the Players' Coffee (amphetamine) thread!

Basically, I think baseball should allow steroids and greenies provided that they are received via prescription, but baseball should get together with, say, the American Medical Association and make a list of ailments for which the prescription is appropriate. If the player (1) tests positive AND (2) doesn't have the proper paperwork, the player receives a penalty. And the penalty should be the same for all performance enhancing drugs, no matter the degree of enhancement. If you're going to make cheating a crime, and "cheating" means using illegal performance enhancing drugs (as opposed to, say, caffeine or whey protein), then you have to adminster that rule equally.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/chat/chat.php?chatId=165

If the use of steroids enhanced the power-hitting abilities of players, as the untested but commonly held belief goes, then we have already seen the effect of the elimination of steroids use. Last season, when fewer than 1 percent of major league players tested positive for steroids, home runs declined by 8 percent.

This year, another chemical aid, amphetamines, will be eliminated. For the first time, players will be tested and face sanctions for the use of those little green pills — greenies in the vernacular — that have been a staple in baseball longer than hot dogs and beer.

Amphetamines "have been around the game forever," the Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt writes in his new book, "Clearing the Bases," which HarperCollins will publish next month. "In my day," he says, they "were widely available in major-league clubhouses."

That Major League Baseball chooses to act against amphetamines in 2006 is farcical. You almost have to cover your face when you snicker at the thought.

Better late than never? It depends on how late you're talking about. If you were to put Commissioner Bud Selig under oath, he would have to admit that he has known about amphetamines for 36 years, ever since he took a baseball team to Milwaukee in 1970.

His predecessors knew about them, too, but they didn't want to do anything about them, either. At a drug trial in Pittsburgh in 1985, Dale Berra and Dave Parker testified that Willie Stargell and Bill Madlock dispensed greenies to their Pirates teammates. John Milner told the jury that Willie Mays had a bottle of red juice, or liquid amphetamines, in his locker when they played for the Mets.

Peter Ueberroth, then the commissioner, opted not to believe their testimony. But the pills were readily available in all clubhouses, often dispensed by team trainers and other medical personnel.

"They were obtainable with a prescription," Schmidt writes, "but be under no illusion that the name on the bottle always coincided with the name of the player taking them before game time."

The pills energized players, helped get them through a tough series of games, a 162-game schedule played in 182 days. The only thing a player had to do was make sure he didn't take a pill prematurely. Players like to tell of teammates who took pills before games, then had the games rained out and spent the rest of the night climbing walls.

Schmidt doesn't acknowledge in the book that he used greenies, but in a telephone interview Sunday, he said, "A couple times in my career I bit on it."

He added: "There were a few times in my career when I felt I needed help to get in there. I'm a victim; I admit to it. I'm not incriminating myself or players I played with to say we were on amphetamines our entire careers. I just wanted to see what they would do. It was a lack of willpower. You had an impressionable young kid, and someone says, 'Man you want to feel good?' If I had to do it over, I probably wouldn't do it. You can't put a 56-year-old head on a 28-year-old kid."

But if steroids testing drove power production down, how will testing for greenies affect players and, by extension, the game?

Will it sap speed out of players' swings? In some games, will they have to stop at second base on a double instead of bursting around the base and trying for third? Will they come up short on a diving attempt for a line drive in the gap? Will a whole bunch of players play lethargically?

In the book — in which Schmidt also discusses Barry Bonds, the legacies of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, and Pete Rose — Schmidt writes that the elimination of amphetamines could have "possibly far greater implications for the game than the crackdown against steroids."

He explains in the book that "amphetamine use in baseball is both far more common and has been going on a lot longer than steroid abuse."

In the interview, Schmidt, a former third baseman for the Phillies who hit 548 home runs, said he didn't have firsthand knowledge of the extent of amphetamine use today.

"I don't have any sense of what's going to happen," he said. "Will there be more days off? Will there be more lethargic games? But my guess would be that there will be nothing we'll be able to visibly see. We're not going to see a big drop in performance. I don't think we'll see any marked difference in the game."

What if baseball had acted to rid the game of amphetamines in his playing days?

