Source

Excerpt:

“During minor league spring training with the Red Sox in 1999, some of the other guys saw I was hurting,” he writes. “They told me that if I took this stuff, it would make the pain go away and cut my recovery time in half. Shoot, why not? I'm just a country boy; I didn't even think twice.

I was probably using the most back in 2001, when I made the Red Sox rotation out of spring training. About that time I was getting pretty big, and another player introduced me to human growth hormone, which had started to make the rounds in the majors. I got a kit with two bottles: One was filled with some kind of water, and the other was filled with these tiny crystals. I put a few drops into the crystals and -- poof! -- it became liquid. I thought, Boy, what the hell are you putting into your body? But I did it anyway.'
=============================================================


Now I'm not naive enough to believe the there was never a member of the RS who has used roids or HGH but having bad guys in Bonds, Giambi, Canseco & Sheffield as the poster children of the Roid Era made living in ignorance of drug use by members of the Red Sox club....well, more bliss.

Crawford insinuates that HGH/roid use was common place in the Sox clubhouse, I just hope that's an exaggeration on his part. I'd hate to have happy memories of those squads tainted by a drug scandal.

Part of me wonders how credible Crawford is (internal defense mechanism to protect my happy memories)....though I suppose he didn't get paid tons of $ for the ESPN mag. interview.

I find him to be believable. I knew it was only a matter of time before a Sox player was named (aside from Jeremy Giambi and Canseco), of course I never expected the player to out himself. Now I wonder who is next. Crawford opened up a can of worms with his below comments.



Just for reference here are the 2001 Boston Red Sox:
link

Rolando Arrojo
Willie Banks
Rod Beck
Carlos Castillo
Frank Castillo
David Cone
Paxton Crawford
Todd Erdos
Bryce Florie
Casey Fossum
Rich Garces
Sun Woo Kim
Derek Lowe
Pedro Martinez
Allen McDill
Hideo Nomo
Tomo Ohka
Hipolito Pichardo
Bill Pulsipher
Bret Saberhagen
Pete Schourek
Ugueth Urbina
Tim Wakefield
Scott Hatteberg
Marcus Jensen
Doug Mirabelli
Joe Oliver
Jason Varitek
Morgan Burkhart
Brian Daubach
Nomar Garciaparra
Craig Grebeck
Shea Hillenbrand
Mike Lansing
James Lofton
Lou Merloni
Jose Offerman
Calvin Pickering
Angel Santos
Chris Stynes
John Valentin
Israel Alcantara
Dante Bichette
Carl Everett
Darren Lewis
Trot Nixon
Troy O'Leary
Manny Ramirez

Of course Crawford's comments will lead to speculation. Who was that teammate, etc. Unfortunately this is just how it is going to be. I wonder now if the people who are investigating steroids can somehow force Crawford to talk. Is that legal?

Fine, I'll be the first to out someone.

I gotta think El Guapo was on some kind of "human growth hormone."

No reason to lie about his own use, obviously.

But I think, on the other hand, when people are drinking to excess, or using other drugs, whatever, they have a tendency to see/assume/believe that more of the people around them are in the same boat than actually are.

So, what he thought was widespread might have been Dante Bichette, Craig Grebeck, and Bill Pulsipher.

Or not, of course. But I'm not jumping to any conclusions.

Ugueth Urbina
Morgan Burkhart
Brian Daubach
Nomar Garciaparra
Shea Hillenbrand
Jose Offerman
Calvin Pickering
Israel Alcantara
Carl Everett
Troy O'Leary

There, those are my picks. Since we are guessing and all.

This guy?

Really?

Nothing I can see indicates HGH/Steroid use.

Reposted from the general steroids thread, where this story was first hashed out:

Butch Huskey
Reggie Jefferson
Brian Daubach
Mike Stanley
Troy O'Leary
Trot Nixon

Might as well get in on the rumor-mongering and baseless accusations...
Conspicuously absent from the above list:



http://www.boston.com/sports/articles/2004...distrusts_test/



Yeah sure, Nomar.



It's possible he just did the legal stuff, but why so anxious about a false positive?

