Performance Enhancing Drugs

MILWAUKEE - Ryan Braun certainly doesn't fit the image fans conjure up when they hear that a baseball slugger has been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. Since he joined the Milwaukee Brewers in 2007, Braun has belted big home runs not with cartoonishly large muscles, but with a sweet swing and an ultra-quick bat. Last season, he helped drive the Brewers to the playoffs and was voted the NL's most valuable player. Now Braun finds himself fighting a 50-game suspension after news leaked that he has tested positive for a banned substance.

WASHINGTON - An overwhelmingly female jury with little interest in baseball will decide whether former pitching star Roger Clemens lied to Congress when he said he never used performance-enhancing drugs. The jurors who took their seats Tuesday include a woman whose cousin, Al Bumbry, was a coach for the Boston Red Sox when Clemens played there. Another woman on the jury said she believes Eagles quarterback Michael Vick was "done wrong" in his criminal conviction in connection with dogfighting.

In the latest attempt to clear her name from drug allegations, Marion Jones took a lie detector test that her lawyer says vindicates the star sprinter. Jones took the test from a certified polygraph examiner, Ronald Homer, on Wednesday and her attorney, Joseph Burton, sent the results to the United States Anti-Doping Agency yesterday. "Ms. Jones' passing of this polygraph examination fully vindicates the position we have stated to you privately, and to the public in general: that Ms. Jones has never used performance-enhancing drugs at any time in her life, whether or not such drugs relate to BALCO or any other entity or person," Burton said in a letter to USADA legal director Travis Tygart that was obtained by the Associated Press.

Major league baseball and the NFL agreed to join the U.S. Olympic Committee in funding anti-doping research, each contributing $3 million to create the most extensive drug-fighting partnership between America's biggest pro leagues and its Olympic federation. The USOC also is giving $3 million and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency is giving $1 million to the new Partnership for Clean Competition, a collaborative that will use the initial $10 million to fund grants for research to combat performance-enhancing drugs in sports.

One by one, they walked down the aisle of Courtroom 10 and took a seat on the witness stand for their public day of reckoning. First Jason Giambi, the 2000 American League MVP. Then his brother Jeremy. And finally Marvin Benard, Barry Bonds' San Francisco Giants teammate. In the biggest mass confession to steroids use in baseball history, the trio testified yesterday at Bonds' trial. They all said they purchased and used performance-enhancing drugs from Greg Anderson, the trainer who is in jail for his refusal to testify against Bonds.

LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens said she has no knowledge of drug use among tour players, but said the tour still plans to start checking. The LPGA Tour said yesterday it will begin testing players for performance-enhancing drugs in 2008, a move that makes it the first major golf tour to announce a drug-testing program. Specifics of the testing plan will be worked up over the next 6 to 9 months, Bivens said. The tour plans to announce the program details, including testing methods and banned substances, in the second half of the 2007 season.

Lance Armstrong's former teammate, Tyler Hamilton, says Armstrong and other team leaders encouraged, promoted and took part in a doping program in an effort to win the Tour de France in 1999 and beyond, according to a report aired last night on "60 Minutes. " Hamilton said he saw Armstrong take performance-enhancing drugs, EPO and testosterone and also saw him receive a banned blood transfusion in 2000. "I feel bad that I had to go here and do this," Hamilton said in his first public admission of doping throughout his career.

WASHINGTON - The attorney for Roger Clemens gave his strongest hint yet that the former baseball star may not testify in his trial on charges of lying to Congress about using performance-enhancing drugs as he pressed potential jurors not to hold Clemens' silence against him. A retiree was dismissed after he said he said he would suspect Clemens was guilty if he chose not to testify. "I would kind of feel like what the government says might be true," the man said. Clemens watched without speaking during three days of intense questioning of 50 potential jurors that qualified 35 people for potential service.

Free-agent first baseman Rafael Palmeiro still isn't sure why he tested positive for steroids, he told the New York Times for a story published yesterday. Palmeiro, 41, was suspended in August for 10 days by Major League Baseball. His steroid test in May came up positive - just 6 weeks after he testified in Congress that he had never taken the performance-enhancing drugs. "I wish I could pinpoint exactly what happened," Palmeiro told the paper. "I would think it was the B-12.

Former track coach Trevor Graham is suing the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for $30 million, saying the agency ruined his name when he was accused of providing performance-enhancing drugs to athletes. Graham filed the federal lawsuit yesterday in the eastern district of North Carolina. According to court documents, Graham says USADA "slandered my name for the whole world to see. " He received a lifetime coaching ban from the agency in July 2008 for his role in helping his athletes obtain performance-enhancing drugs.

