Mitchell: Jhonny Peralta and PED Inconsistency From Major League Baseball

Or as Hochman rabbled…“There are a lot more Aardsmas than Peraltas.” Gee, not according to my census book.

Peralta’s signing also indicates that the Cardinals believe that Peralta not only has served his time, so to speak, but that he is capable of performing at a high level even without the steroids. After all, Peralta will face a 100 game suspension if he tests positive again. If Peralta can perform as he has in his better years, this will be a good signing for the Cardinals, but if he cannot do that without PEDs, it will not. The Cardinals must know this and believe that Peralta does not need PEDs to post an OPS+ in the 110-120 range. The Cardinals almost certainly would not have singed Peralta if they thought his production was dependent on PEDs. If the Cardinals, a team reputed to be one of the smartest run franchises in the game thinks that a proven steroid user, who is generally speaking good but not great, can play well without steroids, perhaps steroids are not the magic slugging pills they have been portrayed to be for well over a decade.

Peralta’s signing has led to some criticism of the Cardinals as well as to the suggestion that cheating pays in baseball. However, Peralta served his suspension and, barring future infractions, should be allowed to play. The Cardinals are taking a risk in assuming that the steroid-free Peralta will be a valuable player, but most free agent signings involve risk. Peralta’s signing is thus a very interesting case for baseball. If he gives the Cardinals four good years, many around baseball, including many baseball fans, will have to rethink many of the things they think they know about PED. On the other hand, if Peralta stumbles, doesn’t hit or tests positive again, the PED controversy will be stoked to new and different heights.

The context in which this signing occurred also underscores the extremely capricious, even personal, attitude baseball has taken towards PED use. Peralta, less than three months after coming back from a suspension, signed a contract not much different than what he would have gotten had he never been linked to steroids while MLB continues to try to destroy Rodriguez’s career and while the BBWAA will almost certainly once again keep some of the game’s greatest players ever, like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens out of the Hall of Fame. Alternating between being forgiving towards players like Peralta and vengeful and petty towards others continues to be baseball’s way of addressing the PED problem. It is an approach that has not worked. Perhaps a clean and productive Peralta could help change this and force MLB to address PED use more carefully.

Ryan Braun addresses media about PEDs

Braun answers all the pertinent questions!

Why did you lie?

“Obviously I’ve been through a lot and as I expressed in my statement that I felt was pretty lengthy and specific, I got into a lot of details at that point. I’m not really going to go into any further details….

What was worse in your opinion, using PEDs or lying about it after the fact?

“As I’ve stated, the goal for me is just being able to move forward. I’m not going to get into too many specifics about what happened other than saying I’m extremely remorseful….

Have you had anything to say to Bud Selig?

“I did. I wrote Bud a letter. But other than that, I’m not really going to get into too many specifics.”...

Knowing you got away with a positive test, why did you have that news conference in Maryvale where you lied and essentially threw Laurenzi under the bus?

“I’m not really, again, going to get into too many specifics….

What was the injury that you referred to in the statement?

“Again, I’m not going to get into the specifics and continue to go backward. I’m moving forward and I’m not going to get into too many specifics on that.”...

What has this done to your relationship with Aaron Rodgers?

“I’m not going to get into our specific relationship ...

Don’t you think you owe everybody to talk about the specifics?

“Yeah, I completely understand where you guys are coming from and a part of your job is to ask those questions, but I hope that you guys can understand and respect that in an effort to move forward that I’m just not going to continue to discuss that stuff.”

Robothal: It pays to cheat, at least in Jhonny Peralta’s case

“It pays to cheat,” Arizona Diamondbacks reliever and player representative Brad Ziegler tweeted Sunday. “Thanks, owners, for encouraging PED use.”

Ziegler was referring to the willingness of clubs to reward drug cheats, but he knows the players are just as responsible for the Joint Drug Agreement (JDA) as the owners.

The pitcher said in a separate tweet, “We thought 50 games would be a deterrent. Obviously it’s not. So we are working on it again.”

Indeed, if players are going to reap financial benefits after serving PED suspensions, then the solution is to make them forfeit even more salary through increased penalties.

There appears to be momentum behind moving away from strict liability and towards a two tiered system.

