Pablo Ozuna, a 34-year-old second baseman who signed with the Phillies as a minor league free agent in January, received a 50-game suspension for violating terms of the minor league drug prevention and treatment program. He showed an elevated testosterone/epitestosterone ratio, a performance-enhancing substance violation.
Playing for Triple-A Lehigh Valley, Ozuna was batting .294/.342/.396 with 15 doubles in 187 at-bats. He signed with the Cardinals out of the Dominican Republic in 1996 as a purported 17-year-old, but it was later revealed that he had used a falsified birth certificate to shave four years off his age.
That diminished Ozuna’s prospect status significantly, but he did rebound to fashion a career, most notably as a utility player with the White Sox for three seasons from 2005 to 2007. In that time, he batted .290/.327/.363 in 208 games—though he did not take a postseason at-bat in Chicago’s run to the 2005 World Series title. He did appear in two ALCS games as a pinch-runner, though, stealing a base and scoring a run.
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ozuna appeared in two games in 2005, both in the ALCS. he’s the guy who stole second and scored the winning run in the infamous doug eddings phantom dropped third strike game.
Posted by larry | June 11, 2009 at 6:02 pm | ShortcutGood catch. Thank you.
Posted by Matt Eddy | June 15, 2009 at 4:28 pm | Shortcut