The House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection will conduct investigations regarding Minnesota Viking players Kevin and Pat Williams on November 3, 2009. That is according to subcommittee representative Karen Lightfoot.

Congress will have to examine closely a controversial Minnesota law that lead to the two Pro Bowl tackles to fight off their suspension and oppose any disciplinary moves by NFL authorities.

The executives from the league and some members of the NFL players association will be called to testify. It is not yet certain of the two Minnesota Vikings will be called as witnesses.

In 2008, the Williamses were suspended after testing positive for the diuretic bumetanide, which was hidden in the weight loss supplement, StarCaps.

However, the Williamses sued the league, accusing them of violating a Minnesota law by suspending them for testing positive for bumetanide.

They sued NFL in Hennepin County and won a US Court of appeals ruling in September 11, 2009.

The NFL players tried appealing to congress to consider a federal law regarding Minnesota’s drug-testing laws, which were considered a loophole protecting players in professional sports drug testing.

The court’s ruling on the Viking’s case also allowed New Orleans Saints players to play even after being suspended due to testing positive for StarCaps.

From Twin Cities:

Congress has scheduled a hearing next week to scrutinize a controversial Minnesota law allowing Kevin and Pat Williams to fight their suspensions in Hennepin County and thwart the NFL’s authority to discipline the Minnesota Vikings Pro Bowl tackles.

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Mark McGwire may have kept a very private life ever since his retirement from Major League Baseball, but he promised to spread to word against the use of steroids and its ill effects to children. He promised to charge his foundation with the same message.

A few months after the congressional hearings, Don Hooton, father of Taylor Hooton, the high school baseball player who committed suicide, received an envelope containing a check addressed to the Taylor Hooton Foundation. The check was from Mark McGwire’s foundation.

For the past three years, the Taylor Hooton Foundation has been receiving donations from McGwire’s foundation. However, McGwire’s representative requested that the amount of donations must be kept private.

According to Hooton, McGwire’s personality and popularity, especially with the kids would be advantageous for him to spread the message. Since his back in the spotlight, it would be a great opportunity for him to start to speak and get the message relayed across.

Hooton would want to see McGwire use his voice and influence to spread the word about this topic. He would like McGwire to tell the kids the price he paid for getting involved.

From St. Louis Today:

Within a few months of the congressional hearings that have come to define baseball’s steroid era, Don Hooton, who testified at the hearings and is the father of a steroid-user who had committed suicide, received a nondescript envelope in the mail.

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Former congressional representative Tom Davis says Roger Clemens was in denial during the steroids probe. Davis once headed the House committee that investigated on Mark McGwire and Roger Clemens that eventually led to the downfall of their careers.

Davis opines that if only Clemens had just admitted the accusations thrown to him, nobody would have a problem. It was difficult for Clemens to deny anything since Andy Petitte was there to contradict him.

Clemens was noted as vehemently denying any use of steroids or HGH despite his former trainer, Brian McNamee’s accusations.

During the notorious 2005 hearing, Davis was the chairperson of the House Government Reform Committee. Davis remembers McGwire’s implementation of his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He refused to answer questions about steroids, rather saying that he was there not talk about the past.

Davis welcomed the news that McGwire is back in baseball, this time as a hitting coach for the Cradinals. He thinks McGwire deserves another chance. It is about time that he comes back in the league after four years of self-imposed exile from the sport.

Davis left congress in 2008 and now works as a consultant for Deloitte.

From New York Daily News:

Former congressman Tom Davis, who once led the House committee that helped destroy the baseball legacies of Mark McGwire and Roger Clemens, says he applauds McGwire’s return but thinks Clemens was in denial when he testified before Congress.

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New York Yankees’ Andy Petitte was one of those involved in the Mitchell Report, Major League Baseball’s internal investigation into steroids. Former Yankees teammate Jason Grimsley named him as a performance-enhancing drug user. He also admitted to using human growth hormone (HGH), although according to him, it was for the quick recovery of his elbow and not for performance enhancement.

Last Sunday night, 50,173 fans cheered as Petitte led the Yankees to a victory against the Los Angeles Angels.

Who would have thought fans would embrace Petitte after the steroids controversy? However, in New York, nobody cares as long as Petitte wins. A player with 229 regular-season wins and a record 16 in the playoffs will surely be forgiven.

