ANAHEIM, Calif. — It was the moment that all of baseball knew was coming Monday: Suspensions were handed down to players with connections to the Biogenesis Clinic scandal.
A pervasive problem that called for a pervasive effort to eliminate it by Major League Baseball, Performance Enhancing Drugs have affected every clubhouse in some fashion, and the Biogenesis Clinic is only the latest PED scandal to plague the sport.
This time, for the sake of baseball, everyone is hoping it's the last.
"Hopefully this is the last press conference or meeting that we have to have and this is the last stand on it," said Angels pitcher C.J. Wilson, who serves as the team's Players Union Representative. "It's good for the game, it's good they're getting this stuff out of the way, it's a uniform thing now that everyone is taking their suspensions, except for that other guy. And hopefully we can move on."
That "other guy" Wilson is referring to is New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who plans to fight his suspension of 211 games.
"We need the greed to stop," added Wilson. "I've accepted the fact I'm not a $300-million player. God didn't bless me with that. I'm dealing with regular-guy stuff and trying to compete, and that's the way it is for the rest of the guys in this dugout. You're dealt a certain hand and you have to play that. Stop being a baby and move on."
A-Rod aside, the prevailing notion around the league is that players are taking their suspensions and moving on.
Texas Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz is one of them.
Cruz, whose 50-game suspension was effective immediately, is not with the team this week as they face the Angels in a key American League West series at Angel Stadium.
Described as the heart and soul of the team, Cruz addressed his team earlier in the day, expressing his remorse for his actions.
His team accepted his apology without anger, resentment or ill will.
"I don't see anybody being angry about it," said pitcher Derek Holland. " I heard there was somebody blogging about it saying that we were angry and that's not true. We love him, we're behind him and we're going to be waiting for him when we get back."
Manager Ron Washington, who is familiar with public apologies after coming clean to his team and the public in 2010 about a past drug problem, delivered an impassioned speech on the subject.
"You're not looking for sympathy because you're not looking for someone to accept that you're wrong in what you were doing because you were asking for it," Washington said. "You're looking for them to understand that you're human and the understanding has to come from their heart.
"And if it's not from their heart, then you can keep it."
It wasn't quite as easy for Wilson to accept his former teammate's apology.
"It has 100 percent affected our team because we've played against these guys, all these guys have hit homers against us and struck us out, we're not happy about that," Wilson said. "He's a competitor on some other team. When he steps in there, it doesn't matter just because I think he's a funny guy. He still got hits off me and I'm still pissed off about that."
While the consensus is that the issue is lessening, steroid use has yet to completely disappear.
But it's about time it does.
"I think if you look at society, there's always laws that people are going to circumvent," Washington said. "But I think that Major League Baseball has done a tremendous job of dealing with this issue, and you see today just how serious they are about it."
