Steroids in baseball

In 2003, Major League Baseball implemented a policy to test players for performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids. Following a raid on a laboratory believed to be supplying illegal steroids to players, a number of the league’s biggest stars were accused of taking steroids. Throughout the decade, federal investigations and a league-wide review of steroid use in baseball implicated nearly ninety players. The fallout from the use of steroids in baseball sullied the league’s reputation and threatened the legacies of some of baseball’s most revered players.

At the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s, some of Major League Baseball’s (MLB) biggest stars—Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa—were celebrated for surpassing the single-season home-run record. However, at the start of the 2000s, it was revealed that the league, which banned the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) but did not have a testing program in place, had a PED-use problem that likely included these superstars. The “steroid era” of baseball had a major impact on the sport and its fans during the 2000s.

The BALCO Raid

In September 2003, federal investigators raided the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) in Burlingame, California, on suspicion that the company was supplying undetectable steroids and other PEDs to professional athletes. Following the raid, a grand jury convened to investigate BALCO. Among the BALCO figures under scrutiny was Greg Anderson, who was a trainer for San Francisco Giants player Bonds, one of the players subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury about his connections to BALCO. Another player, Jason Giambi, admitted to using BALCO-supplied PEDs, while Bonds admitted that Anderson gave him a topical balm and a cream that he did not realize were steroids.

The BALCO raid and investigation sent shock waves through the league, and Commissioner Bud Selig called upon the players union to work with him to rid baseball of PEDs. However, this mandate, along with many teams’ reactions to the BALCO revelations, appeared to analysts as somewhat hypocritical since most felt that virtually everyone involved in the sport either knew or should have known that allegations of PED use were not only attached to some of the biggest names in baseball but also that steroid use was rampant.

The BALCO raid and investigation led to the indictments of BALCO officials as well as plea deals and jail terms for coaches and trainers not only connected to professional baseball but to track and field events as well. In March 2005 several current and former baseball players testified before the House Government Reform Committee regarding steroid use in baseball. Although subpoenaed, Mark McGwire evaded the congressional questions and essentially refused to answer questions posed to him and responded primarily with a statement that he was not there to "discuss the past."

The Mitchell Report

In order to better understand the breadth of steroid use in baseball, MLB officials turned to former senator George Mitchell. In 2006, Mitchell was asked to investigate steroid use among players since the beginning of the 2000s (although he was given license to look back further in some cases). Mitchell’s panel interviewed hundreds of people associated with Major League Baseball, such as general managers, coaches, and trainers (although, with a few exceptions, players refused to cooperate with his inquiry).

Mitchell’s final report was damning for the entire league. The panel took to task both the commissioner’s office and the players union for failing at least to acknowledge the use of PEDs if not creating an environment in which such behavior was acceptable. The report also named nearly ninety players who, the panel was told, used steroids. Among them were Bonds, former Cy Young Award–winning pitcher Eric Gagné, 2002 Most Valuable Player Miguel Tejada, and pitching superstar Roger Clemens.

The Mitchell report was considered an eye-opener for professional sports in general. However, it was not without controversy. Players in particular argued that the report was based on hearsay rather than on facts. Players and their agents and attorneys argued that since the players themselves did not cooperate, the others were not in positions to make such accusations. To be sure, when Mitchell reached out to the players and the players union, the athletes flatly refused, citing their concern that any information uncovered about the players would somehow make it to the public eye. With Mitchell’s panel unable to guarantee confidentiality, the information provided in the report was derived from apparent witnesses, not the players themselves.

Federal Investigations

As the revelations about BALCO and of the Mitchell Report came to light, players named in either of the proceedings were quick to defend themselves. One player in particular, Bonds, was targeted not only by the grand jury and the Mitchell Report but also in the investigation by the House Government Reform Committee. Bonds had told the BALCO grand jury that he was unknowingly given steroids by his trainer. Others involved in the Mitchell Report and the BALCO grand jury investigation refuted Bonds’s claim, stating that Bonds knew exactly what he was using and, in fact, had used other steroids repeatedly throughout the latter part of his career.

The contradictory stories surrounding Bonds led to a formal federal investigation that would determine whether Bonds perjured himself before that grand jury. Anderson refused to cooperate with the Bonds investigation and was subsequently jailed for a lengthy term. Meanwhile, another of Bonds’s associates, Steve Hoskins (a longtime friend and business partner) told the grand jury that Bonds complained to him of soreness from his frequent steroid injections. Hoskins also secretly recorded Anderson in 2003 during which Anderson stated that he injected Bonds on a number of occasions. This “evidence,” according to Bond’s defense, was sullied by the fact that Hoskins and Bonds had a falling out after Bonds reported to federal agents that Hoskins had stolen from their business venture.

