Former slugger Mo Vaughn told The Athletic that he used human growth hormone in an effort to extend his career, confirming for the first time information disclosed in 2007 in the Mitchell Report.
“I was trying to do everything I could,” Vaughn told The Athletic about his desire to stay on the field. “I knew I had a bad, degenerative knee. I was shooting HGH in my knee. Whatever I could do to help the process …”
Vaughn’s revelation came during a recent interview, in which he relayed how his relationship with his son Lee, 12, rekindled his love for the game after a long estrangement from the sport. The one-time AL MVP said he did not consider getting named in the Mitchell Report a stain on his legacy. Nor was it the reason he distanced himself from baseball. His anger toward the game, Vaughn said, stemmed from his belief that if not for a series of injuries, he could have accomplished more.
Assembled at the behest of former commissioner Bud Selig to detail the illegal use of steroids and other performance-enhancing substances by major-league players, the Mitchell Report offered evidence that Vaughn made three separate purchases of HGH in 2001. Vaughn did not consent to an interview with the author of the report, former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell of Maine.
Vaughn’s physical troubles began two batters into the 1999 season opener, his debut with the Anaheim Angels after signing a then-record six-year, $80 million free-agent contract. Chasing a foul pop toward the Cleveland dugout, he fell down the steps and injured his left ankle and knee. He later missed the entire 2001 season with a ruptured biceps tendon, and his knee issues forced him out of the game in May 2003.
The Mitchell Report states that the person who provided Vaughn with HGH, former Mets batboy and clubhouse employee Kirk Radomski, said, “he did not sell Vaughn steroids because Vaughn was ‘afraid of the big needles.’”
Vaughn said the HGH injections required smaller needles.
Major League Baseball did not ban human growth hormone until 2005, nearly two years after Vaughn’s final game. The league, in conjunction with the Players Association, became the first sport to institute in-season, unannounced random blood testing for the substance until 2013.
Former pitcher Andy Pettitte, another player the Mitchell Report named for using HGH, admitted in 2007 to trying the substance. Like Vaughn, he said his goal was to recover from an injury, which in his case was an elbow problem.
“I felt an obligation to get back to my team as soon as possible,” Pettitte said. “For this reason, and only this reason, for two days I tried human growth hormone. Though it was not against baseball rules, I was not comfortable with what I was doing, so I stopped.”
Pettitte’s admission is perhaps one reason he has struggled to gain traction in the Hall of Fame voting, receiving 27.9 percent in his seventh year on the ballot, with 75 percent required for induction. Vaughn, who was the 1995 American League MVP but overall was not as accomplished as Pettitte, fell off the ballot in 2009, his first year of eligibility, after receiving only 1.1 percent of the vote.
Vaughn played 12 seasons, primarily for the Red Sox, with stops with the Angels and Mets. The three-time All-Star finished with 328 home runs and a lifetime average of .293.
GO DEEPER
How Mo Vaughn rediscovered his love for baseball through his 12-year-old son
(Top photo of Mo Vaughn playing for the Mets in 2002: Christopher Ruppel / Getty Images)
