Lou Merloni: Red Sox Had Doctor Show Players How to Use Steroids Safely

[Roy Hobbs]

Merloni said the following on "The Baseball Show" Saturday:

    "I'm in spring training, and I got an 8:30-9:00 meeting in the morning. I walk into that office, and this happened while I was with the Boston Red Sox before this last regime, I'm sitting in the meeting. There's a doctor up there and he's talking about steroids, and everyone was like 'here we go, we're gonna sit here and get the whole thing -- they're bad for you.' No. He spins it and says 'you know what, if you take steroids and sit on the couch all winter long, you can actually get stronger than someone who works out clean, if you're going to take steroids, one cycle won't hurt you, abusing steroids it will.' He sat there for one hour and told us how to properly use steroids while I'm with the Boston Red Sox, sitting there with the rest of the organization, and after this I said 'what the heck was that?' And everybody on the team was like 'what was that?' And the response we got was 'well, we know guys are taking it, so we want to make sure they're taking it the right way'... Where did that come from? That didn't come from the Players Association."

Follow up with Merloni led him to back track a little:

Merloni said the following on "The Baseball Show" Saturday:

    "I'm in spring training, and I got an 8:30-9:00 meeting in the morning. I walk into that office, and this happened while I was with the Boston Red Sox before this last regime, I'm sitting in the meeting. There's a doctor up there and he's talking about steroids, and everyone was like 'here we go, we're gonna sit here and get the whole thing -- they're bad for you.' No. He spins it and says 'you know what, if you take steroids and sit on the couch all winter long, you can actually get stronger than someone who works out clean, if you're going to take steroids, one cycle won't hurt you, abusing steroids it will.' He sat there for one hour and told us how to properly use steroids while I'm with the Boston Red Sox, sitting there with the rest of the organization, and after this I said 'what the heck was that?' And everybody on the team was like 'what was that?' And the response we got was 'well, we know guys are taking it, so we want to make sure they're taking it the right way'... Where did that come from? That didn't come from the Players Association."

Dan Duquette denies the allegations, and Troy O'Leary didn't remember a similar meeting.

Link.

Sadly, I have no idea if this is true, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[nickagneta]

I don't doubt it. I had a friend who worked for the Providence Journal sports department and he told me that if you just saw much of the late 90's and early 2000's Red Sox in the locker room with their clothes off, it was fairly obvious there were users. He mentioned Nomar as one as Nomar just loved sitting in front of his locker with his shirt off during interviews flexing his new found muscles.

His claim was that in 1996-2001 there were a bunch of users on the Sox that included Nomar, Canseco, Reggie Jefferson, Tim Naehring, and a bunch of pitchers, even stars(he alluded to Pedro but never came out and said it).

It's all conjecture on his part as he never actually saw anyone shooting up but said it was fairly obvious from looking at them when they had no clothes on.

[Donoghus]

Nothing would surprise me from that Harrington/Duquette regime.  There were some real slimeballs in the organization back then and, in retrospect, you look at a lot of those guys from the mid to late '90s up through that cancerous '01 team (probably the one team I've questioned my Red Sox fanhood) and you could definitely raise some serious suspicions.   

[JSD]

I believe it would have been irresponsible for the Red Sox not to have done this. To me it's like a safe sex program or sex education. Are the teachers in our public schools suggesting the kids go out and have sex? No. They are aiming to minimize the potential damage because they know the kids are going to do it anyway. So wear a condom...

[Donoghus]

I believe it would have been irresponsible for the Red Sox not to have done this. To me it's like a safe sex program or sex education. Are the teachers in our public schools suggesting the kids go out and have sex? No. They are aiming to minimize the potential damage because they know the kids are going to do it anyway. So wear a condom...

Yeah, but prevention education and telling someone that "one cycle won't hurt you" are two very different things.  Especially when steroids were already illegal by the late '90s. 

[crownsy]

Nothing would surprise me from that Harrington/Duquette regime.  There were some real slimeballs in the organization back then and, in retrospect, you look at a lot of those guys from the mid to late '90s up through that cancerous '01 team (probably the one team I've questioned my Red Sox fanhood) and you could definitely raise some serious suspicions.   

but were assuming theo and the new ownership is pure as the driven snow on this issue, as per SOP? 

