Braves downplay steroids report

By David O'Brien

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

WASHINGTON -- Liberty Media, which owns the Braves, also owns a nutrition company that is allegedly selling steroids on the Internet, the New York Times reported Friday.

The newspaper reported that court papers unsealed Thursday said that BodyBuilding.com is selling dietary supplements containing steroids and designer steroids including Madol, one of the substances found in the now-famous raid on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) in 2003.

Liberty Media paid more than $100 million for a controlling interest in BodyBuilding.com in 2008. The company, which purchased the Braves from Time Warner in 2007, has interests in an array of businesses including DirectTV, Ticketmaster and QVC.

The Braves were mentioned in the first sentence of the Times story, although there were no allegations of any connection between the team and BodyBuilding.com.

“While we have a common ownership, we are run as an independent unit,” said Braves president John Schuerholz. “And as a baseball organization, we stand by and support Major League Baseball’s high standards of operation.”

When asked if that was a reference to the league’s drug-testing policy, Schuerholz said, “All standards. Every single one of them. No further comment need be made on the subject.”