On Peter Gammons’ ESPN.com blog (Insider subscription required) on Saturday, he dropped the following tidbit in there right at the end:
Former big league infielder Lou Merloni caused a stir when he mentioned on a Comcast show in Boston that in 2001 a doctor addressed the Red Sox in spring training and suggested that if taken correctly, steroids could be helpful. Merloni has been hammered publicly, and then-GM Dan Duquette denied it. But a former major leaguer who was in camp that spring training corroborated Merloni’s story and says: “I’m not sure of the name of the doctor; he was someone outside the Boston organization. In no way did I think Boston was trying to push steroids; I think they just wanted to educate us on the subject. But you could tell by the faces on the training staff that they didn’t think the doctor would say the things he did.”
Now if someone could just remember this gentleman’s name, or who it was that asked him to come in and speak…
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Typical Gammons ripping Duquette w/out naming the player or the “doctor”. This is typical of the hatchet jobs Gammons produced after Duquette fired a couple of Sox scouts who were Gammons’ inside sources.
I hate to say it, because he’s an “icon” and “hall of famer”, and revered by many in these parts (OK, OK, mostly revered by members of his own profession), but I really don’t trust much of anything that comes from Peter Gammons these days. He’s shown himself, over the last several years in partiular, to be not much more than guy who takes care of his friends in baseball who give him “access”, and who couldn’t care less about his non-friends who don’t bow down and kiss his ring as the de-facto “commissioner” of baseball.
It’s sad to say, but Gammons has become more of a baseball gossip columnist than a serious reporter over the last couple of years.
Say no more.
Merloni’s story simply furthers my skepticism of anything reported by ESPN lackeys, of which, unfortunately, Gammo is.
Gammo lost ALL CREDIBILITY in my eyes when he (and Tim Kirkjian, for that matter) basically debunked “Game of Shadows” as tabloid journalism and ignored all the then-steroid evidence on the table, instead pointing to the fact that Bonds had never tested positive for steroids.
How is it possible that a meeting like this took place and not one single reporter found out about it? Furthermore, are we to believe that the Red Sox are the only team in MLB to have a “Practice Safe Steroids” meeting?
The writers are just as dirty as the players in this mess.
Even more, how hard could it be for WEEI to verify this story? Unless Baseball Reference is wrong, wasn’t Brian Daubach on that team? Doesn’t he occasionally mumble his way through a four-hour shift on the Big Show?
Dauber is the very personification of a probably pretty decent guy trying to hang on. Why would he risk whatever marginal employment he has in and around baseball to wade into this? It would forever kill any NESN chances, likely Comcast Sports, too. And do you think EEI would keep him under any pressure? Ha!
This is far too good a website to dedicate even the slightest amount of space to anything Gammons says ot writes.
The man is completely void of credibility and is conflict-of-interest, personified.
Unlike Felger or the rest of WEEI, right? So maybe Scott should just shut the site down. He links to everything related to Boston Sports Media – even that loser Flounder from the Herald and Borges.
Felger? He demands accountibility from every sports figure in Boston. Players, coaches and management alike.
He is the anti-Gammons in every sense of the term.
“demands accountibility”??….LOL…he just second guesss everything and plays the contrarian on EVERY issue…who can’t do that?….*yawn* Felger’s a bore
Completely and totally Off Topic….but I just heard Tony Kornheiser is quiting (fired?) Monday Night Football and I just had to say….YIPPPPPPPPPEEEEEEEE!
Just a thought, but if the writers are going to keep Mac, Bonds, Clemens, etc. out of the Hall of Fame because of ’suspected’ steroid use, shouldn’t writers like Gammons also be left out for having their head in the sand during the era?
I couldn’t agree with you more.
While the owners were rendered largely powerless by the thugs who run the players union, the baseball writers faced no such restraints.
Theirs was an act of blatant, journalistic cowardice, and they should be viewed and treated accordingly.
I’m glad to see everyone seeing everything that I have seen when it comes to Gammons. It took him a long time to get into the Hall of Fame because he did not have a lot of respect from his brethren. Yes he did have Diamond Notes which was a great innovation but that was twenty-five to thirty years ago. He has been nothing more than a jock sniffer. This article has nothing more added to it then when Merloni first said it. He has become Mike Fish.