Clinical Codes

Another bombshell has hit the sports world today to go along with the Phelps pot scandal earlier in the week. Alex Rodriguez the Yankees slugger was reported to have tested positive for steroids back in 03 according to a sources that were released to Sports Illustrated.* With this devastating announcement, one can only imagine what lies in store for A-Rod and the world of baseball?

This brings some credibility to Canseco’s allegations last year. If being caught with Madonna was not enough this latest incident puts Rodriguez’s reputation and fame in even more dire straits. Even though it was back in 03 and not recently that this incident took place, this was the year A-Rod won the MVP award for the AL. This brings into question of how many of his big home run years were accomplished with the help of performance enhancing drugs. Clearly this is another shot in the arm to A-Rod’s reputation making him the latest player to be convicted of taking illegal substances in the MLB.

Clearly this makes baseballs reputation hang in the balance once again. Ever since the Mitchell report, there has been a relative loll in the amount of attention that the steroids scandal has obtained. Now this brings back to light the greatest problem to attack sports ever since the black socks scandal of 1919. Ever since the homerun chase of 1998 steroids have played a significant role in any player’s power surge. This distinctly alters the outcomes of many games and has many a fan, including myself, wondering if this game …

When Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s career home run record, the wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued. Baseball records hold, for many, a hallowed position in the country’s history. The game, somehow, held an innocence for many, a “purity” that was suddenly tainted. Suspicions of steroid use contributing to the home run chase that “saved baseball” in 1998 tainted that moment for many. Now, after the look to the future in which Alex Rodriguez was supposed to return the sanctity of the home run record by eventually and cleanly beating Bonds’ career total has fizzled, another round of moaning has erupted from the baseball purists.

Baseball is, indeed, steeped in tradition. When Curt Flood fought against his trade to the Phillies in 1969, the Supreme Court said, in essence, that while the situation smacked of antitrust concerns, this was baseball, and it should be left alone. When Roger Maris took more games to reach 61 home runs than Babe Ruth had to reach 60, his record received an asterisk – a notation that many people now assert should be applied to every record broken in this era.

The truth is, change does happen, even to baseball. Free agency exists in a way Curt Flood could only yearn for when he played. Black players, non-existent in the major leagues before Jackie Robinson, now play for every team – and are surrounded by Hispanic and Japanese players as well. And, at some point in the development of the sport, performance-enhancing drugs entered the scene.

We do not, of course, know when this …

Today was supposed to be a day filled with excitement and optimism. It was a day when baseball fans were supposed to start looking at their favorite teams and begin to break down all of the new names and faces. Today, after all, is the first day that pitchers and catchers were allowed to report to spring training. Unfortunately, instead of doing those things I mentioned, the baseball world has focused its attention to Capital Hill and the circus that surrounded yesterdays Roger Clemens hearing. Welcome to the Sports World in 2008.

It’s been nearly 3 years since that first congressional hearing that will go down in history as one of the most memorable days in baseball history. The point of that hearing was to clean up the steroid situation in baseball and find ways to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. Well, 3 years later can we say either of those has happened? In my opinion things have only gotten worse. When all of this steroid talk initially started, I was like many of the fans around country. I wanted names, and I wanted them now. I wanted to know whether some of the amazing feats I had witnessed were accomplished legitimately, or if I was witnessing someone who cheated to get to the top of the mountain.

As time has passed though, I wish we wouldn’t have been so curious or in such a rush to judge these players. I don’t want to come across as defending any of the players who cheated, or even as someone who …

Mickey Rourke is still getting countless raves, and a possible Oscar in two days, for The Wrestler. Rourke is making it big again in part because the ravages of his character parallel so close to his own in real life. But this isn’t the only area where The Wrestler may be a case of art imitating life. Scott Siegel, a debut actor who Rourke got cast as a steroid dealer in The Wrestler, has been arrested for steroid dealing in real life.

According to the DEA, Scott Siegel was arrested on Wednesday night after officers found 1,500 bottles of steroids and over $100,000 dollars in two homes. Siegel made things even worse for himself when he attempted to flee after cops closed in on him.

