MLB does not address 'other' problem - amphetamines, speed

[Russ from SacTown]

MLB has no plan for 'other' problem

Ron Kroichick, Henry Schulman, Chronicle Staff Writers

Thursday's unveiling of baseball's new drug-testing policy did more than renew debate about how to tackle steroid use -- it also highlighted the sport's long, not-so-secret relationship with amphetamines.

Amphetamines, commonly known as "greenies," are not included on the list of banned drugs in the new agreement between Major League Baseball and the players union. This exclusion comes despite decades of anecdotal evidence suggesting amphetamines are widely used by major leaguers, and despite growing evidence they pose significant health risks.

Former Giants outfielder Darryl Hamilton told The Chronicle he started taking "greenies" regularly about five years into his major-league career. Hamilton estimated 70 to 80 percent of players use them.

"I don't know if it would cause a riot if guys were told that's going to be banned as well," Hamilton said Friday, "but I think you would have a lot of concerns."

Former pitcher Jim Bouton wrote about amphetamine use back in 1970, in his legendary book, "Ball Four." Those long-simmering suspicions resurfaced in recent years, notably when the late Ken Caminiti, a former National League MVP, told Sports Illustrated in 2002 that only one or two players on each team were not using stimulants.

Then, in April 2003, future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, in an interview with the New York Times, described amphetamines as a "rampant problem" and estimated 50 percent of position players regularly use them. Gwynn said many players felt like "steroids are cheating and greenies aren't."

Amphetamines stimulate the central nervous system and cardiovascular system. Players generally take the drug to stay alert and fight off fatigue, but amphetamines also have been shown to increase strength, endurance and reaction time, according to Peter Ambrose, a professor of clinical pharmacy at

UCSF.

Ambrose said adverse effects can include a rapid heartbeat, palpitations, high blood pressure, nervousness, restlessness, irritability and insomnia. High doses can potentially cause seizure, abnormal heartbeat and even death.

The NBA and NFL both test for amphetamines and other selected stimulants. Amphetamines and a long list of stimulants appear on the World Anti-Doping Agency's prohibited list, which covers Olympic sports. The federal government classifies amphetamines as a controlled substance, and they are illegal without a prescription.

"If they (baseball officials) are very serious about cleaning up the sport and protecting their athletes, I don't understand how you cannot include amphetamines and other stimulants on the banned list," Ambrose said. "They're very dangerous. What's it going to take, the death of another athlete?"

It took the death of Baltimore Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler to prompt the Food and Drug Administration to prohibit the sale of ephedra, a stimulant commonly used as a weight-loss aid. Bechler died in February 2003, and a coroner's report concluded that an ephedra-based supplement was a "significant factor" in his death.

The FDA, already pushing to ban the sale of ephedra, did exactly that in the wake of Bechler's death; the ban went into effect in April 2004. The new major-league policy announced Thursday forbids ephedra, though not the "greenies" historically so popular among ballplayers.

By contrast, baseball's minor-league drug-testing policy does include testing for amphetamines. Minor leaguers do not enjoy the same collective bargaining rights as their major-league counterparts.

That negotiating power may help explain why the new policy excludes amphetamines.

"I think that's why the deal got done, when they (MLB officials) said they'll compromise and not test for amphetamines," former major-league second baseman Harold Reynolds said.

One former major-league pitcher said players have long used amphetamines because "they were so competitive, they would do anything to get an edge." The pitcher, who requested anonymity, also predicted there would be "a lot of exploitation" of this loophole in baseball's new testing policy.

"I don't know about the guys today, but I know amphetamines were prevalent when I was playing," said Reynolds, an All-Star with Seattle in 1987 and '88 and now an ESPN analyst. "It's a joke how many guys did it. I saw them doing it every day."

Hamilton, who played for the Giants in 1997 and '98 and retired after the 2001 season, echoed the stories of widespread use, but he disputed the notion amphetamines give players an edge on the field. MLB labor lawyer Rob Manfred, in explaining the omission of most stimulants on the list of banned drugs, insisted it's not clear they are performance enhancing.

Hamilton said players take amphetamines to get going before games, when they must prepare to play -- especially during the "dog days" of summer, when the grind of a six-month, 162-game, major-league schedule becomes taxing.

"I don't think amphetamines necessarily during the game give you an edge on strength, like steroids," Hamilton said. "I think it's more or less to get you to the point where you're ready to play. I know that's a bad way of putting it, but if guys can get to that first inning, that first pitch, they're fine."

Hamilton, Reynolds and other former players contacted by The Chronicle described amphetamines as readily available in major-league clubhouses during their careers. They said other players, not the teams, provided the drugs, which, sources said, can be purchased easily in places such as Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where many players live year-round or play winter ball.

