Yankees Stanton Sounds Off On Steroids (Updated W/Correction)

In reply to the following article, Mike Stanton Tweeted:

My apologies are extended to Mike Stanton as it’s obvious now that I got the voices mixed up as I was listening to the radio. I meant no harm. I will stand by the content of the story because it contains some new thoughts, regardless of who said what.

Former Yankees reliever, Mike Stanton, is now a regular on MLB’s XM Radio. Today, he had some interesting takes on why players are still using illegal substances to enhance their play – and fortune!

Yankees former relief pitcher, Mike Stanton, who pitched effectively during “The Run” in the late 1990’s, caught my attention this morning as I was driving to the vet to pick up a script for Bella when the conversation turned to Starling Marte and why players continue to use illegal substances.

Speaking on XM Radio’s MLB channel (and I can only paraphrase what he said), Stanton suggested that Marte and others are doing it for the money. He further explained, saying that if he polled 100 players who played during his time and never used anything, a full 70 percent of them would say that, if they knew then what they know now, they, including Stanton himself, would have used.

Why? One reason and one reason only – money. Stanton then went on to tell a story about a pitcher he played with (not on the Yankees) who used, was caught twice, and ended up playing six more years making millions more than he did. The inference being that it was the drugs that enabled him to pitch longer.

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True or not, it’s the way many ballplayers probably feel as they look at someone like Marte, who signed a six-year deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates worth $31 million, all of which is guaranteed. So, he sits out and loses a half-year’s pay, a paltry two and a half million dollars – what’s that?

Stanton also pointed to former Yankees first baseman Jason Giambi, who made no bones about his admitted use of steroids saying, in effect, they helped him to make $100 million and more over the length of his career.

And what about the Yankees? What were they doing while Giambi was hitting bombs off the scoreboard for them? Did they care? Did they look the other way? Only one thing is certain, and that’s the fact that they signed his checks.

No One Knows What To Do With Thing

No one knows what to do about this thing. Some say to make the first offense worth a year suspension because that’ll really teach ’em. Think so? Again, look at Marte who in the big scheme of things would still have $25 million and pocket change coming to him if that were the case.

Stanton was then asked by his radio partner (sorry, don’t remember his name), “Well, what about the moral aspect of using?” Good question, but Stanton came right back with (paraphrasing), “Well, I might think about it and have some regrets. But I’d be thinking about my family and how I provided for them a whole lot more.”

But the Yankees are not in business to be the FBI. And for that matter, neither is Major League Baseball.

And that’s just the way it is. And we can only hope that the Yankees have only Stanton’s on their team now and no Marte’s. And that the Yankees farm system is just as clean.

But at the same time, our brain tells us it’s not likely. And lurking somewhere in the Yankees organization are a handful of players who are striving to make it to The Show, any which way they can because they have families too. Or, maybe not and they’re just the types who want to play in the bright lights of the big city.

But the Yankees are not in business to be the FBI. And for that matter, neither is Major League Baseball. The problem is there, and there’s no reason for it to go away. Because the rewards are far greater than the punishments, and making the penalty, for example, a lifetime ban won’t solve it either.

Because, as we know, life in prison and lethal injections do not stop people from committing capital murder.

Yankees Have A Winning Formula No Team Can Copy

The Yankees can think of ways to win in baseball that no one else has ever thought of, like when Miller Huggins told Babe Ruth to invent the home run.

And maybe it’s that we only need to get used to the fact that every once in a while a Starling Marte will rear their ugly head for a few minutes of our time. But after that, we just need to get back to baseball, and the fun season the Yankees are having.

Because in a few minutes, the Yankees play the Pirates and I’m all in.