Petitte surely belongs to the first kind of cheaters. The ones on anyone’s favorite team, who are forgiven when they perform well, just like Alex Rodriguez. The other kind of cheater is the one   unfortunate enough to be called a “creep who ruined baseball”.

The Yankees will open the World Series on Wednesday. They will play against the Philadelphia Phillies, just like their familiar role for the first time since 2003.

Petitte was smart enough to admit his deed on the first day of spring training two years ago. Rather forever regret a chapter in his career; he was celebrated for his wisdom.

From Chicago Tribune:

NEW YORK — Andy Pettitte on the mound, Derek Jeter everywhere,Mariano Rivera at closing time, the Bronx rocking as the clock struck midnight. The first Turn Back the Clock Night at Yankee Stadium.

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Since the late 1980s, many athletes have been linked to steroids and PEDs use. Perhaps, baseball is the sport with the greatest steroid controversies. Some of the biggest and greatest names in baseball have been linked to steroids use, especially in the BALCO scandal.

The most famous being Barry Bonds, who is well known for breaking Hank Aaron’s home run record. These days, he is also known for another thing, his association with steroids. Bonds, no matter how great his records are in baseball, could never get a contract with any MLB teams and spent all his 2008 with no activity.

In 2003, Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative was accused of supplying anabolic steroids, HGH and other performance-enhancing drugs to professional players in the MLB and in US Track and Field. Some of those athletes include Jason Giambi, Bill Romanowski and Marion Jones.

Added to the BALCO scandal was the list of 104 players who failed the drug test in 2003. The list was supposed to be kept confidential until federal authorities illegally seized the list during a BALCO related search.

Regardless of the advantages it could bring to an athlete’s professional career, the side effects could not be ignored. Its life-long effect in the reputation of professional sports can also be detrimental.

From Bleacher Report:

A new era of baseball is in progress. Pitchers with 210 strikeouts a season, hitters getting over 500 home runs a year with 40 stolen bases. All regular statistics nowadays, but are they legit?

Ever since the late 1980s many sports figures (mostly baseball) have been linked to PED’s (Performance Enhancing Drugs). Some of these athletes include the biggest names in baseball. Even though the testing and tolerance level has grown stricter and stricter over the years drug use has continued to increase

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Bernardino Jimenez was a young child in San Pedro de Macoris who grew up playing baseball behind the tin shanties and on fields cut from sugar plantations, with big dreams in his eyes. However, he became a victim to an agent who injected him with a mixture of what was told to him as legal vitamins. He was soon signed to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ training squad in 2008. Bad times entered Bernardino’s life when he tested positive for an anabolic steroid used in horses, Boldenone. This led to a career-stalling suspension for 50 games.

From TimesUnion.com:

Jimenez’s case is just one example of a disturbing trend in this hotbed of baseball talent.

Of the 69 minor leaguers suspended for using banned substances in 2008, nearly two thirds — 42 — came from the Dominican Summer League, a developmental program for Latin American players housed in secluded palm tree-lined campuses owned by big-league teams. This year, 31 of the 71 minor leaguers suspended for using banned substances came from the DSL.

In the major leagues, where performance-enhancing substances have been a divisive issue for more than a decade, players with Dominican roots have also been at the center of several high-profile drug cases.

Sammy Sosa and Manny Ramirez have been accused in stories by The New York Times of being on a list of more than 100 players alleged to have tested positive during an initial drug survey of MLB players six years ago. David Ortiz has acknowledged the union told him he was on the list, and slugger Alex Rodriguez, following a February report in Sports Illustrated, said he used steroids while with Seattle from 2001-03. Rodriguez said a cousin obtained a substance he knew as “boli” in the Dominican Republic.

The lure of fast money by using steroids is one of the biggest reasons why children in the Dominican Republic take steroids. Due to hardship issues faced, budding sportsmen often neglect the possible side effects of steroids, amphetamines, performance enhancing drugs, and growth hormones and even went on the extent of saying that steroids are worth the risk.

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With all the athletes who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs and their common excuse of not being aware that what they were taking contained PEDs, it is only sensible that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and executive director of the Players’ Association, DeMaurice Smith send a “friendly” reminder regarding the use of performance-enhancing drugs or nutritional supplements.

