The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is obvious, baseball player Rafael Palmiero who is now suspended from baseball for ten games due to steroid use. Below is part of a Baltimore Sun article that seriously damages Mr. Palmiero's claim he took steroids inadvertently.

By Jonathan Bor
Sun Staff
Originally published August 2, 2005

Authorities on steroid use said they find it hard to believe slugger Rafael Palmiero's assertion that he unknowingly took a steroid that triggered a positive drug test, leading to his 10-day suspension from baseball.

It is remotely possible, they said, that trace amounts of a banned steroid contaminated a legal substance that the Oriole first baseman was taking. But if that's what happened, his cryptic statement yesterday offered no evidence.

"Not knowing what he was taking unfortunately leads to lots of speculation," said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, an internist with New York University and a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency's medical research committee.

Speculation is centering on nandrolone, a steroid-like compound that has turned up in trace amounts in some dietary supplements.

Recent studies found that that supplement's makers didn't always clean equipment sufficiently to keep it out of products made in the same facilities.Some athletes who have been disciplined after testing positive for steroids blamed contamination for the results.

"No question, it takes very tiny amounts in micrograms to produce positive urine tests," Wadler said.

"And you could get an athlete who believes in protein powders, reads the label that says all the right things, and the next thing you know he's positive."

"Whatever happened, he said, Palmeiro could end the speculation by being forthcoming."

Candor is what's called for," Wadler said. "That's what this case needs, not obfuscation, not wordsmithing."

Others were more skeptical."This is perilously close to 'the dog ate my homework,'" said Dr. Charles Yersalis, a Pennsylvania State University epidemiologist who studies doping in competitive sports.

"I don't know Palmeiro, but elite athletes don't do cowboy chemistry. They don't walk into the store and say, 'This stuff looks neat. I'll try it.' Generally they have nutritional handlers, advisers, sports physicians, trainers."

Dr. Bill Howard, a surgeon specializing in sports medicine at Union Memorial Hospital, said he can't imagine any nonsteroid substance that would trigger a positive steroid result.

"Whatever it is - pill, capsule, shake that causes him to be positive for steroids - he ought to tell us what it is," Howard said. "I just flat don't believe it."

I don't either Doctor. For being a liar and a drug abuser, Rafael Palmiero is today's Knucklehead of the Day.