody that I know in the game of baseball uses the same stuff I use," said McGwire, who also takes the popular muscle-builder Creatine, an amino acid powder.

However, many other players insist they do not take Androstenedione (pronounced Andro-steen'-die-own), although the use of other supplements is common.

Sammy Sosa, close to McGwire in the homer chase, uses Creatine after games to keep up his weight and strength. For energy before games he takes the Chinese herb ginseng.

But Sosa said he doesn't use Androstenedione or any other testosterone booster. Nor does Boston slugger Mo Vaughn.

"Anything illegal is definitely wrong," Vaughn said. "But if you get something over the counter and legal, guys in that power-hitter position are going to use them. Strength is the key to maintaining and gaining endurance for 162 games. The pitchers keep getting bigger and stronger."

Andres Galarraga, Atlanta's top home run hitter, said he would be "scared" to take a drug like Androstenedione.

"I do my weight [lifting] and take my vitamins. That's it," he said. "You have to be careful what you take. It could cause secondary problems with your body."

"It's no secret what's going on in baseball. At least half the guys are using steroids. They talk about it. They joke about it with each other. The guys who want to protect themselves or their image by lying have that right. Me? I'm at the point in my career where I've done just about every bad thing you can do. I try to walk with my head up. I don't have to hold my tongue. I don't want to hurt teammates or friends. But I've got nothing to hide.

...

"I played for a month and a half in pure pain." Finally, he says, he decided to do something "to get me through the season." Caminiti had heard of players taking steroids to help them through injuries. He knew where to go.

"When you play in San Diego, it's easy to just drive into Mexico," he says.

Anabolic steroids are readily available in parts of Latin America as an over-the-counter item at farmacias that, in Mexican border towns such as Tijuana, cater to an American trade (box, page 46). Caminiti says he purchased a steroid labeled testosterona "to get me through the second half of the season." Then 33, he was playing in his 10th big league season. Never had he hit more than 26 home runs. He exceeded that in the second half alone, belting 28 homers after the All-Star break. He finished the year with 40 home runs, 130 RBIs (his previous best was 94) and a .326 batting average (24 points better than his previous high). He won the MVP award unanimously.

"There is a mental edge that comes with the injections, and it's definitely something that gets you more intense," Caminiti says. "The thing is, I didn't do it to make me a better player. I did it because my body broke down.

"At first I felt like a cheater. But I looked around, and everybody was doing it. Now it's not as black market as when I started. Back then you had to go and find it in Mexico or someplace. Now, it's everywhere. It's very easy to get."

What I think underlies the difference between the reactions to steroids and other activities is some inchoate sense that steroids, unlike the other things, are somehow "unnatural", and as a result of said unnaturalness qualitatively more objectionable.

Creatine, which the 34-year-old McGwire believes helps him recover faster from daily weightlifting, is purported to increase muscle energy and mass. Long-term effects of the powder are unknown. It has been known to lead to muscle tears and cramps due to dehydration.

"I've been using Creatine for about four years," said the 6-foot-5, 245-pound McGwire, who played for the U.S. baseball team at the 1984 Olympics. "It's a good thing. It helps strength. It helps recovery.

"I think Creatine is getting a bad rap now because people abuse it," he said. "That's the problem. It says to take one to two scoops a day. People started taking 15 or 20. If you abuse anything you're going to hurt yourself. If you just use common sense, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's a form of eating red meat."

Chicago Cubs trainer David Tumbas said he doesn't recommend Creatine but doesn't tell players not to take it. He asked the players in spring training if they were using it or similar supplements, and about 10 said they were. He added, though, that he believes no one on the Cubs is taking Androstenedione.

"Our belief is still rest, nutrition, plenty of hydration and exercise are all you need," Tumbas said.

"I remember trying steroids very briefly in the 1989-1990 offseason and then after I was injured in 1993, I used steroids again," McGwire said in his statement. "I used them on occasion throughout the '90s, including during the 1998 season."

"But, starting '93 to '94, I thought it might help me, you know, where I'd get my body feeling normal, where I wasn't a walking MASH unit," he said.

The pill, capsule, vial and needle have become fixtures of the locker room as athletes increasingly turn to drugs in the hope of improving performances. This trend — one that poses a major threat to U.S. sport even though the Establishment either ignores or hushes up the issue—is explored here in Part I of a series

"A few pills—I take all kinds—and the pain's gone," says Dennis McLain of the Detroit Tigers. McLain also takes shots, or at least took a shot of cortisone and Xylocaine (anti-inflammant and painkiller) in his throwing shoulder prior to the sixth game of the 1968 World Series—the only game he won in three tries. In the same Series, which at times seemed to be a matchup between Detroit and St. Louis druggists, Cardinal Bob Gibson was gobbling muscle-relaxing pills, trying chemically to keep his arm loose. The Tigers' Series hero, Mickey Lolich, was on antibiotics.

