Not sure what to think of this one*. You’ve got a current player admitting to using Andro and amphetamines and getting a jump on the Excuse Bus by doing so. Now, if his name comes out, he’s already admitted to using this stuff. Interesting tactic, Brandon.

Arroyo, who pitched for the Red Sox from 2003-05 and is now a starter with the Cincinnati Reds, said he took androstenedione, which was banned in 2004, as well as amphetamines, which were banned in 2006, according to the Herald report. He said he gave up taking andro, a steroid precursor, when a rumor spread through baseball that due to lax production standards, some of it was laced with steroids.
[...]
“Before 2004, none of us paid any attention to anything we took,” he said, according to the Herald. “Now they don’t want us to take anything unless it’s approved. But back then, who knows what was in stuff? The FDA wasn’t regulating stuff, not unless it was killing people or people were dying from it.”

Arroyo said he started taking taking andro after 1998, after a season with the Pirates’ Double-A affiliate. “Andro made me feel great, I felt like a monster. I felt like I could jump and hit my head on the basketball rim,” he said, according to the report.

That’s a pretty revealing tell, no? I think he’s 100% correct; there was very little oversight in this process back then.

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