Written by Jonathan Leshanski (Contact & Archive) on February 06, 2013
I was disappointed to see one of the names involved: pitcher Gio Gonzalez. I have to admit to being more than a bit of a fan of Gio. I’ve met him a number of times, had good conversations with him, even told him last spring that I thought he could win 20 games with Washington last year. Hell, we’ve corresponded via Facebook.
He seemed to be one of the good guys, one of the guys who baseball so desperately needs more of. Despite the scrawled notes of Tony Bosch I can only hope that Gio really is that good guy, and not just another charismatic player who conned us all.
Photo by Lane 4 Imaging, used under creative commons license.
Yet I have to wonder why Gonzalez’s name is on the various papers. What could Bosch’s angle be in naming Gonzalez or any of the others if it wasn’t true. It hardly seems likely that this was just his way of insuring his 15 minutes of fame, though he certainly has gotten that.
Gonzalez took to twitter to defend himself against the allegations tweeting "I've never used performance enhancing drugs of any kind and I never will. I've never met or spoken with Tony Bosch or used any substance provided by him. Anything said to the contrary is a lie."
And after seeing the limited papers published by the Miami New Times, there is a lot of reason to question why Gonzalez’s name was one of the few leaked to the media right off the bat.
Gio’s name, as well as his father’s, are both on the list of clients of Bosch’s Biogenesis clinic. Gio’s father has admitted to being a client there and received perfectly legal treatments. The pitcher himself has admitted to buying legal supplements which are not in violation of baseball’s PED policy from the clinic, supposedly after hearing about good results from his father.
Nothing wrong with that. Most of us at some point have taken advice from our fathers. After all we tend to trust them.
But there is one entry in Bosch’s notes that mention Gio in relation to “pink cream,” which allegedly is a synthetic testosterone -- a substance on MLBs banned list. Yet even in that, it’s a curious note if Gonzalez never actually met Bosch as notes seem to suggest. (Here are images of the notes.)
You certainly can’t tell from the mentions if Gonzalez used the “pink cream” or if Bosch thinks he did or if Bosch simply was following his connection from Gio’s father to his famous son.
I certainly hope that that’s the case. I want to believe that Gio is the great kid I spent time talking to down in Florida and not another con man. I hope that he never used the “pink cream” no matter if it came from Tony Bosch’s clinic or was innocently passed from Gio’s old man.
Gio already has said it isn’t so. But I guess we won’t know MLB’s thoughts on the matter until the investigation is resolved. Even then we may not know the truth, but we can hope that Gio Gonzalez isn’t really a doper.
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