Growing pains: Venezuela deals with steroid testing

CARACAS, Venezuela — It has taken nearly three hours for Juan Casas to inch across this traffic-clogged city by bus, simply for another desperate chance to wave around two small pieces of paper.

The former Pittsburgh Pirates prospect clutches a pair of prescriptions, his last hope of overturning a 50-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball's drug policy while pitching in the rookie-level Venezuelan Summer League. He insists he tested positive for anabolic steroids after taking a medication prescribed for bronchitis.

"I told everyone that I didn't do anything wrong," Casas says in an interview at a downtown shopping plaza, where he has agreed to meet because his crime-ridden neighborhood is too dangerous. "My coaches, the trainer, the team administrator, they all knew I'd been sick. They were there and knew about the medication."

The 20-year-old wants to appeal, but doesn't know how. He has since been released by the Pirates, lost a promised promotion to the United States and could be too old to attract serious interest again unless his suspension is lifted.

What Casas doesn't realize is that it's already months too late to fix things, that an appeal had to be filed within 48 hours. As sorry as that may seem, he isn't the first Venezuelan player lacking knowledge of the rules governing MLB's most complete and punitive drug sweep ever carried out on foreign soil.

Baseball's decision last year to expand drug testing to Venezuela, a country where steroids and other performance boosters are legal, was seen as a crucial step at curbing banned substances throughout the sport. The number of Venezuelans on major-league 40-man rosters has increased 72 percent since 1999 to 43 this past year, raising fears some are importing a longstanding use of drugs and even passing them on to teammates.

Teenage prospects in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic are often weaned on steroids and other banned substances by unlicensed street agents — known as buscones — hoping to sell the players to pro scouts. Fifty-five percent of the positive drug tests in pro baseball the past two years have implicated Latin Americans — despite them forming only 24 percent of the major-league population and just more than 40 percent of all minor-leaguers.

The Mariners, with a hefty recruiting presence in Latin America, led all organizations with 11 positive drug tests in 2005 and added another this year. Two Venezuelans and two Dominicans were among those nabbed.

But the long-awaited crackdown in Venezuela hasn't been seamless, with critics saying players are unclear about the rules and which substances are banned. They say that any serious drug program has to be completely transparent, so players can't claim ignorance of the rules and so they can understand how to challenge results.

"There is a lot of confusion about the rules and the entire process," says Alexis Quiroz, a Venezuelan lawyer representing Cincinnati Reds pitching prospect Carlos Fajardo, who spent months trying to find out whether he can appeal a 50-game suspension for a positive test. "The people who are supposed to be giving the information to the players haven't done a good enough job. The players don't know which drugs are legal in baseball and which are not. They don't even know if they're allowed to appeal a positive test."

Quiroz says Fajardo, 20, who maintains he never took steroids and that his test was tainted, wasn't told of any appeal process when informed of the suspension by telephone. The lawyer has since written letters, mailed in August, to the Reds' academy here and the Venezuelan Summer League's office, asking them to clarify the rules.

He has yet to hear back.

"You cannot run a testing program in this manner," Quiroz says.

Without the ability to question results, he says, there is no way to tell whether players' urine samples are being handled properly. That's a legitimate risk, he adds, when transporting samples in a country with plenty of heat and where traveling even short distances can take hours because of road closures, public demonstrations, collapsed bridges and paralyzing traffic.

Getting things right isn't easy in a place where picturesque mountain ranges are overshadowed by crime-plagued cities. Caracas has the world's highest per capita homicide rate, with enough kidnappings and robberies to frighten off anyone trying to establish a full-time presence.

And yet, the potential to lessen drug use here is huge.

MLB has tested the Dominican Summer League since 2004, but local law prevents the suspension of players. Not so in Venezuela, where punishments match those in the U.S.: 50 games for a first offense, 100 for a second and a lifetime ban for a third.

Rob Manfred, the MLB executive vice president in charge of its drug testing, says talk of ill-informed Venezuelan players is nonsense.

"When it comes to making players aware of our policy, I feel we do a better job in the Dominican and Venezuela than we do in the U.S.," he says.

Venezuelans accounted for 13 of the 34 positive drug tests throughout baseball in 2006, the most of any country. Eleven came from the Venezuelan Summer League, where 16-year-olds first start to come under the drug-rule umbrella.

"Three of them did file appeals," Manfred says, declining to say who or whether they succeeded.

During an October visit to Venezuela, The Times spoke to two suspended players and to Quiroz — the lawyer for a third — and none were aware of the appeals process. In one case involving two of the players, the manager of their team violated confidentiality rules by telling others about their positive tests before the 48-hour window to appeal was up.

Harping over appeals and protocol may seem trivial. Especially with Casas, whose defense is questionable given that anabolic steroids typically aren't components of medication used to treat respiratory ailments.

But it's not trivial to Mauro Di Pasquale, a world-renowned expert on performance drug use, who implemented steroid testing for the World Wrestling Federation and serves as NASCAR's acting medical review officer.

