Say goodbye to the Steroid Era in baseball; apparently the big fear in the commissioner’s office is that Major League Baseball is about to enter the Deer Antler Velvet Era when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs.
To wit: MLB officials have warned players not to consume a diet supplement based on the velvet from deer antlers. No, we’re not exactly sure what the link is between the human body and a perceived improvement from consuming deer-antler velvet, but MLB is making sure players won’t benefit from that velvet-enhancing experience. In fact, MLB has classified deer-antler-velvet supplements as a steroid and banned them. Needless to say, the deer-antler-velvet industry (yes, there is one) is outraged and has taken the Major League Baseball Players Association to court. From Courthouse News:
“On or about July 29th, 2011, relying on reports and rumors, defendant, MLBPA through Bob Lenaghan disseminated a letter title ‘MLBPA UPDATE’ informing major and minor league players and player agents not to use S.W.A.T.S. Ultimate Sports Spray and warned all players to stop ingesting the deer antler velvet supplement,” the complaint states.
“More specifically, defendant MLBPA issued its warning letter about deer antler velvet supplement not because it contains IGF-1, but because the deer antler velvet supplement was ‘contaminated’ with ‘methyl-testosterone,’ a banned steroid and added it to the list of ‘potentially contaminated nutritional supplements.’ Until dissemination of the warning letter issued by defendant, MLBPA, major and minor league baseball players, NFL players, NBA players, PGA golfers, other athletes, actors and consumers worldwide, purchased and consumed the deer antler velvet supplement sold by the plaintiffs as an alternative to banned ‘performance enhanced’ substances. Subsequently, the information contained in the warning letter made it way into the public domain, including but not limited to the internet and television news reports.”
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