Major League Baseball (MLB) today shook the image a benign neglect of the steroid/PED problem obviously plaguing the sport. Jose Guillen and Jay Gibbons will be dealt an incredibly orgerish 15 day suspension. This 13 or 14 game suspension will send a very strong message to any MLB player thinking of using HGH, IGF-1, or another PED that can't tested: Don't use Mastercard or Visa for your drugs.
Fourteen games would be 8.6% of the games next season or 7% of the days in the season. Why didn't track and field take 7%/8.6% of Marion Jones' medals back? It could even be a bronze chopped into thirds.
So you cheat, and you sit 7% of the season. Sign me up boys, I can still play 148-149 games, hit a bunch of home runs, and get my 36 million for 3 years. God created the universe in 6 days, so 15 days is like three times that.
The Baltimore Sun:
Major League Baseball today suspended Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons 15 days, beginning with the start of the 2008 season, for violating the league's drug policy. Gibbons admitted to The Sun today that he had used hGH.
Gibbons had not previously addressed allegations that he received a shipment of steroids and hGH from a raided Florida pharmacy. Gibbons and Kansas City Royals outfielder Jose Guillen, who was also given a 15-day ban today, are the first players to be suspended without failing a drug test.
"I am deeply sorry for the mistakes that I have made," Gibbons said. "I have no excuses and bear sole responsibility for my decisions. Years ago, I relied on the advice of a doctor, filled a prescription, charged the hGH, which is a medication, to my credit card and had only intended to help speed my recovery from my injuries and surgeries. I hope that my family, teammates, fans and [Orioles owner] Peter Angelos and the entire Orioles organization will accept my apologies and that we can all move on."
So, again, a stupid doctor prescribed Gibbons the illegal PEDs. And what were those PEDs?
Citing a source in Florida with knowledge of Signature's client list, SI.com reported that Gibbons received six separate shipments of Genotropin, a brand name for synthetic hGH; two testosterone deliveries; and two shipments of human chorionic gonadotropin, a hormone produced during pregnancy and taken by anabolic steroid users to stimulate testosterone production.
Six shipments of HGH, 2 shipments of testosterone, and 2 deliveries of HCG.
So all this was from a doctor, huh Dude?
- HGH is indicated for growth hormone deficiency in children, and is used in some AIDS and burn patients;
- Testosterone has a number of indications, none of which include recovery from injury unless the patient is -- again -- a burn unit patient;
- HCG -- hormone of pregnancy -- may be indicated in infertility, threated miscarriage, or when the testicles didn't descend into the scrotal sack.
So what was the illness? Testes not down?
What hypocrisy.
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