Say It Aint So

(Pic Link: crystalinks)

I have been rudely awaken from my slumber. I was on cloud nine, floating through the sky like a freshly made bubble blown from the breath of a boisterous child. The sky was clear, the weather perfect, not a hint of danger was in sight. My dreams last night were filled will those happy thoughts and I was sure nothing could burst it.

Then, I turned on my computer at work, pulled up firefox and headed to my daily read. My first stop was Dodger Thoughts and suddenly my morning, that was once blissful, has turned into a nightmare. Manny Ramirez to be suspended 50 games. What! No! What! Huh! Crap!

Ramirez is expected to attribute the test results to medication received from a doctor for a personal medical issue, according to a source familiar with matter but not authorized to speak publicly.

Go here for the story in the LA Times.

UPDATE: From AP:

“Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me,” Ramirez said in a statement issued by the players’ union.

“Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I’ve taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons.”

I'm still unhappy about this whole situation.

UPDATE II: My friend Craig just emailed me this:

On another topic, what if Manny was using some type of Viagra drug. After all it is a “performance enhancing” drug, right? Gives a whole new meaning to the word “Mannywood”.

Thank you for the laugh.

UPDATE III: Holy crap it may have been for a Viagra type of drug, but there are still questions.

Two sources said Ramirez tested positive for a gonadotropin. Major League baseball’s list of banned substances includes the gonadotropins LH and HCG, which are most commonly used by women as fertility drugs. They also can be used to trigger testosterone production. Testosterone is depleted by steroid use, which can cause sexual dysfunction.

“Testosterone and similar drugs are effective for erectile dysfunction in that they jazz up your sex drive,” said Charles Yesalis, a professor at Penn State who has testified before Congress on issues of performance-enhancing drugs. “But far more clinicians accept that affect with Viagra and Cialis. It’s hard for me to understand if it was erectile dysfunction why they would use it.”

From a blog post comment on Wax Heaven.

The stuff he is accused of using is the same stuff Jose Canseco got busted with a few months back.
Jose was quitting steroids and tried to bring HCG across the border so he could bring his testosterone levels back to normal-after years of steroid use.
Looks like Manny was using undetectable steroids, decided to quit before getting caught and suffered the horrible side effect of not enough lead in the pencil. Hence taking a legal (except in MLB) testosterone booster to get things back to normal before anyone knew a thing.

This is not good.