Archive for the ‘Banned Substances’ Category

New York Yankees v Detroit Tigers - Game Three

In spite of the best efforts of some individuals to bury it, the Biogenesis mess is still out there, lurking around baseball like rank bodily gas. It won’t go away because it is the gift that keeps on giving – it fuels a fire that ignites very easily and burns long and hot.

Robinson Cano‘s name did not appear in the original Biogenesis reports but, as ESPN New York points out, the names of both his best friend (Melky Cabrera) and mentor (Alex Rodriguez) do show up in the notebooks and MASH notes of the South Florida quacks. But that is not all, as the head of Robinson Cano’s charitable foundation apparently appears in some Biogenesis reports.

Sonia Cruz, the spokesperson for Cano’s foundation, suddenly appeared in some Biogenesis documents, according to T.J. Quinn and Mike Fish of ESPN. Cruz denied receiving anything more than treatment from the South Beach clinic:

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“Drugs. Drugs. Drugs. Which are good? Which are bad?”

The melody and lyrics of the vintage public service announcement still resonate, but not because of a nostalgic lesson learned. It’s ironic detachment that fuels our memory. We’re taught from an early age that some drugs are good, and some drugs are bad. However, as we get older, we learn that nothing is truly as black and white as we’re initially led to believe.

This is a lesson gone unlearned by professional sports that still prefer to exist in a sort of Neverland, remaining aloft in ideals that ultimately prove childish. The issue of drugs in sports, as in all walks of life, requires nuance, but the major professional sports leagues insist on handling it with definition that doesn’t actually exist.

No greater example of this can be found than in the recent voter approval for possession of marijuana in Colorado and Washington. Despite the evidence of social progress that the vote represents, imagining that the results would change the rules for professional sports in those states is, pardon the expression, a pipe dream.

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