On opening day, Commissioner Rob Manfred said that alarm bells rang at Major League Baseball’s offices when, just before the season began, three pitchers on major league rosters tested positive for the powerful, old-school steroid stanozolol.
Why would players use that drug, he asked me, when it can be so easily detected? And why had so many of them been caught in quick succession? (Only days later, a fourth pitcher, Mets closer Jenrry Mejia, tested positive for stanozolol, too.)
For me, though, two bigger questions have emerged: Why did the players feel emboldened to use stanozolol when it is so easy to be caught, and why has the drug been such a nagging problem for the sport?