?"We occasionally use Dexamyl and Dexedrine [amphetamines].... We also use barbiturates, Seconal, Tuinal, Nembutal.... We also use some anti-depressants, Triavil, Tofranil, Valium.... But I don't think the use of drugs is as prevalent in the Midwest as it is on the East and West coasts," said Dr. I. C. Middleman, who, until his death last September, was team surgeon for the St. Louis baseball Cardinals

Amphetamines were among the drugs banned for use by athletes in the 1968 Olympic Games, and for which post-event testing was conducted. A U.S. weight lifter, who admitted most of his colleagues took a few amphetamines before competing in order to get that extra little lift, was asked how the Olympic ban affected performance "What ban?" he asked blandly "Everyone used a new one from West Germany. They couldn't pick it up in the test they were using. When they get a test for that one, we'll find something else. It's like cops and robbers."

?"We occasionally use Dexamyl and Dexedrine [amphetamines].... We also use barbiturates, Seconal, Tuinal, Nembutal.... We also use some anti-depressants, Triavil, Tofranil, Valium.... But I don't think the use of drugs is as prevalent in the Midwest as it is on the East and West coasts," said Dr. I. C. Middleman, who, until his death last September, was team surgeon for the St. Louis baseball Cardinals

Something Extra On The Ball
Be it pick-me-ups or let-me-downs, build-me-ups or lie-me-downs, they can all be found in medicine's little black bag for sportsmen. it is into this bag?and into the dangerous world of drugs?that athletes plunge when they search for... SOMETHING EXTRA ON THE BALL

Warren Giles, president of the National Baseball League, says that there is nothing in the rules about prohibition of drug use. "Nothing has ever come to my attention that would require a special ruling. It never has come up, and I don't think it ever will." (He would do well to check the locker rooms of a few of his teams before a game and watch who swallows what.)

"The American League has no rules regarding pep pills, painkillers, etc. Baseball players don't use those types of things," says the league's executive assistant, Bob Holbrook.

if worms ate birds, we'd be ruled by insects.

"Everything I've done is natural. Everybody that I know in the game of baseball uses the same stuff I use," said McGwire, who also takes the popular muscle-builder Creatine, an amino acid powder.

UPPERS IN BASEBALL: A DOWNER FOR THE NATIONAL PASTIME

Authorities in Pennsylvania confirmed last week that they were investigating the possibility that amphetamines had been illegally prescribed for members of the Philadelphia Phillies and their Eastern League farm team, the Reading Phillies.

...

Published reports said that others involved in the investigation included Pete Rose, Steve Carlton, Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Larry Bowa, Larry Christenson and Randy Lerch, all members of the Phillies, and Bowa's wife, Sheena. However, Berks County District Attorney George Yatron subsequently said that Bowa and Schmidt weren't involved in the case, "even innocently." Rose asserted he had never met Mazza and said, "I think they got the wrong guy when they mentioned my name." Christenson and Lerch also denied any wrongdoing and Luzinski declined comment. Carlton was characteristically silent and Phillie broadcaster Tim McCarver chose not to discuss the matter in his story on the pitcher in this magazine (page 22).

...

Nevertheless, it is an open secret that amphetamines, commonly known as "greenies" or "uppers," are in wide use among ballplayers and other athletes. In his autobiography, Catch You Later, the Cincinnati Reds' Johnny Bench said that in his early years in the majors players used Daprisals and other amphetamines

...

Another athlete who has discussed the use of amphetamines is Bench's former Cincinnati teammate Rose. In an interview with Rose published in Playboy last September, there was this exchange:

Q. Have you taken greenies?

A. Well, I might have taken a greenie last week. I mean, if you want to call it a greenie. I mean, if a doctor gives me a prescription of 30 diet pills, because I want to curb my appetite, so I can lose five pounds before I go to spring training, I mean, is that bad...?

Q. But would you use them for anything other than dieting?

A. There might be some day when you played a doubleheader the night before and you go to the ball park for a Sunday game and you just want to take a diet pill, just to mentally think you are up....

