Prior to this week, the most I’d ever known about anything involving deer came down to: 1) Venison is delicious as long as I convince myself it’s not Bambi and 2) You can buy deer piss in hunting stores. The latter, I’m sure, is common knowledge, but I learned about bottled deer urine in high school, when I thought it would be hilarious to buy two bottles and pour them out in my classrooms. Needless to say, I didn’t have many friends.

But this week the big buzz for the ignorant types like me involves deer antler spray, which apparently possesses some performance-enhancing drug-like qualities. That’s why some people are accusing Ray Lewis of using such a spray to boost his recovery time from his torn triceps injury earlier this season. Of course, Lewis has denied that he would ever consider using a PED to help make sure that he wouldn’t miss the remaining games of his final season, and the whole thing has him agitated to all heck. Heck, I say!

Read the rest of this entry »

Good news for fans of the Milwaukee Brewers and their whole “we’re a small market team playin’ so hard!” thing — baseball prospectus TMZ Sportz is reporting that slugger Ryan Braun’s positive test for banned substances wasn’t caused by steroids, it was caused by “medication he’s taking for a private medical issue”.

We’re told the reigning National League MVP is adamant he has not taken drugs or steroids of any kind.

One source simply told us … “The medication contained banned substances resulting in the positive test.” We’re also told prior to taking the dirty test, Braun had always tested negative for banned substances.

The nature of Braun’s medical ailment is unclear.

You’ve got to love TMZ’s helpful editorial addition of, “before he tested positive for steroids, he tested negative for steroids”. Thanks, guys. Before O.J. Simpson murdered those people he had never been a murder suspect.

There are a lot of other things to consider while wading through TMZ’s knee-deep bullshit as well, like why the doctor who prescribed the medicine to a pro baseball player wouldn’t know or consider that the steroids medicine he’s prescribing wouldn’t cause someone to test positive for steroids, or why if he did know it he wouldn’t have written Braun an exemption. Furthermore, Major League Baseball’s collevtive bargaining agreement (the same one that says you can have exemptions for situations like this) doesn’t allow you to go back and get exemptions for tests you’ve already failed.

I hope the follow-up to this story is that Braun’s private medical issue was “not hitting enough home runs”.

Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Anthony Gonzalez doesn’t know exactly how many people in the NFL are using human-growth hormone, but when he looks at somebody and they’re a lot bigger than him, he’s awfully sure they’re on drugs. So says an interview with IndyStar.com reporter Bob Kravitz.

“How many guys are on it, that’s hard to say,” Gonzalez said. “It could be 10, it could be a hundred or more; either way, it’s too much. But around the league, you see guys on Sunday, and things don’t add up; they don’t look right. I see guys I saw in college, now they’re in the NFL and they look totally different.

“I don’t know how prevalent it is at this point, but to say that it’s not being used, that’s wrong.”

Sure, Anthony Gonzalez might be the football playing equivalent of that guy who shows you a picture of Megan Fox from now and a picture of Megan Fox from eight years ago to prove she had an ear job, and sure, Bob Kravitz makes it sound like Gonzalez showed up to training camp with a sword and shield to fight HGH use in pro football, but he makes a good point. HGH can give you a lot without taking a lot away, and it would be pretty shocking if a colossal portion of professional athletes wouldn’t throw in with that.

And then, uh, then he compares life to a Bradley Cooper movie.

“Before testing, the only way you got caught was if you were arrested with it or ended up on a supplier list.”

He added, “If I could give someone on Wall Street a pill that gives them all the intelligence they need to beat the market — a little bit like (the movie) ‘Limitless’ — and it was illegal but there was no fear of getting caught, I can promise you there would be people lined up around the block for that pill.”

So … voice of reason, whistle-blower, or a guy who gets his mind blown by terrible movies?

[h/t Shutdown Corner]

At this point, even Lance Armstrong thinks he did drugs. It’s like the cop who scared Chris Rock into thinking he’d stolen his own car. Lance just sort of sits there in his tightest yellow shirt, sipping a cup of hot water, wondering whether or not that cough drop he sucked on back in 1995 was a performance enhancing drug (by definition, yes, it was).

Armstrong’s lawyers are still pretty mad about the whole thing, and sent a letter of protest to CBS News Chairman and 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager in regard to the latest 60 Minutes investigation. This is following last week’s quotes from the head of Switzerland’s anti-doping laboratory, who denied that Armstrong had failed a doping test (as opposed to a “dope” test, which would be open-book) during the 2001 Tour de Suisse.

“In the cold light of morning your story was either extraordinarily shoddy, to the point of being reckless and unprofessional, or a vicious hit-and-run job,” lawyer Elliot Peters wrote. “In either case, a categorical on-air apology is required.”

Peters added that the show ignored evidence from Armstrong’s camp prior to the broadcast that the Swiss-related claims were false.

“What is particularly disturbing is that ’60 Minutes’ had access to the true facts, could easily have verified them, and apparently chose instead to broadcast untruths and then layer innuendo on top of the falsehoods,” Peters said.

CBS News spokesman Kevin Tedesco said Wednesday he was unable comment on the letter, but added about the “60 Minutes” report: “We consider this the most thorough investigation into doping in the sport of cycling ever done.”

Demanding an apology from CBS? Good luck. I’ve been waiting like 17 years for an apology for “The Golden Palace”.

I hate the word “doping.” It makes it sound like they rounded up a bunch of bean bag chairs and listened to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers while they got lit with my uncle. But yeah, Lance is getting dangerously close to Roger Clemens territory, where he’s either going to stand on top of the Empire State Building and make shame fingers at us for the rest of our lives or jump his bike off the side of a cliff. There needs to be a definitive conclusion to this. A big “yes” box and a big “no” box, and if “no” is checked, every cyclist worse than Armstrong should legally have to shut the f**k up for eternity.

And if they check yes, we should get a new famous cyclist.

[via LA Times]

In an exclusive interview with Fox Sports, Cleveland Indians' pitcher Paul Byrd admits to taking doctor-prescribed human growth hormone as recently as 2005 for a tumor on his pituitary gland that caused him to have sleeplessness.  In his upcoming book, The Free Byrd Project, he writes:

"Even though there were good things like my time with God that came out of my aloneness in the night, the sporadic periods of fatigue and lack of sleep have really bothered me on the baseball field. Chronic sore throats, an inability to recover and throw bullpens and times of tiredness have all affected while standing on the mound. At the insistence of a close friend, I went and had my hormones checked . . . To my surprise, the doctor told me that I was producing very little growth hormone and prescribed a dosage to help me out. I didn't like sticking a needle in my inner thigh each night but I sure did enjoy the sleep that occurred afterwards. My life changed during that time and I was able to work out more, experience less fatigue and recover quicker from pitching."

Hmm, the effects of HGH sound like heroin. And it adds MPH to your fastball, too?  Aspirin my ass, this is the real wonder drug.

"I wondered if I doubled my prescribed dose, whether or not I would throw harder and have a better and possibly longer career. After all, I had a prescription. Some strange silent voices ran across my brain and had conversations with me as I pulled back the syringe. I remember having thoughts that doing better on the field could mean more money for my family, my charities and even supporting churches. Then I prayed and realized that God was in control of my life and he wouldn't want me making money through cheating the system."

Unless God has a "special interest" in the game, right?  I bet even the Father Almighty uses a bit of inside information when transacting business with heavenly bookmakers. -KD