Back in March of this year, Congress dragged a slew of current and past baseball players and executives before a subcommittee in D.C. Banshee Blog was highly critical of these hearings, but they apparently did succeed in creating a semi-respectable steroid policy for Major League Baseball. One of the players who testified in March was Rafael Palmeiro of the Baltimore Orioles. Palmeiro was first linked to steroids in Jose Canseco's tell-all book. Under oath, Palmeiro pointed his finger and vehemently denied ever using steroids. Well, Pameiro's most recent urine test tells a different tale.
Today, baseball handed down a 10-day suspension for violating the league's steroid ban. This comes just on the heels of Palmeiro becoming only the fourth person in the history of the game to accumulate 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. Palmeiro accepted the punishment levied by MLB, but didn't really admit to guilt. Palmeiro said, "When I testified in front of Congress, I know that I was testifying under oath and I told the truth. Today I am telling the truth again that I did not do this intentionally or knowingly." Palmeiro claims that the substance must have been part of an unprescribed dietary supplement that he was using.
Okay, I can believe that a person could accidentally ingest a banned substance as part of an envelope-pushing yet legal dietary supplement. I can certainly see this happening in a shabby hotel room during your days in the Carolina League. But, Rafael Palmeiro is not an ignorant kid playing A ball in Durham, N.C. Palmeiro is a potential hall of famer. He is a man who was recently named as a steroids user. And, most importantly, he is a man who raised his hand before Congress and said that he never ever used steroids. After all of that, there is no way that Palmeiro was carelessly putting random mass-builders into his body without finding out what was in them.
