While high school football coaches like Chris Connolly of Dolgeville High School have banned Gatorade and other dietary supplements out of fear that they may be a gateway to steroid use, Major League Baseball has actually embraced Gatorade as MLB’s “official sports drink.” Major League Baseball has now taken it a step further and banned water from the clubhouse (”Don’t drink the water!” April 23).
Gatorade is Major League Baseball’s “official sports drink.” So instructions were sent that no player could be seen drinking anything but Gatorade in the dugout. Not even Aquafina, which is the “official water” of MLB. Not even bottles of water with the labels removed.
White Sox clubhouse personnel said if players take bottled water onto the bench, all the bottled water will be removed from the clubhouse as punishment.
This policy only reinforces the appearance of a pro-steroid agenda by Major League Baseball.
I’ve written a lot about the loophole of therapeutic use exemptions (TUEs) that allows athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids, growth hormone, amphetamines, etc. for a competitive advantage. I used the 2006 Tour de France as a prime example, where 60% of drug-tested riders had a TUE for some banned substance. The congressional hearings on the Mitchell Report included testimony that over 8% of Major League Baseball players had TUEs for ADD/ADHD drugs such as Adderall or Ritalin.
Major League Baseball has allowed some baseball players to use anabolic steroids as “androgen deficiency medication” treatment according to testimony at the congressional hearing entitled “The Mitchell Report: The Illegal Use of Steroids in Major League Baseball.” In 2006, three players were permitted to use “androgen deficiency medications” under the therapeutic use exemption. In 2007, only two players were permitted to use anabolic steroids to treat this condition. Therapeutic use exemptions for amphetamines and related “ADD/ADHD medications” jumped from 28 in 2006 to 103 in 2007.
The congressional hearing entitled “The Mitchell Report: The Illegal Use of Steroids in Major League Baseball” is underway right now. I have previously discussed the loophole offered by therapeutic use exemptions that allow professional athletes to use performance enhancing drugs, including steroids, growth hormone and/or testosterone. The number of therapeutic use exemptions or TUEs were not revealed in the Mitchell Report.
Congressman John Tierney (D-MA) revealed that Major League Baseball has granted over 100 therapeutic use exemptions to athletes for amphetamines and related stimulant drugs to treat ADHD. Of course, since the focus of the Mitchell report and the Congressional hearings are on the evils of steroids, the continuing problem of amphetamines in baseball will likely not be seriously investigated at this point.