Dodger Left Fielder, Manny Ramirez tested positive for a banned substance and suspended for 50 games… Ouch! Here’s where it get’s interesting…

A source close to Manny Ramirez said Thursday that the illegal substance for which the Los Angeles Dodgers slugger tested positive was not “an agent customarily used for performance enhancing.”

At least not on the baseball diamond. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the drug was prescribed to address Ramirez’s erectile dysfunction.

However, two sources said the substance Ramirez tested positive for was a gonadotropin. Major League Baseball’s list of banned substances includes the gonadotropins LH and HCG, which are most commonly used by women as fertility drugs. They also can be used to trigger testosterone production. Testosterone is depleted by steroid use, and low testosterone can cause erectile dysfunction.

“Testosterone and similar drugs are effective for erectile dysfunction in that they jazz up your sex drive,” said Charles Yesalis, a professor at Penn State University who has testified before Congress on issues of performance-enhancing drugs. “But far more clinicians accept that affect with Viagra and Cialis. It’s hard for me to understand if it was erectile dysfunction why they would use it.”

Another physician with experience in international drug-testing said LH and HCG are occasionally prescribed for men “whose testicles have basically stopped functioning.”

The physician, who asked for anonymity because of his standing in the drug-testing community, said HCG is used to re-stimulate the testicles, primarily in men with a history of steroid use.

Ramirez tested positive for the substance during spring training, then had another portion of the same urine – a “B” sample – tested again more recently, and it also was positive. Major League Baseball notified Ramirez of the second positive test after Wednesday night’s Dodgers victory over the Washington Nationals. Ramirez admitted to having taken the substance and declined to appeal. His 50-game suspension begins Thursday.

“The substance is not a steroid and it is not human-growth hormone,” a source close to Ramirez said.

Ramirez, the source said, acquired the substance through a prescription from a doctor in Miami for his medical condition. The source intimated that Ramirez might bring legal action against the physician.

Ramirez released the following statement Thursday morning: “Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was okay to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I’ve taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons.

50 games… wow, it sure was nice while it lasted…