The New York Times is reporting that surgery on Alex Rodriguez's torn acetabular labrum ("a ring of cartilage that surrounds the acetabulum, the socket of the hip joint") went well:
The surgery on the right hip of Alex Rodriguez was successful, his doctor said after it was completed on Monday, and Rodriguez was to leave the hospital in Vail, Colo., and begin rehabilitation immediately in Colorado. ... Rodriguez’s problems were discovered last week when complained of stiffness in his hip and went to Colorado to have a cyst in the hip drained.
While I part company with those who excoriate Rodriguez for having used steroids and consider his accomplishments in baseball ruinously tainted -- since they were almost all doing it, the playing field was never as pitched as the puritans perceive -- I have to wonder if this young, healthy athlete getting a cyst on his hip is related to having taken steroids (and probably other PEDs) without informed medical supervision?
About five years ago, Jason Giambi developed a tumor in his pituitary gland, another odd development for a young, healthy athlete. Giambi, too, admits to using steroids not prescribed by a doctor. I thought at the time it was probably more than a coincidence that that growth developed.
And famously Florence Griffith Joyner, who unconvincingly denied ever using steroids, died very young (supposedly from asphyxiation as the result of an epileptic seizure). I presume until proven otherwise that Flo-Jo harmed her prospects for a long life by abusing PEDs.
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