Steve Wilstein

Steve Wilstein (born September 1, 1948 in New York) is an American sportswriter, author and photographer. Wilstein broke the news of St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire's androstenedione use during his record-setting 70-home run season in 1998—a report that gave the public its first look at what became baseball's "Steroids Era," and ushered in changes in the sport as the story continued to unfold for more than a decade.

Wilstein's story for the Associated Press was the first to report evidence of a baseball player using steroids and the first to quote a player who acknowledged using them. His succeeding reports and commentaries were central to the longest-running series of stories in baseball history on a single subject with continuing developments.

Wilstein's stories and columns led to a series of 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."

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 and insight about developments in the “Steroids Era,” although he retired from the AP in 2005. He exhibits photography at several galleries and has also written children’s stories and magazine pieces.