He's not talking to the right person. Surely when Abner Doubleday worked to popularize baseball in the mid-19th Century, he couldn't have foreseen the day when a player would be accused of considering a medicine cabinet as standard equipment. But that's what McGwire is faced with as he goes after Maris' record of 61 home runs. McGwire had 53 as of Tuesday, but his road might have grown a bit rougher with the accusation that chemicals are helping his ride. Already in its short life in the United States, androstenedione has had a troubled existence.
Critics say it's a drug.
The federal government says androstenedione is closer to a food and therefore doesn't need to be regulated. The International Olympic Committee, the NFL and the NCAA have banned it. Major League Baseball has not. The substance was introduced in the United States in the summer of 1996 by Patrick Arnold, a chemist from Seymour, Ill., near Champaign. Arnold had noticed that a German patent on the supplement didn't cover it being taken orally, so he began manufacturing it here.