MLB Players Asked to Please Cool it with the Deer Antler Spray

"“MLB players have been issued a warning over the use of deer-antler spray, a substance administered under the tongue that includes a banned chemical known for its muscle-building and fat-cutting effects…”"

After Bud Selig heroically kicked steroids out of baseball, the players turned to different sources of power.  Unfortunately, most of them didn’t find any, and we have entered an era of dominant pitching, which is great, but also completely uninteresting.

Thankfully, baseball players are always on the lookout for a fresh new way to put strange things in their bodies and become stronger.  Recently, the widespread usage of Deer Antler Spray caused MLB to put out a league-wide ban.  The spray, which comes from the antlers of young deer, contains velvet, which itself contains IGF-1, a substance that repairs muscle tissue and makes you as strong as a deer before inevitably turning you into one.

But what is Deer Antler Spray?  What does it look like?  How is it sold?  Let’s take a deeper look at a product that turns our favorite athletes into horrific abominations in snazzy suits.

Ah, the mighty stag.  The king of the forest.  Quickly now, we must grind his headpiece into dust and improve our professional athletes.

This ad fails to shy away from the “deer” imagery, deciding not to distance itself from actual deer and instead do just the opposite–include beautiful natural images of deer reenacting a particularly heartbreaking scene from Bambi.  

Which isn’t doing them a lot of favors.

Of course, it’s only detectable via a blood test, which most athletes, including the MLBPA, are “iffy” about.  So the restrictive measures of the league can only get about as serious as “Please don’t.”

Yes, nothing honors the majesty of deer like scraping residue from their antlers, then freeze drying it and grounding it into a powder to be placed under your tongue.

Hey, just ask Heath Evans of the New Orleans Saints!

Whether or not Heath will continue his use of deer antler spray now that NFL players don’t have to worry about the “rigors of two-a-days” remains to be seen, but this ad is a reminder that even the saintliest of us needs a little help now and then.  And also that Heath Evans is “dedicated to helping victims of Childhood sexual abuse,” which doesn’t really serve a purpose in this paragraph outside of the marketing team trying to illustrate how wonderful their patrons are.

And they are wonderful, until the third time they wake up in the woods with one of their hands malformed into a hoof-like appendage.

Look.  Enough jokes about people turning into deer.  Now we know how deer antler spray is made, what it does, and that MLB wants it gone.  But what are the risks?  The real ones, I mean.  Not the ones I came up with and spent an hour Googling “half man half deer.”

"“Ever since I began using Deer Antlet Velvet, I noticed a few side effects that had not been mentioned in the Yahoo article, in the reviews I had read, nor in many medical studies in general.”—VelvetDeer.net"

Uh oh!  Let’s not let go of the “crackpot” weredeer theories just yet.

"“These ‘side effects’ were not bad. In fact, they were the kind I was hoping for and was pleasantly surprised by.”"

Oh.

Yes, according to this user report, side effects of deer antler spray include:

• Better sleep
• Clear headed-ness
• Fuller, healthier hair
• Larger muscle size and hardness
• Resistance to injuries
• Higher libido and sex drive

These are balanced out by the negative ones:

• Raised aggression
• Zits

How will you get Sally to go to the prom with you if you’ve got out of control acne while punching her in the face?!  Most women have serious issues with such actions, no matter how loudly you explain the size of your libido.

Apparently, deer antler spray is something athletes have been using for years, and only now MLB has decided they have a problem with it.  What sort of cataclysmic shockwaves this will send through the game we shall see, but like the rest of their banned substances, we can rest easy knowing that the league will relentlessly track those responsible and hand out strong, just punishments to all.