"I think you would have learned to face that game," Schmidt said, "where you probably didn't have the energy to go on the field in St. Louis when it was 115 degrees and the game went into extra innings the night before and you had played every day for a couple weeks. You might have had a couple cups of coffee. You'd adapt."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Well, steroids have an unknown effect on performance while speed has a very well known and obvious effect. Considering that amphetamines have been around the game longer and are taken by a larger number of ballplayers, Schmidt's statement appears to be true by definition.

With Greenies Banned, Up for a Cup of Coffee?
By JACK CURRY

For perhaps half a century, amphetamines have been accessible to major league baseball players. If players were weary after a late night out, a long trip or a streak of tiring games, they could find the pep pills almost as readily as they could sip coffee or swig soda.

The use of amphetamines to increase energy levels throughout a draining season has, over the decades, been one of baseball's dirty little secrets, although gradually it was not much of a secret anymore. Many owners, managers and reporters knew that some players were using "greenies" or "beans," the common names for these stimulants in clubhouses.

But a practice that was essentially winked at will no longer go unpunished now that Major League Baseball has rules banning the use of amphetamines. For the first time, baseball will test for them, meaning that any number of players will have to adjust. Amid the uproar over baseball's tangled relationship with steroids, greenies have been tossed out of the game. Those who try to keep using them could soon find themselves facing suspensions.

"Anybody who thinks you can go through the season normally and your body can just respond normally, after what we go through, is unreasonable," said Eric Chavez, the third baseman for the Oakland Athletics. "I'm not saying taking away greenies isn't a good thing, but guys are definitely going to look for something as a replacement."

What will those replacements be? Anything that comes close to doing what greenies did, so anything with caffeine. Several players said they thought coffee, lots of it and no decaf, please, could become as standard as water in dugouts. Others said energy drinks, which are already baseball staples, would grow in popularity. Some teams are also offering energizing jellybeans, with emphasis on the jelly.

Observing players this spring was a sign of what to expect. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants held a coffee cup an hour before a game. Derek Jeter of the Yankees favored Red Bull, the energy drink. Ron Villone, another Yankee, brewed green tea. Jay Payton of the Athletics drank soda, even though it was 9:30 in the morning.

"I guarantee guys are trying to find something simply because it's a grind going out there every single night," said Tom Glavine, a pitcher for the Mets. "Someone needs to put a Starbucks or a Dunkin' Donuts, or both, right by Shea."

Chavez echoed Glavine's theme, with an investor's twist.

"I know they put in a new Starbucks near here," Chavez said, referring to Phoenix Municipal Stadium, the Athletics' spring-training home. "Everybody was saying, 'Go buy stock in Starbucks.' "

Since 1970, using amphetamines without a prescription has been a federal crime. Still, that never deterred certain players, who used them to fight fatigue and to sharpen their focus. One reason amphetamines are popular is because they arouse the central nervous system, making users feel more alert.

Dr. Gary I. Wadler, a New York University medical professor who is a steroid expert, said amphetamines could cause heart attacks, hypertension, heat illness and convulsions. Wadler said amphetamines were particularly effective in fatigued people because they camouflage their discomfort and help their concentration.

"Do they work?" Wadler said. "Yes, they work. Do they work differently than steroids? Yes, they work differently. But we're not talking about degrees of cheating. We're talking about cheating."

Rather than seeking replacements for amphetamines, some baseball people have prescribed increased rest.

"You can't be out in those bars with any regularity anymore because you ain't got help now," said Ron Washington, the third-base coach for the Athletics.

Payton said, "Guys who are 25 are going to have to treat themselves like they're 35."

Omar Vizquel, the Giants' shortstop, was adamant about his disdain for something others around him have apparently used.

"I don't believe a simple drug or a simple pill can get you through 162 games," Vizquel said. "I never believe in stuff like that."

It is impossible to know the percentage of major leaguers who were using amphetamines. Players and team executives speculated that anywhere from a few to more than half of the players on a given 25-man roster have been users.

Phil Garner, the manager of the Houston Astros, said that he used greenies as a player and was disturbed by the side effects. Garner said he was irritable, experienced weight loss and slept unevenly. While the greenies sometimes worked, Garner said his body built up a tolerance, and he quit using them.

"It becomes a psychological addiction," Garner said. "You think you can't play through it."

How players will adapt without amphetamines is one of the more intriguing questions surrounding this season. Will there be a difference in the total games played by individual players? Will players be listless without a greenie boost? Will there be a drop-off in the quality of play?

