Dominican Players think steroids worth the risk
by admin ~ October 8th, 2009.
Bernardino Jimenez was a young child in San Pedro de Macoris with dreams of making it big in the world of professional baseball. Life was heaven for him when he signed to the Arizona Diamondbacks’ training squad in 2008 but destiny had something else stored in for him. An agent injected him with a mixture of what was told to him as legal vitamins. During doping tests, Bernardino tested positive for an anabolic steroid used in horses, Boldenone and was soon handed a career-stalling ban of 50 games.
From TimesUnion.com:
Jimenez’s case is just one example of a disturbing trend in this hotbed of baseball talent.
Of the 69 minor leaguers suspended for using banned substances in 2008, nearly two thirds — 42 — came from the Dominican Summer League, a developmental program for Latin American players housed in secluded palm tree-lined campuses owned by big-league teams. This year, 31 of the 71 minor leaguers suspended for using banned substances came from the DSL.
In the major leagues, where performance-enhancing substances have been a divisive issue for more than a decade, players with Dominican roots have also been at the center of several high-profile drug cases.
Sammy Sosa and Manny Ramirez have been accused in stories by The New York Times of being on a list of more than 100 players alleged to have tested positive during an initial drug survey of MLB players six years ago. David Ortiz has acknowledged the union told him he was on the list, and slugger Alex Rodriguez, following a February report in Sports Illustrated, said he used steroids while with Seattle from 2001-03. Rodriguez said a cousin obtained a substance he knew as “boli” in the Dominican Republic.
The lure of fast money and dream of staying free from hardship are often the factors that allure sportsmen from the Dominican Republic to take on steroids. Some of them event confessed that steroids, amphetamines, performance enhancing drugs, and growth hormones are worth the risk.
Category: Anabolic Steroids | Tags: amphetamines, Anabolic steroid, banned substances, Boldenone, growth hormones, legal vitamins, performance enhancing drugs, steroids