I am not trying to defend Nomar - I have no idea if he used or not and frankly I wouldn't be completely surprised. Having said that, if he's using a lot of supplements he's at risk for a public perception hit. What if he doesn't fail the drug test, but he's got a laundry list of legal things that sound bad or may become banned in the future - like Andro being legal and then getting banned. If he's taking something now that gets banned later, or even if he used Andro when it was legal, no one wants the user tag hung on them.

I think admitting to Creatine use probably means he's not anxious about a false positive because the public might find out he uses a legal substance that they associate with steroids.

Wow baseless allegations from everyone and a Nomar shirtless pic. Considering Paxton Crawford, Jason Grimsley, Alex Sanchez have all been shown to have used steroids you would think people would realize that being cut doesn't mean on steroids. There are skinny, chubby, and average size guys who took steroids so I really don't understand the point of the Nomar picture unless your trying to make the arguement that you can only get as cut as him by using roids.


What does that say about another fan favorite?


I also went to college with several guys who were more jacked and more cut than Nomar in that picture who worked out all the time and used legal suplements.

Legal supplements are fine.
It's the anxiety over the testing that gets me.
Seems like Tom Cruise attacking the credibility of psychiatrists.
I mean, not quite that bad -- I'm sure there are real issues re: testing.

...But still, Nomar seemed to be unduly nervous.

He hasn't tested positive so apparently theres nothing to be nervous of. Have you ever seen Nomar's pre AB routine, he's all over the place. He is right about a possible false positive completely ruining a players career though. Also never really saw any effects of "roid rage" that are famous indicators. Hell one of the reasons everyone wanted him out of town was his apparent lack of spirit against the Yanks. Also acne is another big one which Nomar apparently didn't have in that picture.

In your guessing, you mysteriously leave out all current Sox players that were also on the 2001 team. You must reside in Egypt, because you are certainly deep in "Da' Nile".
The 3 ton elephant in the room this year is the "diet" of Captain Varitek, who has lost much of his upper body size and even some of the girth on his signature thighs-and with it a lot of his pop. Guys simply don't slim down that much at 34 years of age, nor should a proper diet result in a dramatic loss of muscle mass. Scouts also note the slimmer Trot Nixon as exhibit B, although he is having a fine year and doesn't look as dramatically smaller at face value. As for the pitchers, they are taking illegals for stamina and recovery rather than pure strength, so it is harder to detect/suspect at face value, although drastic fluctuations in velocity seem to be an indicator-Hello Rudy Seanez.

Also, in 2001 many currently banned supplements were available at GNC, including substances like Creatine, Andro. etc., all perfectly legal but in some cases precursors to steroids-pretty much the same thing in terms of effect. I tend to think that most players were going OTC, including Nomar, who has admitted to using legal supplements. The Nomar rumors are discounted by guys, like Gammons, who know his character and work ethic; Most educated opinions think that the notorious SI cover shows a bulked up but not "steroid cut" Nomar. I am not clearing Nomar, only going on the circumstantial evidence that is available. I am not indicting Tek, either, only saying that if we are to throw out baseless accusations based upon rumor and appearance, then he would be at the top of my list. Tek is also a high character/work ethic guy, so it is hard to believe what the eyes are beholding.

I also don't blame a lot of these guys for trying to "keep up with the Bondses", especially 4A types like Kevin Millar and Morgan Burkhart that likely would have been stuck in indie ball without it. As Sammy Sosa said (paraphrase) under oath: "I never took illegal drugs...I never took steroids in the United States." The moral line is very blurred when the baseball culture embraces using enhancers, and a player can get his entire family out of poverty by taking something that 80-90% of players are taking and is perfectly legal in his home country. The blame lies, in this particular order, with the commissioners, owners, players association, and then the players themselves over the last 15+ years.

I'd say its alot more difficult to pack on the muscle mass at 34 than it is to lose it. Maybe Tek used, maybe he didn't but thats not the best indicator of HGH use. Didn't he lead all catchers in HR last season?

Exactly. I work out with a personal trainer with a build like Kapler's. He has won many elite natural bodybuilding contests and gets tested for steroids. He swears he doesn't use anything, and preaches to everyone not to. Some people have great bodies. Of course, it helps that he eats 7 perfect meals a day and eats something with fat in it about 1 meal a month.

