Sun coverage: Doping in sports

Ky. bans steroids, cuts penalties

Kentucky horse racing regulators approved yesterday a sweeping steroid ban for the state's thoroughbred and standardbred races but drastically reduced the proposed penalties for trainers whose horses test positive.

Ky. set to approve 'toughest' steroid ban

Kentucky horse racing officials are set to approve what they call the nation's toughest steroid ban, which would outlaw the drug Big Brown had in his system before winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes.

Russian track team faces doping scandal

With one week to go before the Beijing Olympics, Russia suddenly has its own version of a Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative doping scandal involving some of the track team's biggest stars.

Sastre wins as doping mars event again

Spain's Carlos Sastre won the Tour de France yesterday, with cycling's showpiece event again unable to escape the shadow of doping. Minutes after the victory, it was announced that a rider from Kazakhstan used a banned stimulant.

Tour De France

Landis loses doping appeal

Floyd Landis used the arbitration process as public theater to try to prove a point and regain his reputation.

Safety panel urges bans on steroids, toe grabs

Saying public perception is a "very real concern," the Jockey Club's Thoroughbred Safety Committee made its first recommendations yesterday, attacking steroids and the hot-button issue of the whip.

UCI adopts doping plan

The UCI voted yesterday to make its biological passport project an official part of the fight against doping.

Steroid hearings extend to racing

Four-legged athletes are joining their two-legged counterparts as part of a congressional probe into steroids in sports.

Clemens denies drug use

Before a packed congressional hearing room, Roger Clemens, one of the best pitchers in baseball history, fought to save his reputation yesterday as he angrily denied using steroids.

Under oath, Clemens denies using steroids or growth hormone

Roger Clemens spoke under oath to congressional lawyers for about five hours yesterday. He said he told them he did not use performance-enhancing drugs.

Clemens' early invitation

A House committee, employing a seldom-used legislative tool, is summoning pitcher Roger Clemens as soon as next week for a private question-and-answer session four weeks before he is scheduled to testify publicly about steroids, according to committee staff.

On Performance-Enhancers

No quit in cheaters thanks to continuous medical advances

Major League Baseball officials have spoken of former Sen. George Mitchell's report on steroids as a way to put a stamp of understanding on the past and move toward a cleaner future.

Congress steps to the plate

Congress announced plans yesterday to review the use of performance-enhancing drugs, with star-studded hearings scheduled next month and legislation to limit access to steroids and human growth hormone.

Roberts admits he used steroids

Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts admitted last night that he used steroids "once," in 2003, but said he hasn't used them or any other performance-enhancing drugs since.

A. Rodriguez denies using steroids

Alex Rodriguez denied using performance-enhancing drugs, telling CBS' 60 Minutes in an interview aired last night that he has never felt as if he needed them to compete.

David Steele: Throw out the lead runners

After everything the Mitchell Report laid out about the depth and breadth of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, after all the suggestions and recommendations, after all the names were named and blame was assigned ... the same two foxes were left to guard the henhouse.

Rick Maese: Clemens belongs next to Bonds in hall of shame

Their names should be forever linked. Bonds and Clemens. Baseball's Bonnie and Clyde. Barnstorming American cities, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens robbed fans, plundered our pastime and cheated their fellow ballplayers, both past and present.

Pettitte says he used hGH to recover from injury

Andy Pettitte used human growth hormone to recover from an elbow injury in 2002, the New York Yankees pitcher admitted two days after he was cited in the Mitchell Report.

The Mitchell Report

President Bush 'troubled' by Mitchell Report

President Bush said yesterday that baseball players and owners must take seriously the Mitchell Report on steroid use, but he cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the players named.

The Mitchell Report

Segui makes Roberts' case

Former Oriole David Segui is mentioned continually throughout baseball's newly released Mitchell Report on steroids, but what irks him most is that his ex-teammate Brian Roberts also is implicated as a performance-enhancing drug user based on what Segui believes is a combination of hearsay and inaccuracies from a trusted mutual friend.

The Mitchell Report How Sports Differ

Peter Schmuck: Elusive football lets baseball take steroid hit

During the news conference Thursday in which former Sen. George Mitchell unveiled his 409-page report on baseball's performance-enhancement scandal, I kept waiting for him to announce that he had been hired by the NFL to perform a similar investigation to root out the cheaters in America's most popular television sport.

