This piece of crap by T.J. Simers is asinine. He has penned many columns that have had people wondering why he is employed by the LA Times. This one, however, might take the cake.
Now I have no idea whether it was HGH, HCG, ABC or whatever letters of the alphabet Ramirez put into his body. I don’t care, although the mention of a female fertility drug does leave the door open for a punch line or two when he returns.
Remember this was posted today not yesterday. We do know what it was that caused the positive test and it was a female fertility drug called hCG.
Mike Fish over at ESPN.com, has a real piece of journalism:
According to the man who until recently was the point person in the Albany, N.Y., investigation into anti-aging clinics, hCG, the drug that cost Manny Ramirez a 50-game suspension, is commonly sold as part of a “stack” of substances that includes performance enhancers.
Mark Haskins, formerly an investigator for the New York State Department of Health, said places such as the Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center routinely sent out hCG along with testosterone and Winstrol (stanozolol).
“I spent four years investigating this stuff, and 90 percent of the orders contained hCG,” he said.
HCG is primarily a female fertility drug because it helps the body manufacture progesterone. When used by men, it spurs production of testosterone in the testes.
If that isn’t enough damning evidence, how about the fact that just last year Canseco was detained at the Mexican-US border for an illegal smuggling violation. Shortly after we found out that the drug that Canseco was transporting was, you guessed it, hCG.
Use your head Simers; how can you say you do not care? These types of actions have irrevocably ruined what the game of baseball represented.
Sure no one cares if a ‘roided-up D-tackle that plays for, say, the Houston Texans is battling a O-linemen from the Tampa Bay Bucs who is also juicing. Of course these players are not the face of the entire sport.
To take it to the next level, even if the most skilled RB and QB in the NFL today were implicated in steroid allegation, it still would not matter nearly as much as what has happened in the game of baseball.
Football is a sport of larger than life men bumping heads on the gridiron. On the other hand, baseball was America’s pasttime–a sport in which seemingly ordinary looking men accomplished extraordinary things. That was one of the beauties of the game.
It is about the numbers.
No one can tell you how many rushing yards Emmit Smith has or how many TD’s Favre or Marino threw. Everyone knows Hank Aaron… 755 and the Babe… 714.
Baseball is a game of numbers. Statistics are so important and thus records become historic. That has all been taken away from us. I am not sure that my trust can be repaired overnight, or over the span of 50 games, as it apparently can for Mr. Simers.
First Gibbons and Bell, now Manny [ESPN]
Dodgers’ Manny Ramirez has some explaining to do [LA Times]
