Steroid use by athletes is back in the news. But you won't find any scientific study detailing the drug's effects. Just stories from people who have seen them -- and experienced them.

By THOMAS ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 4, 2002

[Times photo: 2000] Former Devil Ray and 1988 American League most valuable player Jose Canseco admitted in meetings with potential book publishers last month that he used steroids while he was in the majors.

It was called the Mirkin Questionnaire, and it was distributed to nearly 1,000 track and field athletes across America in 1983. One of the questions -- it turned out to be the most famous question -- was this:

Would you take a performance-enhancing drug that would help you to win an Olympic gold medal, even if you knew that drug would kill you within a year?

Nearly 80 percent of the athletes who responded answered "Yes."

Surprised?

You shouldn't be. There's fame and fortune in Olympic gold medals. Or at least that's the perception.

(Quick. Name three Americans who won gold at the 2000 Summer Olympics.)

(I couldn't, either.)

Steroids are in the news again now that former baseball MVPs Jose Canseco and Ken Caminiti have admitted using them -- and accused many other big leaguers of doing so.

With sports heroes acknowledging they've been bulking up chemically, fans are wondering about the rash of record-setting performances. The recent home run records, are they real or drug induced?

Scientists and health experts are saying now they aren't sure of the long-term effects of steroids. Not enough formal studies. All the evidence is anecdotal.

And then you talk to people who used steroids. People who don't work for a health care organization, a pharmaceutical company or a government agency. People who aren't compiling a study.

Bob Hodge has a Vito Corleone voice and biceps as wide as a watermelon. From 1977 until he sold the business in 2000, Hodge owned the Iron Works Health Club in St. Petersburg. It was a premier gym for weightlifters, and it attracted many of the top bodybuilders in the Tampa Bay area. A hands-on owner, Hodge was usually at the gym every day.

"All the big football players, the bodybuilders and the wrestlers, they know their time isn't long," Hodge said last week from his home in northern Alabama. "So they've got to make it quick. In and out. But building muscles naturally takes years, and there's a limit to how much you can gain.

"None of those really big guys are natural. Everybody knows that. The body just doesn't build that much muscle."

To illustrate his point, Hodge told of a young man who weighed 160 pounds when he began training.

"All of a sudden he shot up to 230 pounds and was bench-pressing 325. He was a monster. When he stopped taking steroids, he went down to about 160 pounds."

Hodge, who is 6 feet 1 and 275 pounds, said he used steroids when he started bodybuilding. "But the amount I did in a year would be less than what they use in a day now," he said.

"I knew guys who were doing a bottle of Dianabol a day. About 95 pills, 5 milligrams each."

The results, Hodge said, were predictable. Huge muscles and health problems.

"One kid ended up losing his gall bladder. Another had kidney damage. And then there were all the other more minor problems.

"You see, steroids make muscles stronger and bigger. What they don't do is make your tendons stronger. A lot of guys ruptured their biceps tendons doing curls. I know a guy who was on a lot of steroids who ripped the insertion to one of his pectoral muscles. They had to open his arm and reinsert it. It was terrible.

"Guys ripped out their legs, knees, shoulders . . . all because their muscles got so much stronger than their tendons."

Where did they get the drugs?

"Ever been to Tijuana?" Hodge asked. "There are drugstores down there that have shelves and shelves of steroids. These guys come from California and buy thousands of dollars worth of drugs and drive it back and sell it."

But you could also get steroids closer to home. If you knew the right person. Or even if you didn't.

Hodge said he went to see a St. Petersburg physician, whom he declined to identify, to get treatment for a shoulder injury several years ago.

"I walked in, and the nurse asked me if I was on the steroid program. I turned around, and I'd say there were half a dozen other guys sitting there waiting for a prescription. Lifters. Guys I knew.

"I walked out and never went back."

But the fact remains that if you want to get big in a hurry, steroids work. And like those who drink and drive or abuse other drugs, steroid users think the bad stuff will happen to somebody else.

Meanwhile, the bar keeps rising.

"I picked up a bodybuilding magazine a couple of weeks ago, and these guys are monsters now," Hodge said. "They've gone past big muscles. They look like cartoon characters.

"They're definitely on drugs. Either growth hormones or steroids or both.

"That's the thinking. If one (pill) works, six will work twice as good."

Ironically, if some of the top athletes in the world took steroids, their careers would probably be ruined. If Michael Jordan took steroids, he'd never be able to do what he has done during his career. He wouldn't have the flexibility and touch he needs. The same is true for Tiger Woods, Tom Glavine, Pete Sampras, Joe Montana, Randy Johnson and countless others.

But some athletes don't need a lot of flexibility. They need strength, especially as they get older. Home run hitters, for instance.

Barry Bonds says he doesn't use steroids. But a suspicious person could look at the numbers Bonds put up in the last couple of years and wonder if he had help. Before 2001, Bonds never hit more than 49 homers in a season. As recently as 1998, when he played a full season, he hit 37.

By comparison, Hank Aaron, baseball's all-time home run leader, never hit more than 47 homers in a season.

And then presto -- Bonds had an epiphany last year and clubbed 73 balls out of the park. Not five or 10 more homers than his best year ever. Twenty-four more. And Bonds isn't a kid. He'll be 38 on July 24, which means he's at the age when most hitters start to show a marked decrease in bat speed. Home run hitting, big leaguers say, is all about seeing the ball and bat speed.

How did Bonds do that?

You could make the Roger Maris "miraculous season" argument. In 1960, the year before Maris hit what was then a record 61 homers, he hit 39. The following year, he had 33.

Did Maris take steroids?

No. He smoked cigarettes.

The question is whether athletes, or anybody, wants to roll the dice with their health by taking steroids. When do you say to yourself, "It's just not worth the risk"?

For about four months in the early 1970s, I took Dianabol to put on weight and muscle for football. To get an edge.

It was a small white pill, about half the size of an aspirin. I found a doctor, an older man with yellow teeth who would write a prescription for anyone. You paid him $25 for the office visit, and you got what you needed.

I had no idea how many pills to take or what the side effects were. So I played amateur pharmacist. I found that one a day did almost nothing, so I bumped the dosage up to two. Then five.

And that's when it started happening. Within six weeks my T-shirts were too tight. When I got pumped up after a workout, I stayed that way. For the first time in my life, I had actual calf muscles. I got another prescription.

I also started having extreme highs and lows. Little things that usually didn't bother me were suddenly irritating. At times I felt as if I could run through a brick wall. I had never had problems with acne. Now my face was breaking out.

During a routine physical for school, my family doctor noticed the acne and the muscles. I told him I was training hard, which was only half the truth.

My parents bought it; why not him?

He nodded, left the room and returned with a pamphlet. The pamphlet explained infertility, baldness, kidney and liver damage, heart problems, acne and a laundry list of other side effects.

Steroids, he said. The gift that keeps on giving.

I decided something that day. I went home and flushed the remaining steroids down the toilet. Nothing -- certainly no sport -- was worth that kind of risk.

But not everyone sees it that way. At least not initially.

Steve Courson, 46, a former Tampa Bay Buccaneer offensive lineman, won two Super Bowl rings with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has acknowledged extensive steroid use in college and the pros. It was what helped him get and keep his job.

But Courson, who lives outside of Pittsburgh, developed a condition known as dilated cardiomyopathy and is on a waiting list to receive an artificial heart. He says his extensive steroid use in the mid 1970s to mid 1980s was at least a contributing factor.

The disease could kill him.

If he had to do it over again, would he take steroids, even if it meant giving up the two Super Bowl rings and the memories of nine years in the NFL?

He didn't hesitate to answer.

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