NY Post: Davidoff: Team A-Rod ready to dive into treacherous waters: a courtroom

Two sources confirmed Rodriguez and the Yankees probably won’t learn the status of the player’s 211-game suspension until early January. Here’s the timeline:
1. Both MLB and Rodriguez have until Dec. 11 to file written briefs to independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz, and another 10 days after that to file replies to each other’s briefs.
2. Once Horowitz has received all of that information, he has 25 days to issue his decision. [...]

Back to Rodriguez and his complaining about “The process.” The process that has proven eminently fair to players — too fair, many people on the management side will tell you.

Not surprisingly, Rodriguez’s PR strategy of turning Bud Selig into the villain has succeeded, at least based on my communication with fans. Plenty of folks are complaining about Rodriguez’s lack of due process, his supposed right to confront his accuser.

It’s complete bunk. This is a private worker issue, not a private citizen issue. Rodriguez is fortunate to belong to one of the country’s most powerful unions. His “due process” comes in the presence of Horowitz.

Besides, I’m not exactly sure what Team A-Rod thought would occur with Selig taking the witness stand. Were the attorneys hoping for a re-enactment of “A Few Good Men,” with Joseph Tacopina asking, “Did you order the Code-Rod?” and Selig screaming, “You’re damn right I did!”?

Carlos Ruiz re-signs with Phillies for three years and $26 million with option

I choo-choo-Chooch you.

The noise you hear coming from Philadelphia way is “Choooooooooch.” The Phillies signed popular catcher Carlos Ruiz to a three-year deal Monday for $26 million that includes an option for a fourth season. Reporter Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer had the terms first.

Jayson Stark of ESPN says the contract/fourth-year buyout breaks down like so.

Ruiz, who turns 35 in January, batted .268/.320/.368 with five homers and 16 doubles in 341 plate appearances — though nearly all of his power came in the second half. About this time a year ago, Major League Baseball announced that he was suspended for the first 25 games of the 2012 season because he tested positive for a banned stimulant.

NY Times: In Rodriguez Arbitration, Two Sides Play Hardball

Ms. Moon said that in the affidavit, Ms. Delgadillo recounted visits by M.L.B. investigators to her Miami home in February. On Valentine’s Day, Mr. Mullin, the investigations unit chief who had interviewed Ms. Delgadillo, sent a bouquet of flowers to her home with a note thanking her for her help. When Ms. Delgadillo called Mr. Mullin to thank him, he offered to take her to dinner during his next visit.

Over the following weeks, Ms. Moon said, Mr. Mullin met with Ms. Delgadillo three times, treating her to dinners and drinks at Town Kitchen and Bar and Akashi Japanese Restaurant, and a meal at Big Pink in South Beach.

Ms. Moon said that Ms. Delgadillo said in the affidavit that she and Mr. Mullin became intimate, and he spent the night at her home.

Mr. Mullin, through M.L.B., denied that he had an inappropriate relationship with Ms. Delgadillo, an allegation that was also included in Mr. Rodriguez’s lawsuit against the league. Ms. Moon said her client accepted $100,000 from Mr. Rodriguez’s representatives in exchange for the card signed by Mr. Mullin that came with the flowers, his business card and access to her phone for text messages.

Ms. Moon said Ms. Delgadillo told the M.L.B. investigators in February that she had “no firsthand knowledge about Major League Baseball players being treated by Biogenesis.” [...]

A March 24 police report in Boca Raton, Fla., revealed that a car had been broken into and client records from Biogenesis were stolen from the vehicle. Among the people the police interviewed was a man named Gary Jones, who told them in mid-April that he did not steal the records and that he had not been in touch with M.L.B. about them, according to the police report.

Around the same time that the car was broken into, Mr. Mullin, on behalf of M.L.B., bought two batches of Biogenesis files from Mr. Jones. The men met twice at the Cosmos Diner in Pompano Beach to exchange the clinic’s records for cash. Baseball officials said that they paid Mr. Jones a total of $125,000 for the two sets of records.

Both men brought people along to video one of the meetings — and later, Mr. Rodriguez’s lawyers paid $200,000 for a copy, according to people briefed on the matter.

Records from the case show that Mr. Jones said that he told Mr. Mullin that the first collection of documents had been stolen from Biogenesis by an employee, and that the second had been taken from the car.

Mr. Courtney, the spokesman for Major League Baseball, said the league officials did not know about the police report when they purchased the documents and Mr. Jones did not tell them they were stolen.

