It’s no secret that steroids heavily affected the MLB and the legacy of plenty of players. There are plenty of players who have tarnished legacies because of steroid usage, or they were able to become immortalized as great players because of their use of steroids. But one player says his legacy suffered in comparison because other players benefited from doping.
Former shortstop Gary Sheffield spoke about the doping epidemic in the MLB in the late 90s and 2000s, touching on the fact that he tried to talk about it and expose different players for using it while being accused of using steroids himself.
The Sheffield Story
“I had a personal problem with it because I know for a fact, and I did the Bryant Gumbel special when I was with the L.A. Dodgers, and I trained like you wouldn’t believe in the off-season, and I was still hitting 30 and 40 home runs a year,” Sheffield told Foul Territory.
“Now he has 150 home runs more than me that’s impossible, and so that’s when I said that, but then once I started speaking like that. Major League Baseball tried to hush me up.”
Sheffield didn’t specify who he was speaking about. Still, he was referring to a particular player who he was sure was using steroids at the time, which he felt was hindering his recognition and ruining his season and his overall legacy.
Sheffield was included in the Mitchell Report, which featured plenty of baseball stars who were accused of using steroids. While being accused, Sheffield claims that he wasn’t doping and that the guys who were using steroids were winning awards and stealing the glory from him.
“I was the first guy to bring up the steroid situation because I had a problem with it because I felt like they were taking MVPs away from me,” Sheffield said.
Now, when Sheffield tried to speak on the situation and bring attention to the usage of steroids in the MLB, he claimed that the league wanted to shut him down.
The MLB Perspective
“[Then-commissioner] Bud Seelig called me in the office and told me to stop it with this steroid stuff because I’m drawing too much attention to the game in a negative way,” Sheffield said.
Sheffield also claimed that the league was trying to get him out of the league in an attempt to shut him up and stop the attention he was bringing to steroid usage, which would hurt baseball’s reputation.
“My whole career, on every team I played on, I was the best player. I had the best numbers, but what they do is they were trying to get me out of the game a long time ago.”
This certainly classifies as a “what-if” for Sheffield if his greatness was never overshadowed by other players whose steroid-fueled seasons outranked his. Sheffield is a nine-time all-star, Major League Player of the Year, and a five-time silver slugger. His legacy would only be more remarkable if he had more awards that he possibly missed out on.
