A darkened Santo Domingo parking lot isn’t the safest place in the Dominican Republic to meet sources for stories.
But this source wanted the isolated location, because he was one of the biggest known suppliers of performance-enhancing drugs to Dominican baseball minor-leaguers playing in that country and the United States. He still hoped to play ball for a U.S. college, had a cousin in the major leagues and was taking a risk by talking, but he wanted people to know why Dominican major- and minor-leaguers were getting caught using PEDs at a disproportionately high rate.
The year was 2005, when Major League Baseball’s fledgling PED testing program in the majors and minors was showing signs of a serious Dominican problem.