Baseball Musings: Confession of a Steroid User

December 29, 2007

Confession of a Steroid User

Shane Monahan talks in detail about his steroid use in the late 1990s. Why?

"I'm not a superstar. Nobody remembers who I am. But you know what? I don't want kids from college or kids from high school going through what I had to go through. I certainly don't want my son, 20 years from now, having to be faced with that decision so he could play professional sports."

Shane doesn't name other players that used, but indicates use was widespread:

"I saw what kind of money it is going to get you," he says. "I had great minor league seasons, but I wanted to stay in the big leagues. I know my teammates and I know guys on other teams are doing it, and they're hitting home runs left and right. And I'm sitting there going, 'All right, well, what I'm going to do?'
"I read up on it. I learned how to use it. I started lifting weights and I went from like 190 pounds to 215. I mean, muscles on my body where I didn't know you had muscles. I already ran fast. I could hit. I had a good arm. But all of a sudden now, recovery time felt better. Everything was a lot better."

The players hitting home runs left and right for the Mariners at that time were Griffey and Rodriguez. Lou Piniella comes off badly in the report as well:

Asked if Piniella knew about that clubhouse culture, Monahan says, "Yeah, I think so. I think he knew everything that was going on in his locker room. I just think he turned a shoulder to it and really didn't care."
Through his agent, Alan Nero, Piniella, now the Chicago Cubs manager, declined comment on that characterization.

John McLaren says he didn't know about Monahan''s drug use:

McLaren was a coach under then-manager Lou Piniella during Monahan's brief stay on the Mariners roster.
McLaren acted as a sounding board for players who didn't want to approach Piniella directly.

"I had no idea whatsoever that Shane was doing that," McLaren said.

Monahan's confession should have been in the Mitchell report. Baseball should have encouraged this kind of confession, since we probably learn a lot more from people voluntarily coming forward.

Posted by David Pinto at 09:01 AM | Cheating | TrackBack (0)

Comments

The more I think about the Mitchell Report, the more I conclude that the Red Sox' internal communications about Gagne and Donnelly may be the single biggest revelation. Sox management were openly talking about, and actively seeking, information about steroid use among players. And they knew quite a bit. And I have to assume that other teams went through the same process as part of their player-evaluation process, and learned just as much as the Sox did.

With this in mind, it's really hard to give any credence whatsoever to the steadfast denials by managers, coaches and team officials. Even if they were absolutely unconcerned about the moral and ethical dimensions of the issue, it was clearly in their professional interest to be as fully informed as possible about players' use of PEDs.

Posted by: jvwalt at December 29, 2007 01:50 PM

I find it interesting that there is an assumption that if you are still willing to buy tickets to a game, then you just 'don't care' about the steroids issue. This whole thing just saddens and disgusts me. I just am a BASEBALL fan. I want the game to get clean. But I'm not going to not be a baseball fan any more... That is crazy. But as a person who enjoys games, and even the culture of baseball, it really dampens my spirit. I think the players need to submit to blood tests, and that the owners need to accept some responsibility for their own obvious culpability. Anyhow....blah blah blah.

Posted by: Tom Strouse at December 30, 2007 01:47 AM

What still distrubs me the most is that so many have bought into the lie the steroids use has always been cheating in MLB. This is just not true. MLB did not care any more about steroid use then they cared about pot smoking until after the 2002 season. Neither Fay Vincent's 1991 MLB Drug Policy nor Bud Selig's 1997 restatement of MLB's drug policy treated steroids any differently the a recreational drug like pot. Neither called using steroids cheating. Both just treated steroid use as a medical issue that just required conselling just like pot use. It was not until after the 2002 season that MLB defined steroid use as cheating and MLB did not put this new policy into effect until after the 2003 season. You do all remember don't you that MLB had official amnisty for steroid use in 2003 with testing done just to determine if testing would be required in 2004 and beyond to imlement MLB's new policy that actually clasified steroid use as cheating beginning with the 2004 season.

Bottom line, why do you all buy into the witch hunt? How is it fair to apply these new standards that MLB has now adapted to behavior before these new standards were in place. Just think how you all would like it if the IRS did this to your tax returns by first changing the rules and then applying these new rules to your old tax returns.
In my judgement the real cheating that is going on is this retroactive application of these new standards to old behavior.

Posted by: giantsrainman at December 31, 2007 01:01 AM