Study: Adults minimize prep steroid use as a problem

NEW YORK — American adults rank steroid use among adolescents as less of a problem than alcohol, bullying, marijuana and sexually transmitted diseases, according to a study released Thursday that was co-commissioned by baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Those polled also ranked cocaine, obesity and eating disorders as bigger problems. While 97 percent of the respondents believe steroids cause negative health effects, just 19 percent think steroid use is a big problem among high school students.

“Steroids and performanceenhancing substances remain a mystery to the American public,” hall President Jeff Idelson said.

The survey of 1,002 adults was conducted by The Gallup Organization from Oct. 9 to Nov. 10 and commissioned by the hall, the Taylor Hooton Foundation and the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society.

“We have an adult population that is virtually oblivious to the fact that the problem even exists,” said Don Hooton, whose 17-year-old son, Taylor, committed suicide in July 2003, an act doctors attributed to depression caused after he stopped using performanceenhancing drugs.

FINES: Major League Baseball fined umpire Tom Hallion and Tampa Bay pitchers David Price, Jeremy Hellickson and Matt Moore for their dust-up last weekend. Each of the pitchers was fined $1,000. It was unknown how much Hallion was docked.

Hallion was the plate umpire and crew chief during a game Sunday at Chicago against the White Sox, and Price thought he missed a pitch. They exchanged words, and Price accused Hallion of directing an expletive at him while he walked off the field.

Hallion called Price a “liar” after the game.

Price, Hellickson and Moore, a Moriarty High alum, later made comments about Hallion on Twitter in violation of MLB’s social media policy that forbids “displaying or transmitting content that questions the impartiality of or otherwise denigrates a major league umpire.”

RED SOX: Manager John Farrell is upset by accusations that pitcher Clay Buchholz was putting a foreign substance on the ball during Wednesday’s win over Toronto. Ex-MLB pitcher Dirk Hayhurst, a broadcast analyst for the Blue Jays, told a Toronto radio station Buchholz was “absolutely” cheating.

ROCKIES: Three-time AllStar pitcher Roy Oswalt has agreed to a minor league deal.

BLUE JAYS: The roof at Rogers Centre in Toronto was open Thursday for the first time this year.