FanHouse Fernando Vina

Someone once told me, "Pat, you can say you're sorry all you want but just because you say it enough to think you mean it doesn't actually mean that you do." That's a pretty true statement, I think, and it certainly applies to baseball right now. Since the release of the Mitchell Report last week, the en vogue thing to do has been for players to immediately cop to whatever Mitchell accused them of (well, most players). But are they really sorry? I'm not so sure.

Name: Gary Bennett
Mitchell Accusation: "Radomski recalled one transaction with Bennett in July 2003 for two kits of human growth hormone. Radomski produced one check from Bennett payable to Kirk Radomski in the amount of $3,200 dated
July 13, 2003."
Admission: "As far as the report is concerned to me, it's accurate ...Obviously, it was a stupid decision ... It was a mistake. It was something that quite obviously, you regret now." (link)
Gut Reaction: Wait, Gary Bennett took steroids? This Gary Bennett? Really?
Believability: Look at it this way, it's way more embarrassing for Gary Bennett to admit to steroid use in his career than it is for him to deny it. Since he's not offering any qualifications or anything, I believe him.

First it was Andy Pettitte admitting to HGH use, then Fernando Vina came clean on-air yesterday. Today, Brian Roberts admits to taking steroids. But, of course, he only tried them once before he ran for the hills.

"In 2003, when I took one shot of steroids, I immediately realized that this was not what I stood for or anything that I wanted to continue doing. I never used steroids, human growth hormone or any other performance enhancing drugs prior to or since that single incident," he said.

"I can honestly say before God, myself, my family and all of my fans, that steroids or any performance-enhancing drugs have never had any effect on what I have worked so hard to accomplish in the game of baseball."

I find it somewhat suspect that Roberts claims he only took steroids once, namely because he had 12 career home runs heading into 2005, but matched that entire total by June of the 2005 season. (If you remember, Roberts led the league in batting average for first chunk of that year as well.) But hey, no reason to nit-pick, really. Even if it might be viewed as a weak or half-truth admission, it's an admission nonetheless. We'll never really know the truth; the above observations are just some speculation on my part.

So hey, any guesses on who's the next player to apologize to their friends and family for their inclusion in the Mitchell report?

Apparently, Fernando Vina is interested in keeping his analyst job at ESPN and staying in the public eye. To do that, Vina had to come clean and discuss his appearance in the Mitchell Report ... and that's exactly what he's done in an interview with Bob Ley (loose quotes):

In 2003 I did use HGH ... in '01 I played over 150 games, in '02 I played over 150 games, in '03 I had some issues with some injuries, my knee and my hamstring injuries that set me back ... I tried everything rehabbing, and it came to a point that I had to, I was desperate. And you get a lot of pressure, not only do I put a lot of pressure on myself because I wanted to be in every inning of every game, and it came to a point that, whenever I did rehab, I couldn't get back on the field. And I was getting pressure obviously from the team to get back out there. (...)

And it got to a point that I got desperate and I ended up trying HGH to try to get back and heal myself. It wasn't to try to hit home runs or get an edge, I mean for me, it was to try to get back on the field ... Was it right? No. Obviously it was wrong, because it was the wrong thing to do. I'm embarrassed by it.

When asked by Ley about the lines in the report where Radomski sold him steroids such as Deca-Durabolin, Vina responded:

I never bought steroids from him, all I used was HGH.

Looks like Vina is taking the Andy Pettitte route, saying that he would never use the evil steroids, that it was only HGH to recover from injury. If two makes a trend, then expect more and more on the report to take this tact. The entire interview contained Vina explaining that he didn't want to talk to George Mitchell because he didn't want to get involved, and that he didn't know enough about what was going on. Vina seemed a bit nervous to me around that portion of the interview but I might be reading too much into that. You'd be best served to come up with your own opinion after watching the interview for yourself.

Previously on FanHouse:
Vina's Future at ESPN Unclear
Andy Pettitte Admits to HGH Use

When former big leaguer and current ESPN analyst Fernando Vina was named in the Mitchell Report, some people wondered why ESPN didn't immediately put him on the air to address the allegations. But as it turns out, his conspicuous absence was apparently his decision and not the network's. From Richard Deitsch of SI.com:

Will Fernando Viña appear on ESPN again? The network says it's up to him. Viña joined ESPN's Baseball Tonight as an analyst in 2007 but has yet to appear on any ESPN property since being named in the Mitchell Report.

"We reported on him specifically when the Mitchell Report came out," an ESPN spokesman told SI.com Sunday night. "He knows we have been trying to get him on the air since the report came out. We do not definitively know when that will happen. But he knows we are trying to get him on the air."

Many of the former players named in the report will be able to escape the public eye by simply refusing to comment, but if Vina wants to continue working on television, this is something he'll have to address in a very candid manner if he hopes to retain even a shred of credibility. And if he doesn't decide to face the music? I'm not sure he'll really be missed. His commentary was usually vanilla at best, an he could easily be replaced by any other ex-jock wanting to get their face on television.