Baseball Chat

[langostino]

not to burst the bubble

but Franklin is a blatant liar reading from the same script they all do. The threshhold negotiated by the players union is so high there is no possible way you could false positive from conversion of trace precursors found in a couple of the supplements.

If this was true, you can be sure he'd have produced the receipts of the supplement, and would have named it specifically in his defense. Funny how that didn't happen.

Tested clean 3 weeks later? 2-3 weeks to clear, of course he did. this proves what? It proves the testing program was set up and designed specifically to set up this alibi for every guy who ever tests positive. A followup test specifically set just past the clear time frame.

The expression of shock and the recitation of previous clean tests? That's genuine. But not how you think. It's genuine as in "what the hell happened? I followed the procedures, and they've always worked in helping me beat the system before, what the hell happened this time??"

Nandrolone is the big-time. There are no "accidents" on a nandrolone positive. None. Is it likely this was the one time he took it? Highly unlikely.

FWIW, nandrolone has gotten a ton of people busted in recent years. There are a bunch of different variants with different clear times. One other thing about Nandrolone - it's favored by agility athletes because it's a "non-bulk".

You might have noticed it's commonly used by cyclists (who absolutely can't afford to put on weight or bulk), and it is the steroid of choice among tennis players, where there have been a rash of positives in the past few years. Particularly embarrassing is the repeated positive tests among the Argentines. First, eventual French Open winner Mariano Puerta, then French Open runner-up Guillermo Coria. Then Martin Rodriguez. Then Juan Ignacio Chela. Then French Open winner Guillermo Canas. Then, unbelievably, Mariano Puerta ... again. Effectively ending his career.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5205-1952860,00.html

Every time, the same plaintive wails of innocence. "I would never jeopardize my career. I have a wife and child, I would never jeopardize that." Blah, blah, blah.

There is a cultural brazenness once it gets rooted, that's hard to understand unless you've seen it. Think about it. How brazen would a group of guys have to be to test positive and then keep on doping and doping and doping. FIVE guys all from one country in south America, make a simultaenous meteoric rise to the top 10 and top 20. And after one tests positive, they keep doping. Another tests positive and the just keep doping. French Open winner and runner up both get busted, the latter getting a 2 year ban ... and the rest just keep on doping? Including one who'd already been busted?

Guys who dope systematically typically go right back. They don't consider the mistake to have been doping, but the failure to properly evade detection. They don't seek to fix the doping by stopping, they seek to make sure they take better efforts to avoid getting busted the next time.

This is universal.

Franklin was guilty. No two ways about it. The statements were just the same old script that's been read a thousand times by a thousand guilty guys.