pjacques (Montreal, QC): It seems like you are getting the first crack at the necessary BP joke about Neifi's use of an illegal substance suspension!
Marc Normandin: Neifi! isn't responsible for any stimulant usage. This is all a pyramid scheme devised by Congress, MLB and the MLBPA to try to keep kids from taking any illegal stimulants, using Neifi! as an example of what happens when you abuse. The Tigers were more than happy to comply, because now they get 25 games without Neifi in their lineup, guaranteed. Everybody wins, especially the children! I bet it's more effective than the shrinking basketballs commercials.
But honestly, I'm glad the system is working. Every time someone who isn't one of the most suspected names around is caught, I feel better about the testing, because it isn't just a witch hunt like some might prefer.
― Dr Morbius, Friday, 6 July 2007 19:59 (eighteen years ago)
three weeks pass...
Tigers' Perez says substance he used was OK'd by doctorsBy Enrique Rojas
ESPNdeportes.com
Detroit Tigers infielder Neifi Perez does not only think his 80-game suspension was unfair, but also believes he might be a victim of the way the drug programs are handled in baseball.
Perez was suspended for 80 games Friday after testing positive for a third time for a banned stimulant, a penalty that finishes his season and might also end his 12-year career.
"It's not fair," said Perez in a conversation with ESPNdeportes.com from his home in Detroit.
"They called three different positives on a 20-day-period. I was using a medicine that was supposedly authorized by the doctors due to a personal condition."
Perez was suspended for 25 games on July 6 when he tested positive for a second time and was set to return on Saturday. Under baseball's labor contract, a player who tests positive for the first time is sent for counseling.
He will miss the final 54 games of the regular season and finish serving the suspension next year, if he is signed. Because of his initial positive test, Perez is subject to at least six additional tests over the next year.
"Many people might be trying to understand how is it possible that a player tests positive for the same substance three times in half a season," Perez said. "The truth is that they tested me four times between May 10th and June 1st and they never told me if there was anything wrong. I have been using that same medicine all this time."
Perez said that by the end of last season, he could not focus on games and visited a psychologist, who diagnosed him with ADHD and prescribed him Adderall, an amphetamine.
Perez claims that the team gave him the medicine and he used it at the end of last season, including during Detroit's playoffs and World Series run. But when spring training began, Perez finished his dose and the doctors gave him a new prescription.
"I went to two different drug stores and they wouldn't sell me the medicine, so someone from the team told me I could use any amphetamine and I started using something else," said Perez. "They tested me during spring training and everything was negative. But then in May I guess I tested positive, but they never told me there was something wrong.
"Even twice, they only tested me, when the regular procedure is to test at least four or five players."
Perez said that the MLB Players Association appealed the last suspension, but could not change the decision.
His initial suspension cost him $396,175, and the second will cost him $792,350 -- a total of $1,188,525 of his $2.5 million salary.
"I can't care less about the money. I'm worried about my family's honor," Perez said.
The 34-year-old Perez, who is hitting .172 with one homer and six RBIs in 64 at-bats for the defending AL champions, said he hopes to find a new job for next year, although he knows it won't be an easy task.
"My conscience is clear", said Perez, who owns a .267 batting average in 12 seasons.
Perez won a Gold Glove at shortstop in 2000 with Colorado and also has played for Kansas City, San Francisco and the Cubs.
Enrique Rojas is a reporter and columnist for ESPNdeportes.com and ESPN.com.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2960857
― Andy K, Saturday, 4 August 2007 13:56 (eighteen years ago)
six months pass...
This is the end...?
Rockies back out on deal to bring Neifi Perez back on minor league contract
By ARNIE STAPLETON, AP Sports Writer
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP)—Neifi Perez’s homecoming with the Colorado Rockies isn’t going to happen.
Perez and the Rockies had agreed to a $750,000 minor league contract on Tuesday, a goodwill gesture that manager Clint Hurdle called a lifeline for one of the more popular players in club history who has hit hard times of late.
But the team later had second thoughts and decided against bringing him back.
“We just didn’t feel like it was a good fit,” assistant general manager Bill Geivett said.
The first player suspended by baseball for stimulants since they were banned before the 2006 season, Perez has 18 games remaining on an 80-game suspension he received last season after testing positive for a third time.
The Rockies hope Perez can find a job with another team.
