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........................................| 247 The post on waswatching.com, a blog billed as a “laconic commentary from a Yankeeland zealot,” came from “hopbitters” on April 25, 2006. It read: “I never heard of Randy Ruiz before, but, my God, is the guy the ultimate loser.” Hopbitters was responding to the signing of Ruiz that week by the Trenton Thunder, the Yankees Double-A affiliate in the Eastern League. The post referred to a claim attributed to Ruiz that his positive drug test in 2005 might have stemmed from his use of Viagra. “Viagra has nothing to do with steroids,” hopbitters wrote. “Though the young man no doubt used Viagra because Stanozolo [sic] makes you go limp. Just ask Raffy ‘Former “And I Use Viagra” Spokesman’ Palmeiro, who used the same drug.” The criticism didn’t come just from the cruel anonymity of the Internet. Mike Drago of the Reading Eagle wrote on his blog, “Like a bad dream, Randy Ruiz just won’t go away. Now comes word out of Trenton that the New York Yankees have signed the former Reading slugger and are ready to put him in a Thunder uniform. Provided they’ve got one big enough.” A week later, with Ruiz struggling at the plate, Drago wrote: Even after he had been suspended for a second time, and even after his agent admitted that Randy Ruiz had tested positive for taking steroids, the big first baseman said last summer that the only substance he had knowingly taken was Viagra. Apparently Ruiz is off the little blue pill, because his bat has been rather impotent this season compared to last year, when he tore up the Eastern League, winning a batting title while playing for the Reading Phillies.1 ● The cover of Sports Illustrated’s 2006 “Baseball Preview” edition claimed, “The Game Is Good, Clean Fun Again.” After the various assaults on the integrity of the national pastime in 2005, Major League Baseball had taken some strong measures, SI clearly felt, to address the culture of performanceenhancing drug use that had been quietly thriving for years. Twice in 2005 the players and owners had amended their Collective Bargaining 19 Knockin’ after Midnight Minneapolis, Minnesota 248 | chapter 19 Agreement to toughen the drug policy. The first time a player tested positive would now cost him fifty games, the second time one hundred; the third time he would be banned for life. What’s more, former Senate Majority Leader and federal prosecutor George Mitchell had been appointed by Commissioner Bud Selig to do a thorough investigation of the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Had baseball truly cleaned its house? Between innings of an Opening Day game in San Diego, a fan tossed a syringe at a certain Giants left fielder. Barry Lamar Bonds—author of 708 home runs, a man who had never been identified as testing positive for steroid use, and the subject of the just released Game of Shadows (which compellingly chronicled his alleged use of a huge array of performance enhancers dating back to at least 2001)—simply picked up the syringe and tossed it off the field “so no one would get hurt.” In June federal investigators seized shipments of human growth hormone that had been sent to the Scottsdale home of Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Jason Grimsley. Jason Grimsley? For many fans, this was a puzzling development. Grimsley was no larger-than-life slugger. He was a pitcher, and not a very good one by major league standards, a defining example of that marvelous baseball term, “journeyman.” A onetime Reading Phillie, Grimsley had broken into the big leagues in 1989. He had played in parts of fifteen seasons with seven different teams, assembling a record of 42–58 with a 4.77 ERA.2 How much help could performance-enhancing drugs provide? Perhaps enough to have kept him in the big leagues all that time, allowing him to claim a precious roster spot while talented minor leaguers—who may or may not have chosen to juice—were kept down in the agonizing world of “almost.” Over the years, Grimsley made more than $10 million in major league salary. Cooperating with the feds in the early stages of the investigation, Grimsley admitted that he had switched from steroids to an exclusive regimen of HGH because there was no test for the latter. He asserted that personal trainers were supplying players with enhancers by the “boatful.” He also identified other users; ten names were redacted...

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