Reese Kaplan -- How Many Mets Were Guilty of Using PEDs?

Recently during a lazy Sunday afternoon I was watching Youtube videos on my TV scouring for a film noir or comedy to relieve 90 minutes of boredom when a piece on the history of steroids use in baseball came up in my list of prospective titles.  

I watched the piece and as expected you saw many pictures of so-called superstars of that era like Barry Bonds, Ken Caminiti, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Juan Gonzalez, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa and many others.  The household name players were indeed posting some rather incredible performance numbers which later were proven to be enhanced artificially through the result of banned substances that the NFL was more diligent in prohibiting from use on the field.

Included in this presentation was a replay of the famous suit and tie appearances by McGwire, Palmeiro and others in front of Congress insisting that everything they did was legitimate and not the result of what was in a syringe.  Palmeiro flat out said he never took anything at all (and was proven wrong).  McGwire in his arrogance simply said he was not there to talk about what happened in the past.  

While nothing really was new in this presentation, it did pique my curiosity about how many players named in Balco, the Mitchell Report and other pharmaceutical user listings actually played for the New York Mets.  Some were pretty obvious like Todd Hundley morphing from a decent but unspectacular hitter into one clubbing 41 homers.  

Everyone suspected the wild eyed temper of Paul Lo Duca was about more than mere intensity for the game.  Mo Vaughn and Gary Sheffield were artificial All Stars named in these reports, too.  Robinson Cano was suspended more than once for his use of PEDs (and it apparently didn't help his numbers later in his career).  Fan favorite Bartolo Colon was nailed as well.

Then there was the next class of player, guys who were decent at what they did but not among the best in the league.  Yes, several of them made it to Shea Stadium or Citifield as well. Do you remember Rick Ankiel?  How about Scott Schoeneweiss?  David Segui was another.  Lenny Dykstra has had a well documented lifestyle of excesses of many kinds, PEDs included.  Gary Matthews, Jr. also made this unceremonial list.

What was a bit more surprising were some of the fringier players who obviously were doing what they could to reinforce their marginal talents to take them to bigger paydays from their baseball employers.  Infielder Manny Alexander made these lists.  So too did infielder Fernando Vina.  Farm product Chris Donnels started his career in the majors with the Mets.  

Post season hero Todd Pratt was guilty as charged for PEDs.  Outfielder Mark Carreon got caught.  Ditto pinch hitter Matt Franco.  Generation K pitcher Paul Byrd obviously didn't get much benefit from his illegal performance enhancer.

In total it was a double baseball team of 18 former players on these lists who at one time wore a Mets uniform.  I'm not singling out the team for being any worse, better or league average for the number of caught players who were found to obtain PEDs in the hopes they would achieve the success on the field they had envisioned for themselves.  

Nowadays there is more testing done and the likelihood of such obvious and long term violations has been somewhat reduced, but it's a problem that hasn't gone away (and likely never will).