He started his pro career for the Kenosha Twins of the Midwest League in 1992, but found that he could not gain weight. He took a shortcut. But, eventually his conscience got to him.
Past catches up to 'anabolic prospect'
The former relief pitcher named on pages 232 and 233 of the Mitchell Report lives in Littleton these days and is working on a master's degree in biblical studies at the Iliff School of Theology.The honesty of his comments is refreshing.That will be the second master's degree for Dan Naulty, who received one from Trinity College & Theological Seminary in Newburgh, Ind.
He's following an academic path he hopes will culminate with a doctorate in biblical studies and the New Testament. Naulty is an ordained pastor and has done pastoral work in California.
Naulty's baseball career ended in 1999. He lasted nearly four injury-plagued seasons in the big leagues - three years, 147 days of major league service time, to be exact - mostly with the Minnesota Twins before a final year with the New York Yankees.
Had Naulty not started using steroids almost at the outset of his professional career, he's well aware how many days he would have spent in the majors.
"Zero," Naulty said. "I would've never made it out of (Single-) A ball. There's no way. I never would have gotten out of that level of baseball because I didn't have enough stuff to do that."
Unlike most current and former players cited in former Sen. George Mitchell's 409-page report, Naulty, who turns 38 next month, cooperated fully with the investigators during a two-hour telephone conversation in January. He assumes they called him not suspecting him of any steroids use but simply because he was in the majors during the period being investigated.
Naulty had nothing to hide. His baseball career was long over, and as the report says, he "repeatedly expressed remorse" for using steroids.
"I stole people's jobs," Naulty said. "That, for me, has been a very convicting position to be in because I started sharing the story in 2000. The Mitchell Report was just an extension of my confession, but I've shared this story probably 80 to 100 times since 2000 in a variety of Christian communities, from small all the way to thousands of people."Naulty recalled making the Twins to start the season in 1996. They finished the exhibition season at Coors Field and Naulty got there at the expense of reliever Mike Trombley, the last player cut before the Twins broke camp in Florida.
"He's that metaphor of all those people that I steamrolled, from LaTroy Hawkins and Dan Serafini to Mike Trombley and David Riggs, so many guys that I played with throughout the process that were trying to do this legitimately whereas . . . I was using amphetamines and in the offseason I was using steroids and by night I was an alcoholic," Naulty said.
Naulty started using performance enhancing drugs after the season in Kenosha. He got them from bodybuilders in California. In 2-1/2 years he went from 185 pounds and an 86 mph fastball to 235 pounds with a fastball that topped out at 96.
This is the temptation of PEDs...They work. They may destroy your body and ruin you if you get caught, but the reason they get used is they work.
After the 1998 season Naulty was traded to the Yankees. That off-season he stopped using PEDs. The results were striking.
"My velocity dropped," Naulty said. "I was down to 88 (mph). . . . I had dropped 5 to 8 miles an hour. But I was pitching really well. I was getting people out."
He was also getting in touch with Christian members of the Yankees.
Naulty said the group included Joe Girardi, now the Yankees manager, Mariano Rivera, Scott Brosius, Chad Curtis, Jason Grimsley and Andy Pettitte.
The latter two were cited in the Mitchell Report. Pettitte subsequently admitted he twice used HGH but not steroids. Grimsley, who admitted using steroids and HGH, had his Arizona home raided in June 2006 by federal agents.
"It was a crew that clearly was not claiming perfection but was claiming that, 'We need God and we're inviting you to be a part of that if you like.' So during the season it was almost a Jekyll and Hyde type of thing. During the day, I'd get to hang out with these guys and get to ask the tough questions about religion and life and baseball. And then during the night, I'd be the single major league baseball player playing for the New York Yankees.
"After the World Series, when I came home, I made the decision to really live out my faith. And that ended my baseball career because I realized I was forcing this issue. I was making myself be a major league baseball player when I realized that God really didn't want me to be a baseball player."
While Naulty was playing, he said, he had no pangs of conscience, no mental tussles about the road he was traveling to stay in the majors.
"What I had in the big leagues was, 'I'm here, and I'm making a lot of money, so do whatever you got to do to stay here,' " Naulty said.
"And that was basically what my mind-set was. I didn't have any conviction about what was taking place until I became a Christian and until I really started evaluating what I was doing in my life. And that didn't start until 2000."
The last part of the story is about Naulty's knowledge that one day he will have to tell his two boys about his career and his use. He knows it won't be easy as the final paragraph shows.
"I didn't do this right. I cheated. I screwed people. I lied. I did everything you possibly could do all for the sake of money and potential fame. That's not a good thing."
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