Doping so far in 2010

Every few days I get an email from central baseball announcing that a professional ballplayer has been suspended for violating the sport's drug policy. So far this year I've had 49 such announcements, which represents something like one per cent of all players in organized baseball.

From one angle this is a lot. If you assume tests catch a tenth of users, which may be generous, these results would imply that 10 per cent of ballplayers are doping. From another, it isn't. Even if 20 per cent are doping, that's well below alarmist estimates.

Take it as you will, the number of failures is probably less interesting than the pattern of failures. A quick analysis of the 49 failures reveals the following:

• 27 per cent of failures were for proscribed stimulants: Amphetamines, mephentermine, methylhexaneamine, Ritalin and phenmetrazine.
• 10 per cent of failures were for drugs of abuse.
• The remaining 63 per cent of failures were for steroids.

There were 13 failures for stanzolol, nine for nandrolone, four for boldenone, three for formestane, one for andarine, and one for both boldenone and nandrolone.

Stanzolol is a common bodybuilding steroid also known as Winstrol. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro were all linked to it more or less credibly; obnoxious fighters Phil Baroni and Chris Leben have tested positive for it.

Nandrolone is another common bodybuilding steroid also known as Deca-Durabolin, to which Bonds and Clemens have also been linked. Royce Gracie failed a drug test with this stuff in his system.

(I'll note here how disappointing it is that rich ballplayers and fighters didn't, in the aughts, seem to have access to much better drugs than meatheads at the local gym did.)

Boldenone, better known as Equipoise, is a horse steroid. Stephen Bonnar and Josh Barnett have tested positive for it.

Formestane is an aromatase inhibitor; it's not magical dope in its own right, but is taken with other drugs to, among other things, prevent the growth of breasts. Drug testing skeptics can note that the three players who tested positive for bitch tit avoidance didn't test positive for drugs that would cause bitch tits.

I don't know much about andarine, but if you Google it up you'll see that at bodybuilding forums people seem to be worried that it might have some really bad side effects.

So that's what the low-IQ segment of the doping population is taking. Who does this population comprise?

• 45 per cent of players suspended were born in the Dominican Republic.
• 31 per cent of players suspended were born in the United States.
• 20 per cent of players suspended were born in Venezuela.
• Two per cent of players suspended were born in Cuba, and another two per cent in Mexico.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact that players born in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela are getting a disproportionate number of doping suspensions. They might be taking more drugs. The language barrier might be hurting them, either by making it hard for them to understand what they're not allowed to take or by making it hard for them to figure out which masking agents to use. Who knows?

Some facts, though, are suggestive:

• All but one of the American failures were for stimulants or drugs of abuse, and the one steroid failure was for the relatively exotic andarine.
• Of the 10 Venezuelan failures, seven were for nandrolone, and that out of nine total failures for the drug.
• Of the 22 Dominican Republic failures, 20 were for steroids. Dominicans accounted for 10 of 13 stanzolo failures.

I don't know whether this is indicative of bad information being spread among countrymen, of common suppliers or of nothing at all, but it's interesting.

Finally, 40 per cent of positive tests came from position players (14 per cent from infielders, 24 per cent from outfielders, and two per cent from catchers, who are after all the smartest players on the field) and 60 per cent from pitchers. Limiting it to steroids, though, the split was 81 per cent to 19 per cent in favor of pitchers. Make of it what you will.