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Cleveland — Jhonny Peralta only had a bit part in this morality play. A non-speaking part, in the end.
And Monday, as Major League Baseball raised the curtain on the latest tour de force in commissioner Bud Selig’s anti-doping fight — another sordid chapter to baseball’s so-called Steroid Era — the Tigers’ All-Star shortstop was among the dirty dozen who went away quietly, with an array of sheepish statements that dutifully expressed remorse via email.
Peralta was one of 12 players accepting a 50-game suspension for violating the league’s joint drug policy, part of the fallout from a six-month investigation into a South Florida anti-aging clinic that allegedly provided performance-enhancing drugs to pro athletes.
For Peralta and the Rangers’ Nelson Cruz, both of whom are scheduled to be free agents after this season, there obviously were other considerations than, say, a guilty conscience.
The soft-spoken Peralta was enjoying one of the best seasons in an 11-year career, hitting .305 with a better slugging percentage than Prince Fielder and the second-best Wins Above Replacement (WAR) rating on the roster, behind only reigning AL MVP Miguel Cabrera. But he was also in the final year of his contract, and by forfeiting less than one-third of his $6 million salary this season he’ll head into free agency a free man, at least.
There’s still a chance he could return to play for the Tigers this season, of course.
“In spring of 2012, I made a terrible mistake that I deeply regret,” he said in a statement. “I apologize to everyone that I have hurt as a result of my mistake, including my teammates, the Tigers’ organization, the great fans in Detroit, Major League Baseball, and my family.”
He went on to say he takes “full responsibility” and offered “no excuses” for what he called “my lapse in judgment.” Other suspended players followed a similar escape route, citing “certain errors in judgment” without really detailing those errors, though Cruz claims his were made as he tried to recover from a gastrointestinal infection early last season.