Reynolds recalled veterans often tempting younger players by saying, "Here, kid, take a greenie," or "You just need to get into the jar." Reynolds, who said he never took amphetamines, described other players as saying the drug made them concentrate better.

Former A's pitcher Mike Norris remembered "two wily veterans" on the 1975 A's approaching him about taking amphetamines. Norris, a 20-year-old rookie at the time, resisted the temptation, though he acknowledged using the drugs before one game in the late 1970s.

He got knocked out of the game in the early innings and never used amphetamines again, he said.

Norris portrayed the use of amphetamines as discreet and secretive. If you wanted them, Norris said, another player would leave little blue pills under the baseball cap in your locker.

Former A's infielder Mike Gallego, who played for Oakland in the late 1980s and early '90s, agreed that "it wasn't like guys opened a jar and passed them around." Gallego said hushed talk about amphetamines usually surfaced after a travel day, or when the team played a day game after a night game.

Giants reliever Scott Eyre said he was naive about the use of stimulants at first, until he saw their effects in the minors.

"I played in the minor leagues with a guy who I always wondered why he had more energy," Eyre said. "I played two full seasons before I found out. I wondered why the guy was wired every game."

Eyre has a special interest in the issue because he takes a prescription stimulant to counteract his attention-deficit disorder, and he would be extremely upset if his medicine was banned. Paradoxically, stimulants work to calm patients with ADD and ADHD.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... ARC421.DTL

[JCT]

I gues they all needed to switch to something after the coke trials in the early 80's.

[JCT]

Speed game
Amphetamines should have been part of new drug-testing plan
Posted: Tuesday January 18, 2005 12:43PM; Updated: Tuesday January 18, 2005 12:43PM


I like the step forward baseball took last week with its drug-testing policy. I don't understand, however, why the sport has to get to a true zero tolerance policy incrementally. And you must know, no matter what Bud Selig says, MLB is not there yet, with a player having to test positive four times before getting a year-long ban.

I knew baseball would do nothing about amphetamines. The owners floated the idea that they would ask for them to be banned negotiations with the players, but they did so only to cover their butts. They won't do anything about amphetamines because baseball fans don't care about them, and baseball moves only when it is politically in its best interest.

In May 2002 I wrote a special report in Sports Illustrated about steroid use in baseball. As part of that report I quoted players on the record talking about the rampant use of amphetamines in baseball. I spent the week doing television and radio interviews. Do you know how many questions I received about amphetamine use in baseball? Zero.

The questions were all about steroids. I knew then that players, owners and fans had come to accept amphetamines as "part of the game."

Since MLB's new testing policy was announced last Thursday, people have been moved to say some very nutty things about performance-enhancing drugs. Yes, it's a murky, underground world, but I'll help you sift through some of the nonsense that's been shoveled around since last week.

• The Quote: "If you tell me steroids help you hit major league pitching more often and farther, I see no evidence whatsoever. None ... There never has been any kind of decent testing of the same player. For example, with and without steroids, over a stretch of time so you can judge his performance. None. And until we get some evidence of a concrete nature instead of someone's opinion, that's my view." -- Marvin Miller, former executive director of the players association, to the Boston Globe.

What you should know: Oh, Marvin. I really like the guy. He should be in the Hall of Fame. He was a brilliant union leader. But, come on. Do you really want a control group of steroid users? They'll be lining up around the block when baseball asks for volunteers.

There is a reason why athletes take steroids: they work. They would not take them if they didn't. Don't take it from me, Marvin. You could study Jason Giambi if you like. But here's another steroid user -- think of it as a little control group of one guy who played without steroids and then with them. It's the voice of the late Ken Caminiti in SI:

"It's still a hand-eye coordination game, but the difference [with steroids] is the ball is going to go a little farther. Some of the balls that would go to the warning track will go out. That's the difference."

And more Caminiti: "My body was torn up and broken down but it felt good [on steroids]. I felt like a kid. I was running better. I'd be running the bases and think, 'Man, I'm fast!' And I had never been that fast. But I was. Steroids made me like that.

"The stronger you get, the more relaxed you get. You feel good. You just let it fly. If you don't feel good, you try so hard to make something happen. You grip the bat harder and swing harder and that's when you tighten up. But you get that edge when you feel strong. That's the way I felt. I felt strong, like I could just try to meet the ball and -- wham! -- it's going to go 1,000 mph. Man, I felt good. I'd think, Damn, this pitcher's in trouble and I'd crush the ball 450 feet with almost no effort. It's all about getting an edge."

• The quote: "A guy can take steroids, drugs, whatever. He still has to be able to hit that Roger Clemens 96-mile-an-hour fastball. Steroids don't help you hit that fastball." -- Hank Aaron to the Los Angeles Times.

