Via BostonDirtDogs.com comes former Boston infielder Lou Merloni, claiming on Saturday that the Sox were given steroids training:
"I'm in spring training, and I got an 8:30-9:00 meeting in the morning. I walk into that office, and this happened while I was with the Boston Red Sox before this last regime, I'm sitting in the meeting. There's a doctor up there and he's talking about steroids, and everyone was like 'here we go, we're gonna sit here and get the whole thing -- they're bad for you.' No. He spins it and says 'you know what, if you take steroids and sit on the couch all winter long, you can actually get stronger than someone who works out clean, if you're going to take steroids, one cycle won't hurt you, abusing steroids it will.' He sat there for one hour and told us how to properly use steroids while I'm with the Boston Red Sox, sitting there with the rest of the organization, and after this I said 'what the heck was that?' And everybody on the team was like 'what was that?' And the response we got was 'well, we know guys are taking it, so we want to make sure they're taking it the right way'... Where did that come from? That didn't come from the Players Association."
Merloni has backtracked a bit since Saturday, saying that it was couched more in terms of a warning than anything else, though he says the conversation still happened. Dan Duquette, however, says that's ridiculous:
"It's ridiculous. It's totally unfounded," said Duquette, who was GM from 1994-2002, covering virtually all of Merloni's tenure (1998-2003). "Who was the doctor? Tell me who the doctor is. If there was such a doctor, he wasn't in the employ of the Red Sox. We brought in doctors to educate the players on the major league drug policy at the time, at the recommendation of Major League Baseball. This is so ridiculous I hate to even respond to it."
My first thought is that Lou Merloni has little incentive to make something like this up while Dan Duquette -- and anyone else in a position of power during the height of the steroids days -- has a lot of incentive to call it a lie. That said, I'd be shocked if whatever happened was as obvious as Merloni says it was. No one is that dumb. Not even Dan Duquette.
But even if this thing isn't as big a deal as Merloni makes it out to be, there's no escaping the notion that management knew more about the pervasiveness of steroids during the bad old days than is currently being reported and largely turned a blind eye towards it. Or, as explained in the Mitchell Report and elsewhere, actually exploited it by valuing or devaluing players in part based upon their perception as steroid users.
In the rush to burn the Manny Ramirezes and Alex Rodriguezes at the stake, let us not forget that far more people benefited from player's steroid use than just the players themselves.
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Ballplayers Are Not, As a Whole, Intelligent People, Ex. 34,993: Did Lou Merloni have anything going for him at all except that every Red Sox fan in the world loved him for some reason? Why, Louuuuuuuu, why?
Wow. I'm trying to think of names and I'm stuck on "Red Roids" and "Roid Sox." I think "Roid Sox" has a ring to it.
Roid Sox could apply to the White Sox. The Red Roids is more specific....
You don't know what way to take that. I belive it could have happened but Lou Merloni is now works in the Boston media and he is having a tough time realizing he is not an active major leaguer. He usuall tries to spin any relevant baseball story to the point where he believes he is the center of it all.
I'm tired of fans of one teams rivals trying to pretend that their hated team was more invovled in roid use than other teams. It was everyone people, the Royals on up to the Yankees and back down again. Accept it and move on.
I suspect Big Papi and Manny must have missed that meeting....
Anser this Jax, when Giambi got caught and Clemens was on the team, who ws the manager? Yup. Joe Torres, well, who is the manager of the Dodgers now? Yup, Joe Torres, and which team does Manny play for, yup the Dodgers. See a pattern? Why would you mention Papi? Papi is a good friend of Manny's, and class guy that he is, he would not comment on this issue. And you being a typical Yankee fan grab it and run. There are plenty of men on the Yankees that are class acts, Jeter for one. Wll, one class act guy. The way baseball randomly tests, why would ANYONE be so stupid as to take steroids? Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!
Joe Torres is a 26 year old still stuck in double-A. I doubt he's ever managed anybody.
who the hell is Joe Torres, the Hispanic equal to Joe Torre mang, dude shut up The hammer is about to come down on the Red Terds and us Yankee fans are licking our chops baby!!!!
Likewise, I am tired of fans and sportswriters singling out players (Arod, Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, McGwuire etc) who are caught for steroids and declaring them all unable to make the Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of players that juice/juiced and that will likely make the hall only because they were never caught.