SI: Which Superhero Would Be Best at Baseball?

Which superhero would most dominate sports? Who would be best suited for which positions? These hotly-debated questions have existed since Batman, Superman, and Robin played various sports on the covers of World’s Finest Comics throughout World War II.

The debate becomes intractable, though, on a number of questions: Would Superman be able to throw out the Flash on a close play second? Is turning green and ripping out of shorts a side effect of PEDs? Would regulation equipment cause a “Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex” scenario?

Luckily, I think I’ve devised a solution. To the best of my ability, I’ve ported the superpowers of 100 of the biggest names in comic books into the hyper-specific sub-ratings of baseball simulator Out of the Park Baseball, simulated a 162 game season, and examined the sabermetric output.

This would be great except the author sets his league up with the DH, eliminating the question of whether teams would find out if the X-Men’s ace pitcher Charles Xavier was able to field the bunt…

LA Times: Turning the bland Dodger Dog into a power hitter

Yes, Farmer John and bacon are involved.

So why not a midlife makeover for the Dodger Dog? In honor of the playoffs, we decided to enhance it, soup it up, add a few special effects. “Go big or go home” was our motto. We’ve pimped this pup till it’s a performance-enhancing drug.

How does it all hook together? Well, it doesn’t really. This is a big, gloppy sandwich, half of which lands in your lap if you’re not careful. You don’t wave this thing around like a wand. You hunker over it, cradle it in your hands, cherish it for the architectural marvel that it is.

For dessert, you take a shower.

Angels slugger Albert Pujols sues Jack Clark over PED allegations

Angels slugger Albert Pujols followed up on his threat of legal action against former St. Louis Cardinals star Jack Clark, filing a suit in Missouri on Friday over comments Clark made accusing Pujols of using performance-enhancing drugs.

El Hombre está muy enojado.

dallasnews.com: Grant: Rangers to activate Nelson Cruz for Monday’s game vs. Rays

Cruz is eligible to return from his 50-game suspension. GM Jon Daniels says Cruz will be on the roster and active for tomorrow’s game.

Cruz batted third for 33 games before his suspension but has been most dangerous when hitting sixth. If the Rangers activate Cruz, sixth is probably where manager Ron Washington would slot him, leaving left-handed hitting A.J. Pierzynski to bat fifth to break up a string of right-handed hitters. Currently, Mitch Moreland is hitting sixth. Moreland has a .212 batting average and .678 on-base percentage in the spot. The Rangers’ No. 6 spot has a composite OPS of .724, 11th among AL teams.

“Nellie’s playing,” Derek Holland said. “He’s going to be part of our team. He’s family to us. There isn’t any question about it.”

Sammy Sosa, is that you?

The Twilight Saga ran its course, and ‘True Blood’ is pretty cemented with its characters. But for whoever comes up with the next vampire film or series idea looking for a strong male lead, it looks like a disgraced former MLB slugger is looking for you.

Sammy Sosa appeared on television in Panama the other day, and a disturbing photo with who appears to be Panamanian TV personality Nairobi Dacosta showing his otherworldly appearance made its way to the masses via Twitter. Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports gave voice to what must be a common reaction.

Malcolm Gladwell:  Man and Superman

“Mäntyranta carries a rare genetic mutation. His DNA has an anomaly that causes his bone marrow to overproduce red blood cells. That accounts for the color of his skin, and also for his extraordinary career as a competitive cross-country skier. In cross-country skiing, athletes propel themselves over distances of ten and twenty miles—a physical challenge that places intense demands on the ability of their red blood cells to deliver oxygen to their muscles. Mäntyranta, by virtue of his unique physiology, had something like sixty-five per cent more red blood cells than the normal adult male. In the 1960, 1964, and 1968 Winter Olympic Games, he won a total of seven medals—three golds, two silvers, and two bronzes—and in the same period he also won two world-championship victories in the thirty-kilometre race. In the 1964 Olympics, he beat his closest competitor in the fifteen-kilometre race by forty seconds, a margin of victory, Epstein says, “never equaled in that event at the Olympics before or since.”