"Everybody has to be aware of the rules," he says, adding this isn't about a handful of cheats seeking a loophole. "They have to be laid out to everybody and in a way that people can't say afterwards they didn't know the rules."

He insists protocol has to be followed to-the-letter. Even a tiny breakdown can cast doubt on everything. "If the system can't be relied on," he says, "how can you rely on the results?"

MLB did dispatch a consultant, Dr. Larry Westreich, to the city of Valencia in May to meet with major-league scouts operating in this country. Westreich oversees MLB's Latin American drug programs and explained the rules and procedures to scouts so they could relay information to their respective teams.

A Venezuelan psychiatrist, Pedro Delgado, also was sent to major-league academies to speak to players about the drug program. Delgado is MLB's employee assistance contact in Venezuela and is supposed to phone players to tell them about any positive drug tests and how to appeal.

But Quiroz says that while Delgado advised his client, Fajardo, of his suspension, no appeal was mentioned. Fajardo also never received any written correspondence, even though a suspension notice signed by MLB commissioner Bud Selig is supposed to be sent.

Quiroz has experienced what goes on in Latin American clubhouses, having been a onetime Chicago Cubs prospect in the Dominican Summer League. He says it's important to remember most of baseball's banned drugs are legal in Venezuela and had been commonly used. He says players are genuinely confused about what's allowed, partly because scouts are the wrong people to be relaying information.

He'd have rather seen Westreich meet with team administrators, or trainers, who interact with their players more frequently.

But Westreich believes the message is getting across.

"I think the idea down there has been that it's OK to use drugs to enhance your performance," Westreich says. "I think that as it becomes clear that we're serious, people will at least see that it's going to be very difficult to continue the way they were before.

"This is definitely a work in progress," he adds. "But I'd say we're definitely out there swinging."

And missing on occasion.

At a dusty stadium in the town of Villa de Cura, about 80 miles southwest of Caracas, a sweat-drenched Edison Barrios, 17, another suspended Pirates prospect, says his manager was the one who told him of his positive steroid test — then relayed the information to his entire team. Westreich confirms that no one else should have been told the results until Barrios had exhausted his 48-hour appeal window.

"That's not part of our protocol, no," Westreich says.

Barrios says he was never told how to appeal. He stays in shape by working out here with a winter-league team and grudgingly accepts his suspension — having suspected the "vitamins" injected into his buttocks by employees at a local gym before he signed for $20,000 with the Pirates were banned substances.

"Nobody really ever told me what was forbidden and what wasn't forbidden," Barrios says. "I want to see a list of all the stuff so that I'll know. Some of us are taking muscle relaxants right now and we don't even know what the substances in them are, or whether they are legal or not."

He says the latest fear among players is that properties in Coca-Cola will cause a positive drug test — which MLB insists isn't true.

"I won't even drink Coke now," Barrios says. "I'm too afraid."

His former teammate, Casas, recalls the team's manager, Osmin Melendez, improperly telling others about his failed drug test. Melendez later gave him the disciplinary letter from Selig and pointed to a number to call if there were questions.

The number was for the New York office of Jennifer Gefsky, MLB's deputy general counsel. But the letter doesn't mention an appeal process or deadline.

Casas spent a week at home, wallowing in depression, before trying to call. After several failed attempts to dial locally — figuring the "212" prefix was for a Caracas area code — he tried to make an international call. Discouraged and somewhat intimidated, he eventually gave up.

It isn't until two months later that The Times meets with Casas and makes the call for him. He connects with a Spanish-speaking assistant in Gefsky's office, who identifies herself as "Monica" and tells him her boss is away. She adds that the best way to find out about an appeal is to have his agent or team contact the Venezuelan Summer League.

Casas hangs up, frustrated.

"I don't even have an agent," he says. "And the team won't help me."

MLB vice president Manfred is unmoved, saying players can't sit back and expect information to be handed to them. After all, they are the ones testing positive.

"At some point, the fundamentals are that it's the player's responsibility to stay informed," he says. "They know there's a policy. They know it's out there. And if they don't know the details, then it's up to them to find that out."

As Major League Baseball works out kinks in a difficult process, it expects the players to raise their learning curve. Barrios will have another chance, because he's young enough for the Pirates to want him.

For Casas and Fajardo, already at a point when teams here start dumping players, it's likely the end of the line. Casas quit school four years ago at age 16 because a street agent talked him into focusing full-time on baseball. Most of his $20,000 bonus was spent long ago, buying "a small house" for his family. He has no idea what else he'd do for work, only that it won't be for nearly the $850 per month he earned playing baseball.

"I don't want to give up," Casas says. "I'm still young. I'll keep trying to play. I just don't know how people are going to look at me. They all assume I'm guilty, and I never got the chance to prove otherwise."

Geoff Baker: 206-464-8286 or gbaker@seattletimes.com. Helping with translations in Venezuela was Arturo Marcano.