Just when you thought the Baltimore Orioles season couldn’t get any worse, news comes out tying injured O’s outfielder Jay Gibbons to the growing list of athlete’s names in the Signature Pharmacy investigation. Sports Illustrated is reporting that Gibbons received the following:
A source in Florida with knowledge of Signature Pharmacy’s client list alleges that between October 2003 and July 2005, Gibbons received six separate shipments of Genotropin (a brand name for synthetic Human Growth Hormone), two shipments of testosterone and two shipments of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), a hormone produced naturally during pregnancy, but taken by anabolic steroid users to stimulate the production of testosterone, which is suppressed as a result of steroid use. The information regarding Gibbons only pertains to receipt and not actual use of the drugs.
Testosterone was banned by MLB in 2003 and HGH was banned by MLB in 2005. MLB did not start testing for performance-enhancing drugs (ie. steroids) until 2003. There is no proven test for HGH, although the Olympic Committee has said they had one before the 2004 Olympics. By looking at the drugs he received, it looks as though he “could have” done steroids. I don’t speak for Gibbons nor would I. But to the naked eye one can presume he did. As I said in a previous post, he is “innocent until proven guilty” although the way the media perceives things, “guilty until proven innocent”. All this does is make the black eye bigger for Bud Selig and MLB. Three players in 3 days have now been implicated in this ever-growing investigation. And now we can add Gibbons to the list with Rick Ankiel, Troy Glaus, Wade Wilson, Rodney Harrison, and 10 WWE wrestlers. And as I have with all these posts, I have to ask the question, “WHO WILL BE NEXT?”
