Trout says PED users should be out of game if caught

NEW YORK -- Angels 22-year-old superstar Mike Trout typically shies away from controversial topics, but he had a firm stance on players using performance-enhancing drugs while speaking to a New York radio station on Monday morning.

"For me personally," Trout told WFAN's Boomer and Carton Show, "I think you should be out of the game if you get caught."

Trout was speaking from the Empire State Building to celebrate a field dedication for his South New Jersey high school and is in town for a four-game series against the Yankees and embattled superstar Alex Rodriguez, who's appealing an unprecedented 211-game suspension from Major League Baseball.

Trout didn't mention Rodriguez by name, but said players using PEDs "takes away from the guys working hard every day and doing it all-natural."

"Some people are just trying to find that extra edge," Trout said on the radio show. "It's tough. As a guy that goes out there and plays hard every day and puts 110 percent effort every time, and you wake up the next day and see there's a list of guys. But it's good that MLB caught 'em and they're moving in the right direction with suspensions and stuff."

Trout didn't want to go any further on the subject when approached by reporters at Yankee Stadium later on Monday, deferring to Angels union rep C.J. Wilson.

The stigma of steroid use hit close to home recently, when former big leaguer Jack Clark said on St. Louis airwaves that he knows "for a fact" that Albert Pujols used PEDs because his former trainer, Chris Mihlfeld, told him when they were with the Dodgers together in the early 2000s.

Mihlfeld vehemently denied those claims on Friday. Later that night, Pujols issued a defiant statement that threatened legal action, and moments later, Clark and his co-host were dismissed by the radio station, WGNU 920AM.

Josh Hamilton stands by Pujols' innocence.

"The guy has worked hard, he's obviously got a chip on his shoulder and wants to prove people wrong when he's out there playing," Hamilton said. "Being the competitor that he is, he comes in, works hard every day, and I've never questioned anything that Albert says."