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player ready...The wild and unruly baseball career of Pascual Perez may be over.
The commissioner`s office announced Friday that the 34-year-old right-hander had been suspended without pay for one calendar year for violating the league`s drug policy and the terms of his 1989 agreement with Major League Baseball.
Unless a team is willing to give Perez a contract for the `93 season, it appears that baseball has seen the last of the flashy Dominican pitcher. Perez gave the Yankees 17 starts in two seasons after signing a three-year, $5.7 million contract and made tardiness as much a part of his repertoire as the fastball and slider.
”It`s sad,” manager Buck Showalter said. ”I like him as a competitor and I like him as a pitcher. He didn`t like to embarrass himself
. . . athletically.”
Showalter said he had been informed about noon Thursday that Perez had failed a preliminary drug test. Showalter and General Manager Gene Michael then had to await the result of a second, more definitive test.
”I spoke to (Perez`s agent) Tom Reich Thursday morning,” Michael said.
”He told me that this might be a possibility.”
Michael learned Friday that the second test also was positive and that Perez was facing a one-year suspension. The length of the suspension was automatic because of an agreement Perez reached with Major League Baseball in 1989 when he, already a one-time drug offender, admitted himself into a rehab clinic during spring training.
Tony Chiricosta, a financial adviser for Perez, cleaned out the pitcher`s locker. He said Perez was surprised by the positive test.
”He said he didn`t understand how this could happen,” Chiricosta said.
”It wasn`t a blanket denial, but he couldn`t understand how he could have given the (urine) specimen on Feb. 26, then not hear the result until March 5.”
Perez learned that a drug had been detected in his urine on Wednesday night. According to Chiricosta, the pitcher was then told by his agents to sit tight until more information was available.
Perez never set foot in Yankee camp Thursday and never informed Showalter that he would be absent. Speculation began to swirl that the pitcher was once again involved in drugs. At about 10:30 a.m., the manager phoned Michael to tell him Perez was a no-show.