It’s not that difficult a concept to grasp. After being busted twice already in his young career for PEDs, New York Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia went for the hat trick and decided to get busted again. Friday, Major League Baseball announced that Mejia had tested positive for Boldenone and was, from this day forward, banned from major and minor league baseball for life.
Unlike other ticky-tack performance enhancement drugs and stimulants the MLB bans, Boldenone is the real deal. It’s an anabolic steroid. In fact, it’s the best possible steroid as it functions in the way you want a steroid to work (i.e. create new muscles and enhance recovery time) and less in the ways you don’t (shrinking testicles and growing female breasts).
WOW @Mets Jenrry Mejia suspended from @mlb for 3rd positive test for PED So dumb & a waste of talent pic.twitter.com/RXGdOestpr
— Tommy Dreamer (@THETOMMYDREAMER) February 12, 2016
You may think that the testing for banned substances caught Mejia by surprise as how else could you explain a third, career ending hit? But it’s worse than you think. All three of Mejia’s positive tests came in the last calendar year. He’s 26 years old.
His first suspension was for a different kind of steroid, Stanozolol and that was good for 80 games. Just three weeks after he was back from that suspension he was suspended for 162 games for Stanozolol again, along with Boldenone. He picked up that positive test while on the first suspension, not even waiting to get back on the diamond before blowing up his career. He still had 99 games left on his second suspension when this positive test came back.
“We were deeply disappointed to hear that Jenrry has again violated Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program,” said the Mets in a statement Friday. “We fully support MLB’s policy toward eliminating performance enhancing substances from the sport. As per the Joint Drug Program, we will have no further comment on this suspension.”
I hope my family knows that I love them even more than Jenrry Mejia loves steroids
— Jon Schwartz (@jonlschwartz) February 12, 2016
Mejia appeared in just seven games last season with the NLCS Champion Mets, compiling a 0.00 ERA as a middle reliever in seven innings pitched. Mejia was the star of the Mets’ bullpen in 2014, recording 28 saves and starting seven games, finishing with a 3.65 ERA. So it makes sense why the Mets tendered Mejia a contract last December in hopes not only he would stop taking steroids, but that in not taking them it wouldn’t affect his performance. They’ll never get the chance to find out.
Mejia had spent his entire pro career with the Mets after being signed straight from the Dominican Republic as an 18-year-old prospect in 2007. Mejia made his major league debut in 2010, starting three games, appearing in 33 games with a 4.62 ERA.
Mejia, unbelievably, had the stones to deny knowledge of how a steroid showed up in his system back on that first suspension. Releasing his own statement through the MLB player’s union, 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.”
Mejia is the first player banned for life under its antidoping program. So he’s made history if nothing else.
Jenrry Mejia's lifetime suspension is the first issued under @MLB's current drug policy: https://t.co/jfzwHykMiT pic.twitter.com/s88v012voc
— MLB (@MLB) February 12, 2016
Is this it for Mejia? After all the only other player banned for life is Pete Rose and MLB has made no effort to even listen to reasons to lift his ban and all it would do is put a bust of him in the Hall of Fame next to all his memorabilia that’s already in there.
A year from now Mejia can apply for reinstatement at which time he’d still be suspended for another year to make up for this failed test. All the while he’s sitting out there he’ll be tested again and, obviously, another hit on anything would end even a sliver of a chance at a return.
Jenrry Mejia's next career won't be as a rocket scientist.
— Mike Puma (@NYPost_Mets) February 12, 2016
His suspensions have already cost him about $2.5 million and this deal that got axed with the Mets on this lifetime ban was worth $2.4 million. The other option for Mejia is to play in another country, like Japan or Venezuela, but he’d still likely be tested there too. And if the man can’t pitch without steroids, and he obviously doesn’t think he can, he’s not going to be much use to anyone in any country.
