Apr 22, 2017 4 min read

Were you surprised to hear that Starling Marte was using steroids?

I wasn’t.

Not because of anything special about his appearance or his production. Lots of baseball players look like him. I just stopped being surprised a long time ago when any major professional athlete tests positive.

It’s why, for years, when any suspicion arises, I have been taking a guiltily until proven innocent approach. Marte’s explanation/apology isn’t worth the energy it takes to read it.

Guilty.

Marte tested positive for nandrolone, an old-school steroid that Mr. Steroids himself calls the “kiss of death.” Maybe you remember Victor Conte, the guy who ran the BALCO lab made famous by Barry Bonds. He did some jail time for being the illegal pharmacist of choice for multiple professional athletes.

Conte told Vice Sports that athletes who test positive for nandrolone are usually using something else. He also said that small traces of it can still be found in a person’s blood for as long as 18 months. Nandrolone is apparently the juice of choice for really stupid athletes.

Conte also said that athletes can test positive for nandrolone if they aren’t knowingly taking it because the small amount needed for detection could come from a lab that doesn’t adhere to strict protocol for cleaning equipment and be inadvertently mixed with another drug, usually testosterone. Maybe you remember Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers being suspend for using testosterone – the drug of choice for MLB players – back in 2013.

So the good news might be that Marte is a juicer but not a stupid one. He might be just using the most popular performance enhancing drug in 21st century baseball and needs to find a supplier who does a little better job of keeping the test tubes and syringes clean.

A dirty one might have cost Marte abut $5 million.

• Do you believe that Marte is the only player on the Pirates using PEDs?

I don’t.

It’s still widespread in baseball and the testing is still better for detecting stupidity than it is for detecting drug use.

• Could we please stop talking about how selfish it is for a player to use PEDs?

Was Marte selfish for using them or for getting caught? Performance-enhancing drugs usually enhance performance and a player’s enhanced performance usually helps his team win more games. Do you really think there are many players on the Pirates’ roster who didn’t suspect or now resent Marte’s juicing?

• Remember when Gregory Polanco was tearing up Triple-A pitching and he was being compared to Dave Parker and Barry Bonds? He started out last season looking like a future star with eight home runs, 36 RBI and batting .310. Then he hit .243 in June, .221 in August and .209 in September. He’s hitting right around .215 with one home run since last August.

And he’s the Pirates’ cleanup hitter.

Think they could use Marte and Jung Ho Kang in their lineup?

They also could use the Polanco that Polanco was supposed to be by now. At 25, he’s no longer a young prospect. The players he was being compared to were already major stars at his age.

• Marc-Andre Fleury is the Penguins’ best goalie. No disrespect to Matt Murray, who took his opportunity to start all the way to a Stanley Cup win, but he should never see the blue paint again unless and until Fleury falters.

What happens if the Penguins ride Fleury all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals? How does he not become the No. 1 goalie?

There are salary cap ramifications that go with any decision to keep Fleury on the roster next season, but, at 32, he is not old by NHL goalie standards. It says here that, unless he ends up on a bad team, four years from now, Fleury will be a better NHL goaltender than Murray.

• Doesn’t it make you shudder to think of the deaths that would have occurred if the Pirates hadn’t put those nets up at PNC Park?

• Zach Werenski, a 19-year-old rookie defenseman for the Columbus Blue Jackets, had to leave Game 3 after a puck cut his skin and broke his face. Of course, he came back into the game and played until his right eye was so swollen he couldn’t see out if it.

That’s hockey.

• What other sport would a guy come back to play with multiple stitches and a broken face?

John Steigerwald writes a Sunday column for the Observer-Reporter.