Baseball’s drug testing must be working, otherwise 37 minor leaguers you’ve never heard of (save for Damian Moss and Francisco Cordova) wouldn’t have received 15 game suspensions for violations of policy. A’s farmhand David Castillo, above, was banned for 60 games, which means he must’ve been taking 4 times as many steroids as the other guys. And tons more than Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Barry Bonds, Terminal Sledge or Manny Alexander, none of whom have missed a day of major league playing time from any sort of drug-related penalty.
(UPDATE : if you look over the list of those suspended, with the exception of the Cards’ Paul Fishella, all of the accused are from teams that train in Arizona. So perhaps we can expect a 2nd round of suspensions featuring little-known players from the New York, Boston, Cleveland and Atlanta organizations?)
actually the minor league policy was instated before the major league policy, and was a blueprint for the latter.
ahem.
indeed, they’ve been testing for ‘roids in the minors for some time. Which was easily accompished given that the relatively few minor leaguers are members of the players union, and giving up their minor league brethren for testing was a simple concession in the last basic agreement. But I cannot recall in prior years, 38 guys being publicly named on Opening Day.
Forgive me for being cynical about all of this, but it does work out rather nicely for MLB to charge, try and execute fringe players, guys who are barely hanging on never mind not quite challenging McGwire and Bonds for HR records. It’s a perfect answer to charges that they’re soft on drugs, letting players get away with murder, etc.
I assume you know this, but Castillo got a longer suspension because he is a recidivist in this faux-crime moralizing witchhunt.
thanks Charles, I did not know that. Considering that Castillo had yet to graduate above Single A and was listed as 5’9″, 185 catcher….well, I’m gonna guess he didn’t have Victor Conte on speed-dial. Maybe the major leaguers can afford better masking agents.