Gary Sheffield Jr. is all about fun in baseball. While he has a background in the game and used to play himself, he’s shifting his knowledge to becoming a big voice in the media landscape.
His dad, nine-time MLB All-Star Gary Sheffield, was an outspoken player who backed up his words with his bat. He also was around during the height of the steroid era, which had the likes of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds obliterating balls over the fence every day. The elder Sheffield also was named in the Mitchell Report in 2007.
But the performance-enhancing drugs that these stars took, or allegedly took, didn’t only help with strength -- they also help with recovery time. For that reason, Sheffield Jr. feels MLB, perhaps, should embrace the concept of steroids a little bit more.
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“The one thing that fans even maybe today don’t understand about steroids -- and yes, from the outside they do understand, but the ability for superstars to stay on the field and be happy and rehab injuries,” Sheffield Jr. said on the latest episode of Balk Talk.
“For the most part, that’s something that was going on in the ‘90s and the ‘00s where guys would miss five to 10 games a year, you weren’t seeing the Aaron Judge being out for 50 or 60 games and it’s taking an oblique injury two months, three months to actually heal that.”
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“In the steroid era, guys would come back from some of these injuries in absolutely no time and that was part of the fan experience,” Sheffield Jr. continued. “Some of that could have been from the steroids and making your body feel better and we saw some of that with Dee Gordon, when he tested positive maybe three or four years ago.”
Sheffield Jr. added the extent of steroid usage was more about than just gaining muscle and hitting home runs. There are prohibited substances on MLB’s banned list that could assist in recovery and even weight loss. And perhaps that should be explored more.
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“For most of those guys, it was just about recovery,” Sheffield Jr. said. “Not to say they should legalize steroids, but maybe something to help these guys stay on the field.”