Several MLB teams are encouraging their players to avoid energy drinks and some have even gone as far as banning them from team refrigerators, reports USA Today.
The Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros have both stopped providing energy drinks in their clubhouses, and the Milwaukee Brewers have forbidden their minor league players from keeping any of the energy drinks in clubhouse refrigerators.
Energy drinks are allowed under the current collective bargaining agreement, but some teams are apparently worried about ill health effects from the drinks.
“We’ve had a couple of issues [with energy drinks] regarding dehydration,” said Astros general manager Ed Wade. “It just seemed that we shouldn’t be creating an environment where we’re almost facilitating the effects of dehydration.”
Some players disagreed with the teams’ overly cautious ways.
“It’s asinine,” Diamondbacks closer J.J. Putz declares in the article.”What are they going to ban next, coffee? Soft drinks?”
Putz says that he usually drinks a Red Bull before each game, something Pirates reliever Jason Grilli relates to.
“The reason guys take energy drinks is because there’s not anything else [legal] to take,” Grilli is quoted as saying. “Let’s face it, the competitive edge is why the whole steroid thing got rampant.”
MLBPA spokesman Greg Bouris says in the article that the union is looking into the restrictions.