Why do so many of the world’s best distance runners come from Kenya and Ethiopia? The answer, Epstein explains, begins with weight. A runner needs not just to be skinny but—more specifically—to have skinny calves and ankles, because every extra pound carried on your extremities costs more than a pound carried on your torso. That’s why shaving even a few ounces off a pair of running shoes can have a significant effect.

Epstein tells us that baseball players have, as a group, remarkable eyesight. The ophthalmologist Louis Rosenbaum tested close to four hundred major- and minor-league baseball players over four years and found an average visual acuity of about 20/13; that is, the typical professional baseball player can see at twenty feet what the rest of us can see at thirteen feet. When Rosenbaum looked at the Los Angeles Dodgers, he found that half had 20/10 vision and a small number fell below 20/9, “flirting with the theoretical limit of the human eye,” as Epstein points out. The ability to consistently hit a baseball thrown at speeds approaching a hundred miles an hour, with a baffling array of spins and curves, requires the kind of eyesight commonly found in only a tiny fraction of the general population.”

Study Revealing Doping in Track Strikes Hurdle

More than 2,000 track and field athletes participated in the study, and according to the findings, which were reviewed by The New York Times, an estimated 29 percent of the athletes at the 2011 world championships and 45 percent of the athletes at the 2011 Pan-Arab Games said in anonymous surveys that they had doped in the past year.

By contrast, less than 2 percent of drug tests examined by WADA laboratories in 2010 were positive.

The researchers were eager to publish their results, which they believed would expose a harsh reality of modern sports: that far more athletes are doping than might be imagined, and that current drug-testing protocols catch few of the cheaters. But after a final draft of the study was submitted to the antidoping agency, the organization ultimately told the researchers they could not publish their findings at this time, according to three of the researchers, who requested anonymity because they signed nondisclosure agreements with the agency.

This isn’t strictly baseball-related, but I thought it was an interesting insight into the way the business of drug testing works with regard to major sports.

Gabe Kapler: Giving Up the PED Guessing Game

There is a school of thought that PEDs don’t help your eye-hand coordination; that they won’t make you a better player because you still have to hit the ball. That’s a debatable topic, but I reckon that bigger, stronger, faster, more powerful men will hit the ball harder and throw the ball faster. That’s nearly indisputable. In baseball, there isn’t a factor more responsible for success than confidence. I’ve never in my life had a player tell me different. If a man is stronger on the field and can recover more quickly, he’s inherently going to believe in his ability more. I submit that if anything, the value of PEDs to a player has been drastically underpublicized as opposed to overblown.

A-Rod’s Lawyer Melts Down on Today

  A-Rod’s lawyer Joe Tacopina “would love nothing more” than to defend A-Rod and to talk about his testing history. If only MLB would be kind enough to waive the confidentiality agreement in the joint-drug agreement!

Well, at the beginning of an interview on the Today show this morning, Matt Lauer revealed that MLB—in clever, twisted fashion—sent a letter “overnight” saying they’d do exactly that. Tacopina, unprepared for this news, promptly short circuits.

At this point, I’m fairly certain that WWE is booking the A-Rod saga.

A-Rod implicated fellow players in doping investigation

“60 Minutes” has learned that members of New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez’s inner circle in February obtained and leaked documents that implicated Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun as well as his own Yankees teammate, catcher Francisco Cervelli, in the doping scandal that has enveloped Major League Baseball.

Mike Trout: Ban PED users for life

“To me, personally, I think you should be out of the game if you get caught,” Trout said Monday during an interview with New York radio station WFAN. “It takes away from the guys that are working hard every day and doing it all-natural.”

Starting to see a lot of this.

ESPN: Biogenesis and the transformation of the Players’ Association

Finally, a truly valuable article written about this entire PED kerfuffle, if for no other reason than the extensive quotes from current players, and the fact that its author writes from a position of old-school pro-labor/anti-owner skepticism, but is neverthless overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude and unanimity of player sentiment in the other direction.

The PED battle is no longer just an ethical clash between users and testers, but also a fight for the direction and future of the Players Association. For the first time, perhaps in decades, the fight isn’t only union versus management, but players versus players, some of them apparently willing to potentially undo some of the organization’s greatest gains. [...]

“So, let me get this straight,” an American League player said. “Guy uses steroids. He then puts up better numbers than I do. He goes to free agency and gets the years and the money, takes a job I don’t get and now I have to scramble during the winter to find another slot. Then, he gets busted for steroids and we use my union dues for his lawyers, his defense and his appeal? And that makes sense to you? That bulls—- is fair?”