Frank Thomas, Oakland's designated hitter, said some players might drag in the steamy days of August and estimated that players who used to start 150 games might start 135. Jason Grimsley, a pitcher for the Arizona Diamondbacks, said it might be sensible to boost rosters to 30 from 25.

Thomas was one of several players who said the teams with the most depth would benefit from a world without amphetamines because players are going to need more games off.

Glavine and Al Leiter, who recently retired from the Yankees, said they did not condone using greenies, but both gave lengthy discourses on why players reached for them: Players tried to combat difficult hours, handle the endless travel and make a weary body come to life.

Grimsley said that greenies have "been part of the game" at least since Jim Bouton wrote about them in "Ball Four," his landmark book in 1970. Commissioner Bud Selig has said he first heard about greenies in the Milwaukee Braves' clubhouse in 1958. All these years later, he is adamant about eradicating them in baseball, citing the health risk.

Others, like Grimsley, do not seem quite as concerned. "There are some things that don't need to be in the game, but there are things that have been in it for a long time," Grimsley said. "It's almost like they're trying to change everything about baseball. It's become sterilized."

Or clean, which, Wadler stressed, is how it is supposed to be.

"They are against the law," Wadler said. "Their use violates federal law. I've maintained they should have violated baseball law, too."

Players have often had the choice of two types of coffee at the ballpark, one regular and one with stimulants. That will no longer be the case.

Mickey Hatcher, the batting coach for the Los Angeles Angels, said he never noticed two variations of coffee while he played.

"There were a couple of times where I was good and wired," Hatcher said, laughing. "I might have gotten the wrong coffee."

Unlike steroid use, which carries a 50-game ban for the first offense and leads to a lifetime suspension for the third offense, amphetamine use is not being punished as severely.

Every player will be tested at least twice for amphetamines during 2006. Players whose urine test includes evidence of amphetamines will face mandatory evaluation and follow-up testing after the first offense. The second positive test will lead to a 25-game suspension and the third will be 80 games. Selig will decide the penalty for a fourth offense.

Chavez said he was happy that the Athletics have an espresso machine. Miguel Batista said some players on the Diamondbacks wondered if cola will be banished next. Leiter said that some players would keep searching for a boost and, since greenies are forbidden, they would choose the next best option.

"Guys will always find something," Leiter said. "Even if they have to go to the local truck stop to get some No-Doz, they'll find something to get them through."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

(Greenies) help loosen you up. ... It speeds you up for the game, it lessens your appetite. That's what happens. I know a guy who played 10 years in the big leagues. He tested positive and they sent him to rehab because he was losing so much weight. He was addicted to them.

I don't think it's cheating. It's like the corked-bat situation. When Sammy (Sosa) got caught with it, we all laughed. People (outside baseball) made a big deal about it. A line you hear in baseball, standing around the batting cage, is, "If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'."

You feel like you're wired for the game (on greenies). It makes the game go by faster. I got too jittery using them — you're swinging even before the pitcher throws the pitch.

When I was with Tampa, they had one they called the "speckled trout''. It was orange and white. There's all kinds. It seems there's a pill for every condition. If it's too sunny, if it's cloudy. The one I used was a little green pill. One kind you get in the Dominican, another you get in Mexico.

There are other pills that basically do the same thing, but I haven't seen much of those. I've even seen guys who use Ritalin sometimes. You see it more with pitchers than hitters. When you see guys like Roger Clemens throwing a bat at somebody, it makes you think.

I haven't seen (greenies) recently, and I haven't seen guys using them. I don't think it would be very smart.

I wish testing had happened five years ago. I know pitchers who rely on it who aren't going to be the same.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/marlins/content/sports/epaper/2006/04/02/a11b_greeniebar_0402.html

By Dave Sheinin
Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, August 25, 2006; E01

Last week, the baseball season passed the three-quarters pole in its grueling schedule of 162 games spread out over 183 days. With the late-summer heat and the accumulated fatigue taking their toll on players' bodies, it is the time of year when in past seasons the use of amphetamines, long considered an integral part of the major league experience, would typically be at its peak.

However, this being the first year of baseball's ban on amphetamines -- also known as "greenies," "beans" and several other nicknames -- players no longer have that option, a reality that some observers believe has had a subtle effect on the game.