On the other hand, I'm not naive about the Sox. Odds are, there have been users. But let's not point fingers. We have no idea who he/they might be.

When Nomar and others were protesting the genesis of testing in MLB, The 2 things that the players were most nervous about were:


Leaks in a system that was promised to be anonymous. CHECK

False positives from tainted OTC products. CHECK...the FDA website

False positives from faulty testing. CHECK.
- Happens everyday to many innocent people in all walks of life. My company tests randomly, and it makes ME nervous, even though I have nothing to hide. Big Brother controlling your piss cup and your destiny should make every intelligent person nervous.-

As a result of agreeing to testing, a witch hunt conducted by the same people that control the testing system and encouraged the 'Roids Renaissance that peaked in 1998.
-CHECKITY CHECK

So, did the players have a right to be nervous?
(Schilling and Kapler had similar concerns, so does their nervousness make them guilty?)

Exactly my point, no one has any idea who was on steroids so to even make any guesses is a waste of time and not fair to those who were clean and are falsely being accused in the witch hunt that is steroid use. So considering that steroid use is now known to have been widely rampent in MLB does this still mean Barry Bonds is the devil for using them too?

Pretty interested to know what other Red Sox players were using it.

Talk about roid rage.. Carl Everett definately fits that mold to a T.

What was the 2002 parking lot incident in that Paxton link?

If 10 people are known to have robbed banks, do you set free Joe Jones who is known to have robbed a bank and taken more money than any of the others?

If you own a convenience store, and 5 kids shoplift from your family's store, do you say "ok, no problem, since the other kids ripped me off too, I won't do anything to you" to the kid who gained the most from stealing from you?

If the bank owner hands you the keys to the safe and tells you that it's okay, and that you won't be arrested, and you see 9 guys before you allowed to walk out the front door with cash, what do you do? Most people would take the money, just like in baseball, where 8-9 out of 10 likely took illegal enhancers.

From this morning's newslinks...

Globe:

Chris Snow and Gordon Edes: Former Sox starter admits steroid use; Crawford says it was 'everywhere' in baseball

``I thought it was a one-time story deal, bro," said Crawford, who at 28 is out of baseball and working on his family's farm in Arkansas. ``If any other reporter called, I was not interested."

The reporter mentioned that he'd covered the Sox for about a decade, including Crawford's time with the club, and didn't know for sure who'd used steroids.

``You didn't know?" Crawford asked, surprise in his voice.

No, the reporter said. How widespread was it? Were there a lot of players?

...

Both Varitek and Wakefield, when informed of Crawford's account, said the scene with needles on the clubhouse carpet sounds difficult to believe. Wakefield called ``ridiculous" the suggestion that a member of the Sox one of those years introduced him to steroids.



From the Herald:

John Tomase - Crawford hits home - Sox react to ex-pitcher’s drug claims


“I think it’s ridiculous that a guy who was here for two months is . . . I don’t know what he’s trying to do,” Wakefield said. “If he admits to taking steroids, that’s his fault. He shouldn’t deface the organization by saying someone else told him to take it. That’s stupid.

“To me he sounds like a guy who’s bitter at the organization. He should be thankful they gave him an opportunity to play. No one forced him to take anything. I remember him not being too bright. That’s what I remember about him.”

Sox manager Terry Francona didn’t arrive until 2004. He said he feels for the club’s holdovers.

“I’ve had the opportunity and delight to see how these guys work their butts off,” Francona said. “Now these guys are, I don’t know if implicated is the right word, associated with all of that. My disappointment is for those guys.”

Amy Nelson, the author of the story, said yesterday Crawford made it clear he would never out a teammate. She said one bit of information that didn’t make the final cut was his disdain for “rats” like Jose Canseco.

“He said if he ever got into a room alone with Canseco, he’d love to do some damage,” Nelson said. “That was one thing he was really adamant about, he would never name names.”

That appeared to be of little consolation yesterday.

