No, the Texas Rangers players -- who popularized antler t-shirts and foam replicas during their run to last year's World Series -- need not be any more concerned than their brethren on other teams despite a Major League Baseball warning that misuse of deer antlers could get them suspended.
It's actually deer antler spray, which it turns out is being marketed as a potential replacement and dodge for would-be users of steroids.
Sports Illustrated first reported that MLB issued a warning to players in the major and minor leagues that the practice of using the spray under the tongue could be a problem because one brand of the product was added to MLB's list of "potentially contaminated nutritional supplements."
The broader issue is IGF-1, or insulin-like growth factor, which is in the velvet from antlers of immature deer. IGF-1 is banned by MLB because it can be used to affect a person's level of human growth hormone. The antlers are ground up and manufactured into a spray.
Makers of the spray claim it enhances performance, strength and endurance and that it's not detectable in the drug testing currently used by MLB. It can be detected in blood tests, which are not part of the baseball program.
But MLB's "contamination" warning is based on reports the spray can produce positive tests for methyltestosterone, which is a banned steroid.
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