[JSD]

I believe it would have been irresponsible for the Red Sox not to have done this. To me it's like a safe sex program or sex education. Are the teachers in our public schools suggesting the kids go out and have sex? No. They are aiming to minimize the potential damage because they know the kids are going to do it anyway. So wear a condom...

Yeah, but prevention education and telling someone that "one cycle won't hurt you" are two very different things.  Especially when steroids were already illegal by the late '90s. 

I've heard Merloni on this and heard him interviewed on the crossover between Dale and Holley and the Big Show yesterday. He stressed the fact that this was a "they're going to do it anyway so lets educate them" type of deal. Also,on the "one cycle won't hurt you" is there evidence to the contrary?

[Donoghus]

Nothing would surprise me from that Harrington/Duquette regime.  There were some real slimeballs in the organization back then and, in retrospect, you look at a lot of those guys from the mid to late '90s up through that cancerous '01 team (probably the one team I've questioned my Red Sox fanhood) and you could definitely raise some serious suspicions.   

but were assuming theo and the new ownership is pure as the driven snow on this issue, as per SOP? 

There's no way I'm saying the current regime is snow white by any means but if you look at the way things were done back then (Fenway was turning into cesspool, the whole 9/11 donation debacle, and just the way the old regime treated people) it was not a pleasant time.  Its based on those examples among others when I say I wouldn't be surprised it that whole exchange actually happened.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Do we really care? Every single organization in the MLB had one issue or another with steroids. Can we move on? It would be one thing, in my opinion, if we had some isolated incidents here and there, but the MLB was plagued with it, to the point that it's a joke.

Now people want to put asterisks to our World Series championships? Seriously? Are we supposed to believe that the Cardinals and the Rookies, and every single team we beat in our way to the gloryland was completely steroid free to have a claim of unfairness?

Be real, just about every team that has won in the last decade or two has some form of steroid issue.

As far as I'm concerned, steroids were fair game in the era, wether I like it or not.

[LB3533]

The only way for any of our World Series asterix to be justified is if there is proof that any of our starting pitchers used steroids.

[JSD]

The only way for any of our World Series asterix to be justified is if there is proof that any of our starting pitchers used steroids.

I don't agree with that at all. As a matter of fact I don't care if the whole entire "04" team was juicing. An asterisk has no place in the steroid era.

[Roy Hobbs]

The only way for any of our World Series asterix to be justified is if there is proof that any of our starting pitchers used steroids.

I don't agree with that at all. As a matter of fact I don't care if the whole entire "04" team was juicing. An asterisk has no place in the steroid era.

I think that's right.  It's very likely that at least some of the Red Sox pitching staff was juicing, as well as some of the batters.  From the Red Sox end, the championships in all probability were influenced by steroids or other PEDs.  However, the same was true of any of our opponents.  I very much doubt that any team was clean, or that the Red Sox were any more dirty than any other. 

As far as asterisks, I agree that they don't belong, period.  There's one giant asterisk over all individual and team accomplishments during the era, anyway.  No team should be singled out and have their championship called into question, because every team was in the same boat.

(And yes, I say this despite the fact that by everything we know presently, the Yankees appeared to be the dirtiest team of the era.  In time, I think we'll see that the Yankees weren't an anomaly.  Rather, their uses were simply outed, while users on other teams weren't.)

[cornbreadsmart]

i absolutely think there should be an astersisk. if we find there was players from the c's title juicing i think there should be an asterisk. i'm not saying doing roids makes you a bad person. it definitely DOES NOT.but i'm all for using the asterisks. any title influenced by roids just is'nt as legit.

[Roy Hobbs]

i absolutely think there should be an astersisk. if we find there was players from the c's title juicing i think there should be an asterisk. i'm not saying doing roids makes you a bad person. it definitely DOES NOT.but i'm all for using the asterisks. any title influenced by roids just is'nt as legit.

Doesn't that mean you put an asterisk on every World Series for the past decade or more?  90% of the players in MLB are under suspicion. 

(The same would be true in the NFL, of course, if anybody actually cared that the players are juicing.)

[Redz]

Lou's been collecting a check as a media source for quite a while now.  Why say all this now?

He's had no problem discussing many other steroid/hgh topics.

Weird.