Gary Sheffield Rips Into Torre, Jeter and Bonds
Leave it to Gary Sheffield to liven up the dog days of summer.
In an interview with HBO's Real Sports, Sheffield rips into New York Yankees manager Joe Torre, former Yankees teammate Derek Jeter, and San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds.
Sheffield says Torre treats black players differently from white players and says Jeter, who is from a mixed-race marriage, "ain't all the way black," during the interview with Andrea Kremer that will air on Tuesday (10 p.m. ET). Regarding Bonds, Sheffield says, "if I took what Barry Bonds took, why don't I look like him?" He also says that he never took steroids because "the bottom line is steroids is something you stick in your butt - period."
He added that he would be willing to talk to baseball's steroids investigator, former Senator George Mitchell. "I don't feel like it's all that much of a threat to me," he said.
A copy of the interview was made available to Newsday, the newspaper reported.
Sheffield, who was traded to the Detroit Tigers during the offseason, claimed that a "couple of blacks that were there" had an issue with Torre.
"They weren't treated like everybody else. I got called out in a couple of meetings that I thought were unfair," Sheffield told Kremer.
Sheffield later added: "He had a message to get across to the whole team, so he used me to get the message across." Sheffield said Torre didn't use the same method with white players.
"No … I'd see a lot of white players get called in the office and treated like a man. That's the difference."
Sheffield said he doesn't consider Torre a racist. "No. I think it's the way they do things around there," he said. "Since I was there I just saw that they run their ship different."
At that point, Kremer says to Sheffield that the Yankees most high-profile player is black. "Who?" Sheffield says.
Told Jeter, Sheffield says: "Derek Jeter is black and white."
Later, he said there was no real significance to Jeter's bi-racial heritage, but added: "Derek Jeter used to come to me and try to tell you what Joe Torre is all about, he's a good man, he's this, he's that, but like I tell Derek Jeter, that's you. It's one thing that they treat you a certain way; you don't feel what other people feel."
Torre, asked about Sheffield's comments prior to the Yankees' 6-4 loss at Tampa Bay on Friday night, said: "I don't even want to answer those kinds of questions. I'm more comfortable not answering."
As for Bonds, a former workout partner and friend of Sheffield's, the Tigers' outfielder says Bonds scoffed at him when he was using vitamins. Sheffield says he then got substances from BALCO, claiming not to know they were steroids.
"In a million years, I don't care what anybody says, steroids is something you shoot in your butt. I do know that … The bottom line is steroids is something you stick in your butt - period."
Sheffield allegedly told a grand jury that he used steroid cream on his legs and "clear" under his tongue, but didn't know they were steroids.
He said his relationship with Bonds deteriorated because of a lack of trust.
"I trusted this man, he allowed me to stay in his house," Sheffield says. "I started seeing the control factor. I started seeing, wait a minute, you aren't going to tell me what to do."
Sheffield reportedly began the interview by saying: "I tell myself every offseason I'm not going to say anything crazy. I'm just going to have a peaceful season … Can't do it. I'm cut from a different cloth."
