Ankiel, Glaus caught with steroids, ESPN spin machine in overdrive, will PGA test for HGH?

Boy, right as I was eating up the Rick Ankiel story hook line and sinker, here’s word he got a years worth of human growth hormone. From the article:

The pitcher-turned-outfielder is the latest athlete to be linked to the Florida pharmacy at the center of an investigation by the Albany County (N.Y.) district attorney’s office into the illegal Internet distribution of performance-enhancing drugs.The feel-good story of the baseball season, Ankiel drove in seven runs Thursday and has been a hitting star for the Cardinals since he was called up from the minors last month. He was once a young phenom on the mound with St. Louis before an embarrassing bout of wildness and injuries derailed his pitching career.

Citing records the newspaper obtained, the Daily News said Ankiel got eight shipments of human growth hormone from Signature Pharmacy in Orlando from January to December 2004, including Saizen and Genotropin, two injectable drugs.

Florida physician William Gogan signed Ankiel’s prescriptions, providing them through a Palm Beach Gardens clinic called The Health and Rejuvenation Center, or THARC, the newspaper reported.

The drugs were shipped to Ankiel at the clinic’s address, the paper said. The 28-year-old Ankiel lives close by in Jupiter.

When contacted by The Associated Press, Ankiel’s agent, Scott Boras, said he couldn’t comment because of medical privacy laws.

Uhh, Scott, that only covers the physician. You can say whatever you want.

Here’s the worse news: ESPN is already spinning the story, doing whatever it can to prtect the athlete. They rolled out Tim Kirkjian – playing on his repoutation for veracity to instead sell us steroids – and he said this “only proves he RECEIVED steroids…not that he USED them.”

ESPN is the sports equivalent of the schoolyard drug-dealer selling us their fetid sports crack. Are we really supposed to believe that he ordered the steroids for ANY OTHER PURPOSE? Perhaps even some imaginary legitimate purpose? Disgusting.

Next, Troy Glaus’ name has come up as well. Here’s the story.

Finally, while this story says the PGA TOUR will possibly begin testing in 2008 – if they have the same policy as the LPGA, what’s the point? HGH, the drug of choice is not on the banned substance list nor tested for. You might as well give cheaters a blueprint and go back to counting your money.

Later this year, I’ll be posting an interview with Dr. Gary Wadler of WADA, the World Anti-Doping agency. You will NEVER AGAIN ASK “How can steroids help a guys golf swing?” He lays out not only how a body can be carefully built into one which increases distance incredibly, but also how to cocktail other banned substances to help out on putting and chipping. Believe it.

Speaking of interviews, that Pete Dye interview is being used in print soon, so as soon as the excerpts appear on the news stands, than I’ll be able to post some other snippets as well.