History shows baseball will bounce back

Baseball is no stranger to scandal and unsavory history.

Difficult Road Ahead

Legal challenge, more inquiries could unfold

Former Sen. George J. Mitchell called it the closing of a chapter.

O's prominent in Mitchell Report

Yesterday's Mitchell Report thrust the Orioles back into the steroid scandal spotlight, with two of their All-Stars - second baseman Brian Roberts and just-traded shortstop Miguel Tejada - linked to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

On Brian Roberts And The Mitchell Report

Rick Maese: On scant evidence, Roberts tangled in controversy

At 5 feet 9 and 175 pounds, he is among the smallest players linked to performance-enhancing drugs by the Mitchell Report. Small in stature, but not in significance.

The Mitchell Report Fan Reaction

Fan reaction: 'It's about time'

The use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball was the hot topic of discussion among local sports fans yesterday, with reactions to the information contained in the Mitchell Report ranging from surprise at the names involved to empathy for the accused.

Steroid timeline

The Mitchell Report Washington Reaction

Report riles up Congress

Congress recoiled from the Mitchell Report with indignation and outrage yesterday, then promised to cleanse baseball of performance-enhancing drugs in so many carefully crafted statements.

Testing policies and penalties for performance-enhancing drugs

Testing policies and penalties for performance-enhancing drugs:

The Report

Steroids report includes an All-Star list

Former Sen. George J. Mitchell unveiled his 409-page report on steroid use in baseball yesterday, naming two current and 17 former Orioles among dozens of players and delivering a stinging assessment of the league and team officials who allowed a drug culture to take over the game in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Mitchell Report Closure Issue

Peter Schmuck: Baseball will long be haunted by steroid era

Not to get all biblical on you, but if the just-released Mitchell Report is any indication, the truth will not necessarily set you free.

The Mitchell Report Clemens And Pettitte

Trainer: Clemens used

New York Yankees pitchers Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are the most prominent players identified as users of performance-enhancing drugs in the Mitchell Report, which was released yesterday.

Mitchell Report: List of names

Here's a list of Major League Baseball players listed in the Mitchell Report.

Commentary

Knee-jerk reactions to the Mitchell Report

Knee-jerking 20 times over the Mitchell Report:

Trembley: 'Not a good day for baseball'

Orioles manager Dave Trembley had only read a quarter of the 409-page Mitchell Report, yet that was enough for him to determine the damage of the document outlining the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs over the past two decades.

Steroid Investigation

Some question Mitchell's connections

Baseball officials have billed former Sen. George Mitchell's report on steroids as an honest reckoning with the game's drug past.

Ex-Oriole Segui: I used steroids; he's expecting to be in report

When Major League Baseball's Mitchell Report on performance-enhancing drug use is released, likely later this week, at least one former Oriole fully expects to be mentioned prominently.

MacPhail: Steroid cloud didn't dampen trading

One of the unseen benefits of holding Major League Baseball's winter meetings last week at the gigantic Opryland Resort is that there was plenty of space to accommodate the elephant in the middle of every meeting room.

Penalties discussed for drug violations

The baseball commissioner's office and the players association have discussed how to handle possible discipline for some players linked to the purchase of banned drugs, but no penalties have been decided on.

Shamed doctor gets two years in steroid case

Short and stout, with gray ringlets of hair framing a round, bespectacled face, Ana Maria Santi looks the part of a doting grandmother.

Baseball Notes

Report: Mets reliever got steroid shipments

Relief pitcher Scott Schoeneweis received six shipments of steroids in 2003 and 2004 from the Florida pharmacy under investigation for illegal distribution of performance-enhancing drugs, ESPN.com reported yesterday.

Chain of allegations full of links to O's

Rafael Palmeiro gave the downtrodden Orioles a reason to be boastful in March 2005, when he wagged his finger on national television and proclaimed to a congressional committee on steroids that he had never, ever taken performance-enhancing drugs. While former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire choked out "no comments" and new Oriole Sammy Sosa was unconvincing in his denial, Palmeiro emerged as a hero on an otherwise embarrassing day for Major League Baseball.

Death, suspension, allegations

120 held in steroids sting

Federal authorities announced the largest crackdown on illegal steroids in the nation's history yesterday, arresting more than 120 people, at least one in Maryland, and raiding dozens of labs that manufactured growth hormone for sale on the black market.

