And the big names just keep coming forward.  The Boston Globe’s Chris Snow and Gordon Edes catch up with former Red Sox hopeful Paxton Crawford.

Paxton Crawford (shown above, pitching for the Atlantic League’s Long Island Ducks in 2005), reached by phone last night, offered no more than a minute to explain himself, despite the fact that in the ESPN The Magazine issue that hit newsstands yesterday he detailed his steroid use beginning in 1999 in minor league camp with the Red Sox and continuing in the majors with the team in 2000 and 2001.

“I thought it was a one-time story deal, bro,” said Crawford, who at 28 is out of baseball and working on his family’s farm in Arkansas. “If any other reporter called, I was not interested.”
The reporter mentioned that he’d covered the Sox for about a decade, including Crawford’s time with the club, and didn’t know for sure who’d used steroids.
“You didn’t know?” Crawford asked, surprise in his voice.
No, the reporter said. How widespread was it? Were there a lot of players?

“Yup,” he said.

Five, 10, 20, 50, how many?

“It was just everywhere,” he said.

Did this begin in minor league camp, in big league camp?

“So, anyway,” Crawford said, “it’s kind of a sore subject, bro. That’s it.”

And he hung up.