Sports Radio Interviews

Harmon Killebrew’s Take On Steroids In Baseball: ‘A cloud over the game needs to be removed…’

Over the course of his 22 years in Major League Baseball, Harmon Killebrew accomplished just about as much as any right handed hitter in the history of the game. Certainly as much as any right-handed hitter of his era. When he retired in 1975, Killebrew had set the record for the most homeruns by a righty. He was an 11-time All Star, the 1969 Most Valuable Player, the 1971 Lou Gehrig Memorial Award winner (given to player who exemplified the character and integrity of Gehrig most demonstrably) and helped lead the Minnesota Twins to the 1965 American League pennant. Killebrew was a soft-spoken man during his playing days and, as far as I can tell, has remained so throughout the later years of his life. In a recent interview on XTRA 910 in Phoenix however, Killebrew certainly did not hold back with his thoughts on performance enhancing drugs in baseball. The Hall of Famer is most certainly worth the listen.

On if he and his former colleagues in the game have a better understanding now of just how tainted some of the records may be today during the ‘steroid era’:

“Absolutely. Baseball is made up of statistics, as you know, and they’re completely changed now. And that’s a sad thing. I mean it’s fine, people say to me, don’t you feel bad when guys pass you up? And I say, well I passed up a lot of guys myself along the way. That’s the way baseball is. But to have it done in not a very proper way, I think all the players have that feeling. I don’t know, it’s a difficult thing of knowing what should be done.”

On if he agrees that today’s generation of fans is far too willing to forgive players who are breaking records with performance enhancing drugs:

“Yeah, they don’t know the history of the game. And you’re right, they don’t hold it sacred. And it is a sacred thing – at least to me and so many guys that played the game for so many years. I was shocked to read an article by one of your peers saying so what about steroids. That’s an attitude that maybe the public has – I don’t know. But everywhere I go, I hear people saying, no, let those guys who used steroids get in to the Hall of Fame. Well, we don’t have any say in that until it gets to the Veteran’s Committee. And you’re the guys – that’s a big weight to have on you. And it’s got to be a difficult thing to sort those things out.”

On if he thinks himself and others like Hank Aaron have become more vocal recently about steroids as a result of the lack of pressure being put on today’s players by the public that are caught using steroids or other performance enhancing drugs:

“Yeah, I don’t understand it. In fact, he was working out with a minor league team while he was on a suspension. And a lot of people don’t think that was quite right either. So I don’t know how to describe really how we think about this whole situation but it is, as I say, a cloud over the game that needs to be removed. And I think one way that they could remove it – and I hate to see these names being pittled out from here to eternity – if they would just get the names of those guys out front, those 103 or whatever that they caught, and get their names out and get it over with – maybe we could get on with this. I don’t know.”

On what was his biggest thrill was during his long, illustrious career in Major League baseball:

“You know, people have asked me that question and to me, just putting on a Major League uniform every day and being able to play with those guys, and playing with a group of guys that I got a chance to play with over those years – that was the biggest thrill for me that I could ever want. I never knew what was going to happen. When I signed, I was 17 years old. I went directly to the nation’s capital and I was so young and naive…But it was just such a thrill along the way. There were lots of ups and downs along the way. It’s not easy, but I was very thankful that I was able to play as long as I did. I got to play 20 years in the Major Leagues and play on some good teams and some bad ones, and play against some really good players. But there was just more great players that played during that era than there was during any other period in the history of the game. And for that I’m thankful. People ask me, don’t you wish you were playing today. Well, if you’re talking about the money that they make today, yeah, it would be nice. But we played in an era where players loved the game and loved to play and we did it more for the love of the game than for the money we were making.”

Listen here to Killebrew on XTRA 910 in Phoenix with Bickley and MJ

Tags: greatest Minnesota Twins players of all time, Harmon Killebrew, Major League Baseball Hall of Fame, Minnesota Twins, performance enchancing drugs in sports, steroids in baseball