In the past couple of weeks, four players -- Jenrry Mejia of the Mets, Ervin Santana of the Twins, Arodys Vizcaino of the Braves and David Rollins of the Mariners have all been suspended following positive tests for stanozolol, the anabolic steroid that basically went out of use among baseball players with the advent of drug testing.
The Daily News reports that Major League Baseball, noting that it’s odd to see so many players using this out-of-date drug at the same time, has launched an investigation:
Makes sense. After all, as the story notes, what got MLB sniffing around Miami a few years ago was a spike in testosterone and HGH use as well as some anecdotal evidence about drug mills in Florida. That eventually turned into the Biogenesis scandal, though it obviously took some reporting from the Miami New Times for it to explode.
Here, if I had to guess, we’re either seeing (a) some tainted or misrepresented substance, which the players have no idea contains stanozolol; or (b) someone telling players that they have some masking agent or system-beating scheme which makes the detection of this otherwise ridiculously detectable drug impossible.
Because really, straight-up taking the most cliche of 1990s ‘roids -- the drugs which the tests were literally designed to find -- would be about the dumbest thing in the world.
