Romero gets 50 game suspension.
January 6, 2009
Phillies left-hander J.C. Romero tested positive for use of an over-the-counter supplement and has been suspended for the first 50 games of the 2009 season, Major League Baseball announced on Tuesday.At the same time, MLB also announced that Yankees pitcher Sergio Mitre, now on the club’s Triple-A roster, was suspended for 50 games for the same reason.
ESPN.com first reported the suspensions on Monday night and Tuesday morning.
Both players said they unintentionally ingested the banned substances, which were not identified on the labels of the supplements they purchased at GNC stores in different parts of the country. They both grieved the results of the tests but lost their cases in front of an arbitrator.
While MLB, as is its custom, announced the suspensions without comment or detail, the Players Association reacted to the punishments in a strongly worded statement issued by general counsel Michael Weiner.
“Sergio Mitre and J.C. Romero were suspended for fifty games each by the Commissioner because they tested positive during the 2008 regular season for a Performance Enhancing Substance,” the statement said. “Those suspensions were upheld by a neutral third-party arbitrator after hearing. We strongly disagree with the Commissioner’s discipline and with the arbitrator’s decision.
“Mitre and Romero both legally purchased nutritional supplements from national chain stores in the United States. Nothing on the labels of those supplements indicated that they contained a trace amount of a substance prohibited under Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. Neither player intentionally ingested this prohibited substance, but the arbitrator nevertheless found, wrongly in our view, that the players’ conduct violated the Program’s ‘no fault or negligence’ standard.
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