Carlos Gomez: Major League Baseball Targets Drug Testing
Outfielder Carlos Gomez of the Tampa Bay Rays has spoken out against the drug testing program of Major League Baseball. He is claiming that “random†has nothing to do with it.
The comments were made by Carlos Gomez in Spanish after being tested by the MLB on Tuesday. The incident came just three days after the outfielder had been activated from his team’s disabled list.
He made the comments to a local Tampa Bay paper on Tuesday. Gomez said he had been tested six to seven times during the first nine weeks of the current season.
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Gomez said in a video that was posted on Twitter that MLB tells you the tests are done randomly. However, until MLB can prove to him that they are done randomly, he does not believe it. He added that he believes MLB chooses the players it wants.
The 32-year old Gomez has been critical of the drug-testing program of MLB this month. A day after Seattle’s Robinson Cano was given an 80-day suspension, Gomez said that the league targeted Latino and older players for testing.
MLB defended the testing procedures through a statement in the Tampa Bay paper . The statement said the Joint Drug Program negotiated with the MLB Players Association is administered independently. Adding that it uses random testing procedures with no regard to the age, birthplace or other factor of a player. The statement continued by saying that each aspect of the selection process of the test is randomized and includes every player each time the random selection process is conducted.
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That procedure result in some player having tests more often than do other, but overall, MLB players have tests more frequently than athletes of any other professional sport, said the league statement.
Cano, the veteran second baseman for the Seattle Mariners, was handed an 80-game suspension for violating the drug policy of the MLB. He tested positive for furosemide a diuretic. Under the league’s drug policy, players are not suspended automatically for using a diuretic unless the league proves it was used as a masking agent.
Cano is one of three players in the MLB suspended for violating the league’s drug policy this season. Welington Castillo a catcher for the Chicago Cubs and Jorge Polanco a shortstop for the Minnesota Twins have also been suspended. All are from the Dominican Republic as is Gomez, who during his career of 12 seasons has never tested positive.
