Is JC Romero Getting Sandbagged?
Are you kidding me, MLB???? If it's true that Romero bought a legal supplement over the counter and was never informed by anyone (either before or after doing his own due diligence), that it would cause him to test positive for banned substances and, even more to the point, the player's union didn't even know the substance was banned, I don't see what MLB has to stand on here. Let me be clear: illicit PEDs have no place in baseball or anywhere. But something I could buy at the mall? Let's ban vitamins while we're at it.
Peter Gammons' story from yesterday in which Romero tells his side of the story is linked below. If JC is telling the truth, I don't see how he can be held accountable. And the lapse in communication from the union to players about what is and isn't considered illicit (not by US law here, but by the MLB drug code), which seems to be a matter of fact, is outrageous. We don't yet know if the MLB failed to inform the union or if the union just failed to inform the players (the people it supposedly exists to protect).
Today's update is odd. If Romero is innocent, why not appeal? First and foremost because the Phillies front office won't support it. Why won't they support it? Maybe because there's more to the story, or maybe because the suits behind the World Champs want to draw a hard line with MLB about the taint of illicit PEDs, even going so far as to sandbag a man who won them two WS games (with no trace of any supplement whatsoever in his system) just because he tested positive a few months before for a substance that no one knew was on MLB's black list and that had been cleared by a trainer and a nutritionist?
So either we don't know the whole story, or the Philly front office is towing MLB's PR line. If it's the later, I still have to wonder why. Because they're the champs? Because they're this year's face of baseball? Are they somehow being coerced?
Leave a comment