Major League Baseball's New Drug: How Jose Bautista Does It!

It appears a sports writer from Toronto finally has challenged the credibility of Jose Bautista as a Home Run hitter.  When I first heard this rumor I questioned the validity of the statement, knowing full well M.L.B. players are now tested for performance enhancing drugs. I too could not believe Jose was replicating improvements like those produced by players in the 1960's.  I decided to do some research.

Knowing a local family in Santo Domingo who lived only a few kilometers from where Jose was born, I made my first call.  They informed me they knew the local street cleaner who swept streets outside the Bautista's familial home.  It was difficult to get ahold of him but when I finally did he said he knew nothing of the goings on in the Batista home but that he knew the local landscaper who worked on the Bautista grounds located at the end of Hatillo Sampana ( a street in Santo Domingo) and this was where the story gained momentum. 

Nicolás de Ovando, was the name I was given of the Bautista's grounds keeper.  He had apparently been employed full time by the Bautista's since late 1999.  I was lucky enough to obtain Nicolas phone number and left a message asking him to return my call.  What followed was a story that is about to hit journalism like a sledge hammer.

The next evening my phone rang and I was asked to accept charges on a call from a "Nicolas Ovando", of course I accepted the call.  "You wanted to speak to me" the voice quivered on the other end of the phone.  The next 45 minutes proved the most informative conversation I have ever had as a bloggist and it fully explains the success Jose Bautista has had this year.

It appears back in 1999 Nicolas was employed to plant a field of trees sourced from Northern Canada, known as Blackwood Maples.  The first couple of years involved nothing more than watering and fertilizing those trees, at a higher rate, than trees native to Santo Domingo.  In 2005 Nicolas was supplied with a box of filled syringes that he was instructed to inject into the trunk of the Blackwood Maples on a bi-weekly basis.

Nicolas continued to receive syringes and he administered the contents of the syringe to the trees up until November of 2007, at which time he was instructed to chop down the entire grove of Blackwoods and take the lumber to the local saw mill.  That was the last Nicolas heard about or thought of those trees until the fall of 2009.

Watching Jose Bautista come to the plate in a late September game with the Toronto Blue Jays, Nicolas watched as a close up of Jose at the plate revealed just where those trees had gone.  The familiar grain could not be mistaken, the unusual hue was a color Nicolas remembered from 2 years ago.  Jose was using a bat, drawn and shaped from the same Blackwood Maples Nicolas had so patiently cared for since 1999.

It appears Jose Bautista is in fact benefiting from performance enhancing drugs but ones injected into his bat.  

"I would like to thank Nicolas de Ovando, the street sweeper who shall remain nameless and the journalist in Toronto who made this well researched article possible today!"