"I definitely know there are some guys who get to a Sunday day game, after a Saturday night game, and say, 'Man, I wish I had a greenie.' I've heard guys say that," Cincinnati Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo said. "So there's probably been some small effect. But I don't think it's been as noticeable as people thought it would be."

Baseball's steroid-testing program is now in its fourth season and its third incarnation, having been strengthened twice under pressure from the federal government. However, until last November baseball had resisted banning amphetamines, synthetic stimulants that, some within the game argued, were not true performance-enhancers -- an assertion that is contradicted by leading authorities on the use of drugs in sports.

"There was a huge outcry [in the scientific community] when baseball claimed there was no evidence that amphetamines were performance-enhancing," said Gary Wadler, a professor of medicine at New York University and a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency. "But stimulants can be potent performance-enhancers."

What baseball officials knew for certain was that amphetamine use was so widespread -- at various times in recent years, players have estimated the usage rate to be as high as 85 percent -- it had become an accepted part of big league culture. Steroids get more publicity, but baseball insiders knew amphetamines -- which can increase a person's energy, alertness and sense of well-being -- had a bigger impact on the game on a day-to-day basis.

Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig was asked during the all-star break last month about the belief that the quality of play would decline this summer because of the amphetamine ban. "I know there are some people who feel that way," he said. "I hope the quality of play does not change. You can do a lot of other things -- [such as] get a good night's rest."

While the current steroid-testing policy in baseball carries strong penalties -- 50 games for a first offense, 100 games for a second and a lifetime ban for a third -- the new amphetamine policy is milder. First-time offenders are neither identified publicly nor punished, but instead are subject to counseling. A second positive test results in a 25-game suspension.

There have been no two-time offenders identified thus far this season, and Rob Manfred, baseball's executive vice president, declined to say how many first-time positives there have been. Selig, too, has declined to give a specific number, but he has said repeatedly that "the testing is working" -- which implies there have been at least some positive tests.

The lack of transparency in baseball's testing policy makes it difficult for experts to assess the progress of the sport's effort to rid itself of illegal drugs. Amphetamines are illegal without a prescription.

"I would like to know, in the aggregate, what the testing has shown," Wadler said. "If there has been zero positive tests, that's important information. If there have been amphetamines, that's important. If there have been other stimulants besides amphetamines, that's also important. I really need to know the data. I'm not passing judgment, but those are the questions that come immediately to mind."

Despite forecasts of doom that greeted the start of this season -- one American League executive predicted during spring training that everyday players would take liberal days off, and afternoon games would feature players appearing like "zombies" -- there has been little measurable evidence of amphetamine testing having a quantifiable effect on the game.

Among people who watch big league baseball for a living, there are differing opinions as to whether there has been any change at all.

"I think the overall effect of the greenies was to make [a player] think he was stronger, more rested and better able to perform," said ESPN and Comcast SportsNet television analyst Buck Martinez, a former manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. "I think it was in their heads more than a physical thing. The [quality of play this] season doesn't seem to have changed one bit."

One scout for a National League team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the league has asked team employees not to discuss drug policy, agreed with the "it's-all-mental" theory, saying: "I don't see any difference. If guys aren't doing [amphetamines] now, their bodies have probably gotten used to it, and they probably didn't need them in the first place."

Arroyo said, if anything, some players have reported better results without the drugs. "I've heard two guys talking about why they're having so much success as hitters. And both of them attributed it to not using greenies -- it's made them more relaxed at the plate, less jumpy," he said.

However, an AL scout said he sees a visible effect. "I see everyday players getting more days off, or more days at designated hitter, he said. "And I see some awful performances on day games." One NL team official added: "I definitely see it. Look at how many veterans, older players, guys who are career .300 hitters, who are hitting .240 this year."

Statistically speaking, there is little outward evidence of a major change in the way the game is being played since the amphetamine ban went into effect. For example, contrary to popular wisdom at the start of the season, the most durable starting players do not appear to be taking more days off.

In 2005, 71 players played in 150 or more of their team's games -- or 92.6 percent of a full 162-game schedule. This season (through Sunday), 82 players had played in 92.6 percent or more of their team's games. The number of players who played in 100 percent of their team's games has fallen from 10 last season to seven so far this season; however, both numbers are up from 2004, when there were only four.

