By Luc Bergevin
Staff Writer

Baseball was struck down with yet another alleged usage of illegal substance scandal last Wednesday. However, Major League Baseball was not targeted. It was Little League.
This year, a team from the Bronx, New York, represented the New England region at the Little League World Series. The team consisted of 14 boys, ages 11 and 12. Team captain Pablo Sanchez, a burly 11-year-old first-baseman, is accused of supplying some of his teammates with illegal, performance enhancing steroids.
Officials began to suspect steroid use prior to the Bronx Cyclones’ first game, when they saw the pre-game routine. Pablo passed out drug paraphernalia to most of the other players in the dugout, which they then in turn all made use of before going out for batting practice. Coaches and other officials started to question the size and strength of the players, and whether they were natural or chemically enhanced. Jeb Bush, the manager of the Southern team from Crawford, Texas, was the first person to express concern for the issue.
“When a 12-year-old boy has a fuller beard and broader shoulders than you do, you know something’s wrong,” Bush said.
Pablo admits to the suspect pre-game routine, but denies that the substances used were illegal.
“Steroids?” he said. “No. We all use ‘Jason Juice’ before games. It’s the same stuff Jason Giambi of the New York Yankees used to use, before he got skinny,” Pablo said.
Not all players on the team are accused of steroid abuse by Little League. Andy Patterson, a scrawny 64-pound, 12-year old, denies any involvement.
“I did not take Jason Juice from Pablo. I’m a Red Sox fan, and I would never support any product endorsed by a damn Yankee.”
The New York Yankees could be the money involved behind the situation, as they want to see their hometown team win the World Series. They are a major sponsor of the team, supplying them with “high-tech nutrition products,” the same ones used by the Yankees, free of charge.
The ties to the Yankees go even further, as Pablo’s cousin is the Yankee’s equipment manager.
Opposing coaches and officials filed a complaint for illegal steroid abuse, the first of its kind in Little League Baseball. All players seen performing the pre-game routine in the dugout were tested for steroids, but the results have not yet been confirmed.
The children on the team do not understand the risks they run by participating in illegal steroid use. Not only do they put their blossoming athletic careers at stake, they undergo severe physical side-effects.
They can learn from their mistakes by looking at the story of Ken Caminiti, who died on October 10 after years of steroid abuse. Caminiti won the MVP award in 1997, and after retirement confessed to using illegal performance enhancing substances during his playing career. He died of a heart attack at age 41.
The media and Major League Baseball can be blamed for these boys feeling the need to use steroids to win the Little Leauge World Series. The American public has an obsession with the homerun, and the media glorifies the steroid-induced hulks that don’t lose their breath trotting around the bases.
These brainwashed children want to be something that they can not naturally be, and steroid use is their way to achieve that. They dream of being able to bench 500 pounds before their 13th birthday.
If convicted, a handful of young boys from the Bronx will join a league of disgraced athletes that includes Jason Giambi, the late Ken Caminiti, an East German Olympic team and Maurice Green, the ex-world’s fastest man.