Primo drogas!

The first (and hopefully last) time I scored some high-quality steroids

You never forget your first drug deal.

Or at least I won’t, given that I am not looking to do a repeat performance anytime soon.

Let’s dial back to early 2009.

It had been a little over a year since the twin PED salvos had been fired: Barry Bonds indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with the BALCO steroids trafficking investigation and the release of former Sen. George Mitchell’s report on baseball’s doping past, which included former Yankees and Astros teammates Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte among its list of steroid sinners.

In early February 2009, Sports Illustrated reporters Selena Roberts and David Epstein detonated the sports world and upended spring training when they broke the story on Alex Rodriguez testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs during Major League Baseball’s survey testing year (2003). The report said A-Rod used synthetic testosterone and a hardcore injectable anabolic steroid, Primobolan.

With the PED issue still roiling the sports landscape, Rodriguez’s name added to the mix only pushed the media coverage and sports talk blather into another stratosphere. And oh yes, the tabloids were going to have a field day (or many days).

[https://www.si.com/mlb/2009/02/07/alex-rodriguez-steroids]

Even though the results of those MLB players tested in ’03 were supposed to remain confidential — as negotiated between the league and the Players Association — several names who tested positive got leaked to the media, including Rodriguez’s. The SI report cited four sources who confirmed Rodriguez’s dirty test, and the report also said that Rodriguez’s name showed up on records seized by federal agents investigating BALCO.

Over a week after the bombshell SI news, Rodriguez held a press conference in Tampa, the Yankees’ spring training site, on Tuesday, Feb. 17. During his own opening statement and a follow-up Q&A, Rodriguez: a) admitted to doping during the three years he played for the Texas Rangers (2001-03), although he never used the word “steroids” during his remarks; b) pegged his cousin (though not by name) as his drug mule. The cousin, according to Rodriguez, had procured the PEDs in the Dominican Republic and had personally injected A-Rod; c) used awkward phrases like “loosey-goosey” (to describe the baseball culture when he was with the Rangers) and “I knew we weren’t taking Tic Tacs.”

While A-Rod’s presser was unfolding, I happened to be coming out of a doctor’s appointment in Manhattan, and no sooner had I checked my Blackberry (remember them?), than I saw a deluge of emails and phone messages. The first voicemail, and the next two after that, were from my editor, Teri Thompson, who said that I needed to get to the office pronto, and to prepare to fly down to the Dominican… also pronto.

As I was getting on the subway, I cracked up reading an email from my DN colleague, Peter Botte: “My Cousin Vinny got the steroids for A-Rod!”

Steroids and human growth hormone — banned by Major League Baseball — were legal in the D.R., and I was to go down and see how easy it was to get my hands on hardcore PEDs. The day after Rodriguez’s presser, I was with News photographer Corey Sipkin, my frequent work travel partner in Latin America, and we were headed into a Santo Domingo pharmacy right down the street from our hotel.

The transaction itself took about two minutes, and all I needed to give the pharmacy employee was my first name. She typed it into a computer, and I was soon the proud owner of a needle, an ampule of testosterone enanthate and 10 D-Bol (Dianabol) oral tablets. No prescription needed. It cost about $19 total. Corey snapped a few photos outside the pharmacy and in the next day’s Daily News, my mug and my drug stash were featured in the front of the paper.

But that pharmacy and five others Corey and I visited on our first day of the trip did not have the money drug that we came for: Primobolan. Over dinner at the bar of a nearby restaurant that had become our go-to spot in past Dominican trips, we discussed our next move. We had no drug sources, so there actually was no next move, other than learn as we go.

The following morning, with me behind the wheel, we took to the streets in the nearby “La Zona” neighborhood, the old part of Santo Domingo. The narrow streets were already choked with foot traffic, and as we slowed to a crawl, this big dude who could have doubled as an NFL strong safety, came up toward the driver’s window, as if Corey and I had a billboard on the windshield that said, “Clueless Americans Trying to Find Steroids.” He leaned down and asked in Spanish if we wanted “chicas.”

Uhhhh… no. But did he know where we could get steroids?

Why yes, yes he did.

This gentleman — he went by “Manny” — pointed to where a nearby open plaza was, and walked alongside our car while I drove at a turtle’s pace. Driving in the Dominican can age you 10 years every outing, but when it comes to parking, it’s the exact opposite. No opposite-side parking rules to stress about. We ditched our ride on a corner curb and walked with our new friend to the plaza benches.

