B-12: The Excuse of Choice

[Ksyrup]

I guess there are two ways to look at this story...either this guy has a crappy imagination and couldn't come up with a plausible excuse, or it puts the Palmeiro/Tejada thing in a whole new light.



Updated: May 9, 2007, 12:54 PM ET
Mets minor leaguer given 100-game suspension
By Mike Fish
ESPN.com

Dabbling in steroids isn't a one-time thing for Jorge Reyes, the New York Mets minor league pitcher slapped with a 100-game suspension Tuesday by the commissioner's office. Reyes, a 22-year-old native of the Dominican Republic, made just one start this spring for Class-A Savannah of the South Atlantic League before his second bust for performance-enhancing drugs. Reyes was first suspended last April 18 after testing positive for Dimetabol, a mixture of vitamins and the steroid Nandrolone. Just a week earlier, his then-teammate and countryman, Waner Mateo, was also suspended for testing positive for Nandrolone. During a February interview at the Mets complex in the Dominican Republic, Mateo revealed to ESPN.com that the positive test came soon after Reyes had injected him in the buttocks with what he thought was a shot of vitamin B-12. Mateo explained that he experienced a sore shoulder in spring training and, fearing that if he alerted a Mets trainer he might be ticketed back home to the Dominican, sought out his teammate from the small town of Villa Altagarcia. "Last year in the spring, my shoulder was hurt a little bit," Mateo said through an interpreter, Juan Henderson, who is administrator of the Mets' academy in the Dominican. "I asked one of the players, 'Do you have anything for pain, because my shoulder is hurting?' The player gave me something. I thought it was B complex, B-12. I thought that was it. I didn't know I was taking steroids." Reyes, listed at 6-foot-4 and 168 pounds, was not at the complex when ESPN.com interviewed Mateo and has not been available for comment. Both pitchers were suspended 50 days for a first-time violation of baseball's drug policy, and kept in the organization by the Mets this spring. "I definitely thought I was going to be released," Mateo acknowledged. "A lot of things were going through my mind. At one time, I thought I was going to quit baseball. But then talking with the players and coaches they encouraged me to keep [playing] baseball." Henderson, the Mets' administrator, said the organization sees potential in both prospects. "They like them both," he said in February. "That's probably why they didn't get released. They like Reyes a little better, actually."

[Celeval]

Damn... I read that first as "Mets Jose Reyes", not "Jorge Reyes" and my eyes nearly jumped out of my head.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Reyes, listed at 6-foot-4 and 168 pounds

I hope he kept the receipt for those steroids.

[Pumpy Tudors]

So, one of these guys let a teammate inject something into his buttocks, huh? Sorry, but I'm not letting any baseball player get near my buttocks unless he's Scott Spiezio.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

So, one of these guys let a teammate inject something into his buttocks, huh? Sorry, but I'm not letting any baseball player get near my buttocks unless he's Scott Spiezio.

Think you two could procreate?

Your mustache...his beard...DAMN!

[Desnudo]

The fact that he was perfectly willing to bend over and let another man jab a needle in his butt is the issue. What was in the syringe is secondary.