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Feb,12,2016
METS PITCHER JENRRY MEJIA SUSPENDED ANOTHER POSITIVE DOPING TEST FROM MAJOR LEAGUE BSAE BALL
Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia was first suspended last April for testing positive for steroids, and then was suspended a second time for another positive test.In what can be debated as an extraordinary feat of either stick-to-it-iveness or poor judgment — or perhaps both — a professional baseball player has failed a doping test for a third time, resulting in a lifetime ban from Major League Baseball. It is the first time baseball has handed down the most severe punishment under its antidoping program.That player, Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia, now carries unrivaled ignominy. Baseball has had far more famous players involved in drug scandals — Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Mark McGwire among them — but none received a lifetime ban for three failed tests for performance-enhancing substances.Mejia’s agent, Peter Greenberg, said Mejia had no comment on Friday after Major League Baseball announced the violation.Mejia, 26, apparently had an old-fashioned approach to drug cheating. In each case, he was caught using anabolic steroids, substances that have long been easy to detect in a urine sample. Two of his positive tests involved boldenone, a steroid that has been used in horse racing.Mejia’s case highlights how, despite baseball’s longstanding efforts to strengthen its drug program, players continue to see incentives in trying to gain an edge.Mejia grew up poor in the Dominican Republic, shining shoes for $8 a day as a child, according to The Star-Ledger. He made his major league debut with the Mets in 2010, and in the seasons that followed, he began to carve out the beginning of what stood to be a lucrative career as a formidable relief pitcher.He made a little less than half a million dollars in 2013 and a little more than that the next season, then jumped to $2.6 million last year, only to forfeit much of it because of his first two doping violations.This year, much of his $2.4 million salary was again not going to be paid because of the continuation of the second suspension.
But now, he will not make any of that salary, and his chances of making double or even triple that amount a year in the seasons ahead may have been tossed aside as well.Mejia can appeal for reinstatement after one year, but the minimum length of the ban is two years. It is conceivable that he will pitch in the major leagues again, but there is a good chance that he never will.A 6-foot, 205-pound right-handed relief pitcher who, as a rookie in 2010, was giddily compared to Mariano Rivera, Mejia rebounded from injuries to become a capable closer for the Mets in the 2014 season.He was injured again at the start of the 2015 season, and it was then that he was first suspended for drug use, drawing an 80-game ban for testing positive for stanozolol.Mejia said,“I know the rules are the rules, and I will accept my punishment, but I can honestly say I have no idea how a banned substance ended up in my system.Several weeks after he returned from that suspension, he was penalized again, for a full season of 162 games, for testing positive for stanozolol and boldenone, synthetic derivatives of the hormone testosterone.The Mets general menagar Sandy Alderson said,“I think, not surprisingly, there’s a tremendous amount of disappointment,” “I think to some extent anger, to some extent amazement that this could happen so soon after a previous suspension was completed, and some sadness in the sense that this is having a tremendously adverse effect on a very promising major league career.”Still, the Mets gave Mejia a new contract for the 2016 season, hoping he could still provide depth in their bullpen after he served out the 99 games left in his second suspension. As well, they still viewed him as a valuable asset in seasons to come, as he was not eligible to become a free agent until the winter of 2018.But then came his third positive test, and again, the substance was boldenone.The Mets, in a statement, that they were “deeply disappointed” in Mejia. His absence from the 2015 postseason may have hurt the Mets in the World Series, when their bullpen had trouble with a relentless Kansas City lineup. His continued absence may have an impact, too.
DOPING TEST-2005-2006
International game Baseball began issuing penalties for positive doping tests in the 2004 season. After the 2005 season, the drug program was stiffened, extending the suspensions for first, second and third violations to 50 games, 100 games and a permanent ban. The penalties were stiffened again before the 2014 season, to 80 games, 162 games and a permanent ban.Another major leaguer, the infielder Neifi Perez, also tested positive three times under baseball’s regimen. But that was for a banned stimulant, not a steroid, and the transgressions, in 2007, culminated in an 80-game suspension.Beyond the regular round of mandatory and random tests that every player is subject to, a player who tests positive for performance-enhancing drugs is subject to six unannounced urine collections and three unannounced blood collections in the subsequent 12 months — and again each year for the rest of his career, so long as the player remains on some team’s 40-man roster.The Mets signed Mejia at 17, and he made the opening-day roster just three years later, making him the youngest Met to do so since Dwight Gooden. The Mets quickly concluded that he would best be used as a starter.But five starts into the 2011 season, Mejia tore an elbow ligament pitching in a minor league game and needed Tommy John surgery. He did not pitch again in the majors until September 2012. His elbow problems lingered, both mentally and physically. His 2013 season ended prematurely when he had surgery to remove bone chips from his elbow.As the Mets’ current rotation began to take shape in the last few years and emerged as one of the best in baseball, the team shifted Mejia to the bullpen. It was a role he was initially hesitant to accept because he feared that working as a reliever — not knowing when or how often he would pitch — might lead to still another arm injury.But Mejia gave in, and in 2014 he became the Mets’ closer, ultimately embracing the role.He even started to follow the lead of other closers and developed his own save dance — an emphatic gesture in which he would raise both hands above his head and bring them down as if he were breaking a board over his knee.He recorded 28 saves in 31 chances that season. But even after he lost his role as the closer last season, and even after his second suspension, he still seemed to have a future with a now-formidable Mets club. But now he doesn’t.
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