Never one to mince words, Johnathan Papelbon mentioned in
a recent article by Gordon Edes that not only he but a good chunk of the Red Sox pitching staff regularlly took
Toradol. While not illegal nor banned in the same manner as HGH or some of the other PEDs out there, Toradol is still a serious drug - strong enough that you have to be in a hospital to take in in the UK. The Phillies, Papelbon's new team, won't let him take the drug, but apparently the Sox still use it:
A Red Sox official, speaking on background Saturday, described Toradol as a legal drug with clear pain-management benefits, and acknowledged its widespread use in baseball, including by Red Sox pitchers before their starts.
However, the drug has serious potential side effects. In fact, Edes notes that:
Toradol is the nonsteroidal drug that Red Sox pitcher Clay Buchholz acknowledged last season might have contributed to the esophagitis that sidelined him for 20 games. Buchholz was hospitalized in intensive care and lost three or four pints of blood while dealing with the condition, which is a known side effect of the painkiller.
It sure seems like injecting your pictures with extra-strong anti-inflammatories before games is a Performance Enhancing Drug. Can anyone explain to me why it isn't?
Ah, professional sports' version of taking a handful of ibuprofen before going for a run.
ReplyDeleteEvery time a professional athlete talks about how they "played through" an injury, there's a good chance they didn't even feel the injury while they were playing . . . .
It's no surprise that athletes' bodies break down in their early thirties.
One of the sad side effects of MLB's PED testing program is that everyone figures if a drug is not on the list, it must be OK.