Posted By:
BigHurleyHick"You have a problem with his use of an over the counter dietary supplement that he openly used?"
I have to agree with you on this one. The substance was legal at the time and not banned in baseball, and had it not been for Mac bringing it into the spot light it may not have become banned in the US.
Players today have lots of legal supplements available to them that just 20 years ago weren't around. Creatine is probably the biggest one, and it's not banned by MLB. If you recall there was this little incident involving Todd Helton and creatine http://www.showmenews.com/2005/Mar/20050322Spor008.asp
I recall many baseball players claimed to use the stuff a couple of years ago.
Greenies of course have been in the game for a long time, but in the late 90's Ephedra products such as Xenadrine were hot products that many ball players took including David Wells who claims his heart got out of whack from taking them, and of course Orioles' pitcher Steve Bechler's death was linked to it. Ephedra products are now banned in the US.
One thing I always thought was interesting to note is that legality of steroids wouldn't really matter, and it should have been up to MLB to ban them for one simple reason. In the off season a player can head down to Mexico or some of the other southern countries and train in the with the aide of steroids without violating any laws.
Of course with the strength of the Player's Union such bans are hard to get in place and then regulated as witnessed in recent years. It's just unfortunate that players such as Ken Caminiti decided to use them and did so with little guidance and research leaving his natural testosterone production in ruins.