A slugger’s fall from grace

I’m not a huge baseball fan. I don’t know what all the stats mean or how many home runs away from Godlike status Alex Rodriguez might be. But when left fielder Manny Ramirez rolled into town last year, Dodger fever struck. I became a regular reader of the Sports pages of this newspaper and discovered ESPN on the TV remote. And I was charmed to learn that a friend’s 8-year-old daughter, a Pony League All-Star slugger, had taped pictures of Ramirez to her bedroom wall when most girls her age covet the Jonas Brothers.

All that Manny love turned cold last week after he was suspended for 50 games for violating Major League Baseball’s drug policy -- bad news that came just days after allegations that A-Rod may have been juicing as early as high school and during his time as a Yankee.

As a journalist, I’ve spent several years hanging out with drug dealers and drug cops to cover the trade, and I suspect that the reasons people take performance-enhancement drugs aren’t so different from why they take cocaine or Ecstasy. They want to be better, sexier, more heroic versions of themselves. Bob Hazelton wanted that too, but more about him later.

Anabolic-androgenic steroids, which can be injected or taken orally, are synthetic derivatives of testosterone and have been used in clinical practice since the 1940s for burns, surgery, radiation therapy and, since the 1980s, for treatment of cancer and AIDS-associated wasting syndrome. Their earliest documented use for performance enhancement was in the 1950s, by Soviet weightlifters.

But in the last 30 years, usage has spread beyond elite athletes, who sought to secretly enhance their competitiveness, and into the realm of individuals who seek greater self-perceived attractiveness. Amateurs and athletes are equally at risk for side effects that, according to the Mayo Clinic, include liver abnormalities and tumors, high cholesterol, aggressive behavior, depression and severe acne. For adolescents, there is an additional risk of stunted growth.

Side effects specific to males include increased breast size, baldness, shrunken testicles and infertility. Females are at risk of baldness, increased body hair and a deeper voice -- all of which recall the saga of Heidi Krieger, the 1986 former East German shot-put champion who was fed such high doses of steroids by her coaches that, in 1997, she gave in to her stunning metamorphosis, underwent a sex change operation and became Andreas Krieger.

Experts say chronic steroid abusers add “accessory� medications to their performance-enhancement cocktail. Though one steroid might make your muscles bigger, you’ll need another to get that lean, cut look. Throw in some Tamoxifen to help prevent breast enlargement, Viagra for sexual dysfunction and human chorionic gonadotropin -- the drug that got Ramirez banned -- to revive testosterone levels. The list goes on when one’s desire to get bigger, faster and stronger knows no bounds.

Steroids aren’t physically addictive, but their psychologically addictive properties are well known to researchers. Hamsters will self-administer testosterone directly to their brains even to the point of death. As for humans? Former heavyweight boxer Bob Hazelton testified in tears before Congress in 2004 about his addiction.

Hazelton began using in 1970. By 1985, he was spending $200 to $300 a week and took as much as 1,400 milligrams a day of a drug whose therapeutic dose was closer to 5 or 10 milligrams a day. In 1986, after suffering from debilitating heart attacks and blood clots, his left leg was amputated below the knee. He kept on doping. A year later, his right leg was amputated. He quit using and started speaking out, from his wheelchair, about the dangers of steroid abuse.

Hazelton’s story still gets to Joseph Rannazzisi, deputy assistant administrator in the Drug Enforcement Administration’s office of diversion control, who also testified that day. Rannazzisi is a pharmacist by training and a drug agent by trade, and he works closely with Major League Baseball to share information, technical advice and trends in the illegal use of anabolic steroids. For the record, the DEA thinks MLB is doing a decent job of making players accountable.

“I think they’re doing everything they can to identify people who are abusing performance-enhancement drugs, not only to protect the integrity of baseball but also to protect the health and safety of players,� Rannazzisi says.

The DEA isn’t interested in singling out players for prosecution, but it is targeting the organizations that distribute steroids for non-medical use.

As a father of five, Rannazzisi admits that he cares deeply about whether professional sports players are doping. “In addition to it being a violation of the law, it sends a bad message to our kids,� he says.

Thankfully, according to the latest Monitoring the Future study, 91% of American 12th-graders disapprove of steroids, and just 2.2% report having ever used them.

Manny’s fall from grace at least provides an opportunity to discuss the dangers of performance-enhancement drugs with our children.

“I’d never say to my own kids that somebody is bad or evil because they’ve done something like that,� Rannazzisi says. “What I’d say is, ‘He’s made a mistake, and we don’t want you to make that same mistake.’ �

Which is pretty much what my friend told his daughter on their way to a Dodger game. She was disappointed at first, but she shrugged it off and focused on the other players. I might follow her lead. I never cared about the stats anyway. So, Manny, when you return in July, if you can stay off the juice, I’ll keep reading the Sports section.