Steroids In Supplements

Published in the Desert Valley Times
August 5, 2005

Baltimore Oriole baseball star Rafael Palmeiro recently tested positive for steroids, and was given the standard 10-day vacation by major league baseball.
Back in March, Palmeiro told a congressional committee that he had never, ever used steroids.
This week, he had to amend that statement, invoking the new word "intentionally."
As cop-outs go, I kind of like that one.
It's like the 21st century version of Flip Wilson's catch phrase "the devil made me do it."
It lets you off the hook by suggesting it's not your fault, no matter the crime.
By using the word "intentionally," Palmeiro is intimating that there must have been some steroids in something he ingested.
He doesn't come out and say what that might have been, but believe me, I can empathize.
I mean, how many times have we all gathered around the dinner table and "unintentionally" wolfed down a half-dozen ears of corn, only to find out later that we have tested positive for steroids?
I'm sure it happens all the time.
Poor Palmy could have picked up that dose of steroids in anything.
Maybe he was drinking from a water fountain after somebody else who had steroids in their system.
Or it could have been one of those non-kosher hot dogs.
They put just about anything in frankfurters these days, so it's not beyond possibility that Palmy was contaminated by a couple of dogs at the ball park.
Perhaps the Orioles star picked up a "contact" positive by being in the room where someone else was doing steroids.
And of course you can't rule out fast food.
Maybe steroids is part of that "secret sauce" we keep hearing so much about.
Unlike some of the brainless rookies coming out of the high school ranks, who frequently claim they didn't know they were injecting steroids into their thighs in spite of the fact that "STEROIDS" was marked in large letters on the bottle, a long-time pro like Palmy would know better.
That's why it has to be something he inadvertently took that caused the positive test.
Major League Baseball needs to do more research.
I would recommend they start by running some of those sunflower seeds through the gas-chromatograph spectrometer.
Connect the dots.
Lots of baseball players eat sunflower seeds.
Lots of positive steroids tests come from baseball players.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Or maybe there's more in that bottle of Gatorade then we realized.
Some have wrongfully suggested there might be a trace of steroids in some of the muscle density drinks and supplement shakes athletes often use.
Just because some people might believe that ingesting artificial substances for the purpose of causing unnatural muscle growth could be considered cheating doesn't mean that steroids are involved.
There are lots of things other than steroids that cause such rapid and explosive muscle enhancement.
There'summmthere's
Spinach!
That's it!
Check Palmy's recent diet.
I'm sure he wasn't taking those over-the-counter cheating products.
It has to be spinach.
Take a look at an old Popeye cartoon, those bulging forearms, then get a glance of Palmy's hammers.
Do you see a resemblance?
Unfortunately, the similarity ends there.
While Palmeiro continues to insist that, no, nope, huh-uh, he's not a cheater, never has been, is just a victim of circumstances, at least you could count on Popeye to be honest in his post-game interviews.
Palmy should give it a try the next time he appears before congress to be asked if he's a juicer:
"I yam what I yam."