NEW YORK - The New York Yankees have told Mr. October to stay away this summer. The Yankees want Reggie Jackson to steer clear of the clubhouse and team events following his pointed remarks about Alex Rodriguez and several former stars, a person familiar with the situation told the Associated Press Monday. The Hall of Famer will lay low for several weeks, the person told the AP on condition of anonymity because there was no formal announcement. Jackson was reportedly not disciplined or fined, and will remain as a special adviser to the Yankees.

The Wampum Walloper, aka Dick Allen, and other members of the 1972 White Sox will be honored by the Chicago Baseball Museum on June 25 at a fundraising dinner at U.S. Cellular Field. Allen played only three seasons with the White Sox but is immensely popular in Chicago and loves the city enough to say he wished he had spent his entire career there. The slugger who had electrified Philadelphia eight years earlier lit up the American League in his first season with the Sox in '72. He led the league with 37 homers, a career-high 113 RBI and 99 walks.

WASHINGTON - Amid his year-by-year narrative of his complex relationship with Roger Clemens and performance-enhancing drugs, Brian McNamee weaved in a tale of two wives. He said it was his own wife who nagged him into keeping evidence that has become crucial in the trial of the storied pitcher, and it was a request from Clemens' wife that led to what McNamee called a "creepy" injection scene in a bathroom. Clemens' personal trainer testified Tuesday for a second day in the perjury trial, pushing his running total to roughly 10 hours on the stand, including the first few moments of what portends to be a grueling cross-examination that will continue Wednesday.

As an undergraduate at West Chester University in the 1980s, Kevin Guskiewicz spent summers working at Eagles training camp. He even remembers meeting safety Andre Waters a couple of times. Neither could have known how their paths would cross 20-some years later. Guskiewicz went on to work as an athletic trainer for the Pittsburgh Steelers and is now, as a professor at the University of North Carolina, one of the world's leading experts on concussions and the long-term damage they cause.

THREE DAYS after U.S. prosecutors dropped their investigation of doping claims against Lance Armstrong, fellow Tour de France champion Alberto Contador was stripped of his 2010 title when sports' highest court rejected the Spanish cyclist's story that contaminated meat caused him to fail a drug test. The 29-year-old Contador, who also won the Tour in 2007 and '09, tested positive for clenbuterol during a Tour rest day in July 2010. Contador's ban was backdated to Jan. 25, 2011 - making him eligible to return on Aug. 6. "Unlike certain other countries, notably outside Europe, Spain is not known to have a contamination problem with clenbuterol in meat," the Court of Arbitration for Sport said in its ruling.

In Los Angeles, federal prosecutors closed their investigation of cyclist Lance Armstrong on Friday without charging him over allegations he used performance-enhancing drugs, ending a nearly two-year effort aimed at examining whether a doping program was created to keep the seven-time Tour de France winner and his teammates running ahead of the pack. United States Attorney André Birotte Jr. announced the closing of the probe in a press release, but didn't disclose the reason.

MILWAUKEE - Ryan Braun certainly doesn't fit the image fans conjure up when they hear that a baseball slugger has been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. Since he joined the Brewers in 2007, Braun has belted big home runs not with cartoonishly large muscles, but with a sweet swing and an ultra-quick bat. Last season, he helped drive Milwaukee to the playoffs and was voted the NL's Most Valuable Player. Now Braun finds himself fighting a 50-game suspension after news leaked that he tested positive for a banned substance.

MILWAUKEE - Ryan Braun certainly doesn't fit the image fans conjure up when they hear that a baseball slugger has been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs. Since he joined the Milwaukee Brewers in 2007, Braun has belted big home runs not with cartoonishly large muscles, but with a sweet swing and an ultra-quick bat. Last season, he helped drive the Brewers to the playoffs and was voted the NL's most valuable player. Now Braun finds himself fighting a 50-game suspension after news leaked that he has tested positive for a banned substance.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:   That the only reason athletes would oppose drug testing is if they were using drugs.   Major League Baseball announced the completion of a new collective bargaining agreement with its players union this week, and among the changes in the deal is the implementation of testing for human growth hormone as part of the program to prevent the use of performance-enhancing drugs....

WASHINGTON - Prosecutors said Wednesday that needles and cotton balls Roger Clemens' former trainer says he used to inject the star pitcher tested positive for Clemens' DNA and anabolic steroids - evidence the defense said was faked. Assistant U.S. attorney Steven Durham revealed the results during opening arguments in Clemens' trial on charges of lying to Congress about using performance-enhancing drugs. Clemens' attorney Rusty Hardin responded that he won't dispute the needles contain Clemens' DNA and steroids, but accused the trainer Brian McNamee of "mixing" it up. "He manufactured this stuff," Hardin told jurors.