
Baseball is an exceptionally dudefest game. It used to be a normal amount of dudefest, then something amazing happened. What could possibly make a game that lasts 3 hours and has a mandatory audience participation activity more exciting? More home runs. How did they do that? Steroids, that's how. Who were the best at steroids? All of the following...
Alex Rodriquez - 3B
The smug, $27.5 million face of the modern/current steroid scandal. José Canseco, arguably the biggest hypocrite of all time, called him a hypocrite. I hope A-Rod gets suspended forever. Bug Selig should declare him permanently ineligible and let Pete Rose into the Hall of Fame.
Barry Bonds - OF
Source: The Onion
Barry Bonds is what you get when take an already awesome baseball player and blast him with gamma radiation. Bonds was an 8-time All-Star and 3-time MVP in the '90s before he ran into that government test site to save a wayward teenager. Bonds proceeded to Hulk-smash the single-season homerun record then Hulk-smash the career record. His secret? He's always angry.
Mark McGwire - 1B
Source: espn.com
Ridiculous splits like that almost make me wish steroids were mandatory. If he was going to cheat, why didn't he just cheat his entire career? He's the all-time leader in at bats per home run (he leads second place Babe Ruth by 1.15), but if he had juiced since '86, he'd have himself beat by 2.2. Oh, and check out the top five single-season leaders. That's not suspect at all.
Ryan Braun - OF
Photo definitely not altered in any way.
Braun had to fail the same test for the same drug from the same clinic twice before getting suspended. With results positive for an elevated level of testosterone "twice the level of the highest test ever taken", Braun did the noble thing and... sued because someone touched his pee weird. And he won, due to his PED-heightened ability to google the locations of nearby FedEx shipping centers.
Roger Clemens - P
Pictured: the only thing that can kill Sammy Sosa
When it comes to accused steroid use, Clemens has opted for the "Deny 'til you die" route. With his failing kidneys, hemorrhaging liver, and a botched gorilla-heart transplant, he probably won't have to deny much longer.
Sammy Sosa - OF
Photo taken at night, because he is allergic to the sun
No steroid team would be complete without Sammy Sosa, but before he decided to go to the Michael Jackson Beauty Salon. In the Congressional Hearing on Steroids, Sosa took Clemens's "Deny 'til you die" and McGwire's "Nobody will believe me anyway" strategies to their absurd extremes and just seemed to not understand the questions. Whether he was just pretending, or actually is that dumb (how difficult is the question "Did you use steroids?"), the world may never know. But they say, "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
José Canseco - DH and Captain
Defensive play of the year.
Oh, José. We wouldn't have the steroid scandal without you, you noble bastard. But you're still an asshole and a cheater. Say it ain't so, Joe (and then later say it is so, because you can make money off it and you don't care about being a hypocrite). José is the captain of our All-Steroid team, because he is the captain of taking illegal experimental PEDs, and he is our DH because he is also the captain of being terrible at fielding.
Bret Boone - 2B
The ol' "Deny 'til you cry" defense
In 2001, at age 32, Bret Boone hit 37 home runs when his previous 9-season high was 24. His hat size doubled, his biceps grew biceps, and he had to upgrade to a C-cup. But questions remain whether Boone juiced or was just really late to the puberty party.
Iván "Pudge" Rodríguez - C
According to Pudge, "only God knows" if he juiced. He claimed to be shocked by Canseco's accusations that he had personally injected Pudge with steroids. Despite the allegations, Rodríguez had a career year in 2005. Or maybe because of the steroids, because that is the whole point of taking PEDs. So apparently God isn't the only one who knows, because Canseco knows, and the rest of the world thinks it's pretty obvious.
Miguel Tejada - SS
Miguel Tejada has a history of lying, spending the first decade of his career pretending he was two years younger than he actually was. Thus, when questioned by a House Committee over his alleged use and distribution of steroids, he obviously denied it. He was implicated in the Mitchell Report in 2007 for having received steroids worth more than my car. Facing perjury charges for lying to Congress that time he said something that was notably not "the whole truth" and most certainly "nothing but the truth" when he was asked outright if he did the thing he obviously did, Tejada pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. Having learned his lesson, Tejada promptly switched to Amphetamines and was hit with a 105-game suspension in 2013 that most likely ended his career.
Pat Holland tried to make it to the Big Leagues by doing a course of experiemental steroids, but he just grew hair on his breasts. Don't email him and ask for photos; he's very self-conscious.
Something something Sue Donem something something.