The reason I jump on the Red Sox (besides my being a Yankee fan) is because they are the second biggest market in baseball. When they all begin to recognize that their players are just as guilty as mine they will likely see things as I see them. The only boston sportswriter that gets it is Gammons. Shaunnessy, Schilling and the rest still pretend their team is/was clean.
In the end , let them all in the hall with the caveat being that this entire era was tainted by juice.
The hundreds of players that used them that will never got caught weren't worth caring about. Who cared about a marginal player that used steroids to hit a few more homeruns? All we care about are the great players who used them to become all-time greats. Baseball is a numbers game. If you put up the numbers, you become relevant. Barry Bonds and other players were already great before they did steroids. Taking steroids doesn't get them to hit a baseball.
How do you know Joe? How are we sure that Pujols never juiced? Or Pedro or Jeter or ANYONE? The problem is that there is absolutely no way to know if a player juiced or not unless he failed a drug test. The hearsay and the observations are not proof. That is why if you're a great player in this era you should be in the hall, regardless of whether or not you juiced.
Baseball condoned it up until '03 so why should players who juiced before then be penalized? What this will come down to is NY area sportswriters not electing Pedro and Ortiz because they're friends with Manny and probably juiced. Is that fair? No. Will it happen? If people don't get a grip with reality it will.
You know I actually agree with Evan. Just because its a Yankees or Redsox former or current player, the media and fans jump all over it. Sure the yankees and redsox are seem to be the last 2 teams caught, but if you look back over the past they seem to be the only teams(minus the dodgers...ERR...Ex yankee manager, ex Sox player...hint hint...)having people tear them down. No one beat up the Giants when Barry juiced and took the home run record, for that matter they didnt beat down the cards when McGuire took the Season HR record. No one beats up teams when they aren't consistently making the playoffs...Do you even remember who Palmerio played for when he lied to congress? Lets be realistic. We all have our teams, and im sure we all have players on our teams past or present that if your honest enough we can say something isnt right about....Im a Sox fan and honestly, Since the whole steriod/PED issue came up, there was no doubt in my mind Manny wasn't on something. So stop tearing down teams if you arent willing to, research things for your self and pick your own apart. We are in the Steriod Era of Baseball....It is the here and now. Its one of those things, accept it or not.
Even worse: Sosa was never caught, but will likely have a hard time being inducted because of a suspicion based on body type and home run totals.
Man SOSA was caught Corking! Who cares if he juiced....
I do not believe that it surprises many people that individual athletes, team owners/managers and/or the Player's Union knew of the player's use of PED's--None of this will change because of Merioni's "revelations". When you read the responses of many "fans" to the use of PED's you realize they don't really care--all they really care about is how "their" team and players perform, to-wit: How many HR's, RBI's, stolen bases, team wins/losses, etc. Personally, I think that this matter should be left up to the individual players and their teams--If they choose to use PED's then so be it!
And now we can wonder if Boston broke "The Curse" with honest baseball - or whether they had an unofficial program of steroid use....
Even with A-Roid playing for the Yanks, I'm still glad New York hasn't yet reduced itself to Boston's level....
"Reduced itself to Boston's level"? Didn't almost every starter for the Yankees last championship team get a paragraph each in the mitchell report?
Yes, an inordinate number were specifically implicated in the Mitchell report and they've still choked since 2000.
but amazingly while all these yankees got nailed in the Mitchel Report, not one Red Sox was mentioned. Couldn't possibly have anything to do with Mitchel's connection to the red sox orgainization could it?
"...Hasn't reduced itself to Boston's level..."?
Is that some kind of joke? If you don't consider A-Roid slapping the ball out of a glove, Petite and Giambi and Clemens (and A-roid, and Sheffield and...) taking enhancing drugs, treating Torre like an intern, and the Steinbrenner clan acting like...well, the Steinbrenner clan as evidence of bottom-dwelling deprecating behavior, nothing you read here can help you.
Your an idiot!
and you can't spell - you are = you're, d!p@!$%#
Actually its a joke.
It should be: Your and idiot!
new yorks' desperate attempts to grab onto straws related to anything other than a-rod is hilarious to EVERYONE outside their little (and shrinking) community. Eat it up, cause the Sox still won 2 clean championships and new york has to look at a-rod's face when they wanna watch baseball - hahahaha
you ladies better check the standings, Papelbum eats cock.
told you @!$%#s
Lou Merloni has taken every opportunity to open his big mouth and slam the Sox to the media whenever he can, since he is still upset about the way he was shipped off to Japan and his BFF Nomar was treated badly by upper management. Lou doesn't care about what he says or the accuracy of it, he just wants to diss the Sox and get some publicity. Lou has always been about Lou. He has never been a good clubhouse guy and so he wants to smear the name of the club that figured that out a long time ago.