Q. Does that help your game?

A. It won't help the game, but it will help you mentally. When you help yourself mentally, it might help your game.

Q. You keep saying you might take a greenie. Would you? Have you?

A. Yeah, I'd do it. I've done it.

Unfortunately, teams don't always do all they can to curb excessive drug use. Bench wrote that in earlier days the Reds' trainers were well supplied with amphetamines and that "nobody thought twice about passing them out."

Now it is of course true that it is difficult/impossible to define precisely the line between natural and unnatural.

We occasionally use Dexamyl and Dexedrine [amphetamines].... We also use barbiturates, Seconal, Tuinal, Nembutal.... We also use some anti-depressants, Triavil, Tofranil, Valium...

How can you claim they were worried about the illegality, but at the same time that they didn't think it was cheating? If they were worried about the illegality, then they knew it was something they weren't permitted to do.

They "weren't permitted" to use steroids by law (well, depending on the circumstances), not by baseball. They're just separate issues.

In Fenway Park last Friday, the Olympians walloped a Boston park league team 17-2. Clark smashed three taters, and gargantuan first baseman Mark McGwire of USC bounced a shot off the concrete wall above the centerfield fence. "That's a major league dinger," the Angels' Reggie Jackson, who was waiting to play the Red Sox, told McGwire when he entered the dugout. "But you need to work on that trot. Take more time getting out of the box."

...

The largest player is the 6'5", 220-pound McGwire, whom Minnesota scouting director George Brophy compares to Dave Kingman. McGwire, 20, hit 31 homers for USC this season and was Oakland's No. 1 draft pick.

...

"I don't see how we can miss getting the gold," says McGwire. "The only team that could have competed with us was the Cubans. It's too bad they're boycotting. The teams we're playing just can't compete with our power."

As soon as I read today’s environmental headline, that nearly a third of America’s 800 bird species are in danger, I thought of the great sparrow massacre in China.

On May 18, 1958, the Chinese dictator, Mao, erroneously convinced that sparrows were eating large portions of China’s grain crop, ordered: “The whole people, including 5 year old children, be mobilized” to eliminate the sparrows. A former Chinese elementary school student, quoted in Judith Shapiro’s memorable book “Mao’s War Against Nature,” describes the slaughter. “The whole school went to kill sparrows. We climbed ladders to knock down their nests, and beat gongs in the evenings when they were coming home to roost.”

This coordinated effort, by millions of Chinese children and adults, killing sparrows, beating gongs at a specific designated hour all over the countryside, day after day, to exhaust the birds, basically wiped out the sparrow population. The next year locusts and other pests that were the primary food sources for sparrows, devoured the grain crop. The sparrows had been their predators. Without the sparrows, the pests took over. A famine ensued. Millions of Chinese died. The next year Mao was informed that the campaign against the sparrows backfired. He issued a new order: “Forget it.”

And in 1987 the beat goes on. Because of another fuzzy-cheeked Oakland youngster, Mark McGwire, we are looking up Roger Maris's 1961 home run pace.

...

In his sophomore and junior years at Southern Cal, McGwire averaged .319 and .387 and launched 19 and 32 homers, respectively. The school record for a season had been 17 and the career record, 32. He made the Pan Am and Olympic teams and was the 10th pick in the draft. Pro ball proved a little more difficult. Over two full seasons in A, AA and AAA, he hit .298 and averaged 24 homers and 109 RBIs.

...

McGwire doesn't concern himself too much with numbers now. "One great thing about being an everyday ballplayer is you don't make a season in a week, or a season in a month; you make a season in a season," McGwire says. Veterans who have seen McGwire hit liken his tight swing to Greg Luzinski's, his all-fields strength to Dale Murphy's and his high-arching shots to Harmon Killebrew's. A devoted weightlifter, McGwire may be just beginning to tap his power. "Once he learns the strike zone better," Watson says, "the numbers may be astronomical."

Why don't you see them as connected? The players appear to have. McGwire said he would take "anything that's legal" rather than saying "anything that isn't prohibited by MLB". Vaughn said that "anything illegal is definitely wrong."

As I said earlier, a lot of yours and David's arguments are intellectually interesting, but not particularly relevant, since the players who were actually caught aren't making them in their defense.

October, 1988 — Washington Post baseball writer Thomas Boswell claims Jose Canseco is “the most conspicuous example of a player who has made himself great with steroids.” Canseco, coming off the first 40 home run-40 steal season in baseball history, denies using steroids before Game 1 of the ALCS at Fenway Park. The Athletics slugger wins the MVP award.

The tipping point was, ironically, probably when Bonds was chasing McGwire's record.

