Major League Baseball handed down a slew of suspensions on Monday, punishing 13 players including Alex Rodriguez for using performance-enhancing drugs acquired through a Florida anti-aging clinic called Biogenesis.
After the suspensions were announced, outrage spread across the sports Internet. Fans blasted players. Media blasted players. Media blasted other media. But it may have been former MLB pitcher Dan Meyer -- on Twitter, no less -- who best summed up the real effects of baseball's steroids epidemic.
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That's Meyer in the photo, above. He competed for a Philadelphia Phillies relief-pitching job with Antonio Bastardo in 2011. Bastardo won the spot, and Meyer was later cut by the Phillies, putting one of the final nails in the coffin of a once-promising career that began with a first-round draft selection in 2002.
Fast forward two years to Monday, when MLB gave Bastardo a 50-game doping suspension. Might things have turned out differently back in 2011 had baseball's steroids crackdown started earlier? Meyer implied as much on Twitter shortly after Bastardo's suspension was announced:
Hey Antonio Bastardo, remember when we competed for a job in 2011. Thx alot. #ahole— Dan Meyer (@Dmy53) August 5, 2013
Of course, the ins-and-outs of a big-league position battle can't be summed up in just 140 characters, but Meyer does raise an interesting point about who is arguably most affected by PED use. It's not fans, and it's not users -- it's clean athletes who struggle to compete in a cut-throat workplace.
Meyer's career had been a disappointment prior to his battle with Bastardo, and chances are his career would have flamed out regardless. To his credit, though, he acknowledged as much in a subsequent tweet, while still calling attention to the larger issue:
Never said I was good enough but what about the players that never got their chance? Their lives could have been completely different.— Dan Meyer (@Dmy53) August 5, 2013
And on a lighter note, the little Twitter flurry also came with an added bonus: Typically staid ESPN anchor Bob Ley uttering the phrase "hashtag a-hole" on national TV: