By Alex Barth
With the Red Sox winning the world series, baseball’s regular season has officially come to an end. But the fun is just beginning. This offseason looks to be full of hearings and trials as we dig deeper into the MLB’s PED scandal. Now, we know steroids have been a problem in baseball for quite some time, but when/why did it start? I have a theory. Now, this is just an idea, but hear me out and tell me if you can find a flaw in my logic.
Let’s start with Scott Boras. We all know Boras as the shrewd, back room dealer who makes all the money fly in the MLB. But where did he come from? Boras does not have a business background, he graduated with a degree in Pharmaceuticals from the University of the Pacific in 1977, where he played baseball.
He entered the agent game in the late 80’s, and by 1992, he had already negotiated a record deal between former Cy Young winner Greg Maddux and the Atlanta Braves. Boras’s big moment came a year later, when he represented the first two picks in the draft, Darren Dreifort and a young kid from Miami named Alex Rodriguez. Since then, Boras has gone on to deal with some of the biggest names in baseball, including Barry Bonds, Manny Ramirez, Adrian Beltre, Kevin Brown, JD Drew, Mark Teixeira and Eric Gagne. Boras is especially known for dealing with the two biggest markets in sports, Boston and New York.
How did a Pharmaceutical Major suddenly become the biggest dealer in america’s pastime? How did a 35 year old with no experience break into the business and find himself in the middle of some of the largest contract negotiations in sport history? Well, maybe he actually was a dealer, of another kind.
Is it possible Boras convinced these starts to sign with him because he could give them an ‘extra edge’. Is it possible the man who majored in Pharmaceuticals was the middle man between drug companies such as BALCO and Biogenesis and MLB players? Boras lives just under two hours from the BALCO facilities in Burlingame, CA. Steroids were not banned by baseball until 1991, before then the league was more worried about players being on Coke or LSD. It took until 2003, follwoing the BALCO scandal, for the MLB to implement mandatory PED testing.
Bonds, Ramirez, Rodriguez, and more who are all represented by Boras saw massive statistical jumps following signing with Boras. Clearly, this guy will do whatever it takes to make a few more bucks? I’m not saying Boras is solely responsible for the steroid issue in baseball, but that he introduced MLB players to PEDs. Again, just a theory, but it seems to me that there is a case to be made here. Well maybe now with Jay-Z taking his clients, the steroid error is on its way out. Until then, we can only keep digging.
Third Floor Crew 