[mike777]

Manny has been banned for 50 games.


This just does not make any sense. Why ban some performance enhancing drugs/chemicals and allow many other chemicals that clearly enhance sports performance? All drugs have side effects.

Why allow operations that clearly help people improve sports performance? People can and do die during operations.

[kenrexford]

I don't understand.

I mean, I get the second part. The rules might not make sense. Maybe the rules need to be reconsidered or changed. Maybe you have a different view of fair rules. I get that.

But, the rules are what the rules are. If the rule is that you cannot utter the word pumpkin or be banned for 50 games, then don't cry if you get caught uttering the word pumpkin.

Now, if the rules are more than just silly, but actually offensive, like you cannot be black (a rule they once sort of or perhaps maybe even actually had), then that's another thing.

[Phil]

[Echognome]

From the story I read on Yahoo News:

Quote

"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."

Which made me think that a 50 game suspension seemed harsh for what was just a mistake of Manny's doctor. Surely he would appeal. Then I read:

Quote

Ramirez's agent, Scott Boras, and the players' association had gathered materials for a possible appeal to an arbitrator, but Ramirez decided not to file one because he didn't want to risk missing significant time in the second half of the season, the person familiar with details of the suspension said. The union said merely that he waived his right to contest the suspension.

I don't understand the reasoning. Why would you not appeal just because you will miss games later in the season rather than earlier in the season? I mean yes, on the surface, I can understand that being in playing shape closer to playoffs is important. But if there's a good chance you will have the sentence reduced or thrown out all together, surely it must be worth it. I can't help think there's more to the story than he's saying.

[mike777]

Echognome, on May 7 2009, 03:37 PM, said:

From the story I read on Yahoo News:

Quote

"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."

Which made me think that a 50 game suspension seemed harsh for what was just a mistake of Manny's doctor. Surely he would appeal. Then I read:

Quote

Ramirez's agent, Scott Boras, and the players' association had gathered materials for a possible appeal to an arbitrator, but Ramirez decided not to file one because he didn't want to risk missing significant time in the second half of the season, the person familiar with details of the suspension said. The union said merely that he waived his right to contest the suspension.

I don't understand the reasoning. Why would you not appeal just because you will miss games later in the season rather than earlier in the season? I mean yes, on the surface, I can understand that being in playing shape closer to playoffs is important. But if there's a good chance you will have the sentence reduced or thrown out all together, surely it must be worth it. I can't help think there's more to the story than he's saying.

I think an even more important issue is can an employer really ban you without pay from your job for taking medicine that your doctor tells you to take?

I mean my options are not take medicine ordered by my doc or lose my job or in Manny's case lose around 8 million bucks?

[Aberlour10]

I miss the obligatory poll in this topic. I would vote for: - " I am a stupid European and dont know who Manny is"

[mike777]

Aberlour10, on May 7 2009, 03:59 PM, said:

I miss the obligatory poll in this topic. I would vote for: - " I am a stupid European and dont know who Manny is"

Manny used to be an alien but is now an American who works in Los Angeles. He is a big star and just had part of that town renamed after him which is called MannyWood!

The fact that he has been banned is all over the news here in the USA. It is the story of the day.

[awm]

Pretty much all athletes who fail a drug test have some bogus excuse about over-the-counter medicines or doctors prescribing stuff to them or "just trying it once to recover from injury." Manny Ramirez is making about $20 million a year, surely he can afford a competent doctor? There is even some hotline major league baseball players can call to find out of various drugs/supplements are legal under the drug policy. And the teams have doctors who are obviously experts on this, and who he could've consulted with.

My suspicion is "medicinal" marijuana. Team doctor is not too likely to prescribe that one... and in fact an athlete in Manny's physical condition is unlikely to get a reputable doctor to prescribe it...

It's also worth noting that the drug policy doesn't have a lot of leeway for "I didn't know" type of excuses. Like Manny himself said, according to the policy it's his responsibility. So while he might have had a bad doctor (or purposely have hired a bad doctor, or just be making the whole thing up) even if his excuse is true it doesn't mean he'll get anywhere with an appeal.

[hotShot]

If you are a professional athlete, you are supposed to consult the teams medical service. If they are responsible, the team has to pay you.
If you take medicine from a doc who is unfamiliar with doping regulations you are stupid.

We've heard that that "The doctor gave me the wrong medication" many times before and if it's true, you will suffer for other peoples abuse of this excuse.

Doping is practiced by lots of athletes in all professional sports and even by lots of amateurs.

