Rafael Palmeiro Is Right: The MLB Should Release the Steroid List

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

I can't say I believe Rafael Palmeiro.  The former player, who is one of the few in baseball history to hit 500 home runs while collecting 3,000 hits, still will not admit that he willfully took the steroids that resulted in his 2005 positive test and resultant suspension.

He recently told ESPN's Pedro Gomez, "I made a mistake.  I didn't really understand what I was taking and I paid for it. I paid for it very dearly. Life goes on."

Palmeiro claims that what he took was a tainted vitamin B-12 shot, given to him by another player.  He did not, he maintains, willingly take steroids.

Congress, in its investigation into whether Palmeiro should have be charged with perjury for lying to them when he stated, "I have never used steroids. Period." could not find a single instance where a B-12 shot had been tainted with a steroid—unless someone had intentionally mixed the two.

The "other player" from which Palmeiro received this injection from was reportedly former teammate Miguel Tejada.  Tejada had the honor of being the first MLB player to plead guilty to Congress for lying to a congressional investigator during its probe into steroids and baseball. 

Tejada had hidden the facts regarding another teammate (this time, a player on the A's) and that he himself had a hand in purchasing HGH.

So perhaps Tejada lied to Palmeiro, too.  Perhaps Palmeiro was just foolish for believing his teammate's insistence that it was indeed simply a vitamin B-12 shot.  And perhaps Palmeiro got the shaft.

Or perhaps was a career steroid user.

In looking at Palmeiro's career stats, it's hard to pinpoint a moment when he might have started using.  When he came into the big leagues as a member of the Chicago Cubs, the knock against him was his lack of power. 

He could hit for average, sure.  But first base is a power position.  And the belief has always been that the Cubs shipped him to Texas because he couldn't hit the ball out of Wrigley Field.

Come his fifth year in the league, Palmeiro began to prove Chicago wrong.  With the Rangers, Palmeiro found his power stroke.  Was that the sign he started using steroids?

Hard to say for certain.  When that power stroke arrived, Palmeiro was 27 years old, the normal age a player sees a "break out" season in the bigs.  In fact, despite hitting over 500 home runs in his career, Palmeiro never hit more than 47 home runs in a season.  And his yearly stats were always rather consistent.

So maybe Palmeiro's right when he told Gomez, "I've heard a lot of things out there that are wrong.  People saying I took drugs all my life, I've never touched anything. I worked my butt off my whole career, as a kid, in college, the big leagues, I didn't need anything, I didn't have to cheat at the end of my career, for what?

"What was I going to gain from it? Whatever I took was tainted, had to have been. There's no other reason unless I got set up."

Palmeiro is correct in the assessment that a player shouldn't suddenly decide to use steroids during their final season in the big leagues.  Not after the career numbers he put up.  And not after pointing an accusing finger at Congress and making the statement he did.

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