“We’re not associated with him now,” said reliever Mike Timlin, an outspoken steroids critic. “It’s part of him cleaning up his own closet. It says in the Bible that no sin will be hidden from God. He’s going to shine his light and apparently it hit Paxton Crawford. It has no bearing on what we’re doing now.”


From ProJo:

Art Martone - Crawford admits use of steroids with Sox

In an interview with Amy K. Nelson -- a freelance writer who has worked for The Providence Journal in the past -- Crawford said he first began using steroids during spring training in 1999. He said the drug was recommended to him by minor-league teammates as a means of reducing pain.

"They told me that if I took this stuff, it would make the pain go away and cut my recovery time in half," he told Nelson. "Shoot, why not? I'm just a country boy; I didn't even think twice. It seemed like everybody else was doing it, so it wasn't a big deal, right?"




Crawford was one of those bit players who is probably bitter that his dreams of making it in the big leagues would never be, partially because of his own failure to control his personal life. It's interesting that he says "everyone" did it. Sounds to me like the classic excuse of a kid who got caught breaking the rules. To someone who lives on the edges, it might appear as if "everyone" does it, but his perspective is clouded by his association with a collection of others who are on the margins, who will never make it. Crawford's universe of "everyone" most likely consists of the Manny Alexanders and Jose Canseco's of the world, and ever encompassed guys like Wakefield, for one.

I wanna know what the parking lot story was, too, and also what these rumors were (quote from the Globe):

"You may remember a 22-year-old version of Paxton Crawford, who in July 2000 with Triple A Pawtucket tossed a seven-inning no-hitter. The next night he fell out of bed in a hotel room in Ottawa and landed on a water glass (that's what he claimed, at least). The rumors that made the rounds suggest a different cause of the gash that cost him 2 pints of blood and a chance to be recalled by the Sox later that month."

Canseco outed a few individuals who were actually guilty. Paxton Crawford basically set the entire 2001 Red Sox team up for questioning. Tough for me to decide who is worse, the guy who calls out steroids users, or the guy who calls out 25 guys, when at least half may be innocent.



The rumor is that he was drunk with a prostitute and there was some disupte, likely over money.

From the Manchester Union Leader:

Alex Speier - Sox Beat: Scandal lands at Fenway

Crawford said that he was introduced to steroids in minor-league spring training in 1999, but that big-league teammates knew about his use of those drugs when they introduced him to HGH and amphetamines in 2001. The former pitcher portrayed an atmosphere in which players talked and laughed openly about steroid use.

Those claims, fairly or not, cast a different light on the pitcher’s former teammates. Four current members of the Sox — Tim Wakefield, Jason Varitek, Trot Nixon and Manny Ramirez — played with Crawford, and were left to address the pitcher’s statements. Perhaps understandably, they did not relish that responsibility.

“I remember (Crawford) being not too bright. That’s what I remember about him,” said Wakefield. “I don’t know what he’s trying to do. If he admits to taking steroids, that’s his fault. He shouldn’t deface the organization by saying someone else told him to take them. That’s stupid.”

Though Crawford’s former teammates said they were unaware of his use, they were unsurprised to hear that a Red Sox tried to gain an edge with illegal substances. Already, the franchise endured other incidents in which their players were tied to the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Police found steroids in the car of former infielder Manny Alexander in 2000, and minor-league pitcher Felix Romero was suspended and subsequently released after failing a test for PEDs last year. Former Sox player Jeremy Giambi (brother of Jason) told the Kansas City Star last year that he used steroids throughout his career. Jose Canseco boasted of his steroid use throughout a career that included a stint in Boston in 1995-96.

Crawford’s tell-all is more damning, however, because it implicates not just himself but the entire culture of the Sox. While his statements thus carry a certain shock value, that shock was somewhat muted in the Sox clubhouse by a sense that revelations about use by an ex-teammate were inevitable.

Pawtucket prostitute? Unheard of...

This article makes it sound like the Red Sox have been some cheating franchise for the past year because of Jeremy Giambi (had 127 ABs with the Sox), Jose Canseco (who played for 7 teams, and spent two years in Boston), Felix Romero (some guy who never got past High-A and has since been released), and Manny Alexander (194 ABs with the Sox). Kind of misleading.

yeah, right. What's Paxton going to do to Canseco, leave a drinking glass on a chair and invite him to sit down.

