Steve Wilstein

rdf:langString Steve Wilstein

rdf:langString Steve Wilstein (born September 1, 1948 in New York) is an American sportswriter, author and photographer. Wilstein reported Mark McGwire’s use of the testosterone booster androstenedione during the home run race in 1998, the first news story to expose and corroborate the use of anabolic steroids in baseball. Wilstein’s stories and columns led to revelations that resulted in Congressional hearings, drug-testing in the major leagues for the first time, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ban on androstenedione, and the federal Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004. His work was cited as pivotal by former Sen. George Mitchell in his 2007 report to the commissioner of baseball on steroids in the sport, after a 20-month probe, and was chronicled in the books Game of Shadows and Juicing the Game, and detailed in the ESPN the Magazine series, “Who Knew?” In 2009, the Seattle chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America nominated Wilstein for the Hall of Fame's J.G. Taylor Spink award "for meritorious contributions to baseball writing." In 2010, Wilstein was featured in filmmaker Ken Burns' PBS baseball documentary, "The Tenth Inning." In 2021, Wilstein was featured in the podcast series “Crushed” by “Religion of Sports.” Wilstein is the author of "The AP Sports Writing Handbook," (McGraw-Hill, 2001), which is used as a primary text in many college journalism classes. Wilstein continues to provide commentary about developments in the “Steroid Era,” although he retired from the AP in 2005.