Meanwhile, Clemens was also targeted but instead was accused of perjury. Clemens, who had testified at a congressional committee in 2007 with other baseball stars named in the Mitchell Report, told the committee that he never knowingly took steroids or any other PEDs. Congress turned the case over to the Justice Department, believing that evidence (such as Brian McNamee’s claims in the Mitchell Report that he had personally injected Clemens) indicated that Clemens lied to the legislative committee. Clemens maintained his innocence throughout the affair, as investigators and detractors continued to accuse him of drug use. By the end of the 2000s, the Clemens case remained unresolved and Clemens retired from professional baseball to deal with the ongoing case. (He was acquitted on all charges in 2012.)

The Bonds and Clemens cases provided illustrations of the zeal with which investigators and others wished to hold athletes responsible for their alleged use of PEDs. Many, including supporters of these and other players, argued that these cases amounted to a witch hunt, with prosecutors fighting with unnecessary vigor to make an example of these players. Many believed that prosecutors continued to push for convictions despite the lack of hard or reliable evidence, stretching the cases out for years.

Drug Testing

The revelation that PED use was widespread in baseball (and the fact that Major League Baseball had clearly failed to address the issue) damaged the league’s reputation. Baseball needed to repair the disastrous public image this issue created for the sport by making some sort of statement that seemed genuinely apologetic—a difficult undertaking, considering the prevailing perception that baseball could have policed itself years prior. League officials also had to look to the future by installing a new steroid testing policy, one that would result in serious punishments for those caught using PEDs. This task for the league was seemingly as daunting as the task of repairing its image; in fact, the two seemed to go hand in hand.

After the BALCO case and the Mitchell Report came to bear, the players union and league officials began to discuss a new testing policy that was mutually agreeable to both parties and that would show a league-wide desire to curb steroid use. The final policy, which was agreed upon in 2005, involved random testing of players (even during the off-season), with lengthy suspensions for those caught using steroids for the first time. These punishments would also be made public, a point that Commissioner Bud Selig argued would further deter steroid use.

In the minds of many onlookers and analysts, parts of the testing policy seemed strict, but overall the policy did not go far enough to prevent further steroid use in baseball. For example, the tests looked for steroids but not human growth hormone or amphetamines. Furthermore, the policy did not seem to account for the ever-evolving nature of the PED industry—BALCO and other steroid-producing laboratories were consistently working to develop new, undetectable, and more effective steroids for professional athletes. Some experts argued that the policy had too many loopholes and lacked any external oversight to truly make a difference. Meanwhile, as the end of the decade approached, several superstars, many of whom were considered likely Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, were linked to PED use. These players included Manny Ramirez, who was suspended for fifty games in 2009 for testing positive for human chorionic gonadotropin (a testosterone-increasing hormone), and Alex Rodriguez, who admitted in 2009 that he had used steroids for three seasons at the beginning of the decade.

Impact

The raid of the BALCO facility and the subsequent federal investigation made public what many people within professional baseball had apparently known for years: steroid use was rampant, particularly during the 1990s. The Mitchell Report that followed went even further, humiliating not only the players but also the league, which it suggested ignored the drug use of its players. Only a few years earlier, both fans and the league celebrated the record-setting accomplishments of such players as McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds, but by the early 2000s, these players were thrust into the spotlight and their careers and reputations were tarnished as representatives of the steroid era.

The damage to the reputations of many players who used PEDs during the MLB's steroid era had long-term implications, particularly in regards to these players' entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame. A number of these players were repeatedly denied Hall of Fame induction throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s. In 2022 numerous players, including Bonds, Sosa, and Clemens, were not voted into the Hall of Fame during their final year of eligibility despite their strong and often record-breaking performances. While the possibility of these players entering the Hall of Fame through another route remained open, their rejection through the standard voting process, the most common way for players to enter the Hall of Fame, was considered a rejection of the legacy and accomplishments of the steroid era.

While the MLB maintained strict testing requirements and penalties for PED use into the 2020s, in 2022 the league temporarily stopped testing players due to a lockout, which ended in March of that year when the players' union and MLB agreed on a new contract. This ninety-nine day period without any drug testing raised concerns that players could have used PEDs during that time with little risk of detection.

The revelation of steroid use in baseball had strong implications for all US professional sports, which were called upon to ensure the implementation of strict testing standards governing steroids, human growth hormone, and other PEDs. Professional baseball put such a program in place that resulted in several high-profile suspensions and the marring of accomplishments.

Position PlayersCareer Batting Avg. (as of 2012).298Canseco, José.266Dykstra, Lenny.285Giambi, Jason.281Justice, David.279Knoblauch, Chuck.289Lo Duca, Paul.286Roberts, Brian.280Sheffield, Gary.292Tejada, Miguel.285Vaughn, Mo.293Williams, Matt.268PitchersCareer Earned Run Avg. (in 2012)Brown, Kevin3.283.12Gagné, Éric3.47Neagle, Denny4.24Pettitte, Andy3.85Rocker, John3.42Stanton, Mike3.92

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