Tuesday Bantering On Melky Cabrera And R.A. Dickey - January 29

First, In the biggest news of the day, the Miami New Times posted a story about Biogenesis, a Miami "anti-aging" clinic, that was actually in the business of selling performance-enhancing drugs and that they had many Major League Baseball players on their client list.

Toronto Blue Jays left fielder Melky Cabrera, who was suspended 50 games last season after testing positive for testosterone. In the alleged company records, Cabrera was mentioned 14 times with notes like "April 4th drop off, has enough meds until May 4... next visit deliver and infuse $9,000 to RPO and $900 exp. and charges. Call him for expense. Missing this mo. troches and pink cream." According to the New Times, "troches" is 15% testosterone and "pink cream" also contains testosterone. I don't know what RPO is. What is interesting, and perhaps problematic for Cabrera, is that the records show that he was also given a "cocktail of drugs including IGF-1." IGF-1, again according to the New Times, is a banned substance that "stimulates insulin production and muscle growth."Could Melky Cabrera be suspended again by Major League Baseball for his use of IGF-1? New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was allegedly prescribed a similar combination of drugs.

In much more positive news, R.A. Dickey spoke with media today on his work with Bombay Teen Challenge (BTC) and the Toronto Star's Brendan Kennedy helpfully live-blogged the event. Dickey called in from Mumbai, India and said that he came to know about BTC through a friend and that he wanted to end all forms of sexual exploitation after his own experiences with sexual abuse as a child. He was disturbed with the cages where women and children were kept and at how young the children were when they were trafficked into the red-light district of Mumbai.

Through funds raised from his climb of Mount Kilimanjaro last year, he was able to raise more than $100,000 to build a medical clinic in a building that used to be a brothel. BTC is more than a medical clinic, and that they do vocational training for rescued women. When asked about his decision to bring his daughters along, Dickey said, "I want to give my children a heart for humanity and the only way to do that is to get them outside of their sheltered bubble. They responded beautifully."

In other news... The Blue Jay Hunter wonders if Shaun Marcum was the guy Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos asked former Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke about before deciding to trade him, and Richard Griffin puts the Jays' rotation #3 overall in the big leagues American League.