Carlos Gomez swears there's no hard feelings with Brian McCann. 'He's a great guy, man'

Yahoo! Sports columnist and podcaster Jeff Passan conducted a lengthy interview with former Brewers standout and current Rays outfielder Carlos Gomez for the Yahoo! Sports MLB Podcast, with the entire interview posting Thursday.

Gomez discusses his baseball upbringing, coming to America from the Dominican Republic without knowing a word of English and also building coffins as a young teen in his home country. The subjects also touched on a number of experiences from his Brewers playing days, including a pair of memorable bench-clearing incidents involving the Braves and Pirates.

On his exuberance as a player

Gomez, of course, is known for being a player who wears his heart on his sleeve, for better or worse.

"I don't practice that, it just comes," Gomez said. "In the history of baseball, all the really good baseball players, they have some swag. Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, Pedro...

"To square the ball is hard. Sometimes you square the ball, and somebody catches it. When I get a hit, why can't I enjoy it? We're the only sport where people don't have fun like they're supposed to. Soccer, they take 3 to 5 minutes to celebrate a goal. Football, they hit each other ... and stand there talking."

He talked at length about the difference between American baseball and the exuberance of the sport in Latin and Asian countries. He painted a picture of winter ball in those countries.

"Six-thousand people screaming like 100,000 people, that's what it feels like," he said. "When an American has the opportunity to play in a Latin country, they get in love with it. When are they going to stop (cheering)? They see the pitcher striking you out, pointing you to the dugout. They see a bat flip. People like entertainment, that's what they're passionate about. Here ... you do it so professionally. They hear, 'If you do that again, you're going to be on the bench.' We're not teaching like that. We're teaching 'Let's go have fun.'"

Gomez said he believes the game is shifting to a point where fans want to see emotion, complete with bat flips and demonstrative pitchers.

On his brawls in Milwaukee

Gomez swears he has no hard feelings toward Brian McCann, the Atlanta Braves catcher who famously met Gomez at home plate after a home run in September of 2014. Benches cleared as McCann -- captain of the Fun Police if you ask Brewers fans -- jawed with Gomez over his antics following the homer (standing and watching the blast).

"He's a great guy, man," Gomez said. "People think that I have some problem with McCann. I don't. I love that guy. After that incident, the next year he signed with the Yankees and we faced the Yankees in the first month of the season, 2014. I'm stretching and I feel somebody grab me from behind and shake my neck. It's McCann. If I'm him (in that moment), I do it the same way, to be there for a teammate, be a good teammate and protect. I did something that he didn't agree was good; he needs to defend his team."

At the same time, Gomez teased that he went into the at-bat expecting fireworks. 

"But he knows why I did it because I told him before that at-bat," Gomez said. "I told him this is going to be hot. 'What do you mean, Carlos, this is going to be hot?' Because, you know why. (He said), 'Don't do something stupid, please.'"

Gomez declined in the interview to name the incident that would have inspired any sort of response, though, at the time, he expressed dissatisfaction when the same pitcher -- Paul Maholm -- hit Gomez with a pitch in a game that June.

On Easter Sunday of 2013, Gomez tripled off the wall and had words with Pirates starter Gerrit Cole, who didn't like Gomez's brief admiration of the shot, which just missed leaving the yard.

Gomez said he didn't take kindly to a rookie pitcher admonishing him, but Gomez had also received recent word that his young son needed surgery back home, and at the time, he was frustrated he couldn't be home with his family.

On drug testing and PEDs

From a national perspective, his most interesting comments are probably related to the MLB drug testing program, which he claims targets Dominican and older players.

"One month into the season, I got seven drug tests," Gomez said. "Between five or seven. That’s not right. We have a guy on the team who for sure hasn’t had one drug test.”

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Gomez also said it hurt to see fellow Dominican-born standout Robinson Cano given a lengthy suspension for using a banned substance.

"It hurt. He's a role model for us. Not only as a player, but as a person. He's a guy that always, no matter what, he knows you or doesn't know you, always going to be there for you. Even if you're the opponent and he sees you doing something wrong, he'll say, 'Hey, if you do that, you're going to have more results. We're not talking about Dominican, Venezuelan, American ... everyone. When you want to see everybody do good, it's because you're a competitor. Last night was kind of difficult for me to sleep. That guy has a career to be in the Hall of Fame right now. That's going to follow every job he does. For 15 years, he's always been clean. Now he's going to have that black mark in his life, because he was positive."

On his career

One of the most striking moments came when Gomez admitted he probably had Hall of Fame talent but wasn't going to be a Hall of Famer.

Though he's heard his share of negativity, he doesn't appear to have regrets.

"I'm 32 years old, and I can retire right now and live the life (I've dreamed of)," he said. "So you tell me who's successful."