Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
It was only a matter of time before someone mentioned Albert Pujols‘ name and PEDs in the same sentence. The person to do so is former MLB slugger Jack Clark. Also known as ‘Jack the Ripper,’ Clark played from 1975-1992 with a three-year stop in St. Louis. Clark belted 340 home runs during his career and along the way he encountered Pujols’ former personal trainer, Chris Mihlfeld. Clark claims that Mihlfeld said he ‘shot him up’ when talking about Pujols.
This is what Clark had to say about his personal experience with Mihlfeld:
“I had asked (Mihlfeld) about conditioning and working me out, what he would do for me, and he asked me whether I had ever thought of taking some steroids. He just told me that he wanted me to get started on steroids and he had some other guys that were doing it. He told me that’s how he’s conditioning this guy that he met out of high school and college and he looked like he was going to be a star, keep an eye on him (Pujols).”
Obviously this was a long time ago, but Clark seems to be connecting the dots to Mihlfeld training Pujols with the help of PEDs. Shooting someone up can mean a wide range of things. It doesn’t necessarily mean steroids, but that’s the correlation that the Ripper is drawing.
Clark is currently a radio personality in the St. Louis area, so I’m sure he’ll be getting a lot of feedback on his comments. In addition to Pujols, Clark also thinks that Justin Verlander used PEDs to get his mega contract.
It will be interesting to see if anyone else speaks up to back Clark’s comments, or if they will just fade away as mere speculation.
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