I’m not a sports talk radio host. I’m not going to scream “I told you so!” into my blog dashboard, but I do want to gloat a little about the fact that I said I wouldn’t be surprised if Eric Gagne didn’t last seven weeks as the Brewers closer prior to the start of the season. In fact, tomorrow would be seven weeks to the day, so I’m a little off.

I’ve never been a Gagne fan, but his signing of a $10 million contract just days before the release of the Mitchell report, was lousy. His behavior following the report was appalling.

I’m sure the Brewers had some idea of what they were getting into when they signed him, just as Theo Epstein did before the Red Sox traded for him last season :

According to an email sent by a Red Sox scout to Boston GM Theo Epstein in November 2006 in response to Epstein’s query about Gagne’s steroid use yielded this response, “Did some digging on Gagne and steroids IS the issue.”

Like I said, I don’t believe the Brewers knew his name would be on the report prior to it being released, but it sure made a bad signing look worse. And Gagne, for his part, has never admitted to taking steroids. His one-minute public “appearance” in the wake of the report was definitely the worst this side of Roger Clemens.

New Brewers closer Eric Gagne said he was sorry this morning for “the distraction” created by his inclusion in the Mitchell Report but did not admit to taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

After making his one-minute statement to a gathering of 15 or so members of the media, including TV stations from his hometown of Montreal, Gagne declined to take questions. He repeated his comments in French for the Canadian journalists and mentioned the Mitchell Report to them, which he did not do in English.

“I’m here today to talk to you guys to let you know I feel bad for my family and what they had to go through, and all my friends, and especially my teammates here in Milwaukee,” said Gagne. “I think it’s a distraction that shouldn’t be taking place. I’m just here to help the Milwaukee Brewers get to the World Series and get to the playoffs. That’s all I really care about.”

Baseball fans and writers exist further out from baseball than we’d like to admit. I realize that more and more. We don’t see Gagne throw bullpen sessions, we don’t know how he trains, how his arm checks out in a doctor’s office, what kind of guy he is in the dugout.

But I have a hard time comprehending that several people from the Brewers organization conscientiously evaluated Gagne and came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to hand him $10 million to be the team’s closer. It’s the sort of move that gives fans the right to criticize team management, even when they don’t have access to all the facts.