Another baseball player has decided to come clean about his use of performance enhancing drugs during his playing career, as reliever Eric Gagne admitted to Los Angeles Times’ columnist T.J. Simers on Monday that he used HGH in the past.
“Why did you use HGH?” I ask, and he says, “I didn’t.”
But he knows better. He and I have had a long relationship; he’s the guy who introduced me to a children’s hospital. Heart and guts, the great intimidator, eight innings of splendid work by his teammates riding on his work and almost never disappointing. How could he?
“You were using HGH, weren’t you?”
“I did,” he says. “I hate to talk about it. It just doesn’t do anyone any good. But I thought it would help me get better when I hurt my knee. I just don’t want that to sound as an excuse.
“I’m so ashamed. It wasn’t smart. If I knew what I know now. . . . I didn’t need it. I regret it so much, just now maybe getting over the guilt. It was stupid.”
It’s great that more players are coming clean about their drug use, but where were these guys when the Mitchell Report was released? I realize the names on that list weren’t supposed to be made public, but once they were it would have been nice if more players admitted their use instead of denying it.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think fans are as mad about the drug use as they are about being lied to. Don’t get me wrong, fans are still pissed that players like Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds broke records while juicing. But what gnaws at fans more than anything is that these players denied using drugs, only to admit later that they were using. I realize that people tell lies because they think they won’t come back to haunt them, but these players should have just admitted their use when they were caught the first time.
As for Gagne, his admission isn’t a surprise. His name was on the Mitchell Report, so it isn’t shocking to hear him admit that he was using. Good for him for coming clean, although he’s no better than any other player for admitting that they used after they originally denied it. Still, he gets credit for coming forward when many others refuse to do so.
Photo from fOTOGLIF
