On the early days:
I was diagnosed in April of ’02 with Toronto. I talked about it openly, so everybody knew. Go back and look at my numbers — it has made a huge difference.
When I found out I had it, it was done in passing. I was standing there talking to [Chris] Carpenter and [Roy] Halladay and a couple of other guys, and one of them said, ‘Have you ever been tested for ADD?’ I’m like, ‘What? OK, whatever.’ So I asked our trainer about it and then talked to a doctor, and after about an hour-and-15-minute meeting, he thought I needed it. I think the first two times I took it were in May [2002], and with the exception of last year’s first half, it has made a big difference in my career.
The funny thing is, I don’t take it for baseball. My wife knows it when I take it or not. She knows, and she’ll ask me, ‘Why didn’t you take your pill today?’
On the sudden jump in major-leaguers asking for exemptions from the amphetamine ban rising from 28 players in 2006 to 103 in ’07:
That’s probably why I have to fill out so much paperwork this season. When it jumps from that much to that much, yeah, that stinks.
That’s bad, and guys saying they ‘need’ it. … Because, you know, it is an upper. Ritalin doesn’t make me any more hyper. It makes me more even-keeled. If you don’t have ADD, there’s no way to tell who does and who doesn’t need Ritalin. That’s the bad part about it. It’s not a disease. It’s more a condition. There’s nothing wrong [physically]. I just have trouble pitching when I’m moving around too much, and my train of thought gets lost easy. If [the number of exemptions] went up a lot, that’s not good.
On the future:
Someone told me they’re not going to allow the team doctors to diagnose it anymore.
It has to be from an outside source. … I don’t mean to sound like a hypocrite, like I get to take it and they shouldn’t.
But I take it for other reasons than baseball, like, so I can remember what the heck I’m supposed to get at the grocery store. If you ask me a question and some teammate walks by and says something to me, I can’t remember what you just asked me.