Even before Braun, the tipping point, many players say, was [Melky] Cabrera’s two-year, $16 million deal with Toronto. Money was on the table. The Blue Jays were spending and a number of players might have been a good fit for them. Toronto was a bigger market with a need for a starting outfielder, and Cabrera—who’d disgraced himself on the sidelines, suspended for testing positive for steroids last season while his team, the San Francisco Giants, won the World Series—was the one who got the big money.

Cabrera inflamed his fellow players on two levels. The first was his selection to the 2012 National League All-Star team. He was a juicer who took a spot on the All-Star team away from a clean player, a situation made even more insulting to the rank and file when he was named the game’s MVP. The second was his Blue Jays contract, which seemed so obviously a reward for a steroid user…

RTFA, RTFA, RTFA.

Alex Rodriguez hit with drug suspension through 2014 as MLB drops hammer

CBS NEWS/ August 5, 2013, 2:59 PM
Alex Rodriguez hit with drug suspension through 2014 as MLB drops hammer
Alex Rodriguez #13 of the New York Yankees responds to a question from the media after a rehab game for the Trenton Thunder against the Reading Fightin Phils at Arm & Hammer Park on August 3, 2013 in Trenton, New Jersey.
Alex Rodriguez #13 of the New York Yankees responds to a question from the media after a rehab game for the Trenton Thunder against the Reading Fightin Phils at Arm & Hammer Park on August 3, 2013 in Trenton, New Jersey. / PHOTO BY DREW HALLOWELL/GETTY IMAGES
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Three-time MVP Alex Rodriguez has been suspended through the 2014 season as part of Major League Baseball’s latest drug scandal investigation while all other 12 players targeted for drug suspensions have reportedly accepted 50-game penalties.

Earlier CBSSports.com’s Jon Heyman reported that A-Rod planned to appeal and thus be eligible to play Monday night for the Yankees against the White Sox, according to people involved the case.

Rodriguez, 38, was one of 13 players suspended by the league Monday for their links to Biogenesis, a now-defunct clinic accused of distributing banned performance-enhancing drugs to athletes across several professional sports.

Nelson Cruz of the Rangers, Jhonny Peralta of the Tigers and Everth Cabrera of the Padres - all 2013 All-Stars - accepted 50-game suspensions without appeal, a source told the Associated Press.

According to the AP, nine other players accepted suspensions without appeal: Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli and outfielder Fernando Martinez; Philadelphia pitcher Antonio Bastardo; Seattle catcher Jesus Montero; New York Mets infielder Jordany Valdespin and outfielder Cesar Puello; Houston pitcher Sergio Escalona; San Diego pitcher Fautino De Los Santos; and free agent pitcher Jordan Norberto….

As CBS News correspondent Don Dahler reported, an arbitrator would have 25 days to rule on A-Rod’s appeal, and the evidence against the player would be made public. If the suspension ultimately stands, he will lose around $34 million in salary.

The evidence is said to suggest Rodriguez bought or used steroids in 2010, 2011 and 2012, Heyman reported.

Say it ain’t so Centaur. Say it ain’t so.

MMQB: Epstein: A FIRST STEP TOWARD HGH TESTING—IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

In 2013, baseball amended its Joint Drug Testing Agreement to include in-season blood testing for HGH, but with a special provision carved out only for the isoform test. Should a major leaguer test positive for HGH, he has the right to challenge in arbitration not just his specific test, but the entire underlying science of the isoform test. This provision does not exist for other drugs, like nandrolone, for which the testing science is agreed upon. “The reason we went forward,” Weiner says, “was that on the one hand we believed that there was some scientific validity to what we saw [in the isoform test]. On the other hand we weren’t really sure.” In other words, MLB and the MLBPA built into the agreement a degree of uncertainty about the test; it just hasn’t been challenged because no major leaguer has come up positive yet. And thanks to a recent Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling that overturned the HGH positive of an Estonian skier because of questions about WADA’s decision limits, if a baseball player did test positive, “I think it would be very difficult to uphold,” Weiner says.

A good read, albeit mostly on the NFL and broader HGH testing issues. 

Study: HGH enhances performance.