Evan,
Just let me reimnd you that your team have become the joke of baseball, it seem to join the team you have to have a passed a steroid test to become a Yankee,
Forever a Redsox Fan
The joke's on you Red Sox fan. Your 2004 and 2007 parades are being rained on. Meanwhile, if your team is twice as successful this century as they were this past one, your great grandchildren will be born and the Yankees will still enjoy a healthy lead in championships.
What healthy lead? Yankees tha last time I checked were close to last place.
Rob-1080287.....READ the statement before you answer it... The "healthy lead" was in Championships, you nut!
When Ortiz's name rolls out on the list of "104" Red Sox Nation may have a hard time throwing stones...
Too all the people who think that I am not a real fan, you don't undersand the Boston, New York rivalry. Boston and New York fans are some of the best, and always supports there team. I agree that HGH and whatever the players are using is not good for baseball, and fans are not supporting the sport like they use too.
Hey "Forever" - try REMIND next time and use has not have when in singular mode - players "have", team "has"
Are all Red Sox fans STOOPID?
People make mistakes, and I am offended that you would say I am stupid.
Forever a Red terd fan give it up the hammer is coming down on you crybabies the curse lives for eternity and when its all said and done you Boston baby the city of cheaters, the YANKEES and ONLY THE YANKEES stand at the top of Mount Olympus.
Evan you are a God my man well put shut those cheaters up.
THIS IS SO DELICIOUS!!!!
Oh here we go. Even if some doctor made comments about the ups and down of steroid use, how, exactly, does that implicate the players? Leave us alone in Boston, we've got too many games to watch these days to be able to effectively respond to this kind of garbage.
I am a Yankees fan, and I have to admit, this sucks! It's not good for baseball. The Yankees are dealing with the crap from Clemens, Petttite and A Rod and it sucks too. The intelligent Sox fans, and baseball fans for that matter who I have discussed this with, understand that it's all bad for baseball. The idiots (there are plenty on the Sox and Yankees side) use these things to talk smack and be naive. These are the type of fans that are a waste of time to me. The fact is that so many people were taking steroids, you cannot point fingers to certain players or teams. Like everything else in media, the bigger the name and bigger the franchise, the bigger the target. It's unfortunate because these are the ones getting all the flack for it! You people above making this a Yankee vs Sox thing are just being stupid in my opinion, no offense! This is a baseball problem, not a Yankees, or Sox or that of any individual player. I still feel Selig has a lot of blame in this situation, as much as he wants to downplay it and point fingers at the Union!
right on brother/sister!
Thank you for your intelligent comment. I agree with you 100%. This is a huge baseball issue, not only specific teams.
Well said!
Couldn't agree with you more, AP. Too many idiots on both sides. Especially that homo Gilchrest.
Thanks......as I read through the comments, I see some of you agree with me while other continue the same stupid antics..........just showing that their credibility is non-existent on these topics and bascially they are worthless fans!
Thanks.....that would be brother k mccormack!
Now we know what the Twins always knew.......Big Papi becomes Little Papi without the Big Needle.......
If bulking up on steroids will get you an extra ten mill. I say go for it. I would. Anybody who would not just doesn't understand the meaning of money or earning a living, but then again who goes to work in their pj's except athletes and nurses. Oh and how come we hear about steroids everyday in baseball but why don't we hear anything from the NFL are they just born to be overgrown 350 lb. giants ?
This is coming from a suspected steroid user himself, the year nomar was on the SI cover Lou was his butt buddy in and out of the locker room, and both were thought to have been using that year, i know they both looked significantly bigger then they were the previous season...
I am inclined to think,as someone else has said, that the doctors in this case - whether or not they were sanctioned by the union - behaved as ethical medical professionals, and in a manner similar to sex education in the schools. THat is to say, they approach their audience and provide technical knowledge of an act and discuss its medical and legal consequences. After that, they say, "But if you are active in this endeavor, here is what you should be doing to protect yourself." Which is to say, I believe the docotrs discussed antidotes and cleansing therapies for steroid use so that the athletes may avoid harm to themselves which, by the way, is consistent with the Hippocratic oath. It was these prophylatictic protocols that Merloni misinterpreted, I think. I have to believe that no real doctor in right mind would endorse steroids. If so, they would risk losing their licenses. I was not there, but I think this explanation is the most reasonable. IMHO.