Gibbons meets with MLB officials

Eight days after a report alleged that Jay Gibbons received shipments of steroids and human growth hormone from 2003 to 2005, the Orioles outfielder met with baseball officials at their headquarters in New York City.

MLB officials want to talk to Gibbons

Baseball officials yesterday formally requested a meeting with Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons to discuss his alleged link to performance-enhancing drugs, an industry source confirmed.

Effects of hGH a cloudy issue, experts say

Sports fans and commentators speak of human growth hormone as a magical substance that offers the same benefits as anabolic steroids but cannot be detected in urine tests.

Gibbons tied to hGH

Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons received shipments of steroids and human growth hormone from an Orlando, Fla.-based pharmacy that is at the center of a federal investigation involving performance-enhancing drugs, according to a report last night on SI.com.

Notes

MLB declines to punish Yankees slugger Giambi

Jason Giambi escaped punishment from commissioner Bud Selig yesterday because of the New York Yankees designated hitter's charitable work and cooperation with baseball's steroid investigator.

Doping scandals deflating cycling

Cyclists knew her as "the carrier pigeon" - a nurse in the doping underworld who came to their hotels to deliver synthetic testosterone, EPO and other performance-enhancing drugs.

Peter Schmuck: Baseball's hallowed ground no shelter from steroid talk

Cal Ripken Jr. seemed to enjoy his orientation trip to upstate New York this week, but even in the idyllic small-town setting of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he could not escape the big-city questions about the troubling state of the game.

Cycling

Landis' 'B' sample tests positive for synthetic hormone

Tour de France champion Floyd Landis got more bad news yesterday - a report that follow-up tests on his backup urine samples found traces of synthetic testosterone.

Report: Bonds failed test

Throughout baseball's raging steroids controversy, San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds has maintained his innocence by offering the same, continual refrain - he gets tested each season and has never failed a drug test.

Peter Schmuck: Bonds' excuses positively pathetic

Of all the days of all the weeks of all the months that have been tainted by baseball's performance-enhancement scandal, Barry Bonds had to stumble back into the drug spotlight on the same day that new Hall of Famers Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn were taking their post-election bows at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.

Ripken guards steroid insight

Retirement apparently hasn't disrupted Cal Ripken Jr.'s game.

Kevin Cowherd: Floyd Landis keeps cycling through his list of excuses

Idon't know if Floyd Landis has a steroid problem, but he sure does have another kind of problem, the same one Paris Hilton has and Madonna and Mel Gibson when he's loaded and the cops pull him over: He just won't shut up.

Sun exclusive

Palmeiro speaks

The man whose finger-wagging image may forever be the lasting snapshot of baseball's so-called steroid era hasn't paid much attention to the sport's most recent drug scandal.

Orioles' drugs timeline

Feb. 14, 2005 - In a book, retired slugger Jose Canseco says he set up the Orioles' Rafael Palmeiro with a steroid supply when they played for Texas Rangers in the early 1990s. Canseco says he suspects the Orioles' Sammy Sosa is a steroid user.

Peter Schmuck: Throwing off players association, Grimsley hurls hGH into spotlight

Welcome to the worst nightmare of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Grimsley is thrown into drug spotlight

The player at the center of baseball's latest drug controversy, Jason Grimsley, is perhaps more distinguished by the company he kept than anything he did in his 15-year career.

Congress urged baseball to save samples

Months before former Oriole Jason Grimsley said he and other players were using human growth hormone, Congress was quietly pressuring baseball to save players' urine specimens so they could be analyzed when a test for the performance-boosting drug becomes available.

Grimsley affidavit links O's, scandal

Nearly a year after the Rafael Palmeiro steroid scandal and months removed from the federal government's inquiries into Miguel Tejada 's vitamin B-12 usage, the Orioles are again intertwined in an investigation involving drugs and baseball.

Peter Schmuck: Dry spell over as juicy story hits home

Don't know about you, but I was feeling a little bit left out while Barry Bonds bore down on Babe Ruth the past couple of months. How could you help but pine for those halcyon days when Baltimore was -- for a couple of months -- the center of the steroid universe.

Steroid probe hits Grimsley

Federal investigators searched the house of Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Jason Grimsley yesterday as part of their investigation of steroid use in baseball.

