SoCalSportsChick.com

Ever since Former Senator George Mitchell released his report detailing rampant drug use in baseball, aptly titled The Mitchell Report last December, recent weeks have brought steroid and human growth hormone strife at the forefront in Major League Baseball (MLB). The Report exposes this stinging little secret in baseball amongst some of the game’s top players. As many are aware, Roger Clemens, pitcher for The New York Yankees (in 2006 several ESPN analysts had named him as the greatest pitcher of all time) is at the center of this Report because of his vehement denials.

Thursday, LA Angels Owner Arte Moreno spoke out about drug use in the MLB at the Angels’ spring training camp at the Tempe Diablo Stadium in Tempe, Arizona. Moreno told reporters, “I think it was really important to get it out. Anytime you’ve got things hanging around in the closet, eventually you’ve got to get hem flushed out.” Although many former Angels’ were mentioned in The Mitchell Report, only one of the Angels’ current players had been mentioned in the report, Gary Matthews, Jr. Moreno, who bought the Angels in 2003, has the position that there needs to be more stringent testing such as blood testing in the future. He commented, “A lot of people spend more time trying to hide the stuff than they do making the stuff right?”

Angel Outfielder Matthews along with former baseball player Jose Canseco allegedly had been on a customer list of Applied Pharmacy Services in Mobile, Alabama; one of several online distributors of steroids and human growth hormones (HGH). The Pharmacy’s owners have been indicted by an Albany County grand jury. In 2004, Gary Matthews, Jr. denied reports that HGH was supposedly sent to a former minor teammate’s address in Mansfield, Texas on behalf of Matthews. At the Angels’ camp, Matthews told reporters he didn’t know why his name was on the list mentioned in The Mitchell Report but is working on finding that out; he sad he was not, “in a position to answer any specific questions.”