Off Wing Opinion

From SI.com:

Rafael Palmeiro, who last month became the fourth member of baseball's 3,000-hit, 500-home run club, will be suspended for violating baseball's drug-testing plan, SI.com's Tom Verducci has confirmed.

The penalty for a first offense is a 10-day suspension without pay. The Orioles will make an announcement at 1:30 p.m. More details are forthcoming. The Players Association released a statement that its grievance on behalf of Palmeiro has been denied by the The Major League Baseball Arbitration Panel.

In a prepared statement, Palmeiro said he could not explain how the steroids got into his body. "I have never intentionally used steroids. Never. Ever. Period," he said. "Ultimately, although I never intentionally put a banned substance into my body, the independent arbitrator ruled that I had to be suspended under the terms of the program."

So, how did the steroids get into his body? Click here for an explanation from the Off Wing archive.

UPDATE: Here's the statement from Palmeiro, Orioles owner Peter Angelos and VP Mike Flanagan.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2005 at 12:36 pm by Eric McErlain and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.