Thanks for putting all that in some sort of chronological order, CFiJ. And that's pretty much what I was thinking of when I wrote that it was a "combination" of events that caused this sea change in baseball's attitude towards steroids. It didn't just happen overnight or on account of any one thing.

To almost no one's surprise, the first run of the American League Championship Series, in the fourth inning of the opener, came on a homer by the Oakland A's Jose Canseco—it landed atop the Green Monster in Fenway Park. As he strutted out to rightfield for the bottom of the inning, Hollywood Jose was greeted with a variation on the DAA-ryl! DAA-ryl! chant Boston Red Sox fans used to jeer New York Mets outfielder Darryl Strawberry in the 1986 World Series, and which surfaced again last week during the National League playoffs in Los Angeles. "STEH-roids! STEH-roids!" rose the chorus, playing off an unsubstantiated charge that Canseco used steroids to go from a 165-pound high school weakling to the 230-pound hunk of today who will soon star—shirtless—in an advertisement for American Express. "STEH-roids! STEH-roids!" the Fenway fans repeated. Canseco stopped when he reached his position, looked around, smiled and began flexing his right biceps.

"They were having fun, and so was I," said Canseco. "This is too big a show to get uptight. Anyway, it's a compliment." The next night, Canseco was greeted with the chant, "Just Say No! Just Say No!" and he tipped his hat to the fans for what he termed "their originality."

Interestingly, before doing the date-checking for that post,

how are you differentiating them from amphetamine usage?

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. I think they were both cheating, although to the extent that teams themselves were supplying players with either one I think that complicates matters.

I don't understand or am misreading this statement. Rose told the Playboy reporter he used greenies. The SI reporter cited Bench saying trainers didn't "think twice" about "passing out" greenies.

Now whether people "should have" cared is another story, but it's just that---another story.

Who ever denied there was amphetamine use?

Where's the "ignorance"?

Do you think they were PEDs before 2001?

Yes. Mid-80s in football, at least as early as 1988 as to baseball (Canseco). Once weight training became accepted (and as late as 1984, Sparky Anderson frowed upon it), drugs to enhance the efficacy of weight training became tempting and as time passed, their use became very widespread.

Greenie use was cheating writ (very) small.

Do you think they are the equivalent of "a few cups of coffee" like a prominent poster has claimed many, many times?

Physiologically, probably not.

It was? How so?

Do you think using greenies by Mantle (et al) was cheating? Do you think they were PEDs before 2001?

Right, I know. How is the question "Do you think they (sic) were PEDs before 2001" "about" amphetamines? If the antecedent for "they" is "greenies," what does 2001 have to do with anything?

and as late as 1984, Sparky Anderson frowed upon it

"He's not a baseball player, he's a body builder. It wasn't my idea. I thought he was big enough before." -- Russ Nixon on Ron Gant (1990 Spring Training)

I assumed 2001 was a reference to the chronology CFiJ laid out earlier in this thread, in describing how the worm turned on attitudes toward PED use after the turn of the millenium, but Chris can explain if he meant something different.

the perception was that baseball was now a freak show.

To the extent that this is the case, I'd say it stands in fascinating juxtaposition to the media's and the public's perception of the NFL -- which is a far more spectacular freak show than baseball ever approached, and has been for a very long time. The notion that the NFL is anything close to "clean" WRT steroids is something that I don't believe anyone takes seriously, yet neither the media, the public, Congress, or anyone else appears to give the slightest sh!t.

I know, I know all the sociological explanations of why this is, that we view football players as sub-human gladiators, or even robots, while clinging to the fantasy that baseball players are real, normal people. I understand all that. Still, the glaring inconsistency -- one might even say hypocrisy -- of our handling of the same issue in these two side-by-side sports is, to say the least, noteworthy.

But isn't that likely to reflect the fact that the direct causes of concussions (head butting) make for much better (and easier to understand) highlight reels than the slow effects of steroid abuse?

Like many, I've also noted that nobody cares about steroids in football, and like you, I've posited the explanation that people don't care about football players. The thing is, that's belied by the recent hysteria over concussions in the NFL. Suddenly, Congress, the players, and the sports media are upset about health risks faced by football players.

Like many, I've also noted that nobody cares about steroids in football, and like you, I've posited the explanation that people don't care about football players.

A big part of it is the numbers, too. No one cared about steroids in baseball until important records started falling.

A new book proposal, submitted by the admittedly estranged brother of Mark McGwire, claims the former major league slugger used both steroids and human growth hormone during his career.

