Steroids are hot topic in camps

Though not targeted, Twins brace for talk

BY GORDON WITTENMYER
Pioneer Press

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Blame Jose Canseco if you want. Blame that FBI agent who went public last week to say he warned baseball about steroids more than a decade ago but was ignored. Or blame Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, Donald Fehr and Bud Selig. Or the media, or anyone else.

But it's not going to go away anytime soon.

And even the Twins know it.

"We're going to get a million questions about it," Twins pitcher Kyle Lohse said.

Welcome to Syringe Training 2005, a six-week, 30-team preparation for the major league baseball season that promises enough news, analysis, rumors, hand-wringing and grandstanding about steroids to fill a grand jury indictment of anybody who has played the game in the past 15 years.

"It seems like every year there's a hot topic, and it's unfortunate that's what it is this year," Twins infielder Eric Munson said. "Everybody's going to have to deal with it."

Even the Twins — who don't have anybody as bulked as Bonds or Giambi (pre-2004), much less a player who has hit more than 29 home runs in a season. In fact, no Twin has hit the ball far enough often enough to reach 30 homers since 1987.

But with new allegations arising almost weekly that suggest widespread use of steroids over the past two decades — including the recent release of Canseco's dubious tell-all book — anybody in a baseball uniform becomes a potential user or accomplice, past or present.

"I don't know how much it's going to affect anybody in here," said Lohse, the Twins' union representative. "But it's definitely something that weighs on the public's mind more than anything, and the media's."

Twins outfielder Armando Rios, who was signed to a minor league contract last month, is linked to the BALCO investigation in San Francisco that implicated Bonds and Giambi, and that led to threats of legislation by U.S. senators and eventually a beefed-up testing program in the major leagues. Rios, who is not due in camp until later this week, has denied involvement.

The steroids cloud extends far beyond him.

"I'm pretty sure a lot of people say stuff about me," said Twins' relief pitcher J.C. Romero, the self-nicknamed Rock for the bulging-muscle physique that would look extreme even for a first baseman. If anyone in the Twins' clubhouse were juiced, Romero most looks the part. "I know I'm a healthy guy and watch what I eat. I know I work hard... . Whatever they speculate doesn't apply to me."

And just like that the cloud moves through the Twins' clubhouse, through spring training camps from Florida to Arizona, and threatens to rumble loudly enough, long enough, to label an entire generation of ballplayers.

"I think every era has a label, but most labels are created by those in the minority," said Twins pitcher Joe Nathan, a former San Francisco teammate of Bonds. "It's a big deal, and it's something that needs to be addressed. And we need to clear this issue as quickly as we can so it doesn't loom over guys who are very innocent. And most guys are innocent. But it needs to be addressed mostly for the young guys coming up who see this and think this is something to do."

Nathan, who makes his offseason home in the Phoenix area, joined Lohse in players union meetings this winter in Arizona that resulted in the unprecedented consent of the players to amend an existing collective bargaining agreement and substantially strengthen MLB's drug-testing program.

"That's the positive side about it," Nathan said of the attention the steroids issue has received. "And that's probably something that a lot of people won't see and won't think about — that most of us do want to get this out of the game. Having it in the game is a big negative, but the positive is we're making a move — and a big move — to get them out of here."

That won't get rid of the doubts, at least not right away. And not with former players such as Canseco throwing out names of teammates and opponents as users.

Nathan, for instance, said he never saw Bonds use anything he thought, even in retrospect, might have been steroids. That includes the "clear" oral form and "cream" topical form that Bonds reportedly told a federal grand jury he used without knowing they contained steroids.

Munson and new Twins catcher Mike Redmond, both former teammates of Ivan Rodriguez — named by Canseco as a user — say they never saw Rodriguez do anything that suggested he was on steroids.

In fact, Munson said he has never seen anybody use them, say they've used them or ever offer them to him during his career.

"The only needles I've ever seen were the ones in the doctor's office," he said.

"It's not going to go away," Lohse said. "Maybe somehow that's a good thing. The focus will be put on it, and more pressure will be there for guys to stay away from it."