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

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.

But saying that he was "set up" is something else.  Who would set up Palmeiro to fall and why?  Did he have enemies in his own clubhouse or somewhere in the MLB?  He doesn't follow up that unusual comment with anything to back the assertion.

Perhaps Palmeiro simply can't fully admit the errors of his ways.  Maybe, in his own mind, he needs a "conspiracy" to make up for the fact that he knowingly took these drugs.  No one can say besides Palmeiro himself.

Yet Palmeiro made another interesting statement to Gomez in that interview: He wants the MLB to make public the names of all 104 players that tested positive in the league's anonymous steroid testing conducted in 2003.  Palmeiro believes his name will not be on that list.

Unlike, say, Alex Rodriguez.  Or reportedly Barry Bonds.  And some 102 other big leaguers.

Palmeiro is right in making this demand.  The league should release all the names. 

Clearly, the Mitchell Report, baseball's "investigation" into steroids in the game, did not go far enough (not that it should surprise anyone).  Yes, names were named in the Mitchell Report, but apparently some guilty players slipped through the cracks.

But if baseball is going to allow certain names to leak out of their 2003 league-wide test at random, then they should put all the guilty parties out there for the world to see.  Then fans would have a true sense of who was using and perhaps why.

Credibility has never been baseball's strong suit.  But making this list public would be a step in the right direction. 

I realize that the '03 test was to remain anonymous and in releasing it, both the players union and numerous lawyers would jump down the league's throat.  But if a compromise was made—something along the lines of what was done when the Mitchell Report was released—then baseball could gain some credibility back.

At least much of the guessing game would end.  And we'd know if Palmeiro was telling the truth.