Anabolic Steroids Blog - iSteroids . com » Sen. George Mitchell report

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC FACES STEROIDS ISSUE A fertile scouting ground for future baseball pros, Dominican Republic has been dragged into the steroids controversy when former Sen. George Mitchell’s report revealed that human growth hormones have been used illegally in Major League Baseball. The FBI’s investigation produced two Dominicans who were involved in the use of performance enhancing drugs. The most celebrated baseball star is Yankees baseman, Alex Rodriguez who became (in) famous for stepping forward and admitting he used steroids in 2001-2003, now recovering from a hip surgery in Aspen. The other one is Miguel Tejada, starting shortstop for the Houston Astros and 2002 MVP in the American League, who was recently sentenced 100 hours community service and under probation for lying about his knowledge of steroid use of other MLB players.

Dominican baseball commissioner Porfirio Veras said that the country’s reputation is on the line because of the number of Dominicans who are being investigated for steroid use. It would give some people the impression that the country is a breeding ground for roids users.

From USA Today:

At the root of the problem are the largely unregulated buscones, Spanish for “seekers,” some of whom have been accused of regularly misrepresenting players’ ages, furnishing them with steroids and scamming to extract large portions of their signing bonuses, sometimes in conjunction with major league team employees.

MLB says its teams spent nearly $60 million in bonuses last year to Latin American players, with $40 million going to Dominican prospects.

With an annual gross domestic product of about $9,000 per capita, the Dominican lacks the infrastructure — school-affiliated leagues, salaried coaches, equipment, etc. — to develop baseball talent at the youth level.

By giving training, food and housing, the buscones fill in the lack in return for a fraction of the player’s signing bonus once they get into the pros. Buscones have discovered baseball greats like Vladimir Guerrero, Miguel Tejada, David Ortiz and Hanley Ramirez. However, some of these scouts are bad news. They exploit young players of their bonus money taking advantage that they depend on the scouts to provide their needs. Most of the time in desperation to get their wards into the MLB they give the players steroids or performance enhancing drugs. Hopefully when the MLB would begin to implement the sports law this would protect the teens from abusive buscones.