Although he never admitted to it following the revelations included in the Mitchell Report in 2007, four years after his last year in baseball, it was always fairly obvious that former Red Sox first baseman Mo Vaughn used performance-enhancing drugs near the end of his career. His name was included in the report as a user of human growth hormone (HGH), but Vaughn never acknowledged or responded to those allegations.
When he became eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2009, he received just 1.1% of the vote and dropped off the ballot. Although his chances of actually making it into the Hall of Fame were low based on his career stats, they couldn’t have been helped by the PED scandal.
Eighteen years after the Mitchell Report, Vaughn publicly admitted to using HGH at the tail end of his career, when he was struggling with a knee injury as a then-Anaheim Angel. HGH wasn’t prohibited in baseball at the time, but that makes Vaughn the latest on the list of former Red Sox greats who were PED users in the early 2000s.
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) March 10, 2025
Red Sox Hall of Famer Mo Vaughn finally admits to PED usage over 20 years after retirement
Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz both tested positive for usage in 2003, but this didn’t come to light until 2009. The key difference Ortiz and Vaughn especially is that Ortiz’s career continued long after substances were formally banned in 2005, and it was only then that he really started to state a case for the Hall of Fame, which he was inducted into on his first ballot in 2022. Vaughn, on the other hand, never picked up another All-Star nod after he left Boston, batting .267 with a .838 OPS through four seasons with the Angels and then the Mets. Fine, but far from Hall-of-Fame caliber.
“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…” Vaughn said to The Athletic.
In his last year in baseball, spent with the Mets, he only played in 27 games and batted .190 with a .652 OPS before his issues with his knee ended his career. Again, his admittance isn’t exactly shocking, but it does leave another mark on the franchise as Vaughn officially joins Ramirez and Ortiz on a list of former Boston PED users.