Ultimately his story does not matter. You can print the list of all his teammates from 2001. You can list every Major League ballplayer from 2001. No one is beyond suspicion. No one. That's how pervasive steroid use was. The entire era is tainted. If the balls weren't juiced, the players were.
I'm not so niave to think that Red Sox players are more wholesome and upright than players on other teams, and would never take performance enhancing drugs. Nor am I going to be like the NCAA and say this player on this team was cheating - erase the entire year from the record books.

So you can go down the list and say 'this guy was. He's dead to me.' or 'this guy wouldn't have. he couldn't have," or for your own sanity, you can put an asterix on the entire era and move on.

Myself, I'd like to know exactly who.
Though I know I probably never will.
So until more details emerge, I'm over this.



There once was a whore from Pawtucket...

That means nothing. Any picture that appears in print that contains a professional picture, such as the one you mention, has been airbrushed and touched up. It's a fact of advertising, so just because you don't see any acne on Nomar Garciaparra's body in the photo does not mean he did not have it at that time. Also, isn't the acne supposed to be on the back?

I think what points towards Garciaparra's possible use is his injuries, which were both ligament injuries if I recall correctly.


I don't about all that, but Jason Varitek did have the best line ever in regards to this story:

If you gave her a nickel, she'd suck it
The herpes were free
Just like ol' gonorrhee
And for only a dollar, she'd ----


All this Crawford thing does is confirm that the Sox were not exempt from what was happening in baseball. That's all. So we can't pretend, "No, no Red Sox player ever did it while they were part of this team." And we shouldn't have been pretending that in the first place when we know that, if nothing else, a couple of marginal players (Giambi, Alexander), and a guy who was passing through (Canseco) were involved.

But ok. So the Sox are not this shining light of purity in an era of cheaters. So what? Not shocking. Barely even disappointing, all things considered. But nothing Crawford said either exonerates or casts further suspicion on the guys who were fan favorites, the guys who were stars, the guys who were anything more than a footnote in Sox history, or even the guys who were just a footnote like him. We don't know. So, now it's fresh in our minds, and we're prone to speculation. Great. None of his comments that I've read offer any evidence on which to base that speculation. "Some teammates." Yeah. No sh*t. I could have guessed as much. "Everyone was doing it." Yeah. So said the pregnant 6th grader, too.

I'm glad he spoke up. I'm glad David Segui spoke up. Any player that wants to step forward and say, they were part of it, great. And I certainly won't call any one of them a "victim" -- but I don't think that they are necessarily all villains, either. But any further confirmation that there was a widespread problem (we assume this to be the case, but have little firm proof) only gives baseball more impetus to solve any current problem. That's what I'm concerned with. If steroids were part of baseball culture, then so be it. It is, as yaz says, the era that is tainted.

In terms of punishing players, though, or ruining reputations -- baseball wasn't doing much to change its culture in 2001, was it? Baseball is taking baby steps in that direction now, though. It's the ongoing cheaters that I have a real problem with.

Ah, I found it. This is a Gammon's article from a year ago May that I remembered reading. It's about Nomar, roids, weight training and weight gaining and the famous SI cover. Take it for what it is worth.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/gammons/story?id=2055896

[quote name='RedSoxAnni' date='Jun 22 2006, 10:55 AM' post='540373']
From the Manchester Union Leader:

Alex Speier - Sox Beat: Scandal lands at Fenway


"Crawford’s tell-all is more damning, however, because it implicates not just himself but the entire culture of the Sox"

It wasn't the culture of the Red Sox, but the culture of MLB. This guy should stick to writing the Manchester High School lunch menu.

There was simply no moral high ground for an organization to take. For example, lets take mid 1990's to early 2000's Red Sox. If Duquette was to write off acquiring certain players based upon even strong suspicion of illegal PEDs, and was forced to deal productive, but suspected users on his own team based upon some ill perceived moral compass, then the Sox would simply be at a huge competitive disadvantage. It would also be highly impractical. As has been said by many, put an asterisk on the ERA and move on. Going forward, be as vigilant as possible in curbing use.