Likewise, relief pitchers -- the group believed to be the most dependent on amphetamines, because of the quick-response nature of their job -- seem to be appearing in games just as frequently. In 2005, 21 relievers appeared in 75 or more games (46.3 percent of a full 162-game season); this season, 22 pitchers are on the same pace or greater.

"One thing I'm not surprised to see is a lack of change in playing time," Will Carroll, author of "The Juice: The Real Story of Baseball's Drug Problems," and a contributing writer for Baseballprospectus.com, said in an e-mail. "Many expected there to be fewer players going every day, taking more [days] off, etc. I thought all along that doing this would be an implicit admission by managers that they knew about the amphetamine use.

"Managers seem much, much more likely to say, 'You figure out how to do what you need to do [to play], and I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing.' "

From Coffeepots . . .

Amphetamines are said to have first entered baseball clubhouses in the 1940s, when players who had served in World War II returned home, having been introduced to the drugs during combat as a way to remain alert. Players from the 1950s and 1960s have said the drugs were openly dispensed by team trainers during that era.

Still, they remained largely out of the public view until the 1970 publication of "Ball Four," Jim Bouton's tell-all memoir of the 1969 season in which he broke the code of silence about the widespread availability and use of amphetamines in baseball clubhouses.

"We don't get them from the trainer because greenies are against club policy," Bouton wrote. "So we get them from players on other teams who have friends who are doctors or friends who know where to get greenies."

By 2005, former outfielder Chad Curtis, who played for six teams during a 10-year career that ended in 2001, said on the HBO broadcast "Costas Now" that he estimated 85 percent of big leaguers had used amphetamines at least once -- despite the fact amphetamines, since 1970, had been classified as illegal without a prescription under the Controlled Substances Act.

In the House Government Reform Committee's report on former Baltimore Oriole Rafael Palmeiro, triggered by his testimony at a March 17, 2005, hearing and his subsequent positive test for steroids, former Texas Rangers trainer Dan Wheat told investigators the drugs were "prevalent" in baseball. Wheat "once asked a player, 'Of the nine players on the field, how many took greenies today?' " according to the report. "The answer from the player was eight."

This year, pitcher Jason Grimsley, in an affidavit released after his home was searched by federal investigators, described separate pots of coffee in clubhouses, one labeled "leaded" -- which meant it was laced with amphetamines -- and one labeled "unleaded." The revelation prompted howls of ridicule and outrage around baseball.

"This thing about the coffeepots being marked -- I'm not saying the stuff isn't in there. But I have never been in a clubhouse where the coffeepots are marked like that," Washington Nationals Manager Frank Robinson said. "Guys are misspeaking when they take a brush like that and paint everybody. Like anything, some people do [use drugs], but the majority does not."

However, Grimsley's only misstatement may have been in his details. According to one team executive, the coffeepots were not labeled, but it was well known among players which pot was which -- something this person said he knows firsthand, because he once drank from the wrong pot and wound up being taken to the hospital in an ambulance with a racing heartbeat.

In fact, it was the dangers of amphetamines, expressed to him by team doctors and trainers during conversations last season, that ultimately convinced Selig of the importance of getting them out of the game.

"They came in separately on two different occasions and said, 'You have to do something about this, or somebody is going to die,' " Selig said. "They expressed more concern about [amphetamines] than anything else."

To Espresso Machines

While many players shared the view that the notion of baseball without amphetamines would have an ugly effect on the field, they say they are adapting.

"Guys are substituting -- getting things at GNC that are legal," Washington Nationals veteran first baseman Robert Fick said. "Obviously, it doesn't give you the same ride. But it probably helps. And espresso -- that's the biggest thing. It seems like every clubhouse now has an espresso machine."

Likewise, clubhouse refrigerators in 2006 generally are well stocked with energy drinks.

"Sugar-free Red Bull," said Minnesota Twins designated hitter Rondell White, when asked what players were using for an energy boost this year.

"More energy drinks," said former Orioles catcher Javy Lopez, who was traded to the Boston Red Sox this month. Lopez also showed a reporter a container in his locker labeled "Phosphagen Elite" -- a legal supplement containing creatine -- that he said he uses.

As a service to players, MLB and the players' association have arranged to have a laboratory, NSF International in Ann Arbor, Mich., test supplement products to certify they are clean, and they have encouraged players to use the service.

