There's been a saying recently in baseball about players coming over from the Dominican Republic and the like, guys who don't walk a whole lot like Robinson Cano, that is "you don't walk yourself off the island, you hit your way off the island." Apparently now you "juice" your way off the island.
A new report has surfaced where Cano, David Ortiz and a slew of other players from the 2006 WBC Dominican Republic team worked with A-Rod linked "trainer" (injector) Angel Presinal. Ortiz's comments on Presinal, "He's one of the guys that trained everybody." Uh-oh, sound familiar? If not it should, remember this is the same excuse A-Rod used in that it was the steroid culture/era and everybody was doing it. The answer well everybody else was doing it just doesn't cut it.
Presinal was also linked to Vladimir Guerrero, Pedro Martinez, Jose Guillen, Ervin Santana, Juan Gonzalez, Bartolo Colon, Ramon Martinez, Francisco Cordero, Melky Cabrera, Orlando Hernandez, Raul Mondesi, Stan Javier, Adrian Beltre, Miguel Tejada, Pedro Feliz, Luis Castillo, Guillermo Mota and Ruben Sierra.
So how does Manny Ramirez look to Boston now? And I'm assuming David Ortiz will now suspend himself for an entire year without pay? And given more evidence I take it that now we can all throw out A-Rod's 2007 season to boot? Those Cy Young's and MVP's for Martinez, Colon, Gonzalez, Guerrero, Tejada all out the window too.
When we look at the Hall Of Fame voting on this subsequent era perhaps more borderline guys deserve to get in. Why do I say this and why shouldn't they be measured against legends from decades past? While it is important to use those already in the Hall as a barometer, just think if the guys who were most likely clean who put up their stats the right way like a Bernie Williams or Mike Mussina type had played on a level playing field against pitchers and hitters who weren't on performance enhancing drugs?
I'd say suspend and withhold pay from players who were caught, if only owners and execs who knew this stuff was going on and turned a blind eye were banned too. In the end its all about the all-mighty dollar, the book "Money Ball" might be the perfect title for this era in more ways than it was intended.
Super Star