The Rockies have five players vying for their open second base job, and having Perez join the big league club for spot duty during spring training would have taken time away from Clint Barmes and Omar Quintanilla, the two candidates to replace Jamey Carroll as Colorado’s utility infielder.
Perez won a Gold Glove at shortstop in 2000 with the Rockies but has bounced around the major leagues ever since, playing for the Royals, Giants, Cubs and Tigers.
Perez hit just .172 with one homer and six RBIs in 64 at-bats for the Tigers last season, and his biggest contribution was when he started a spectacular double play to end the eighth inning of Justin Verlander’s no-hitter.
― Steve Shasta, Wednesday, 27 February 2008 17:49 (eighteen years ago)
ten months pass...
More Exemptions in Baseball for Amphetamines
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Baseball officials opened a window into their drug-testing program Friday, reporting that 14 players had first-time positive tests for amphetamines in 2008 and that the number of players granted therapeutic use exemptions for attention deficit disorder — and thus cleared to use amphetamine-like stimulants — grew slightly despite efforts to make it more difficult to obtain exemptions.
The disclosure of the numbers came in response to recommendations made by George J. Mitchell in the report that he issued a little over a year ago on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Mitchell urged that the testing program be made more transparent through the release of periodic reports.
The number of positive tests for amphetamines is significant because baseball had never disclosed such numbers, making it harder to gauge how widespread the use of stimulants was. Testing for amphetamines did not even begin until the 2006 season, and a player who tests positive for the first time is neither penalized nor publicly identified, although he is referred for counseling. A second positive test results in a 25-game suspension.
To date, only two players — Neifi Pérez and Mike Cameron — have been suspended for testing positive twice. Two others — Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds — have been linked to first-time positive tests in published reports that they have not disputed.
As for therapeutic use exemptions, they emerged as an issue at a Congressional hearing last January, when it was revealed that the number of major leaguers claiming exemptions for attention deficit disorder had risen to 103 in 2007 from 28 in 2006. The implication was that players, faced with the 2006 ban on amphetamine use, were making claims of attention deficit disorder so that they would be allowed to use stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall.
In response, baseball said it would tighten guidelines on exemptions, and would also grant more power to Bryan Smith, the administrator who oversees its testing program.
However, according to the data released Friday, 106 players were granted therapeutic use exemptions for attention deficit disorder in 2008, or 3 more than in 2007. Eight other players were granted therapeutic use exemptions for other medical issues, the same number as in 2007.
The 106 players who received exemptions for attention deficit disorder represent about 8 percent of the major league players, based on 40-man rosters. The percentage of American adults who have been given a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder is somewhere between 1 and 3.5 percent, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, although some experts believe the actual number is much higher, citing a large number of undiagnosed cases.
Asked about the increase in attention deficit disorder exemptions in 2008 despite baseball’s efforts to toughen the guidelines, Rob Manfred, baseball’s executive vice president for labor relations, said that baseball had, in some ways, succeeded in what it set out to do.
He noted that while the number of exemptions linked to attention deficit disorder had indeed jumped to 106 from 103, many of them “were repeated guys from the year before,” and that baseball was now operating with a much larger base. The number of new exemptions for attention deficit disorder in 2008, he said, was actually about 20 fewer than the number granted in 2007.
“Would we like the number to be lower, yes,” Manfred said. “But we made progress this year; we granted fewer new T.U.E.’s than the prior year.”
The hearing last January was held before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, with Representative John Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, leading the way in questioning why the surge in therapeutic use exemptions had taken place.
But on Friday, the committee chairman at the time, Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, said he was pleased that baseball had released the testing numbers but said he remained “concerned about the large number of therapeutic use exemptions given to players.” He said he hoped baseball would “look carefully at the process for providing these exemptions.”
As for amphetamines, the decision to disclose that 14 players had first-time positive tests came as something of a surprise. In November, Major League Baseball stated that the report would include those test numbers, then corrected itself, saying the report would not, citing confidentiality issues.
But as it turned out, that was not the final word. “Both sides took a look at the language,” Manfred said, referring to the commissioner’s office and the players union and the wording of the testing agreement. “And the reading of the agreement said that the administrator would disclose those positive tests that resulted in discipline. We believe revealing these numbers gives our program more transparency.”
― velko, Saturday, 10 January 2009 17:54 (seventeen years ago)