In the proposal, first reported Wednesday on Deadspin.com, Jay McGwire alleges that Mark used Deca-Durabolin and that he introduced Mark to performance-enhancing drugs in 1994.

Jay McGwire writes in his proposal that his brother "began to use, but in low dosages so he wouldn't lift his way out of baseball. Deca-Durabolin helped with his joint problems and recovery, while growth hormone helped his strength, making him leaner in the process. I became the first person to inject him, like most first-timers he couldn't plunge in the needle himself. Later a girlfriend injected him."

Jose Canseco, in a book he wrote in 2005, claims he and McGwire, former Oakland A's teammates, used performance-enhancing drugs as far back as 1988. Jay McGwire disputes that in the book proposal.

"Mark is a man I think most would like to forgive because his reason wasn't nefarious -- it was for survival," he wrote, according to the proposal.

But some of the speculation about the Pittsburgh investigation is overblown. Most of the players who testified in Pittsburgh have admitted using cocaine, and it's always possible that some will be indicted. But the targets of the investigation were suppliers, not users, and many of the players who testified were granted immunity from prosecution in return for their cooperation.

Those who appeared before the grand jury include present and former Pirates as well as players on other teams, mostly in the National League. Among them are the Pirates' Rod Scurry, Montreal's Tim Raines, San Francisco's Jeff Leonard and St. Louis's Lonnie Smith, all of whom have gone through drug rehabilitation programs. SI has information that Houston's Enos Cabell and former Pirates Dave Parker, now with Cincinnati, and Lee Lacy, now with Baltimore, testified before the grand jury and that all have used cocaine. Pirates Lee Mazzilli and Al Holland and former Pirate Dale Berra, now with the Yankees, also appeared before the grand jury, but it is not known whether they told of having used cocaine. The New York Mets' Keith Hernandez also testified. His agent, Jack Childers, said in a telephone interview, "You're talking about ancient history as far as he's involved—way, way in the past." A few minutes after hanging up, Childers called back and said he had played a tape of the interview to Hernandez. He said Hernandez had become upset and denied "any involvement in cocaine, ever."

The Mets' Keith Hernandez took the stand in the case of the United States of America v. Strong last week and admitted he had used cocaine. It was a hot, humid Friday morning in Pittsburgh, and Hernandez looked uncomfortable as he told of waking up with a nosebleed, his body shaking. "It's the devil on this earth," said Hernandez of cocaine.

...

With each new witness, the roster of players who admitted using or were alleged to have used cocaine grew: Hernandez, Joaquin Andujar, Lonnie Smith, Enos Cabell, Dave Parker, Jeff Leonard, Lary Sorensen, Al Holland, Dickie Noles, Gary Matthews, Dick Davis, J.R. Richard, Bernie Carbo, Dale Berra, Rod Scurry, John Milner....

...

What has emerged from the Pittsburgh trial is a pattern of what Smith called "sleazeball" behavior. He himself once snorted a quarter-ounce of coke in one night and was too strung out to play the next day. Others did play under the influence of drugs. Players bought cocaine in hotel rooms, in elevators, in saloons, in a bathroom at Three Rivers Stadium. Some used their friends; Hernandez admits he sent Smith to buy his cocaine in 1982 because, "I didn't want to take any chances."

Hernandez testified earlier in secret grand jury hearings that he thought 40% of the players in the majors were using cocaine in 1980.

Can a player deeply involved in cocaine take himself off the drug? Not easily. Hernandez said it took him 2? years and that he did it only after he was shaken by the sight of Smith so "overloaded" that he was unable to play. Smith voluntarily entered a rehabilitation center in 1983.

You'll recall that Keith Hernandez of the Mets threatened to sue [Ken] Moffett [Fomer executive director of the MLBPA] after Moffett implied in 1984 that Hernandez, had been linked to cocaine when he was with the St. Louis Cardinals. Moffett told McDonough it had cost him "between $6,500 and $10,000 to get a lawyer to settle" the suit out of court.

"They made a fool out of me in front of everyone in baseball by making me apologize publicly," Moffett said. "That's what Hernandez wanted to settle the suit."

Hernandez denied then—and was still denying four months ago—"any involvement with cocaine, ever." After he admitted in Pittsburgh on Sept. 6 that he had indeed used cocaine over four seasons (1980-83), his agent, Jack Childers, phoned Moffett and "apologized all over the place," the former MLBPA head told McDonough. "He said he was sick over what happened. Childers said he never knew anything about it until Keith was on the stand."