NEW YORK – Hall of Fame writer and television commentator Peter Gammons has been named in Major League Baseball’s scandalous Mitchell Report, which yesterday exposed widespread use of steroids in America’s favorite pastime.
The legendary baseball analyst reportedly took steroids before the 2004 season, a year before he was honored by the Hall of Fame.
Gammons told the Mitchell investigators that ESPN cameraman Jim Mandino “injected me in the buttocks once a day for six weeks before the start of spring training in 2004.”
The steroids allegedly helped Gammons write faster, get more scoops and feel more confident in the locker room.
Gammons, as quoted in the Mitchell Report, was forthcoming: “Once I started taking Deca-Durabolin the words just flew off the keyboard. I was a machine. And in the locker room, well, I was one of the boys.”
Baseball players around the league said they were not shocked and that steroid abuse was widespread among the press corps.
“When Pete showed up in Florida for spring training in 2004, he was just brimming with confidence,” said Detroit Tigers slugger Gary Sheffield. “I was like, “Hey stud, you gonna make the team.”
Gammons’ production skyrocketed in 2004. After posting a previous best of 97 stories in 1970, the 59-year-old Gammons reported a record-setting 187 stories for ESPN during the 2004 season.
Colleagues say there was also a darker side to the Hall of Famer that year. “He was always carrying a bat around the office,” said one ESPN producer. “He was menacing. But no one said anything because he was carrying the entire broadcast team.”
After a brain aneurysm in 2006, the now 62-year-old Gammons said he decided he would “never take steroids again.”
