It started with an early morning phone call: “Can you believe it? Ryan Braun just got popped again for steroids.” There was a distinct tinge of disappointment at the other end of the line. A mixture of shock and awe. How could he be so STUPID? How could a superstar like Braun who previously got busted (and then technically exonerated) use steroids AGAIN in light of him being a target with a giant bullseye on his back and subject to frequent drug tests?

Duh! Ryan Braun used steroids to help him put up MVP numbers. Those numbers got him a $105M contract extension. His 65-game suspension will cost him about $3M. Let’s do the math together:

105
– 3
____
102

For those who majored in chemistry and not economics, that’s a net gain of $102M. That’s $102,000,000 for those of us who need to see all the zeroes to feel sufficiently inadequate. Even with the 65-game suspension, something tells me that Ryan Braun won’t be losing any sleep over his decision to continue using steroids. In terms of ‘movin’ on up’, a premeditated decision to use anabolic steroids paid off for him BIG-TIME.

It’s no different for any other athlete. Despite a history of steroid use that includes a positive (anonymous) test for steroids in 2003, Alex Rodriguez signed a 10-year contract with the New York Yankees in 2007 worth a guaranteed $275 Million Dollars. In 2009, he admitted to using steroids, begged for our forgiveness and asked us to “judge him from this day forward.” With that admission, his Hall of Fame hopes were all but extinguished. But the public is not the Baseball Hall of Fame. We judge our athletes FIRST on their PERFORMANCE. Character, on the other hand, is somewhere further down the list.

With $275M guaranteed, Alex could have made the decision to go au naturale and watch his numbers plummet, but that’s not what MLB and the Yankees (and their fans) want to see. You see, Alex Rodriguez simply wanted to please his fans and his employer. After 3 MVP awards and a career of steroid-padded stats, A-Rod wasn’t going to take any chances: He wanted to earn his keep, lest he overtake Carl Pavano as #1 on the Yankees list of all-time salary busts.

You see, there is little reason for an aspiring athlete to NOT take steroids. Without steroids, most athletes will never achieve the $105M contract extension or the $275M free agent contract. It’s a calculated risk with a huge payoff and very little downside, but it doesn’t start in the big leagues. No, it starts far earlier.

Let’s take the talent-heavy baseball nation of Dominican Republic as an example. In a poverty-stricken country (Venezuela works just as well), baseball is just about the only way out for most kids. Hence, they play baseball 365 days a year for hours on end. Without a major league contract, a young Dominican entering the workplace can aspire to one day earn close to the nation’s average income of about $5,500 per year. But with the average MLB signing bonus for a Dominican player approaching $200,000 (and up to $4.5M for DR prospect and current Oakland A minor leaguer Michael Ynoa), why on Earth would a Dominican teenager NOT resort to steroids to better his chances to attain a life for himself? A few cycles of steroids can easily be the difference between doubles and home runs — the difference between a life on the streets and a MLB signing bonus– the difference between working for THIRTY YEARS in the DR and playing a half-season of minor league baseball in the US!

But we don’t need to look to the DR to find players juicing at young ages. We can start in our own back yards. With college tuition surpassing $200,000 for a 4-year private school, a college baseball scholarship is now worth about the same as a Dominican Republic MLB signing bonus! What’s going to stop a high school sophomore from running a few cycles of testosterone to gain an extra 5mph on his fastball or an extra 25 feet on his hitting distance? A lecture about the integrity of the game?

Let me try to control my laughter while I take in this capitalist irony: As parents, we’re going to preach to our children the need for a college education based on the fact that this education represents their best chance to earn a good living. We’re going to use every advantage we have in life — financial, social, and yes, chemical — to further our children’s chances to succeed, and then, when they have an opportunity to earn more in a month than we do in a lifetime, we’re going to preach to them about the integrity of the game?

Baseball has lost its integrity, and not because of the rampant use of steroids by every top player of the past twenty years. No, baseball lost its integrity by virtue of its laissez-faire attitude towards performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Players right out of high school and college are given multi-million dollar signing bonuses and guaranteed contracts without player scouts or management even asking about steroids. A Five-Tool (Hitting for Average, Fielding, Running, Throwing, Hitting for Power) player gets paid. A Six-Tool (plus steroids) player gets paid even more. It’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell all over again, except this is not the military excusing discrimination — it’s Major League Baseball excusing the use of PEDs.

Let’s face a cold, hard reality: We will only see a change in steroid use in baseball when the reasons NOT to use steroids outweigh the benefits of using them. When a first offense means not the loss of 3% of one’s income as in Ryan Braun’s case, but 97%. When a positive steroid test results in the VOIDING of a multi-million dollar contract or a LIFETIME suspension. When the financial risk of using anabolic steroids finally outweighs the financial reward.

Right now, Major League Baseball isn’t even close. The fans know it. The players know it. And Bud Selig knows it.