Siegel reportedly drove his car through a fence and smashed into five police cars while attempting to escape the scene. Later, he led police through another brief chase in Eastchester before finally getting caught.

The steroids that reportedly belong to Siegel were found in a Lake Isle townhouse, with packaging material for steroids found in Siegel’s home. Up to $70,000 was found in both homes as well, according to the feds.

Scott Siegel is not a professional actor, and was literally plucked out of nowhere by Mickey Rourke to appear in The Wrestler. Rourke found Siegel in a club one night, according to an interview he gave on Jimmy Kimmel Live weeks back. Siegel’s physique and appearance inspired Rourke and director Darren Aronofsky to approach Siegel for a part in the film.

Siegel, being a …

Chris Benoit, a famous WWE wrestler, is found dead in his house, along with his wife and 7 year old son Daniel. The police first speculated that it was a homicide and that an outsider entered the house and killed the family. Further investigations lead police to conclude that Chris Benoit had killed his family before fatally shooting himself in the head. Chris, like most other wrestlers in his profession, has been a long time steroid user. Therefore, as soon as the police uncovered the reality of what happened, the media and news papers went on to blame steroids by claiming that it was “Roid rage” that took the lives of the Benoit family. Unfortunately, this has been the fate of steroids for the past couple of decades. Hasty generalizations, shallow assumptions and a misled public have given steroids a permanent taboo label of causing harm to those who take them. However, the reality is that steroids, in reasonable doses, are harmless. This constant misleading of the public must stop, because steroids have many beneficial benefits, that can better people in many ways. Even the latter statement is arising anger and denial in many of those out there hearing it. But why? What is fueling this anger? Where is your proof? Almost all of you have based your information on what people have told you. The general public isn’t always right. At one point in history, men were ridiculed and even persecuted when they said the earth was round. Even when science proved the latter was right, people still had …

To understand how to build lean muscle and have the physique that you’ve always wanted you have to understand that there are three different very distinct body types.

For those blessed with good genetics lean muscle building can be a very easy task as it is for mesomorphs ( the people with natural low body fat percentages with good lean muscle such as fitness models and athlete types) and for others such as people that were born as ectomorphs (the naturally skinny body type that people that struggle with their weight and are hated because they can eat anything and never gain a pound). The third body is the most undesireable and the one that most of America is beginning to know themselves classified as and that is the endomorph (naturally fat or “big boned”, able to eat nothing and still gain weight).

All three body types have very different ways of responding to diet and exercise. In this article I will make it very simple on how all three body types can benefit from diet, exercise, and using legal steroids to optimize the physique they intend on having. Steroids have become very taboo over the years due to steroid abuse. There are many different steroids out there and the ones most commonly abused are injectable steroids, these steroids seem to gain the most results. This makes this particular group of steroids more addictive than the other group of steroids which are taken orally, furthermore their side effects on vital organs such as the liver are less damaging than oral …

The war on drugs has lead to a lot of casualties and to a heavy enforcement of the “tough on crime” approach. It’s also lead to skyrocketing prison populations, despite proof that there are huge benefits to legalizing drugs rather than increasing the levels of punishment dished out for drugs. However, while everyone knows that drugs like marijuana (and its non-drug cousin hemp), cocaine, crystal meth and a slew of other drugs are on the list most people might not know that anabolic steroids have become a prisoner of war under the banner of saving the children of the United States from drugs and the danger they possess.

Let’s set aside the hypocrisy of leaving threats like alcohol and any sort of tobacco that you smoke legal for a moment and examine anabolic steroids. Anabolic steroids, while the name is scientific and scary, are just artificial hormones. Birth control pills work off of hormones, for instance, which makes them a steroid.

Now, if you paid attention in sex education you’d know that men and women produce sex hormones testosterone and estrogen respectively. Most steroids that we’re concerned about, the ones used to boost performance and muscle building, are simple artificial versions of testosterone. You see, testosterone helps your body develop and it is responsible for the addition of muscle mass. So by pouring more testosterone into your system, you’re flooding it with hormones that helped you grow your muscles as you matured, and it helps you add more muscle even if you’re already an adult (though you’ve still got to …

A-Rod. Sammy Sosa. Manny Ramirez. Barry Bonds. And now, Big Papi, David Ortiz.

