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Mo Vaughn admitted to HGH usage after leaving Red Sox
Vaughn confirmed details originally alleged in the 2007 Mitchell Report.
Former MLB slugger Mo Vaughn, winner of the 1995 American League MVP award while a member of the Red Sox, recently confirmed details originally reported in the 2007 Mitchell Report regarding his usage of human growth hormone in an effort to return from injury later in his career.
Vaughn, 57, discussed the matter in a story with Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic as part of a wider piece about rediscovering his love of the game in recent years.
“I was trying to do everything I could,” Vaughn told Rosenthal. “I knew I had a bad, degenerative knee. I was shooting HGH in my knee. Whatever I could do to help the process.”
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The (confirmed) allegations made in the Mitchell Report date from 2001, after Vaughn left Boston (which he did as a free agent in 1998).
“[Kirk] Radomski recalled that Vaughn had an ankle injury and called him for advice,” noted the report. “Radomski told Vaughn that human growth hormone would help his ankle heal faster.”
Vaughn told Rosenthal that he didn’t consider his name being mentioned in the report a tarnish on his legacy, adding that it had “nothing to do with where my pain was coming from.”
According to Vaughn, injuries he sustained later in his career — which limited his availability for the Angels and later the Mets — was the main source of his frustration.
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In more recent years, Vaughn credited his 12-year-old son, Lee, for helping him to fall back in love with baseball.
“When I got on the field coaching my son,” Vaughn explained, “all the pain and the talk of what could have been went away.”
Prior to the injuries and HGH usage, Vaughn was a three-time All-Star with the Red Sox. He won A.L. MVP in 1995 and then proceeded to produce a statistically even more impressive season in 1996 (swatting 44 home runs, driving in 143 RBIs, and doing so with a .326/.420/.583 slash line).
A Connecticut native, Vaughn has more than Red Sox ties to the area. He was also an inaugural class member of the Cape Cod Baseball League Hall of Fame after featuring for the Wareham Gatemen for two seasons.
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