What you should know: OK, I don't expect Aaron to be an expert on steroids. There is no evidence of steroid use when he played. So let me help him out a little here -- and everybody else who throws out this lame argument that steroids don't help you hit a baseball, because if they did, the big leagues would be stocked with muscleheads from your local gym.

See, we're starting with a subset of athletes who already have world-class hand-eye coordination. We're not turning Joe Dumbbell into an MVP. Steroids enhance the gifts these players already have. How? They make players stronger than they naturally would be, providing increased hand and bat speed through the hitting zone. The faster your hands and bat, the longer you can wait on pitches. The longer you can wait on pitches, the more you can decode their trajectory and spin. And as Caminiti explained, increased strength can add distance to balls put into play.

Moreover, steroids and human growth hormone allow a body to recover faster and better and to train harder than otherwise would be possible legally and naturally.

Need further explanation? The SI report included the story of a minor league center fielder who was 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds. His game was about contact and speed -- and he was a steroid user. Why? They helped him hit that fastball. Let him explain: "I'm not looking for size. I do it for my fast-twitch muscles. If I don't feel good that week or if my hands don't feel good, if they're a little slow, I'll take a shot or get on a cycle. It helps immediately. I notice the difference. My hands are quicker so my bat is quicker."



• The quote: "There's not a problem with it at all." -- Detroit Tigers catcher Vance Wilson to the New York Times on amphetamine use in the big leagues.

What you should know: I can't imagine Wilson said this with any seriousness. If he did, he ought to be embarrassed. Greenies have been in the game since the 1950s. They are rampant today.

Here's what Caminiti told SI about greenies: "I would say there are only a couple of guys on a team that don't take greenies before a game. One or two guys. That's called going out there naked. And you hear it all the time from teammates, 'You're not going to play naked, are you?' And even the guys who are against greenies may be taking diet pills or popping 25 caffeine pills and they're up there [at bat] with their hands shaking. So how good is that? This game is so whacked out that guys will take anything to get an edge. You got a pill that will make me feel better? Let me have it."

Former outfielder Chad Curtis agreed with Caminiti: "You might have one team where eight guys play naked and another team where nobody does, but that sounds about right. Steroids are popular, but quite a lot more guys take [amphetamines] than steroids. I'm talking about illegal stuff. Speed ... ritalin, which is legal only with a doctor's prescription ... sometimes guys don't even know what they're taking. One guy will take some pills out of his locker and tell somebody else, 'Here, take one of these. You'll feel better.' And the other guy will take it and not even know what it is."

Curtis added that amphetamine use is so prevalent that non-users are sometimes ostracized as slackers.

"If the starting pitcher knows you're going out there naked, he's upset that you're not giving him more than what you can," Curtis said. "The big-time pitcher wants to make sure you're beaning up before the game tonight."

An AL manager told me last month greenies are so prevalent with old and young players alike that baseball would have to shorten the season if they banned them. No problem at all? Give me a break.

• The quote: "I think the difference is amphetamines aren't necessarily performance-enhancing. They might give you a lift, but they're not going to make you go from hitting the ball 420 feet to hitting it 460 feet. That's the big discrepancy between [amphetamines and steroids]." -- New York Yankees pitcher Mike Stanton to the Times.

What you should know: Uh, OK, so if they are not "necessarily" performance-enhancing, why are players taking them? They taste good?

Here's Caminiti again about reporting to work lethargic after a night of drinking: "You take some pills, go out and run in the outfield and you get the blood flowing. All of a sudden you feel much better."

• The quote: "The purpose of these negotiations was to address steroids and muscle-enhancing matters." -- Donald Fehr, executive director of the players association, dismissing any action on amphetamines.

What you should know: There you have it. Let's limit ourselves to "muscle-enhancing matters," gentlemen. Illegal amphetamines that are rampant in the game? Ah, why bother? They've got nothing to do with muscles.

Did you know the first known doping deaths occurred from amphetamines, involving cyclists in the 1960s? Did you know, as San Diego GM Kevin Towers told SI, that the chemical hit from amphetamines often becomes addictive and often leads to dependency on a form of "downers," such as tranquilizers and alcohol, to come down from the high? Did you know that baseball moved to ban ephedra because of the death of Orioles pitcher Steve Bechler, but ephedra is a milder form of the amphetamines -- which are controlled substances -- that baseball does allow?

It made no sense for Rob Manfred, baseball's chief labor negotiator, to tell us with a straight face that the issue of amphetamines will be reviewed by a health policy committee. Baseball already bans them in the minor leagues, so now you're going to "study" them to see if they should be banned in the majors? And what kind of health policy committee will come back and say, "Amphetamines? You mean those addictive, controlled substances for which we have reams of medical information over many years telling us about their dangers? Pop 'em all you want, boys!"


Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers baseball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com.