Baseball's Other Drug Problem: ADHD Drugs

I've noted before that some sportswriters have dug into the numbers surrounding banned drug use in baseball--human growth hormone, steroids, ADHD drugs, etc.--and come away finding that about 100 Major Leaguers got exemptions from the ban on ADHD drugs in 2007 and are allowed to use the drugs as long as a doctor reups their authorization as having been diagnosed with ADHD each year. But that number of players is a huge increase over 2006, leading some who follow baseball to think that ADHD meds could be the new performance-enhancing drug scandal in baseball.

This recent article in the Pioneer Press does an admirable job of getting ballplayers on the record on the issue.

"Twins infielder Brendan Harris, who has been with five big-league organizations, said he had heard of players without ADHD taking medications prescribed for the disorder.

"'There's a dependency that guys get when they use it, I'm sure, like anything that's a drug of addiction,' Harris said. 'They wouldn't take it if it didn't help in some way. The season's so long, it's such a grind, concentration — day game after a night game, whatever — is a problem. Maybe it helps and then ... when they don't need it, they take it again, and it's a dependency issue.'"

One hundred and sixty-two games plus spring training and whatever off-season training a player does is a hell of grind, the toughest in terms of day-to-day focus of any big league sport. I played the game long enough myself to where I can see how stimulants such as Adderall might be a boost for some players. Of course, all of this makes me admire old time players all the more: Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle both played drunk or had raging hangovers much of their careers, Red Sox great Bill "The Spaceman" Lee used to pitch stoned and then there's the infamous (and much disputed) account of Doc Ellis pitching a no-hitter while on acid.

Anyway, with the big jump in ADHD exemptions, you do have to wonder how legit all these ADHD diagnoses are.

"'It certainly raises the questions (of abuse),' [Gary Wadler of the World Anti-Doping Agency] said. 'You don't want somebody with a handicap being prohibited from playing elite sports, (but) you don't want somebody developing a pseudo-disorder as a way of taking a prohibited substance.'"

It'll be interesting to see where this all ends up in a year or so. And, it's also further proof of how deeply enmeshed psych meds have become in American culture.