Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2015 April 5

= April 5 =

Dosing sports players for fun and profit (mostly profit)
I was reading a very typical story about some pitcher who tests positive for stanozolol, says he doesn't know how it got there, banned for 80 games. Now mind you, I know zilch about sports, but I don't want to miss the chance to calibrate my paranoia.

According to our article, stanozolol is a very convenient steroid, in that (it says) a 5-10 milligram dose, delivered orally, can cause someone to fail a drug test 10 days later. One inconvenience is that it is water-insoluble; it would have to be delivered physically mixed in food, or dissolved in oil (such as salad oil) or in quite strong alcohol, or perhaps as an emulsion.


 * To start with, how plausible is gambling as a motive? Are there people who place huge bets, hundreds of thousands of dollars or more, that a specific baseball team won't make the playoffs, or won't win more than such-and-such number of games?  My assumption is that someone would place a bet with what he feels are fair odds, then start improving on them.


 * Can the suspension of one pitcher have a strong chance of changing the outcome of some such bet?


 * Does the proportion of people who say that they don't know how a steroid got into their body versus the number who say "yeah, I did it" differ between those who test positive for injected controlled substances vs. those who test positive for controlled substances that can be taken orally? (i.e. do the statistics suggest that dosing by third parties really happens?)


 * Does an increase in the penalty for testing positive for an orally administered steroid lead to a decrease or an increase in the number of people who test positive for it?

There have been many stories recently of past athletes admitting to using enhancement drugs such as Lance Armstrong http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/15/health/armstrong-ped-explainer/. Athletes are also caught commonly for using performancing enhancing drugs simply by drug tests http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Performance-Enhancing_Drugs.aspx. There have also been reported cases of athletes admitting to using illegal substances, such as Josh Hamilton Los Angeles Angles outfielder http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/apr/03/josh-hamilton-will-not-be-suspended-by-mlb-for-admitted-drug-relapse. Raen222 (talk) 02:08, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Has anyone ever been caught/admitted to dosing an athlete with banned substances?


 * How tightly do athletes police what they eat and drink against possible adulteration? Can just anybody manage to get in the front row at an event and hand the unwary mark a drink, or tamper with food he leaves in a locker room etc.?

Wnt (talk) 13:02, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Anthony Bosch, for one admitted to providing PEDs to A-Rod. "I don't know how" is a standard comment from some who get caught. There is no case I'm aware of in which doping was done "by accident" or unknowingly. In the case of Santana, the probability of the Twins getting to the playoffs in 2015 was already slim-to-none. And baseball has worked very hard to keep gamblers away, ever since 1919. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:44, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Since OP says that they know nothing about sports, let me just provide this link to explain Bugs' reference to 1919. Dismas |(talk) 02:58, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * To be honest, I don't see the relevance of any bans on player/coach/etc. involvement in gambling. I wasn't suggesting that players had to bet on the game for this motive - if I had the money, I myself could go out and put a huge bet against the team, then pose as a vendor maintenance man and refill their pitcher's favorite soft ice cream machine with the new steroid flavor.  (Then again, can baseball players stop for an ice cream cone or would it ruin their figure?)  That is, if I could make the right kind of bet, with enough money to make it worth the risk, etc.  The statement that they weren't likely to make the playoffs does make this seem less likely, but only provided that there isn't a big enough pool of gamblers to allow for bets that they lose N games, etc., to yield the right kind of return. Wnt (talk) 12:45, 5 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Joanna Jędrzejczyk gave her opponent an allegedly clean cookie before their bout. After easily taking her belt the next day, she credited a pre-fight psychological beating, but still insisted the cookie was fresh. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:15, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
 * A higher than expected percentage of cases of positive tests in baseball have affected Latin American players such as the aforementioned Ervin Santana  . There is a lot of speculation about why this is so, but it is clear that steroids of all kinds are more widely available outside of the U.S. and Canada. --Xuxl (talk) 12:33, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Happy Days
how are all these people realted? Richie Cunningham Joanie Cunningham Chuck Cunningham Sean Cunningham KC Cunningham Charles "Chachi" Arcola Annette Mastorelli Rico Mastorelli Marion Cunningham Howard Cunningham Richard "Dick" Cunningham Lori Beth Allen-Cunningham Emily Allen David Allen Roger Phillips Filp Phillips Richie Cunningham Jr. Louisa Arcola Delvecchio Alfred Delvecchio Ma Delvecchio Arthur Fonzarelli Raymond "Spike" Fonzarelli Angel Fronzarelli Vito Fronzarelli Angelo "Angie" Fonzarelli Grandma Nussbaum

thanksDfrr (talk) 08:54, 5 April 2015 (UTC)


 * First, this was asked a month or two ago. In fact, you're the one who asked it.  And second, you can just read the articles and work out the relations of most, if not all, of them.  If, after doing that, you still have questions then come back here.  Dismas |(talk) 09:02, 5 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Better link to the old question —Tamfang (talk) 07:09, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks guys for the help like it you guys are great:-)Dfrr (talk) 08:38, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Æ! InedibleHulk (talk) 21:52, 6 April 2015 (UTC)