This Just In

Permanently Banned Mets Pitcher Looks Forward

to Future Pitching Opportunities, While Merriam-Webster Calls for Investigation into the Word “Permanent” 

(New York, New York) Feb. 15, 2016  New York Mets pitcher Jenrry Mejia, who last week became the first player in major league baseball history to be permanently banned from the league because of repeated infractions of baseball’s “no steroid” policy, can look forward to applying for reinstatement  next  year.

Mejia, 26, who signed—and received significant portions—of multi-million dollar baseball contracts since 2010, was given the permanent ban after he failed a doping test for the third time. "It is not like they say. I am sure that I did not use anything," Mejia told a Dominican journalist after the ban was announced, a significant departure from his previous “I have no idea how a banned substance showed up in my system,” comment following an earlier failed test, for which he was already serving a year-long suspension at the time of the latest ban. 

Major league baseball allows a permanently banned player to apply for reinstatement after one year. The minimum length of a permanent ban is two years.

In a related development, editorial executives at Merriam-Webster have called an immediate meeting next week at their corporate offices in Springfield, Massachusetts, to consider possible changes to the official definition of the word “permanent.”