When the Milwaukee Brewers signed pitcher Eric Gagne a few days before the Mitchell Report was released, most laughs linked to the story were from Red Sox fans who had seen the rapidly declining pitcher blow save after save for them. Ah, but post Mitchell Report, in which Gagne was reported to have used Performance Enhancing Drugs, the laughs are coming from everywhere.

As we noted in our Mitchell Report feature, Gagne had all types of red flags about his steroid use. But now the Brewers want the pitcher to make a statement about his inclusion in the report or else not show up to their mini camp.

The Brewers would not want Gagne to come to the Winter Warm-Up — designed to boost interest for the 2008 season — and be inundated by questions about the Mitchell Report. And they certainly wouldn’t want his first appearance in spring training to evolve into a media session about the Mitchell Report.

At this point, we don’t know what’s the bigger reason why it was dumb to give Gagne $10 million—his obvious declining pitching skills or the whispers swirling in the wind. The Milwaukee Brewers must’ve been using too much of their product to realize it.

Gagne not scheduled to attend Winter Warm-Up [Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, via Sox and Dawgs]
Image [NBC Sports]