Since the positive test, Palmeiro continues to maintain that he took a tainted shot of vitamin B12, which he felt gave him an energy boost. He said the supplement he took came from the Dominican Republic.
"It was an accidental, unintentional deal on my part, and I take full responsibility for that," said Palmeiro, who tested negative in subsequent tests that year. "I did not do the proper due diligence on it, and if I pay the price, I pay the price."
Now, I don't care that much about the whole steroid issue. It was rampant and you need to compare players against their peers. I don't care if Palmeiro did steroids for 20 years, he has a career OPS+ of 132 (wRC+ of 133), 569 home runs, 3,020 hits and he has 65.7 WAR which puts him in the top 100 of all-time and ahead of Mark McGwire, Gary Sheffield and Ryne Sandberg. Those are HOF numbers in my book and very nearly a slam dunk.
And you may not believe his story about the B-12 shot but consider this:
After his positive test, a congressional committee went back and conducted an investigation of Palmeiro, and found no evidence he had used illegal performance-enhancing drugs before that. Therefore, there was no proof Palmeiro had lied in front of Congress...
"I don't regret sitting in front of Congress because I told them the truth," Palmeiro said. "They did a thorough investigation and couldn't come up with anything or any other evidence. I told them the absolute truth."
This is hardly proof of innocence or proof that Palmeiro's positive test was due to a one-time event but it is a point in Palmeiro's favor.
Also, there's this quote from Palmeiro:
"I can tell you what I'd like to forget – the 3,000th hit," Palmeiro said. "I knew early on that it was a positive [test] and knew that, at some point, my career was going to get crushed. I was playing with that in my mind all season. It didn't matter what I'd done, even with 3,000 on the horizon....
"Usually, baseball celebrates something like that, it's almost like an achievement of baseball instead of an individual or team achievement," Palmeiro said. "But I can honestly tell you, that was as dark of a moment in my career as ever. I don't even like thinking back on that."
I include these quotes to frame a question: Why would a man who was so tortured by the impending release of the positive test that it renders his chase for 3,000 hits to a memory he'd like to forget keep standing by his story?
There is still a list of names out there, a list of 104 names from 2003 that has caused other players a lot of heartburn. It would be hard to believe that Palmeiro's name is on that list if he is still standing by his original story and with his first Hall of Fame vote just a few months away.
So either Palmeiro is a pathological liar of Roger Clemens-like proportions or he has a bit more credibility than he did five years ago. I'm going with the latter.