Baseball's list of banned stimulants also includes drugs -- such as Ritalin and Adderall -- that are used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. However, players who can prove they have been treated for the disorder for a significant period of time can receive a therapeutic-use exemption (TUE) to continue using the drugs. Among the players who reportedly have received TUEs are Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Derek Lowe, Chicago Cubs pitcher Scott Eyre and San Francisco Giants pitcher Noah Lowry.

Critics point to this potentially exploitable loophole, as well as the absence from baseball's banned list of certain other stimulants -- of which, NYU's Wadler said, there are "hundreds of thousands around the world" -- as evidence that baseball's policy does not go far enough.

"We have a lot of [attention-deficit disorder] drugs floating through clubhouses and a policy that doesn't test for the strongest and most misused -- modafinil," said Carroll, the author. With stimulants, "more than steroids, there are better, more accessible alternatives."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

I know that Red Bull is banned in Sweden due to some heart-disease studies.

David Ortiz and now Marcus Giles hospitalized late in the season with mysterious heart arythmia...

Major leaguers are tested once during spring training and once during the regular season and are subject to additional random tests.

"It seems every couple of weeks I was tested," Arizona's Eric Byrnes said.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/01/11/bonds.amphetamines/index.html?cnn=yes

...but under baseball's amphetamine policy no one is publicly identified or suspended until a second positive, which would result in a 25-game suspension.

Barry you are weirdo.

Definitely not.

Alex, I'm not defending or endorsing anybody, I'm just constructing an argument. And do you really want to have the scapegoating argument again?

1. One that is made to bear the blame of others.

Scapeoating:

1. The act of making one into a scapegoat.
2. Bud Selig appointing George Mitchell to lead an investigation into whether one player did steroids, in lieu of an actual investigation into drug problems in baseball.

Oh puhllease.

There wasn't much reaction to the positive test around the team, according to the source, although there was "a little buzz" when people found out that Bonds had dragged Sweeney into situation.

MLBPA COO Gene Orza denies that the Bonds blaming Sweeney exchange reported in the NY Daily News between he and Sweeney occured:

"I've never heard Barry Bonds blame anybody for anything," Gene Orza, the union's chief operating officer, said in an e-mail to The AP. "I can say unequivocally in my 22 years I've known Barry Bonds he has never blamed anyone for anything."

Except the media.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/5521/career;_ylt=AjL5RVuhZjhDG3b245Ih6ZmFCLcF

"Mark Sweeney is both my teammate and my friend. He did not give me anything whatsoever and has nothing to do with this matter, contrary to recent reports. I want to express my deepest apologies especially to Mark and his family as well as my other teammates, the San Francisco Giants organization and the fans."

Well, that too. My main point, as always, is that Selig could have instigated a detailed, thorough investigation into steroids in baseball -- when players started using in large numbers, what they were using, and most importantly which GMs/executives knew about it. But that kind of investigation might actually carry a whiff of integrity and could possibly embarrass him and some of his owner friends. It's much easier to send George Mitchell after Barry Bonds instead.

lol at ADD epidemic.

Baseball Is Challenged on Rise in Stimulant Use
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

WASHINGTON — When George J. Mitchell was appointed to investigate the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball nearly two years ago, amphetamines were not part of his mandate. The substances had been around baseball for decades, were sometimes winked at and were not even banned until the 2006 season, several years after the sport began to address what seemed to be the far larger controversy of steroid use.

Nevertheless, it was amphetamines that left baseball looking flat-footed Tuesday when Commissioner Bud Selig and the players union executive director Donald Fehr joined Mr. Mitchell to discuss his report’s findings before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Amid discussion of steroids and human growth hormone, amid an atmosphere more tame than tempestuous, it was Representative John F. Tierney, a Massachusetts Democrat, who caught everyone’s attention when he asked why the number of major leaguers claiming therapeutic-use exemptions for attention deficit disorder had mushroomed to 103 this past season from 28 in 2006.

To Mr. Tierney, the implication of the sharp increase was clear. Players were brazenly getting around the ban on amphetamines by making attention deficit disorder claims that allowed them to use stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall. Based on the 2007 numbers, Mr. Tierney said, the use of such stimulants among major leaguers was “almost eight times the adult use in our population.”