According to ESPN reports, the summary of the commissioner’s reminders are as follows:

Any athlete is responsible for his own body. Therefore, the common excuse of taking a nutritional supplement containing an undeclared performance-enhancing substance is NOT an excuse if a doping test is failed.

Second, take any supplements at your own risk. There are nutritional supplements certified by the Sports Nutrition Label Certification Program, however, if you want anything not approved by this program, then you must be responsible for the consequences. These supplements ay contain ingredients that may cause you to test positive.

Third, weight loss supplements are as risky as any other supplements; therefore, you must not take them. One example is the weight loss supplement, StarCaps that caused two Vikings and Saints players to fail their doping tests.

Lastly, any questions regarding supplements must be addressed by Dr. John Lombardo, the administrator of the league’s policy on steroids and other related substances.

From NESN:

What is the most common excuse the infamous members of The List have used when informed that they had tested positive for performance-enhancing substances?

“I didn’t realize that what I was taking was a PED,” they say — or some variation on that theme.

So it makes sense that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith are being proactive with their own league this season

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If it is determined, that NFL could not run its steroid testing program effectively in cooperation with the player’s union, then it is possible that the league would give control of its steroid -testing program to an outside agency.

It would be a very significant move for the league, considering that it has administered its own testing policy for two decades.

The acknowledgement came after the court rulings on the case of Minnesota Vikings players were released. Courts ruled two issues involving Minnesota workplace laws while rejecting most of the players’ claims.

According to the league’s view, players belonging to different teams are subject to a different set of drug-testing rules depending on which state they play in.

In a telephone interview, Jeff Pash, the league counsel and executive vice president for labor said that their program was fragmented by wide-ranging state laws. If this were the case, then it would be best if they turn to an outside agency such as the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) to administer their drug-testing program. If there is anything they do not want to do, that is to stop the program because it has been beneficial to everyone.

According to The Washington Post:

The NFL might consider giving control of its steroid-testing program to an outside agency if it determines that it cannot continue to run the program effectively in cooperation with the players’ union, a top league official said Thursday. Such a move would represent a significant shift in policy for a league that has administered its testing policy in conjunction with the union for two decades.

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Last February, Alex Rodriguez admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs from 2001 – 2003 when he was still with Texas Rangers.

Rodriguez met with officials from Major League Baseball’s Department of Investigations and Labor Relations Department in March. He insisted that he did not use steroids beyond 2003.

However, in a book written by Selena Roberts entitled “A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez”, the Sports Illustrated writer claimed that he had used steroids even after coming to the Yankees in 2004.

Baseball investigators contacted Roberts and those close to Rodriguez to look into the matter after the book was released in late April.

Investigations then started until at present, regarding A-Rod’s statement. The commissioner’s office investigated whether he lied to baseball officials about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Investigations proved difficult since witnesses outside of MLB were not compelled to cooperate.

According to The Times, Dominican trainer Angel Presinal was also interviewed by baseball investigators but no significant information has been provided by the trainer, who has been banned from MLB clubhouses.

Last Saturday, the paper reported that the commissioner’s office already came into a decision regarding Rodriguez’s case. The office announced that the league will not punish Rodriguez.

From Miami Herald:

Major League Baseball will reportedly not discipline New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez after investigating whether or not he lied about his used of performance-enhancing drugs.

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The National Football League (NFL), for violating a steroid policy, has suspended former Cleveland Browns Shaun Smith for four games.

After he was released by the Browns last month, due to a trimming made by the team in order to reach the 53-player maximum, he was immediately signed up by the Lions to a one-year $1 million deal. However, because of his violation, he was released from his contract last Saturday.

Six teams have contacted him since his release from Detroit Lions; however, he informed those teams that he would be serving the four-game suspension during the first four weeks of the season, so he will be available by week 5.

Smith also clarified to the teams who contacted him that he took water pills, an over-the-counter, weight loss supplement, and not any performance-enhancing drugs.

The National Football League bans water pills and other diuretics because they can mask the use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

Smith started his career with Cleveland Browns on March 2007. Over the past two seasons, he had played 20 games for the team.

It is still unclear if the reason for his release from the Lions had anything to do with his pending suspension.

From Detroit News:

Allen Park — Former Lions defensive tackle Shaun Smith, one of the team’s final roster cuts last weekend, has been suspended by the NFL for four games for violating the league’s anabolic steroid policy, ESPN reported Thursday.

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