Former owner of Expos, Claude Brochu, is not worried about earning the ire of former colleagues as he admits to being aware of the rampant use of steroids among MLB players during the time that he was an owner but did nothing about it. In an interview with Jacques Thériault on CKAC Sports, Claude Brochu candidly discussed drugs and baseball, particularly the beginning of the steroid era in MLB sometime in the early 90s. He admitted live on TV that owners were aware of the steroid situation but did nothing about it. So far, he is the first MLB owner, current and existing, to have admitted to such knowledge.

Brochu said that at first, they were naturally scratching their heads about it, but when it came to former Expos players such as F.P. Santangelo, it was obvious that it was happening but they were powerless and couldn’t do anything about it. At that time, he said, the union would not allow the testing of players and there was nothing to do. The MLB union argued that testing did not exist in other labor unions and thus they would not subject their players to steroid testing or other such tests. Of course, the whole union including the owners knew that it existed and players were using but they did nothing.

According to Brochu, however, the team owners tried their best to get rid of the steroid problem. They were worried about the negative effects and the injuries that were associated with steroid use and thus they tried to give advice to the players. There was an unwritten law that talk about steroids had to remain a secret. During that time, anabolic steroids were not illegal in Major League Baseball so nobody spoke about it. While they knew about the use of cocaine and other recreational drugs, they did not know anything about steroids and performance enhancing drugs. Star players received huge salaries and because of this, they could get or try anything that would make them get better. The owners felt like they had no control about what the players used so they simply chose to keep quiet.

Brochu added that the commissioner’s office seemed to have little interest in getting rid of steroids and that MLB had a lot to do with the owners’ silence about the matter. In the 1995 and 1996 seasons that followed the lockout, MLB was financially saved. At that time, fans just wanted a winning team and nobody really cared about players using steroids.

While Brochu is the only owner or ex-owner who has admitted to knowing what was going on during that time, it is quite obvious that owners and insiders were aware of the steroid problem even before it exploded in the media, but simply chose not to do anything about it until it was too late. From the interview, it looks as if a lot of people had the chance to have changed things, to have stopped the problem before it got out of hand, but no one was courageous enough to do so, only moralizing or justifying in retrospect.

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