Turns out Manny knew plenty about steroids. He confessed to being a gym rat and a bodybuilder, and said he could even show us how to inject steroids. Anything we wanted in the steroid/PED category he said he could get… that is, except Primobolan. Manny said “Boli” was not legal over the counter, but that he knew someone else who could sell it to us on the black market.

While I was talking with Manny, Corey had surreptitiously walked away — not an easy feat at 6’3 — and was soon snapping photos. The caption in the top photo above says I’m conducting an “interview,” but let’s be honest, it was the start of a drug deal for all intents and purposes.

Manny said he would call his source, and we could meet him once they connected. We shook hands, exchanged cell numbers and parted ways. He didn’t even notice that Corey had been gone for a while.

I was feeling pretty good about our fortuitous morning when all of the sudden things went sideways — for both Corey and me.

“How’d it go?” I asked him.

“Good, but we have to find a hotel or something soon.”

“Yeah, is your stomach bothering you, too?”

Call it the Dominican version of Montezuma’s Revenge, but right then and there, in the middle of the plaza, we both were having a gastrointestinal insurrection. We were too far from the hotel to chance it, so we took off at a fast walk pace hoping the gods would look kindly on us. I guess the moral is never eat fish the night before a drug deal, but luckily we happened upon separate bars not too far away from the plaza. The car ride back to the hotel was a lot more pleasant than it could have been, and I’ll leave it at that.

Later that day, as instructed by Manny, we drove to an abandoned park not far from the plaza where we met Manny earlier. When we got out of the car, another bodybuilder was waiting with Manny.

“Soy Cuqui,” said the bodybuilder, a jacked dude with a backpack. He was shorter than Manny, but twice as thick. He didn’t appear keen on small talk, and cut to the chase. He opened his backpack to reveal a lot of syringes and a lot of drugs.

“Tiene Boli?” I asked.

He shook his head. Cuqui said he needed a little more time to get us Primobolan, but could probably have the drugs by the end of the day. I gave him my cell number and we left.

I had both a Blackberry and a Motorola flip phone back then, and used the Motorola for calls. But cell service sucked in the D.R. and we almost lost the deal with Cuqui as a result. While I was waiting in my hotel room for the Cuqui call, I began worrying that Manny had stiffed us with his drug source. Then the Motorola finally rang, and an 809 area code flashed on the tiny screen.

It was Cuqui, and he was pissed. “Donde está?” (“Where are you?”) he barked in Spanish a half dozen times. He said he was right outside our hotel and that he’d been calling for a half hour.

“Tranquilo, tranquilo,” I said. That didn’t calm him too much, but I told him we’d be right down. Something got lost in translation earlier, too, because Corey and I both thought we were going to another discreet location to meet.

I met Corey in the lobby and we left the hotel through the rear entrance and walked to the gated exit. Cuqui was nervously pacing around right outside the gate, on the sidewalk across from a crowded restaurant. I started to freak out a little, even though it was dark outside by then.

Avenida Independencia, the road behind the hotel, was anything but discreet, and the one-way traffic was at a standstill. Awesome. Perfect environment to exchange pesos for illegal drugs. I had flashes of “Midnight Express” and ending up in the Dominican equivalent of a Turkish prison.

Corey had brought his camera, and had it sort of tucked under a windbreaker, but we had barely stepped off the hotel grounds when Cuqui handed over a 10 cc vial of Primobol-100 — good for two injections in a week.

“You shoot it straight in the ass with a needle,” Cuqui said in Spanish. Ok, then. He said I owed him about $100, which I nervously counted out in pesos. I could tell Corey was not going to attempt a photo. I think that would have caused Cuqui to blow his stack.

He stuffed the cash in his backpack.

“Anything else you need, let me know,” Cuqui said, zipping up the bag. And then he was gone.

We had no photos of the transaction, but at that point, we were just happy to have the goods. And not be in jail.

Corey left ahead of me to get back to Florida for spring training, so when I was driving the rental back to the airport, I pulled over when I spotted a trashcan in a vacant park overlooking the Caribbean. I placed the needle, D-Bol pills and testosterone ampule in an empty water bottle and chucked it and the Boli vial into the trash.

I’ve been clean ever since.