How, Mr. Tierney wanted to know, had baseball allowed this to happen?

“We are trying to break down why it happened and how it happened,” Mr. Selig said in response. Mr. Fehr suggested that the attention deficit disorder numbers might be higher in baseball than the general adult population because baseball players have a younger average age.

Both he and Mr. Fehr said they trusted the judgment of Dr. Bryan W. Smith, a North Carolina pediatrician with a doctorate in exercise physiology who administers baseball’s drug-testing program and has to approve any medical exemptions. He was not immediately available for comment after the hearing.

The Mitchell report runs 311 pages, but includes no mention of the therapeutic use exemptions that players have been granted since the exemptions were instituted for the 2006 season. Mr. Mitchell apparently sought such numbers but was rebuffed. Robert DuPuy, baseball’s chief operating officer, said Tuesday night that the commissioner’s office was willing to let Mr. Mitchell have the numbers, but that the players union objected.

Michael Weiner, the union’s general counsel, disagreed, saying both sides felt it “was not appropriate” for Mr. Mitchell to see the figures. But Mr. Weiner said that when the House committee asked for the numbers, both sides agreed to provide them.

In an interview in his office after Tuesday’s hearing, Mr. Tierney said the numbers arrived Monday night and committee staff members brought them to his attention Tuesday morning.

“When you see the number 28 one year go all the way to 103, it makes you think that we have a loophole here with performance-enhancing drugs,” Mr. Tierney said.

“We shouldn’t have to have hearings like this all the time to stay on top of these problems with baseball,” he added. “It was a good thing at least that Mr. Selig recognized the increase.”

Under the ban on amphetamines that was introduced in 2006, a player can test positive once without being publicly identified or suspended, but faces a 25-game suspension for a second positive test. Each player is tested twice a year for amphetamines.

In the two years since the test was put in, only two major leaguers — Mike Cameron and Neifi Pérez — have been suspended for amphetamine use. Two others, Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, have been identified in news reports as having failed a single amphetamines test and neither has disputed those disclosures.

Major League Baseball has declined to state the number of players over all who have failed one test, although it is widely believed that dozens are in that category. The ban on amphetamines has clearly had an impact on clubhouses, with some players turning to caffeine-laden drinks.

But the numbers disclosed by Mr. Tierney suggest that other players are using attention deficit disorder as a means to use stimulants that are not available without a prescription and, since the beginning of the 2006 season, cannot be used by players without a medical exemption.

In fact, almost all of baseball’s therapeutic-use exemptions the last two seasons were for attention deficit disorder. In 2006, the 28 exemptions in those cases dwarfed the 7 other exemptions granted. In 2007, there were only eight other exemptions in comparison with the 103 for attention deficit disorder.

Dr. Gary I. Wadler, an internist and antidoping expert, said stimulants help a person concentrate — that is their medical link to attention deficit disorder — but also mask pain and increase energy and reaction time. He said side effects in adults could include heart attacks and severe anxiety.

Dr. Steven Safren, an associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, said it was estimated that 2 to 6 percent of the adult population had attention deficit disorder.

Rob Manfred, baseball’s executive vice president for labor relations and the official most directly involved with the drug-testing programs, said Tuesday night that the commissioner’s office was not overly concerned about the increase in attention deficit disorder exemptions.

“Nobody really knows why it jumped,” he said, noting that 103 therapeutic-use exemptions out of a baseball population of 1,354 players in 2007 meant 7.6 percent of those players were claiming attention deficit disorder as an affliction, a percentage not that much out of line with the general adult population.

Dr. Safren, asked about baseball’s numbers, and the surge from 28 exemptions to 103 in one year, said: “It certainly is a big jump. It could be that people weren’t disclosing it. At the same time, the percentage is at the high end.”

Dr. Allan Lans, the Mets’ team psychiatrist from 1985 to 2003, was more blunt. “The No. 1 drug use of sports is really amphetamines,” he said. “Amphetamines are the real performance-enhancing drugs that people should always have been worried about.”

He said he was not surprised that players were seeking exemptions to use certain stimulants, and were citing attention deficit disorder. “The ballplayers who are smart want a legal way to get amphetamines, not an illegal one,” he said. “The doctors are easily conned.”

Alan Schwarz contributed reporting from Washington.

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