Peptides, Is the Game Clean and the New CBA

Just when you thought this great game of Major League Baseball was clean the league announces a couple steroid suspensions. It seems to happen more and more often and it seems to happen every year now. This year we’ve already seen notable suspensions for Chris Colabello and Dee Gordon and the league hints at more to come with the main focus being on a new frontier of doping, these are called peptides.

Between the Major Leagues and the Minor Leagues there have been five positive tests for peptides in the last calendar year. Peptides are formulated and produced from raw materials imported from China and are available on dozens upon dozens of websites from suppliers based in China and even the United states. These peptides have become easily accessible to anyone and everyone and until this season many thought these PED’s were undetectable in Major League Baseball. Boy were they wrong, huh?

Why these players would even take these peptides are beyond me as the FDA has not approved the drug. In fact the drugs are labeled as “not for human consumption” giving the suppliers loopholes and deniability in these cases. They are not classified as controlled substances with this labeling even though they are still considered to be anabolic steroids.

Peptides are what got Taylor Teagarden, the man who admitted to use in the Al Jazeera investigation, suspended for 80 games and are what also got Josh Ravin of the Dodgers and Andrew McKirahan of the Braves suspended along with three minor league pitchers. Peptides have been banned for a while by the World Anti-Doping Agency and sports leagues yet these players still continue to risk their careers in taking them and why? For money? Fortune? Fame?

Will the game ever be clean? We may never know but if history is any indicator of the future it looks like the answer is “probably not.”