Former Red Sox star and 1995 AL MVP Mo Vaughn recently confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) during games. In an interview with the Athletic, he specifically admitted to injecting human growth hormone (HGH) in an attempt to prolong his career despite battling knee issues. His revelation has reignited debates over MLB’s past handling of PEDs, prompting former Marlins president David Samson to expose what he calls the league’s “reckless indifference” to doping before testing policies took hold.

Vaughn, known for his powerful bat and larger-than-life presence in the 1990s, didn’t mince words about his PED use. “I was trying to do everything I could, I knew I had a bad degenerative knee. I was shooting HGH in my knee, whatever I could do to help the process,” he admitted. Vaughn’s statement aligns with what many suspected about players in the pre-testing era—survival often took precedence over ethics.

Unlike many of his contemporaries who vehemently denied PED use even in the face of overwhelming evidence, Vaughn’s confession provides a rare, unfiltered look at how players justified their decisions. It wasn’t about chasing home run records, he insisted—it was about staying on the field.

Vaughn’s admission prompted a strong reaction from David Samson, former president of the Florida Marlins, who pulled no punches when discussing how front offices viewed PED use in the 1990s and early 2000s.

“The Mitchell Report was dead on,” Samson said on his show Nothing Personal with David Samson, referencing the 2007 investigation that exposed rampant steroid use across the league. “Testing works, but before testing? We knew players were using, and we didn’t care. We just wanted them back on the field as soon as possible.”

Samson’s candor is a stark contrast to the usual corporate-speak from MLB executives. He admitted that teams weren’t “despondent” about steroid use because it meant players could recover faster, and ultimately, teams weren’t paying millions to see stars sit on the bench.

While the league has implemented strict testing, Samson pointed out that modern players are still finding ways around the system. “You can mask it, you can cycle it, even with random testing,” he said. “The difference now is that it’s a game of cat and mouse.”

Vaughn’s confession and Samson’s revelations shine a light on an uncomfortable truth: MLB didn’t just allow the steroid era—it thrived on it. Now, the question is whether today’s game is truly clean or just better at covering its tracks.

How players outsmart MLB’s testing

Major League Baseball’s steroid testing system is considered one of the toughest in all sports leagues; however, it is not without loopholes. Athletes and their coaches have devised strategies to outsmart the system, ranging from micro-dosing to timing their use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) around testing periods. Microdosing entails consuming doses of PEDs that can swiftly exit the body while still delivering performance enhancements, making it challenging for tests to detect any wrongdoing. Certain substances such as HGH pose a challenge for detection due to their quick exit from the bloodstream. Furthermore, there has been an obstacle to doping initiatives with the rise of designer dr–s designed to elude detection.

Players often employ a tactic known as cycling by halting the use of performance-enhancing substances before anticipating tests to outsmart the system in place, for testing purposes. While random testing is enforced as a deterrent measure; players seek guidance from experts with testing procedures to determine the optimal timing for discontinuing to evade detection. Masking agents pose another challenge, as these substances have the potential to disrupt tests by rendering PED usage untraceable. Although MLB has increased its focus on utilizing testing techniques like the biological passport system to monitor long-term physiological changes more effectively, it is crucial to acknowledge that advancements in science occur continuously and are embraced by all parties involved.

In essence, for every improvement in testing, there’s an equally sophisticated effort to beat it. Until MLB fully commits to transparency and accountability, the question isn’t whether the game is clean, but how well it hides the dirt.