Cabrera's Web of Lies

Frankly I don’t even want to mention Melky Cabrera’s name anymore, especially as we’re on the cusp of watching a  classic 3-game Dodger-Giant series that could determine the direction of the pennant race, but his story gets stranger and stranger.

Photo by Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images

It is now reported that Cabrera, in an effort to lesson the severity of his positive test, paid an associate to create a fake web site to give the appearance that Cabrera was an innocent purchaser of steroids.  It was a ruse that has gone array and MLB was able to easily expose their attempts to lie themselves out of this mess.  Worse yet, the story continues.

Sam and Seth Levinson of ACES Sports Management act as Cabrera’s representatives.  It turns out that the creator of the fake website is a guy named Juan Nunez.  Nunez is a consultant to ACES and has admitted to this fraud putting ACES right smack in the middle of this investigation.  (Seth Levinson has denied any knowledge of Nunez's actions and Nunez has stated that he was acting alone).

So as the web of lies gets untangled there is more than one guilty party: Cabrera, maybe his his agent and definitely a consultant to his agent.  Making matters worse is that there are now reports that other players may be engaged in using the same stuff that Cabrera took and that they are circumventing the dope testing process by using fast acting creams and patches that are almost undetectable after short periods of time.  Baseball is again facing another crisis of confidence.

MLB could have acted before this ever came to light by throwing the book at last years NL MVP Ryan Braun.  Instead they allowed some legal maneuvering to get him off on a technicality.   Perhaps they were forced to by the Collective Bargaining agreement, but had they used the court of public opinion correctly, the union would  have been in a tough spot, that of protecting a guilty player and in the process, alienating fans.  What has resulted from the inaction in the Braun case is that the cheaters continued and now we have a tarnished pennant race and suspicions that others continue to juice.

Reports today are stating that MLB is planning on no further sanctions against Cabrera.  If they wanted to start sending a message now, the Commissioner should issue a lifetime ban against Cabrera and the Agency that represents him for attempting to conceal the positive test with this scam.  Send a message loud and clear that if you mess with the testing system and lie about it once outed, you’re gone.  Of course there will be pending litigation.  I say, “Bring it on!”  You don’t think public sentiment won’t be on MLB’s side?

If it turns out that this synthetic steroid use is as widespread as Victor Conte estimated, (that 50% of today’s players are using), I will be done with this.  To many of us spend a good portion of our lives following the game due to our love and dedication to it.  If players aren’t going to show the fans a semblance of respect for it to keep it honest, then why should we even care about it.

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Hello Pot? Kettle Calling...

It would be easy to place blame on the San Francisco Giants for this whole mess.  We know they have the history in their organization with Bonds, Santiago, Guillen and others being notorious steroid users.  But the Dodgers are not alone in this department.  Manny Ramirez, Eric Gagne, Paul LoDuca...all being steroid users in their day.

This has been a baseball-wide problem.  From the weaklings of the sport like F.P. Santangelo and Bobby Estelalla that took the stuff to keep Major League roster spots to the superstars such as Ramirez, Sheffield, Giambi, Sosa, McGwire, Palmiero, Alex Rodriguez and Bonds.

I’ve read a lot of stuff out there from livid Dodger fans that are quick to blame the Giants for this mess.  To that I say, it’s best to hold your tongue as a Dodger could easily be implicated in such a mess too.

Cabrera Attempted to Blame Dodger Fans According to Bay Area Blogger

One interesting sidelight to the Cabrera story was when Giants Comcast Sports blogger Andrew Baggarly approached Cabrera with a story that he had tested positive back in July, the left fielder denied that it was true, even though at the time he knew of the positive test and he was in the process of appealing it (and inventing the web site).  Cabrera said that the story had probably been planted by “Dodger fans.”  LINK to that Story HERE

Lifetime ban for the liar?  Yes, no doubt about it.