Five baseball superstars. Five tainted athletes. Five wronged men.

These five, of course, have been exposed as having tested positive for a banned substance in the now-infamous 2003 test approved by Major League Baseball and the Player’s Association. A test of which the results, who tested positive or not, were to forever remain anonymous. Well, nothing lasts forever. Certainly not promised anonymity. The consequences? A-Rod, Manny, and big, lovable, beloved David Ortiz, branded with an invisible scarlet S for steroids. They have been done wrong.

Hey, I’m as big a baseball fan as there is. The purist in me is devastated that whoever used steroids forever derailed the integrity of the game. However, the pragmatist in me knows that the real world is infinitely more complicated that the simplicity of an idealized world of baseball. In reality, it’s a hard game, played by hard men who constantly have to make HARD decisions. I may not like the decision that AT LEAST 104 of these men made, but I understand the circumstances in place that drove them to enhance their body performances.

104 men. Until recently, they thought they were protected from the truth being known. They were promised that in an agreement. For the five men who have been outed, what a way to learn the lesson that agreements are too often not worth the paper they’re written on.

Wait a minute…there are 99 others on that list. In light of what the five confirmed steroid cheaters …

With every other week seemingly bringing news about some professional athlete’s positive steroid or doping test, it seems like each athlete comes up with their own unique, bizarre excuse. Here are the top 5 excuses.

1. Roger Clemens “He must have misremembered.”

When questioned by the congressional committee on why his friend and teammate Andy Pettitte claimed that Clemens admitted using human growth hormone (HGH), Clemens replied with “Pettitte must have ‘misremembered him'”. Not only did Clemens embarrass himself with a ridiculous excuse, he created a new term for the urban dictionary. Despite being dominant on the pitching mound, Clemens showed he is overmatched when attempting to use proper grammar and English.

2. Marion Jones “I didn’t love myself enough.”

Marion Jones won 3 gold medals and 2 silver medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics while on a designer steroid known as the “clear”. Jones claims she thought she was taking flaxseed oil until federal prosecutors questioned her with a vial of the steroid present. She claims to have recognized what she was taking as the vial, but still decided to deny taking the steroid because she knew that her medals would be questioned. When Jones went on the Oprah Winfrey show after being released from federal prison for lying about steroid use, she said the reason that she lied about the steroid usage was because, “I didn’t love myself enough to tell the truth”.

3. Tyler Hamilton “I have two kinds of blood because my twin died in utero. I am a chimera.”

Cyclist Tyler Hamilton tested positive for …

Corticosteroids such as Prednisone are commonly prescribed for a number of illnesses. When used for a respiratory infection or a rash, the course of steroids for these illnesses is usually short and the side effects have a minimum effect on the patient. When steroids are prescribed for a chronic autoimmune disease such as lupus, arthritis or Crohn’s Disease, the side effects can be more serious.

Steroids stop the body’s immune system from working, which is why doctors prescribe them to patients with autoimmune disease. People with these diseases have overactive immune systems. Steroids stop the immune system from working, but they make patients more likely to get serious infections as well as conditions from the side effects of the steroids. Let you doctor know if you have any of the following side effects from steroids.

Here are some of the most common side effects caused by steroids when used for short periods:

∙ · Increased blood pressure

∙ · Weight gain with fat deposits developing in your face, abdomen and back of the neck

∙ · Fluid retention

∙ · Mood swings

If treatment with steroids is prolonged, other side effects may occur. Some of them include:

∙ · Diabetes from high blood sugar

∙ · Fractures due to loss of calcium

∙ · Bleeding in the stomach or Gastric Ulcers

According to the Mayo Clinic, http://www.mayoclinic.com, steps can be taken to reduce some of the side effects of steroids. It is important to work with your doctor to make the best health plan for you. Here are some of …