News / Sports
Gary Sheffield Attacks Barry Bonds, Joe Torre and the New York Yankees
Never one to hold back his opinion or to censor his thoughts Detroit Tigers’ designated hitter Gary Sheffield launched a verbal assault on one-time friend Barry Bonds as well as his former team the New York Yankees and their manager Joe Torre.
In an interview with HBO’s “Real Sports” Sheffield addressed the issue of steroids in baseball and more directly removed himself from the dialogue that has been surrounding San Francisco Giants’ slugger Barry Bonds. Saying “if I took what Barry Bonds took, why don't I look like him,” Sheffield admitted to taking steroids but claimed he was unaware of what the substance was when he used it.
Both Sheffield and Bonds were known to work out together in the off season, a practice the Detroit Tiger said began to wear on him, "I trusted this man, he allowed me to stay in his house, I started seeing the control factor. I started seeing, wait a minute, you aren't going to tell me what to do.”
While Sheffield said that he no longer speaks with Bonds he did say “I love and respect Barry to this day. I had a problem with him at that time, but I moved on and forgave.”
Sheffield didn’t reserve his double speak for Bonds alone. He also attacked his former team the New York Yankees and manager Joe Torre. The 19-year vet spent three seasons with the Yankees and said that black players were treated differently than white players. According to Sheffield said black players would be “called out” in the clubhouse when there was an issue whereas white players would be called into the office and addressed individually.
Speaking about Torre, Sheffield said “He had a message to get across to the whole team, so he used me to get the message across.” That wasn’t the same method he used with white players said Sheffield, “I'd see a lot of white players get called in the office and treated like a man. That's the difference.”
In a head scratching moment of the interview the 38-year-old Sheffield said that despite the fact Torre handled black players differently he didn’t consider the manager to be a racist, “I think it's the way they do things around there. Since I was there I just saw that they run their ship different.”
The HBO "Real Sports" interview is scheduled to air on Tuesday night.