I don't know what kind of sport this Manny is good in, but if he can play at the end of the season after being banned for 50 games, 15 drug tests in 5 seasons, is a rate of less than 3 times per season. This can't be effective since several drugs that are used for doping can only be detected in the first few days, while their effect lasts for weeks.

[mike777]

If you create drug policy that is clearly silly people will continue to disrespect it.

Hopefully at some point a court or a law will be passed that if your Doctors legally prescribe chemicals or an operation for you, you are not harming others, you cannot lose your job or 8 million bucks.

It is nuts to let baseball legally have this power over what your doctor gives you.
It is nuts to let baseball allow all sorts of performance enhancing drugs or operations and disallow others. If the goal is to make the game pure then make it pure.

I mean it is ok to put animal parts into a 35 year old pitcher so he can pitch like a 31 year old but this is illegal? It is ok to have eye surgery to give you better than 20/20 vision but this is illegal?

[awm]

mike777, on May 7 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

If you create drug policy that is clearly silly people will continue to disrespect it.

Hopefully at some point a court or a law will be passed that if your Doctors legally prescribe chemicals or an operation for you, you are not harming others, you cannot lose your job or 8 million bucks.

Why is the drug policy clearly silly?

Legalizing steroids will have the effect of encouraging aspiring athletes to take drugs. They will be in the unenviable position of having to choose between taking drugs (and suffering the many nasty side effects) or being without a job, because they cannot perform as well on the field as those who are taking drugs.

Virtually every serious sport has a drug policy, with the olympics being among the most stringent.

As for doctors, there should be an exception for medically necessary procedures prescribed by competent doctors. But then, the teams have qualified team doctors who are vetted for competency and familiar with the drug policy. Choosing to go to a different doctor, and then taking what they prescribe without any attempt to get it approved by the team doctor is already suspicious. Often this is a way to get a "prescription" for something illegal.

Saying "my doctor prescribed these steroids for me so they should be okay" is like saying "my lawyer told me torture was legal so it should be okay." Ignorance is not an excuse, especially when remaining ignorant requires pretty serious detachment from reality.

Then again, "detached from reality" is a pretty good description of Manny Ramirez, so his excuse just might be genuine.

[mike777]

awm, on May 7 2009, 04:51 PM, said:

mike777, on May 7 2009, 04:45 PM, said:

If you create drug policy that is clearly silly people will continue to disrespect it.

Hopefully at some point a court or a law will be passed that if your Doctors legally prescribe chemicals or an operation for you, you are not harming others, you cannot lose your job or 8 million bucks.

Why is the drug policy clearly silly?

Legalizing steroids will have the effect of encouraging aspiring athletes to take drugs. They will be in the unenviable position of having to choose between taking drugs (and suffering the many nasty side effects) or being without a job, because they cannot perform as well on the field as those who are taking drugs.

Virtually every serious sport has a drug policy, with the olympics being among the most stringent.

As for doctors, there should be an exception for medically necessary procedures prescribed by competent doctors. But then, the teams have qualified team doctors who are vetted for competency and familiar with the drug policy. Choosing to go to a different doctor, and then taking what they prescribe without any attempt to get it approved by the team doctor is already suspicious. Often this is a way to get a "prescription" for something illegal.

Saying "my doctor prescribed these steroids for me so they should be okay" is like saying "my lawyer told me torture was legal so it should be okay." Ignorance is not an excuse, especially when remaining ignorant requires pretty serious detachment from reality.

Then again, "detached from reality" is a pretty good description of Manny Ramirez, so his excuse just might be genuine.

Why let baseball decide what is medically necessary. If you have proof that this doctor did something illegal ok pls post it. Please reread what you wrote, you imply that this doctor did something for nonmedical reasons.

Yes and all of these drug policies are nuts. Many drugs which promote faster healing are banned. Why is a baseball doctor in the employ of my boss better than my doctor?

Frankly if a chemical or operation is legal in a country than it should be legal in any and all sports.

Of course if my doctor has a legitimate medical reason to give me steriods it should not be banned by any sport. If a sport can ban them I only hope Congress changes the law.

[luke warm]

i can (barely) understand banning certain performance enhancing substances on the grounds that prolonged use has been proved to be harmful... if this was pot, prescribed or not, that doesn't fall in that category to me... pot is about as far from performance enhancing as a drug can get

[mike777]

luke warm, on May 7 2009, 05:04 PM, said:

i can (barely) understand banning certain performance enhancing substances on the grounds that prolonged use has been proved to be harmful... if this was pot, prescribed or not, that doesn't fall in that category to me... pot is about as far from performance enhancing as a drug can get

Jimmy most if not all drugs can be proved to be harmful in a medical sense of the word.