Report doubts Palmeiro

WASHINGTON // A House committee report released yesterday undermines former Orioles star Rafael Palmeiro's contention that his positive steroids test was accidental and provides an alarming glimpse at life inside the team's clubhouse, which one lawmaker called "a mess."

McCain: MLBPA plan not enough

WASHINGTON // Four months ago, Sen. John McCain chided Major League Baseball Players Association chief Donald Fehr for being slow to take a position on a new steroids policy proposed by the baseball commissioner.

Players union proposes new steroids plan

Although the Major League Baseball Players Association's new steroids plan isn't as stringent as the one proposed by the commissioner's office, it does add the highly controversial and reportedly oft-used amphetamines to the banned list.

Palmeiro probe questions players

WASHINGTON // A congressional committee, seeking to determine whether Rafael Palmeiro lied six months ago when he testified that he never used steroids, has been interviewing major league players who know the Orioles first baseman, according to people familiar with the investigation.

With no BALCO trial, public remains unsure

WASHINGTON // Steroids experts say federal prosecutors missed an opportunity to learn more about what slugger Barry Bonds did and didn't do - and perhaps strike a memorable blow against steroid use - by failing to proceed with a trial in the case of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO.

The Streak: 10 Years Later

Years lend fresh perspective to meaning of Ripken feat

A few years ago, Cal Ripken and his wife plopped down in front of a television to finally watch the video commemorating Ripken's record-setting 2,131st consecutive major league game.

Internet fertile ground for rumors on steroids

These days in baseball, it's rumors that are on steroids, sometimes packing more punch by the day.

Palmeiro provided no details about test

Rafael Palmeiro did not provide an explanation at a hearing several months ago before Major League Baseball's arbitration panel of how a steroid entered his system, according to people who have read the transcript.

At Camden Yards, an emotional tug-of-war

Deep inside the bowels of Camden Yards, not more than 50 feet from the manager's office, there is a dimly lit tunnel. Each day, the tunnel is used by Orioles players as they leave the sanctuary of the clubhouse and walk onto the field, but an hour before each game, it is usually empty.

David Steele: Cheers for Palmeiro's last at-bat could be start of new beginning

WITH TWO OUTS and two on in the bottom of the ninth inning yesterday afternoon, the Rafael Palmeiro saga officially turned back into a baseball-only story.

Peter Schmuck: In a ballpark divided, reactions from fans provide potent mix

IT WAS the anabolic equivalent of "Tastes Great!" ... "Less Filling."

Palmeiro, O's fall short

Given the responsibility of checking the Orioles' lineup card yesterday, third base coach Rick Dempsey held it against the magnetic board outside the clubhouse, making sure all the names and positions matched up. Rafael Palmeiro, in the sixth slot, was listed as the designated hitter. No mistake there.

Palmeiro back to a game in crisis of faith

Palmeiro back as fans question game's soul

Palmeiro Returns to Orioles

10 days were 'tough time'

Moments before stepping onto the field at Camden Yards yesterday for the first time since serving a 10-day suspension for failing a drug test, Orioles first baseman Rafael Palmeiro was joined in the home dugout by the team's best player, Miguel Tejada.

David Steele: Forgiveness is in air at yard as team's fallen hero signs in

IT WAS big, almost as big as the girl waving it over her head. It was bright orange with black lettering, and it read, "Welcome Back Raffy."

Peter Schmuck: Wasted words hang over return and leave little worth hearing

HE COULD have had us at "Hello" ... but that was 10 days ago.

Palmeiro to return without a word

Rafael Palmeiro's 10-day, steroids--related suspension ends today, and he now faces an uncertain - and potentially harrowing - adjustment as he rejoins the Orioles and faces baseball fans to whom he has provided an incomplete explanation.

David Steele: Fans can make a stand -- by sitting at home

SO, Rafael Palmeiro is still lawyering up. Fine. He spent the last nine days of his 10-day steroid suspension in silence and solitude.

Peter Schmuck: Silence speaks volumes in age of lost innocence

THE GREAT THING about being innocent is that you never have to make up a story to prove it.

Congress expects Palmeiro drug test records this week

WASHINGTON - A House committee chairman said yesterday he expects to have all of Major League Baseball's drug testing records for