Results: Body cell mass was correlated with all measures of performance at baseline. Growth hormone significantly reduced fat mass, increased lean body mass through an increase in extracellular water, and increased body cell mass in men when coadministered with testosterone. Growth hormone significantly increased sprint capacity, by 0.71 kJ (95% CI, 0.1 to 1.3 kJ; relative increase, 3.9% [CI, 0.0% to 7.7%]) in men and women combined and by 1.7 kJ (CI, 0.5 to 3.0 kJ; relative increase, 8.3% [CI, 3.0% to 13.6%]) when coadministered with testosterone to men; other performance measures did not significantly change. The increase in sprint capacity was not maintained 6 weeks after discontinuation of the drug.

Union: Bans will be served in 2014

As rumors swirl that Major League Baseball is close to dispensing punishment in the Biogenesis case, the head of the players’ association said it’s possible the players involved would not serve their penalties until the 2014 season.

Michael Weiner, the union’s executive director, said he expects MLB to present its findings to the players’ association “within the next month.”

...

Weiner also said the commissioner’s office isn’t bound by the terms of the joint drug prevention and treatment program—which calls for 50- and 100-game suspensions and a lifetime ban for three failed drug tests—because the players involved in the Biogenesis case did not fail tests and are being investigated for “non-analytical” reasons.

Rangers sign Manny Ramirez to minor league contract

MannyBeingManny continues…

The Rangers have signed outfielder/DH Manny Ramirez to a minor league contract, the team announced. He will report to the club’s Triple-A affiliate and work out for a few days before being officially activated. Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com reports Ramirez will earn $500,000 pro-rated at the big league level and has agreed to cut his hair.

Manny, 41, opted out of his contract with the EDA Rhinos of the Chinese Professional Baseball League last month in an effort to find a job in MLB. He was said to have an offer on the table from a team in Japan, but obviously that never materialized….

n 49 games with the Rhinos, Ramirez hit .352/.422/.555 with eight home runs and more walks (23) than strikeouts (21) in 206 plate appearances. He has not played in MLB since 2011, when he appeared in five games with the Rays before being suspended 100 games for a second failed drug test. The suspension was cut in half after he sat out the remainder of the season.

Newsday: Shyman [sic] Das, former MLB arbitrator, breaks down baseball’s appeals process

If a player is suspended as a result of the Biogenesis probe and appeals the decision, the case will go to the current arbitrator. Das said the arbitrator’s role is to judge the ultimate fate of any player suspected to be in violation of baseball’s joint drug agreement, and the arbitrator’s decision is not likely to be challenged outside of baseball.

“Baseball, like most other private employment collective bargaining, is covered by federal law,” Das said in a recent telephone interview. [...]

Baseball’s new arbitrator is Californian Frederic R. Horowitz. He may soon have multiple cases arising out of Biogenesis. He has worked in arbitration since 1989, including salary arbitration hearings in baseball. “Fred Horowitz, in my opinion, is a top-notch arbitrator,” Das said, “and I’m sure he’s up to the task.”

Ryan Madson wonders whether HGH could help

WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN????

“If HGH were legal,” Madson said, “just in the process of healing, under a doctor’s recommendation, in the right dosage, while you’re on the [disabled list], I don’t think that’s such a bad idea—as long as it doesn’t have any lasting side effects, negative side effects.”

This is a question that has occurred to a number of athletes who were willing to break the law and do so at the risk of getting caught, at the more important risk of harming their bodies further and suffering from the stigma associated with attempting to gain an advantage from an illegal drug.

But Madson wants to make one thing perfectly clear.

“Right now,” Madson said, “it’s cheating. I’ve never done anything like that, and I won’t.”

Madson hasn’t brought it to the attention of Major League Baseball or even mentioned it to Angels trainers because he knows it’s illegal—the U.S. Food and Drug Administration only allows it in rare instances—and because, as he said, “I’m still believing that I can come back.

“But I will still believe, even if I get healthy without that,” Madson added, “that it should be legal, in the right dosage, under supervision, with doctors, for the only purposes to help heal and get players back in the Major Leagues. Because people want to watch them, because of their talents, just to get them back on the field to play. That’s it. I think it would be good for the game; I think it would be good for the fans. Fans want to see the best players play, and they want to see the players that they watch come back from injury and stay back. I think it would be a good thing.”