LOS ANGELES -- If sport is about mythmaking, then clean sport might be the biggest myth of all.
Baseball was reminded of this the hard way Wednesday when Bartolo Colon of the Oakland Athletics was suspended 50 games after testing positive for testosterone. Melky Cabrera of the San Francisco Giants was suspended 50 games last week for the same reason.
Two pennant races, two key players, two suspensions - and you say your sport is clean?
No sport can ever be completely clean, not with competitors eternally in search of the slightest edge. But, as fans debated Wednesday whether the two suspensions might indicate a new wave of drug use in the sport, the commissioner?s office was taken aback.
?We caught a couple of people,? a high-ranking executive said, ?and it?s almost like we didn?t.?
Baseball has come a long way. There was no drug testing a decade ago.
The chemists have gotten better. Baseball should too.
Colon, 39, could have been paid millions of dollars by prolonging his career. Cabrera, 28, could have received dozens of millions in free agency this fall. The possibility of a 50-game suspension did not deter either, so perhaps a one-year suspension might be more appropriate for a first offense.
?Fifty games with no pay? I don?t understand why people don?t think that?s harsh,? Los Angeles Angels outfielder Torii Hunter said. ?It?s no pay!?
Said Angels pitcher C.J. Wilson: ?I think one-third of a season is pretty stiff, and you?re publicly shamed for a long time after that.?
However, Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw and Angels outfielder Mark Trumbo endorsed a tougher sentence.
Said Kershaw: ?We should have the harshest penalty possible. If it takes a full season for guys to understand it, whatever it takes. I?m good with where it?s at now. If they want to increase it, I?ve got no problem with that.?
Said Trumbo: ?I wouldn?t be opposed to there being a bigger deterrent. Fifty games without pay is pretty stiff, but it?s obviously not enough to scare some guys away from it.?
Neither is random testing that is all too infrequent.
Testosterone injected into the body becomes all but undetectable in about eight days, according to Gary Wadler, a physician and past chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency?s prohibited list committee.
(c)2012 the Los Angeles Times. Distributed by MCT Information Services
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bostonherald/sports/~3/vlV7ygL8yo8/view.bg
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