Stanozolol

Maybe they want to know the conditions of his ingestion? It seems there's obviously some detail which hasn't come out yet. And I doubt it's something like "my friend gave me a headache pill and it turned out to be a steroid".

Palmeiro is really being vilified all over the press. Yet I have this gut feeling there is a plausible explanation for how he took it accidentally.

Time will tell, I imagine.

I'm trying to give Raffy the benefit of the doubt. It could very well be (and in my heart of hearts, I truly believe it is) a hard steroid. I'm just saying that, as someone who's been in situations covering stories where someone is telling you things and just trying to get an agenda across (and who has taken classes in which I've seen countless examples of this sort of thing), there are a couple of huge dangers with a story like this.

First, if someone really wants to get something to the media, they won't have too hard a time doing it, and if you're not constantly watching yourself, you will end up someone's stooge.

Second, the reporter doesn't know the inner workings of Major League Baseball all that well, and someone could throw some meaningless but important-sounding title at them (like Vice President of Facilities Management or some crap) but they don't want to be named, so the next thing you know they are a "high-ranking MLB source," when really they are just some supervisor somewhere that has no real connection or inside knowledge on the specific issue at hand.

As for the other papers picking it up, this happens all the time. One paper reports something, then everyone else reports that "The New York Times reported..." It's one of those things that your ombudsman tells you that you shouldn't be doing, but everyone does it every day anyway because you might get caught in a bad situation one out of 500 times (see the 2000 Presidential Election coverage with Florida going to Gore).

My reasoning for questioning the source: What moron "high-up" in MLB would be stupid enough to risk the s--t storm that would come with breaking the confidentiality agreement? Palmeiro could potentially now sue Major League Baseball (as ridiculous as that sounds), and I'd be SHOCKED if the Players Union doesn't raise a fuss.

Honestly, as I said, I think Raffy probably was bent over in the hotel getting his wife to jab him in the butt with a needle full of the Canseco special (as much as I don't want to believe it). But I think there is some reason to doubt the validity of these reports in particular.

That's not to say I really think they are false, just that there are a few reasons they COULD be false. Maybe a 5 or 10% chance.