Do you think that the media and the public really know everything that goes on in a Major League Baseball organization? Do you really think that Wade Boggs cracked his rib taking off his cowboy boots in his hotel room? Do you really think that the homerun hitter is the only person that would use steroids or HGH? Was there anyone in or out of baseball that didn't wonder about Brady Anderson hitting 50 homeruns in one season?
Organizations knew all along that something was going on as did the commissioners office, but it was a don't ask - don't tell policy. Don't get caught and we won't have to address it.
Now someone from the inside is coming out telling you this and you question it? Really?
People should just stop singling out a team or a person. Just shut up! We all know that players took HGH and steriods. They obviously are not taking them now. Look at how well the Sox are playing without Manny. Do we need a homerun hitter, YES! Jason Bay to the rescue! Merloni is an idiot for opening his mouth and creating a fiasco!
Everyone's missing something that's been said many times before: players of every era have found ways to cheat. Old timers who played during the 50s have said so plainly, although they never say who, and they claim to not know how. During the 90s and after, some drug companies have found new and interesting ways to get substance into and out of the human machine, that can't be detected by current methods. If we want to stop this problem, we could go after the companies that make the stuff, and nip it in the bud. No supply, no problem...until the big oafs start experimenting with horse tranqs.
Wake up people, MLB knows steroids are being used, and even condones it behind closed doors. Why else are players continuing to fail drug tests? Until it is said that any player who tests positive for banned substances will be kicked out of baseball forever, players will continue to juice, and management will continue to look the other way.
"They obviously are not taking them now." Rob, are you serious?! How do you know? That's the point. We don't know who is doing them now and we don't know who was doing them then/whenever. The entire sport and all the players are tainted.
Okay - this is neither fun nor funny. Sox and Yankee fans are fans for the baseball, right? And we love our teams fanatically....... this rivalry is like no other, and it's AWESOME! But to take shots at each others players and claim that championships are tarnished as a result is dumb. As perfect as we wish our respective guys are/were - they're not. Clearly.
I miss baseball.
Agreed. We can have the rivalry without trash talking about steroids. We must understand that the problem is HUGE and there are probably no clean teams, and almost certainly no clean contenders.
Based on the percentage of players caught in 2003, combined with a reasonable factor for non-detection, we are talking about too many players for there to be one central point of guilt. Testing is still a game of cat an mouse, but the league is infested with this problem.
I think ALL teams are more aware of steroid usage than the Mitchell report would imply, and MUCH more aware than the media is. To that end, I think the current management strategy of the Yankees is somewhat tolerant of steroids, based on who they traded for and/or signed. They are too smart to get burned that many times by mere bad luck. I think the Red Sox' strategy is to quietly get rid of the juicers, hopefully receiving something in return before problems materialize. Leave it to Theo to analyze steroid users as a commodity and trade the "portfolio" as the investment that it truly is. Notice how the Mitchell report had no problem finding former Red Sox players, just none currently on the roster. Again, not that they are "clean", simply "not caught" -- there is a difference. Neither Yankees' nor Red Sox' strategy is "better" than the other; simply two different ways to deal with the same problem. And it would be silly to think either team follows the same strategy religiously. The Red Sox seemed to know what they were getting with Gagne and Donnelly, and yet they made the deals anyway. I doubt that was the only time such a choice was made. At the end of the day, all of the juicers are playing for somebody, and the teams stay relatively quiet about it.
I don't believe Merloni's story because of the lack of specific details or corroboration from anyone else. There has to be at least ONE ex-player from that alleged meeting that would like to fill in some blanks and enjoy their 15 minutes of fame. But then again, nobody believed Jose Canseco in the beginning, either.
...could someone send that doctor to the Pirates, pleeeeaaaaaassssseeeeee!!!!(just a joke, like the team), and yes, I'm still a fan of the Bucs...
We all know that the Red Sox were then and are now a very mediocre team that only realized success by doing steroids. It was a fluke and plain dumb luck that they ever made to the World Series in '04 and '07.
Now the Yankees, on the other hand ..... there's a REAL baseball team. Just ask A-Rod.