Former MLB Player Robert Fick Admits To Steroid Use
Former MLB utility player Robert Fick disclosed on TV today that he took steroids.
Fick played in the big leagues for 10 years and finished his career with a.258 batting average with 69 home runs and 324 RBI. He was a member of the Detroit Tigers, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, San Diego Padres, and the Washington Nationals. He made the All-Star team in 2002 in his last year with the Tigers. He also holds the distinction of hitting the very last home run at Tigers Stadium on September 27, 1999, which happened to be a grand slam. He primarily played first base and right field.
In an appearance on Good Day L.A. this morning, Fick said he used steroids twice to recover from chronic shoulder injuries in order to “get back on the field and stay on the field.” He said steroids enabled him to get back in the lineup in three or four weeks. Fick also suggested that many players were juicing for similar reasons. “Everybody knew who was doing what and nobody cared… the goal was to win and be in the major leagues, and that’s pretty much how I saw it.”
The journeyman also acknowledged taking “greenies” (amphetamines) which were traditionally used by a lot of players to continue to get up for games in the grueling regular season. Greenies are now prohibited in the MLB.
While in his day, a lot of the guys “were on something,” Fick now believes that baseball is 90 percent clean. But Fick noted that it wasn’t just hitters that were juicing when he was active; pitchers were doing it too.
On Monday, Milwaukee Brewers superstar Ryan Braun accepted a 65-game suspension for PED use. Additional players including Alex Rodriguez and others are also reportedly facing steroid-related suspensions as part of the MLB Biogenesis investigation.
A Deadspin writer observes that Fick’s revelations suggest that steroids were used across the board and not just by high-profile sluggers: “My guess is that the harder MLB bird-dogs the juicers, the more you’ll see guys like Fick emerge, shrugging and saying, yeah, we did this sh*t, too — a reminder that steroids were a systemic issue involving all kinds of ballplayers, not just an evil indulgence of an elite class of bad apples.”
Does it surprise you that even some utility players were taking PEDs?
