[EmpireWF]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2476681

While baseball's latest focus in its fight against ridding the sport of performance-enhancing drugs is on human growth hormone, it's another banned drug that a former Yankee fan favorite has confessed to using.

"I can remember my first amphetamine," Jim Leyritz said during an interview Thursday on XM Satellite Radio. "I was out all night drinking with Andy Hawkins and some of the guys on the team. I was a young player."

Leyritz, who broke into the big leagues in 1990 with the Yankees, played 11 seasons in the majors with six different teams.

"I came in. I was hung over, sleeping by my locker. And all of a sudden, [Don] Mattingly came to me and said, 'Hey, you're in the lineup.' And I went, 'What?' He goes, 'Yeah, I just hurt my back.'

"Now I'm walking around, I'm going, 'I don't know how I'm going to do this. There's no way that I can go play this game today.' I ran into my teammate who I knew had some of the 'little helpers,' as they called them.

"He said, 'Take one of these. It should help. It'll take the edge off.'

"So sure enough, I took one. He goes, 'OK, you can take two, but no more than two.' So I popped one more, and I went out and went 3-for-4 with two homers."

According to retrosheet.org, Leyritz is referencing a Saturday, June 30 game in 1990 against the White Sox, where he went 3-for-5 with two homers and four RBI.

His recollection of the day isn't perfect spot-on, however, as Mattingly played first base and Leyritz manned third.

Leyritz is best-known for his three-run homer off Mark Wohlers in Game 4 of the 1996 World Series.

This admission comes in the wake of an investigation of pitcher Jason Grimsley, where Grimsley told federal agents that he used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

More and more players will come out and admit to the usage of such drugs. The sad thing is that the amphetamines seem to have been a more prevalent and public item of use among players. They were easily available in all clubhouses and in plain view. MLB is digging themselves in a deeper and deeper hole.

[Trashed]

Everyone in todays society is on some kind of pill. Mental, Physical, Sexual, etc. theres a pill for just about everything. Lets just not make everyone who swallows an aspirin out to be Barry Bonds. Is the amphetamine legal that Leyritz took is the only issue here.

[legend]

The addiction problems of society have always been mirrored by baseball, whether it is alcohol, sex, cocaine, uppers, etc. Where it goes astray is steroids. I have no problem with guys like Dave Parker and Keith Hernandez, who got into hot water with cocaine in the 80s, and holier than thou to feel that guys would not run into trouble with drugs- it would be idiotic to thing these things were not going on. But the average guy on the street isn't doing hgh or steroids to improve their performance.
I wonder if Leyritz was paid for his interview, otherwise, why come out now and admit what you did back then? Surely not to "clear his conscience." There is always some motivation for admissions like that, usually financially related.

[Trashed]

Well Leyritz was one of the more self-important players in his day considering he was of average talent. He would take an hour to get set in the batters box making all these weird kind of adjustments only to ground out to the pitcher, shoved the media back in the World Series win when O'Neill's dad died, came to practice every day in a big cowboy hat with a Jesse James look on his face, etc. Perhaps he thinks that he can be something in writing a book or doing an interview that he never was on the field. Or perhaps the guy just loves money more than anything including his own family and will do just about anything to get it. Either way sounds like vintage Leyritz to me!

[EmpireWF]

Well, he was teammates with Grimsely so he may have feared that he may have been outed at some point. This way, he admits to it and is able to talk about it and not look like the defenseable player.

Again, he admitted to HGH use which really messes with your body and he even noted the reason he stopped it was b/c certain levels in his body skyrocketed. It's plain dangersou.

[MJHMarc]

That is true, EmpireWF. Drugs are bad for everyone, even if they are in professional sports. That is no exception to take them. But, this isn't health class so expect you already now the consequences of taking drugs. I am not going to sit here and give you a lesson on drugs in alcohol, since I do not want to waste your time.

But then again, I would like you to think about this for a few moments:

What can the MLB do now, since Leyritz has long been retired?

[EmpireWF]

Originally Posted by MJHMarc

What can the MLB do now, since Leyritz has long been retired?

Obviously do nothing about these guys who from 90-04 and whenever used performance enhancers, MLB is powerless in that sense. However, all the guys who are coming out now as users must go to show the league that the problem is bigger than they expected (then again, they did turn their heads to it...as did we the fans). They need to toughen testing and do whatever it takes to get the sport clean.