As for Pot, I am not a doctor but I would think very long repeated use of smoking Pot, drawing smoke into my lungs, could in theory cause some harm to my body.

It would be interesting to x-ray the lungs of long-term pot smokers compared to non-smokers.

[mike777]

"Legalizing steroids will have the effect of encouraging aspiring athletes to take drugs."

As far as I know steriods are legal in the USA, just not in MLB.

If your point is making something legal will encourage people to use it more be it a memory pill or smarter pill or muscle pill I agree. For example if a memory pill improves memory performance of an 90 year old to a 20 year i bet there will be huge usage.

If your point is as of now these pills either do not work or are dangerous I agree but that does not mean we should not try and improve these drugs.

[Aberlour10]

mike777, on May 7 2009, 04:20 PM, said:

Aberlour10, on May 7 2009, 03:59 PM, said:

I miss the obligatory poll in this topic. I would vote for: - " I am a stupid European and dont know who Manny is"

Manny used to be an alien but is now an American who works in Los Angeles. He is a big star and just had part of that town renamed after him which is called MannyWood!

The fact that he has been banned is all over the news here in the USA. It is the story of the day.

Thanks for explaining it. I see, a guy who made 533 home runs must be a legend.

[blackshoe]

Not only are steroids generally legal in the US, they are prescribed in some cases, as I just found out today.

[awm]

There are a lot of drugs which are legal if they are being used to treat a deficiency. Many performance enhancing drugs simply ramp up the supply of something the body produces naturally anyway (i.e. human growth hormone, testosterone, oxygen levels in the blood). All of these things are certainly legal for people who have a medical problem with producing the necessary levels of these hormones.

That does not make it legal to take these drugs for recreational (or performance enhancing) purposes, nor does it mean they are safe for people who have normal (or more than normal) levels of those substances already in their bodies to take. Most steroids are illegal in the united states unless you have a doctor's prescription.

Now the problem is, there are a lot of doctors. Some of them are not particularly ethical, and some of them are not particularly competent. If a perfectly healthy person wants a prescription for one of these drugs a lot of times they can find a doctor to prescribe it, especially if they are willing to pay that doctor large sums of money. Steroids are used (legally) mostly for older people recovering from injuries, surgery, or various other physical ailments. A prescription for a steroid given to a healthy world-class athlete in his mid-thirties is automatically suspect.

As to what's allowed or not allowed, the general rule is that surgeries to fix problems are okay. If an athlete has bad vision (i.e. worse than 20/20) and gets eye surgery that's fine, even if after the surgery his vision is better than normal. But normal people having eye surgery in order to get "more than normal" vision is not allowed. Similarly, someone with asthma is allowed an inhaler (ok non-steroidal ones). But someone without asthma probably would not be allowed the same inhaler. In fact doctors who perform these sorts of surgeries and prescribe these sorts of medications can be investigated and have their medical licenses revoked.

Do we want to encourage healthy people to undergo medical treatments designed to help unhealthy people in order to become better athletes? Do we want to create an environment where healthy teenagers are going for eye surgery in the hope that they become better tennis players, or are taking drugs which may seriously hurt their long term health in the hope that they'll grow another foot and make it as pro basketball players?

And when we decide to watch sports, are we really all that interested in watching a contest of who has the best doctors? At some point limits need to be set.

[mike777]

First off we both agree a Doctor should not do something if the main reason is to make money or get a free baseball pass.

However if I am 40 MLB pitcher and I can heal faster with a banned drug that is a medical reason. If my arm hurts when I pitch and I can take a pill or cream and feel like a 30 year old that is a medical reason.

I think you forget that during the season all most every ball player, every year goes on the DL. These athletes get hurt carrying groceries up the stairs or bending over to pick up the baby.

As for football players, most football players who hit thirty or so have the body of a 70 year old....

Most baseball Pitchers are as fragile as a newborn baby.

[mike777]

"And when we decide to watch sports, are we really all that interested in watching a contest of who has the best doctors"


Again I do not think you realize how often football and baseball players are hurt, medically hurt.

Of course medical advancements, better doctors have greatly affected sports.

If you want a level playing field then make it truly level. It is grossly unfair for an operation to make a 35 year old pitcher have his performance enhanced but Manny cannot take a shot of chemicals?


As for a level playing field, vitamens are taken to improve performance but they are not banned. Our food supply is full of all sorts of drugs.