Game (not) over for Gagne

Gagne points no fingers. He offers an apology to his fans, even if he declines to say exactly why.

He does not talk, as Alex Rodriguez did, about the "loosey-goosey" culture in the era before baseball started drug tests.

"I don't think it was a culture," Gagne said. "Everybody makes their own decision and lives with it. We're all grown-ups."

And he does not blithely make light of the issue, as Ramirez has done in the wake of his 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy. Ramirez has riffed that he was neither a murderer nor a rapist, and on Friday he invoked Jesus Christ in an awkward effort to equate embarrassment with persecution.

No, this hit Gagne hard. The details might be sparse, but the remorse is genuine.

"I've been straightforward about everything. It [stinks] that I can't be about this," he said. "I'm not looking for sympathy anyway.

"I have to live with this the rest of my life. I'm going to have to explain this to my kids. It's going to be on my resume the rest of my life."

He volunteers that he is a role model for kids -- and not just his four kids, none older than 8. He is a model for what not to do, whatever that might have been.

"I hope I serve as an example," Gagne said. "You don't want to be in my shoes.

"This is hell. I've still got to talk about it."

His three best seasons, the ones in which he recorded the 84 consecutive saves, were the last three before baseball instituted a drug policy and initiated mandatory suspensions for first offenders.

Did Dodgers fans -- the ones that paid good money for tickets and "Game Over" memorabilia -- get an honest performance in return?

"To me, yes," Gagne said. "I can guarantee I worked harder than anybody.

"I still do, except I eat a lot more poutine now."

He can do that daily here, on the cobblestone streets within the walls of Old Quebec, or within the walls of the charming old ballpark he now calls home.

Hank Aaron hit a home run here. Tom Lasorda and Sparky Anderson and Warren Spahn played here, half a century ago.

The Stade Municipal opened in 1939. Gagne furnished the cramped clubhouse with a bit of 2009, with a flat-screen television that looks jarringly out of place among the wooden benches and stalls.

He works with the other pitchers. He alerts the hitters to how an opposing pitcher might be tipping his pitches. He sits on a rickety bus, for a 10-hour ride.