Piazza dishes out on steroids and Clemens in new book

A month ago former Mets catcher Mike Piazza came up short on entering the Hall of Fame on his first year of eligibility. Perhaps one of the reasons Piazza didn't make it was because of consistent speculation that the former catcher used steroids.

Well, Piazza is now coming out with a  tell-all book that details his career, his rift and hatred for Roger Clemens as well as those steroid rumors.

While Piazza says he never used PEDs or anabolic steroids, he admits that he did take an over the counter muscle building drug called androstenedione, which contains creatine and amino acids. Andro is the same drug found in the locker of Mark McGwire in 1998, and Piazza says he eliminated it from his workout regime soon after that. Andro is banned by the FDA.

"Piazza admits that every team had a treasure chest of drugs.
“I used Vioxx because it was an intense anti-inflammatory and it made me feel good,” he writes in the book.
“When I caught for 22 straight days and could hardly drag myself out of bed to get to the ballpark, Vioxx picked me up. I’d sing, ‘It’s gonna be a Vioxx morning.’ ”
Piazza admits he took “greenies” — stimulants that were once common in baseball — usually in his coffee. But they made him too jittery. He preferred Dymetadrine, a light asthma medication that sends more oxygen to the brain. He also used Ephedra, an over-the-counter fat burner. It was later added to the banned list" (New York Post).

Whether people are going to interpret this as Piazza admitting to taking some form or performance enhancing drugs is going to be interesting. Nowhere is it mentioned that Piazza took steroids, only using over-the-counter drugs to keep him moving every single day. We will have to wait until next winter to see how the baseball writers interpret Piazza's take on steroids. But, as Piazza admits, every team had a "treasure chest of drugs," goes to show you that the steroid era has a wide encompassing umbrella.

Moreover Piazza also blasts former Yankee Roger Clemens. He details how he tried to prepare himself mentally and physically for a fight on the field with the "Roid Rage" pitcher, after he was beaned in the head by Clemens in 2000. Read the excerpts in the article; even to this day Piazza holds a grudge.