"Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue," he said in the statement. "He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was okay to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy, that mistake is now my responsibility."Mistake?
AP reported "Manny Ramirez used a female fertility drug, HCG, human chorionic gonadotropin." It works for that and sometimes is used to kick start puberty for boys with a delayed onset.
ESPN's Jeremy Schapp added with adult males HCG "is typically used by steroid users to restart their bodies' natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle. It is similar to Clomid, the drug Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and others used as clients of BALCO."
The L.A. Times:
The suspension will cost Ramirez $7.7 million, or roughly 31% of his $25-million salary. Players in violation of baseball's drug policy are not paid during suspensions.But now his 100+ RBI pace propelling the Dodgers to a season opening at home win streak, and the NL's best winning percentage plus last year's spectacular finish are called into question.
Ramirez would become the biggest star suspended under an oft-criticized major league testing program that started in 2003. He had been a model citizen since arriving in Los Angeles last August, following a stormy tenure with the Boston Red Sox."
In Red Sox Nation, where Manny is perceived to have faked injury for the first half of the 2008 season to force a contract renegotiation or trade, Boston Globe sports columnist Bob Ryan wrote:
Be careful. Manny could be telling the truth.
If any baseball superstar is capable of taking a medication in all innocence, and then finding out that something in it is included on Major League Baseball's banned list of substances it is Manny Ramirez. It certainly fits the profile.
After all, who should know better than us?
But losing Manny until 4th of July weekend is no joke to the Dodgers organization and fans.
Photo: Getty Images via Newsday
Earthquake, tsunami,
BY Kristie Ackert
ReplyDeleteNY DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Friday, May 8th 2009, 2:03 AM
Johnny Damon said Thursday that he hoped that Manny Ramirez's 50-game suspension for using a banned substance would not be a black eye on the Red Sox's magical run to the 2004 World Series championship, but even he seemed doubtful.
"What we accomplished that year in Boston was pretty extraordinary, the comeback and all that stuff," the Yankee outfielder said before last night's game against the Rays at the Stadium. "I would love to know that we went through that season that we played fair, that everything that we won, we won the right way. I would love for it to come out that way."