Founder of BALCO Victor Conte: ‘As much as half of baseball’ using PEDs

However, BALCO founder Victor Conte believes Major League Baseball has a long way to go before it can be considered “clean.” During a phone interview with USA TODAY Sports, Conte described just how widespread he believes performance-enhancing drug use is across baseball.

“I would say maybe as much as half of baseball (is using PEDs),” he said. “I’m not going to name names, but I’ve talked to a lot of top players in Major League Baseball, and they tell me this is what they’re doing. There is rampant use of synthetic testosterone in Major League Baseball.”

MLB vice president Rob Manfred refuted the claim and said that Conte is simply making a “guess.” Manfred pointed to the “sophisticated methodologies” that the MLB uses to test its players, but Conte insists the tests are simple to fudge.

“To circumvent the test is like taking candy from a baby,” Conte said. “It’s so easy to circumvent. I call it the ‘duck-and-dodge’ system. The only people that get caught are the dumb, and the dumber.”

Since the conversation was based upon Melky Cabrera’s failed drug test, I guess Conte is saying he’s either the dumb or the dumber. That would certainly be easy to believe with someone like Manny Ramirez. But based on the way the offensive numbers have faded, I’m inclined to think it’s a little less than 50%. Either that, or the stuff guys were taking in the “steroid era” yielded better results.

Fist pound to Eye on Baseball