Part I

In the bodybuilding world this guy needs no introduction. For the CrossFit and Functional Fitness peeps, let me get you up to speed.

Patrick Arnold or PA as I like to refer to him is an east coast native. He’s an organic chemist who specializes in the research and development of sports supplementation. This guy is to supplements what Robb Wolf is to Paleo, what Greg Glassman is to CrossFit, what Jared is to Subway, and what the Polish are to sausages. As synonymous as Mark McGwire is to home runs! You get the picture.

Funny story actually,  Mark McGwire probably wouldn’t have achieved that record setting season if he didn’t have a little help from the research and development of Patrick Arnold. Patrick introduced the supplement industry to Androstenedione (Andro), which just so happened to be the prohormone Mark McGwire was taking during his record setting season.

Not only that, this dude is so ridiculously passionate about chemistry he actually translated research written in German which led him to develop a designer steroid called tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), more commonly referred to as, “The Clear.”

I know what some of the crossfit purists are thinking right now. The supplement Mark McGwire took was illegal (heaven forbid), and THG was the undetectable steroid that tarnished the career of several Olympic athletes and ignited the BALCO scandal around 2003 after a syringe with trace amounts was obtained and a test was developed in the UCLA Olympic Analytical Laboratory. Holy shit right?

Marion Jones

Put any thoughts of judgment and emotion aside for just one minute now, and hear me out. Let’s look at this objectively. Patrick was just a guy with a lot of drive to unearth tools in performance that had never been used before. He worked hard to achieve elite status through unconventional and innovative methods. Sound familiar?

When Patrick introduced Andro it wasn’t illegal. Shit, I remember in high school everyone was taking it including my dorky, super skinny, stoner friend Senone. Senone, Jesse, and I would train at the YMCA after school 5 days a week and talk supplements. I believe I was taking this awful fat burner called Agent Orange and Jesse was taking good ole’ creatine fartohydrate. Those were the days! In hindsight as much as I scoff to admit it, Senone was the smartest out of all of us. Long story short, the FDA caught wind that it worked and banned it. I’ll save the discussion of pharmaceuticals, supplements, OTC drugs, and the FDA for another day.

Victor Conte

As far as the steroids go let me just disclose a bit about Patrick’s character. He made something truly remarkable and excitedly sold it. He didn’t sedate people and inject them with steroids without their consent.  He got busted and went to prison. He took full responsibility, did his time, and kept his mouth shut. He never sold out, rolled, or squealed on anyone and its 10 years later. The same can’t be said for the BALCO founder Victor Conte who bought the THG for distribution. That isn’t exactly shocking. Anyone who’s watched Pineapple Express and Breaking Bad knows you never trust a drug dealer.

Patrick on the Outside

Undeterred post prison Patrick continued his work in the supplement industry legally. He HAS to be legal or he gets the hose again. Plus he welcomes a challenge. How can he put out products that work with the resources he’s got? It hasn’t come without setbacks. Patrick has continued to put out quality supplements that work even with the DEA jammed so uncomfortably far up his ass the man forever walks funny. So far in fact that one day they took it upon themselves to seize and raid his beautiful 40,000 sq. ft lab and manufacturing facility in 2009 because a couple of baseball players failed a drug test and blamed it on Patrick’s new product called 6-OXO.

The product sample was tested and found to be insufficient in producing a positive drug test, but the damage was done. The lab was destroyed, and all the equipment. Patrick’s proverbial Ferrari went to auction. He was left standing in the rubble with a heavy heart, swallowing another emotional set back, and 6-OXO was pulled off the market.  So long to another effective supplement. May it rest in peace.

These are circumstances that would make an ordinary man throw in the towel and pick a new profession, but Patrick and his business partner Lakhan Boodram continue their work slowly rebuilding with very little capital. I have asked Patrick on more than one occasion. What the hell man? Why don’t you just write a book about the industry, steroids, and debauchery, or go make six figures for an oil company?… something! His answer is simple and the same every time. “Because I’ll never sell out, I can’t imagine doing anything else, and I’ll never leave my business partner hanging.” I don’t blame the guy one bit. That whole book thing didn’t work out so well for Conseco.

It’s admirable to run across honest people that are in a business so cloaked with scandal and exceeding the allowable per capita of swindlers, hustlers, cheaters, liars, and narcissists. The guy is just a good human. The cool thing about Patrick is he’s one of us. He’s approachable and down to earth, and in addition to being a supplement savant, the man actually knows a thing or two about training.

Stay tuned for the interview half of this series where I have Patrick weigh in on training, what he thinks about CrossFit, supplemental things, and a few shenanigans including the cat outside his lab that’s stalking him and possibly some dating advice for fitness minded ladies (wish me luck there). Feel free to check him out anytime at patrickarnoldblog.com.