Twins: Abuser's gains were ill-gotten

Guilt ravaged the psyche of former Twins pitcher Dan Naulty, years after use of banned substances kept him in the majors at others' expense.

By La Velle E. Neal III, Star Tribune

Last update: December 15, 2007 - 12:32 AM

Dan Naulty was a user of performance-enhancing drugs, stopping at nothing to reach the major leagues. He later became intoxicated by the lifestyle big-time baseball offered.

He chased after the benefits, didn't think about the means and certainly paid little attention to the consequences. It got him four seasons, four mostly injury-plagued seasons.

Now the consequences mean more to Naulty, a former Twins pitcher who spent 1996-99 in the majors. The mental snapshot that pops up the most: the sight of Mike Trombley packing his bags in 1996 after being a late spring training cut.

Naulty cheated his way onto the team while the popular and hard-working Trombley was misty-eyed over barely missing the cut.

"I stole people's jobs," said Naulty, who now lives in Colorado. "That's the part for me that was so wrong. I have to explain to my boys that I took people's jobs by cheating, and that penetrated my soul a number of years ago and still haunts me today.

"The poor choice I made for the chance of being a major league baseball player.''

Naulty was one of the more than 700 interviews conducted by investigators for former Sen. George Mitchell's report on the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, a report that was released Thursday. "If I could give back a little bit of something good then I would like to,'' he was quoted as saying in the report.

Investigators contacted Naulty and interviewed him in January. He represented a different side of baseball's dirty little secret.

He wasn't the star player looking for the edge to become a superstar. He wasn't the player barely holding on and looking for any edge. He was the one trying to make his break.

While former Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski's underground network is exposed in the Mitchell Report, Naulty got his steroids from bodybuilders he knew in various Orange County, Calif., gyms before the 1993 season.

"I was so young and dumb I didn't think about anything except the light at the end of the tunnel,'' Naulty said, "and that light was the fame that baseball was going to provide me.''

He said the changes came quickly. He gained 20-25 pounds, and his fastball went from 87 miles per hour to the mid 90s. He became a good prospect, making his debut in 1996.

But Naulty couldn't stay healthy, suffering injuries that included a torn triceps and a torn groin muscle. He blamed his six-year run with steroids as the reason for the breakdowns. He began talking to people about using human growth hormone (HGH) in 1998, after the torn groin muscle. It helped him recover enough to pass the physical when he was traded to the Yankees in November.

"I had 40-45 pounds of extra muscle my body wasn't used to,'' he said. "I was tearing tendons off bones.''

He stopped taking performance-enhancing drugs in 1999 with the Yankees -- and watched his velocity drop under 90.

By 2000, Naulty was done with baseball. He did go to spring training with the Dodgers that year but already was thinking about doing something else.

"I got it handed to me because I was throwing with half a mind,'' he said.

Naulty soon relied on two of his strengths: his faith and his desire to learn. He eventually became a pastor in California and now lives in Littleton, Colo., where he's finishing a second master's degree and will soon begin work on a Ph.D in theology.

The story he told to investigators already has reached many people at various church-related activities.

"I'd say [I've told the story] nearly 100 times,'' Naulty said. "That's in venues as small as 10 people to venues of thousands of people. I've had a platform to share my story and try to help people -- parents and kids.''

Naulty's emotions were mixed as followed the nation's reaction to the report.

"A part of me is sad because I clearly had a part in this whole thing,'' he said, "but at the same time I've listened to people on TV saying they are glad it has come out because you have to turn the page on this era.

"However, I also am sad if some of those people in the report are innocent.

"In my case, I was willing to admit I cheated.''

And he'll never get over what he did at the expense of Trombley and players like him.

"He was representative of a variety of people,'' Naulty said, "a long line of people.''

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