PUBLISHER’S NOTEBOOK: Failed drug test has a familiar ring

When the news broke finally revealing who Musher X is in the failed drug test of four dogs in the 2017 Iditarod, similarities to another failed drug test came to my mind. I have been a Baltimore Orioles fan since I can remember. In my youth the Orioles were a great franchise but from 1998 to 2011 we suffered through 14 years of consecutive losing seasons. In the middle of that streak in the 2005 season it seemed our suffering was over. The Orioles came out of the gates hot and spent 62 days leading Major League Baseball’s Eastern Division. After the All Star break the slide began but the wheels completely fell off after a failed drug test was announced on Aug. 1 by what was then a lock to be a future Hall of Famer — Rafael Palmeiro. A lock for the Hall because career stats of 500 home runs and 3,000 hits made that notion a given.

In March 2005 baseball fans intently watched a Congressional hearing concerning the MLB’s not-so-dirty little secret of rampant performing enhancing drug use amongst its players. Palmeiro made a stern opening statement to the committee and with a defiant tone and his index finger pointing at the committee members he stated, “Let me start by telling you this: I have never used steroids, period. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that. Never!” That August Palmeiro would be suspended 10 games for the failed test. Palmeiro then did what every MLB player did during that time — deny, deny, deny. But not only did he deny, he blamed his teammate Miguel Tejada. His story was that Tejada injected him with supplements that was supposedly vitamin B12 shipped in from the Dominican Republic, Tejada’s native country, and could have been tainted. The Orioles fans went crazy because in their mind Palmeiro would have never done such a thing. It just wasn’t the Oriole way and he was considered an Oriole through and through. Tejada on the other hand was a free agent signing prior to the 2004 season. And in the court of public opinion Orioles fans found Tejada guilty. The 2005 season tanked into another losing season.

I was a fan who believed Palmeiro but as years unfolded and more PED accusations against him surfaced, my faith in him wavered. Now some 12 years later and the exposure of PEDs not only in baseball but other sports I just can’t bring myself believe him.

As the Iditarod failed drug test of a banned substance became public, my thought was not even the Last Great Race is immune to this. Only identified by the Iditarod Trail Committee as Musher X, the ITC confirmed that a musher’s dogs tested positive for the painkiller tramadol. Then the bombshell hit that it was four-time Iditarod champion Dallas Seavey, the young man who has become the face of the next generation of the race.

The denials had already started before it was revealed who Musher X is. Current Iditarod champion and father of Dallas, Mitch Seavey, implied that the dogs could have been tainted by outside interests. Let the plausible denials begin. Then almost immediately after it was revealed that the younger Seavey was the musher in question, a 17-plus minute video appeared on YouTube. In the video a defiant Dallas Seavey predicts although there will be no punishment for his dogs testing positive, he will be banned from the Iditarod for violating an imposed gag order on Iditarod participants. He could not keep silent because he felt the need to defend his team. The gag order on mushers needs to go away.

In the video he throws out conspiracy theories involving the Iditarod officials, fellow mushers, and outside interests who he believes either don’t like him, don’t like the sport or hold a grudge against him. The public for the most part has thrown their support behind Seavey. They’re demanding the Iditarod get to the bottom of the issue and exonerate Seavey.

To this day I go back and forth about Palmeiro. The Oriole fan in me wants him in the Hall of Fame but ultimately he was responsible for what went into his body. B12 vitamins from the Dominican Republic sounds sketchy at best.

As far as the Seavey case, this is the first known failed test by any team. If someone did taint his dogs then he has every right to be upset. I’m just not sure what he expects the Iditarod to do about it at this point. I don’t believe they know what happened. I have a hard time believing they had anything to do with it especially with the scrutiny the race is under. The last thing they need is a doping scandal. Ultimately the musher has to be responsible for what goes into his team’s bodies. There need to be policies in place to ensure that tampering isn’t an out for a failed test. The only person who really knows how tramadol got into the four dogs’ system is the person who put it there. Like Palmeiro’s situation, we can point fingers and throw blame but the truth is we will probably never know. The end result should be the Iditarod and the mushers including the Seaveys should work together to find a solution to keep this from ever happening again. If not, the Last Great Race may become just a great memory.