Gaby & PEDs?

As part of a lengthy excerpt from the book “Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis and the Quest to End Baseball's Steroid Era” on PED use among Miami baseball players published by the Miami New Times, investigative reporters and the book's authors Tim Elfrink and Gus Garcia-Roberts write that Gaby Sanchez was "suspended (from the baseball team for the 2005 season) after failing tests for PEDs, multiple sources with knowledge of the team confirm. Sanchez didn't respond to multiple requests for comment left with his agent." (EDIT: Here's a little more on the affair from Mike Fish of ESPN)

They also added that Tony Bosch of Bigenesis had Gaby's name in his clinic notebooks. The pair note that "Sanchez was never suspended over his ties to Biogenesis, and baseball sources say they were unable to conclusively determine whether he was a Bosch client."

The Pirates released a statement that reads “We cannot speak to the points raised in this article, as that was nearly a decade ago and have no knowledge of the situation. What we do know, however, is that Gaby, like every other player in MLB, has been tested multiple times per year since the very strict policies and testing procedures were put in place. Gaby has passed every single time.”

The league began HGH testing in 2011 and expanded it to in-season testing in 2013.

Gaby had no comment, so there it sits. Is he tarnished by association with a Miami program that regularly churned out tainted athletes or was he part of baseball's fast lane during the pre-testing 2000s? All we do know is that he wasn't found involved in an exhaustive Biogensis examination by MLB that got 13 players suspended and he's been clean since testing began.

We'll be glad when the last residues of the steroid era are swept away; PEDs are one storyline that baseball can without. Its mud splatters over everyone.