Blaming it on meds is one thing; but former Major Leaguer Jeff Reardon fails to explain where he got that porno toupee.
Palm Beach Gardens, Fl- A faded baseball great who made millions of dollars during his playing days was charged yesterday with robbing a jewelry store for all of $170, authorities said.
Jeff Reardon - a former Met relief pitcher who retired as No. 2 on the game's all-time saves list - blamed the bungled heist on anti-depressants he started taking after one of his sons died of a drug overdose.
"He wanted his fans to know this is something involved with his medication," said his attorney, Mitchell Beers. "He just wanted his fans to know it was not him."
Cops in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., picked up the bearded ex-ballplayer in a shopping mall parking lot minutes after he robbed a Hamilton Jewelers store.
It was a wild pitch all the way: Reardon handed an employee a note that demanded cash and hinted that he had a gun, authorities said.
The former flamethrower - who was known as The Terminator during his career from 1979 to 1994 - quickly copped to the crime, police said.
"I flipped on my medications and didn't realize what I was doing," Reardon told police, according to an arrest report.
Beers said Reardon had been taking anti-depressants since his 20-year-old son, Shane, died in February 2004.
"The whole family has had difficulty coming to terms with Shane's death," former Boston Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette told the Daily News.
Duquette, who played high school baseball with Reardon in Massachusetts, said his old friend also may be struggling with the upcoming second anniversary of his son's death.
"It's a tragic story," he said.
But a New York psychologist said he doubted Reardon's claim that the drugs made him do it.
"Can drugs make you steal from a jewelry store?" said Alan Hilfer, a psychologist at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. "I don't think so."
Hilfer said it was more likely a "cry for help" from the troubled ex-jock, who earned more than $11.5 million during his career.
"This man seems to be in terrible shape at the moment," he said. "And losing a child is something people never get over."
Reardon, who broke in with the Mets, last played pro ball during a brief stint as a Yankee in 1994 and officially retired during spring training the following year. He also played for Montreal, Minnesota, Boston, Atlanta and Cincinnati.
A dominant closer, Reardon racked up 367 saves and won a World Series ring with the Minnesota Twins in 1987.
Reardon and his wife retired to Palm Beach Gardens, where they live in the PGA National golfing community.
"I'm really amazed, dumbfounded," said his former neighbor, Dr. Richard Cornell. "From what I knew, he was a real above-board individual."
