Fresh Loaf

Almost lost in the spotlight that’s on Roger Clemens and his alleged steroid use is the news that John Rocker has admitted what the Mitchell report claimed: The former Braves closer took steroids and failed a drug test in 2000, his last full season with the Braves.

Not only that, but Rocker estimated that “between 40 to 50 percent of baseball players are on steroids” and added that “in 2000 Bud Selig knew John Rocker was taking the juice.”

I was around the Atlanta Braves clubhouse a lot during the Rocker era, and will always remember the huge poster of WCW wrestler Bill Goldberg hanging in Rocker’s locker, shirt off and muscles bulging.

And former Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone told me once that Rocker was so muscular that if pitched past one inning, he’d have to lie down on the floor and have someone stretch his back to make him limber enough to go out for a second inning.

It also goes a long way in explaining the behavior that caused his career to implode. Rocker always seemed “juiced” when he pitched, in a figurative sense. This admission brings new meaning to the word in literal terms.

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The NFL just recently fined Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher $100,000 for drinking Vitaminwater and wearing a Vitaminwater hat during media day in the week that precedes the Super Bowl. Vitaminwater is not an official drink sponsor of the NFL — only Gatorade is the NFL’s official drink, hence the extreme fine.

Now, I don’t know what Vitaminwater is and I’ve never heard of it (but I think I might try some now), but this fine got me thinking about Atlanta sports figures and some of the fines they’ve been handed over the years …

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In the current issue of Sports Illustrated, there’s a very unsettling look into the investigation of an online steroid-distribution network that has implicated several pro athletes, including Evander Holyfield and John Rocker.

In Holyfield’s case, a patient named “Evan Fields” received steroids from a clinic in Columbus. On the patient file was a sticky note with a phone number. When the magazine called the number, Holyfield answered the phone.

Holyfield, one of the all-time great heavyweights, has emphatically denied using HGH (the undetectable human growth hormone that has become the steroid du jour of professional athletes), and says he has launched his own investigation. He says he suspects he knows who ordered it and will make a public statement as soon as he’s sure.

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