Bartolo Colon and Cheating Made Easy

Former American League Cy Young Award winner Bartolo Colon is enjoying a renaissance of sorts this season at the back-end of the New York Yankees pitching rotation. He’s got a 3.74 ERA, with a 1.24 WHIP and a little under a strikeout per inning through 5 starts.  Colon has run it up as high as 96 mph and looked like a completely new man out there on the mound.  Then, a NY times article ran explaining how Colon may have unfairly benefited from a new medical procedure involving stem cells and the baseball world began to fill with steroid questions again.

According to the doctor who performed the surgery, he used fat and bone marrow stem cells from Colon, injecting them back into Colon’s elbow and shoulder to help repair ligament damage and a torn rotator cuff. The problem is that the procedure seems to draw the line between something like a cortizone shot and a steroid injection and the medical world (and therefore MLB) doesn’t seem to know which Colon’s procedure should align with. Dr. Freddie H. Fu, chairman of the department of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said, “Bone marrow is a good source of stem cells, but I don’t think there is any definitive evidence to show that it will benefit a condition like this.”

Fu added: “You need more of a scientific study. Just the use of this generally should not be done because it is not shown to be effective. In this case, we don’t know how the body’s natural healing abilities influenced the outcome.”

MLB is looking into the procedure to see how greatly Colon benefited and to likely work such procedures into the next collective bargaining agreement.  For my money, I hope Colon is not able to continue to pitch under the heading of “it wasn’t illegal at the time.”  Steroids weren’t illegal in the late 90’s and many of our sports views have said, “Well, they were playing within the rules, and therefore can’t be punished for it.”  The logic is flawed in that the game’s reputation and competitive playing field is greatly diminished. All these guys should benefit from the same substances: hard work, determination, natural talent, and luck.

Additionally, allowing Colon to continue to pitch sets a dangerous precedent for proceedures in the future.  Colon’s miracle procedure was not necessarily against the rules but that does not mean it wasn’t an unfair advantage.  Within the next collective bargaining agreement there should be some stipulation about how procedures need to be preapproved or you cannot play in the bigs.  Players and doctors will oblige and baseball will finally have sovereignty over it’s players’ medical history.

We know steroids still play a role in the game.  Look at the role its played in Tampa this year where, with Manny gone, Sam Fuld has emerged as an awesome left fielder.  We know that guys will always try to get a competitive advantage over their rivals (think doctoring of the baseball) and that’s fine, it’s part of the game.  It’s part of any game.  However, Baseball needs to get complete control over its players’ medical sheets and keep the cheating to on the field stuff.  Experimental procedures are going to continue to be an option for many players as they come back from injury but, baseball needs to do their due diligence in examining and researching these procedures before allowing doctors to start cheating for their players again.

“I feel in my heart and my soul, his performance has been because of the treatment,” Liriano, the doctor who performed the procedure on Colon, said.  You be the judge.

Stat of the Day: Over Aroldis Chapman’s last 4 appearances, he’s gotten 4 people out, allowed 10 earned runs, walked 12 and watched his ERA go from 1.42 to 6.92.

-Sean Morash