Baseball player Jay Gibbons is playing Major League Baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers almost four years after his dismissal from the Baltimore Orioles following steroid allegations. Gibbons believed his dismissal was related to the allegations concerning his use of performance-enhancing drugs although Orioles management claims the decision was unrelated. He wrote an emotional letter to all MLB baseball teams asking for a second chances. Gibbons feels he has finally surmounted the steroid stigma with his second chance in the Majors.
“I worked so hard my whole career and you make one mistake and they label your whole career. You’re a steroid guy, and that’s why you could play baseball,” Gibbons said. “It simply wasn’t the case, and actually it made me worse, I thought.”
Gibbons, though, was willing to take his lumps and joined independent league clubs when he had nowhere else to turn. […]
Eventually his talents were too much for teams to continue to pass on. The Brewers decided to give him the second chance, which led him to Nashville and eventually back to the majors.
“I think it was a (Brewers GM) Gord Ash thing,” Gibbons said. “Gord drafted me when I was in Toronto. He knew the kind of person I was, and I’m forever grateful for him just to give me another chance.
Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times first linked Jay Gibbons to steroids claiming that Gibbons was one of five redacted names from the Jason Grimsley affidavit. However, the story was erroneous as Grimsley named only Jose Canseco, Lenny Dykstra, Glenallen Hill and Geronimo Berroa as “users of anabolic steroids.” While Pugmire was wrong about the Grimsley affidavit, he turned out to be correct about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Sports Illustrated accurately reported in September 2007 that Gibbons ordered anabolic steroids (testosterone), human growth hormone (Genotropin) and human chorionic gonadotropic (hCG) from Signature Pharmacy in Florida. The Mitchell Report also identified Gibbons as a steroid user when it was released in December 2007.
Gibbons admitted his “mistakes” related to the use of steroids and hGH and claimed that he only used them to help speed up rehabilitation from “injuries and surgeries”.
Photo credit: nmfbihop / flickr
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