Ex-Yankees Star Admits Team Doctor Encouraged PED Use During MLB’s Dark Era

The New York Yankees, baseball’s most storied franchise, built their championship legacy on talent and tradition. But behind the pinstripes and World Series rings lurked a darker reality that would forever stain America’s pastime. Want to take a guess at what happened when winning became more important than playing clean?

The MLB steroid era didn’t discriminate—it consumed players, teams, and integrity across the board. Yet few revelations hit harder than learning that team doctors, the very people trusted to protect player health, actively pushed performance-enhancing drugs. David Justice’s bombshell admission about his 2000 Yankees experience exposes just how deep the corruption ran within baseball’s most prestigious organization.

During a candid appearance on the All The Smoke YouTube channel, MLB legend Justice opened up about his Yankees experience. “I went to the Yankees in 2000 when Magnam, who was claimed to be Dr. Magnam,” he told the host. “He came in, ‘Hey, DJ, what are you taking?’ Now I thought this dude was talking about some vitamins, dog.” The doctor’s sales pitch was calculated and persuasive: “Well, if you take this HGH, it’ll help you… Doctors prescribe it; it’ll help you with your injuries. When Justice asked directly if it was steroids, the doctor responded, “No, it’s HGH, a human growth hormone.”

The twist? Justice’s fear of needles saved him from crossing that line. “I go to my locker. I look; it’s needles. Oh no, dog. My mama had to hold my hand when I got a shot at the doctor,” he confessed. “I can’t do this, bro.” His childhood phobia became his moral compass. Justice admitted he would have taken the substance if it came in pill form, trusting the Yankees organization completely.

TBH, it makes sense why so many players succumbed to pressure when the team medical staff normalized these substances. “This is the New York Yankees, right?” Justice reasoned. “You figure they hire nothing but the best. I mean, that was my mentality. And here is Dr. Magnum telling me that this is okay.” The Yankees’ championship culture, combined with medical authority figures promoting HGH as legitimate treatment, created the perfect storm for widespread PED abuse during baseball’s most controversial era.

Justice’s willingness to expose baseball’s dark secrets during his All the Smoke appearance extended beyond PED revelations, as he courageously addressed another painful chapter that haunted his career.

Yankees’ David Justice opens up about personal struggles

The former MLB star opened his heart about his turbulent marriage to Halle Berry, revealing intimate details about their whirlwind romance and its bitter aftermath. She proposed marriage after just five months of dating, but their relationship carried devastating misconceptions. “The one thing that hurts the most is, Halle had a relationship with a gentleman who hit her on the side of the head. She lost some hearing. She never made him public, and I’m not going to make him public. But I know who it is,” Justice explained. He emphasized how this created lasting confusion about his character.

Justice expressed frustration at the assumption that he was the person being referenced simply because the public often associated her only with him. He pointed out that she had said it was a former boyfriend, whereas he was not a former boyfriend but her husband. “From 1996 until today,” he noted, “Sometimes I’ll see someone on social media [say]: ‘well, he hit her in the head.'”

Justice revealed his disappointment in Berry’s silence regarding public misconceptions. “The thing I didn’t like was [Berry] let [people] think that [way]. She let the world think it was me. That I never appreciated. She was dead wrong for that.” Their marriage crumbled within three years after their New Year’s Day 1993 wedding, leading to separation in February 1996.

Justice’s candid revelations demonstrate how unaddressed rumors can haunt public figures long after relationships end, highlighting the lasting impact of misconceptions in the digital age and showing his courage in confronting both baseball’s systemic failures and personal injustices.