[Marxism] Mitchell report fuels govt-owner backed witch-hunt in new "war against steroids}

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

www.nytimes.com
December 14, 2007
Steroid Report Implicates Top Players 
By DUFF WILSON and MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Former Senator George J. Mitchell released an exhaustive report Thursday
that tied 89 baseball players, including Roger Clemens, to the use of
illegal, performance-enhancing drugs. 

In a biting indictment of Major League Baseball, the report used informant
testimony to provide a richly detailed portrait of what Mr. Mitchell
described as ?baseball?s steroids era.? 

Mr. Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner, was the most prominent name
on a list that included seven former most valuable players as well as
players from all 30 teams. The list included roughly a dozen men who have
played for the Yankees.

Of all the active players tied to the use of steroids and human growth
hormone, which are illegal without a prescription and banned by baseball,
only one, Jason Giambi, of the Yankees, cooperated with Mitchell?s 20-month
investigation. The Toronto Blue Jays? Frank Thomas, widely known for his
antisteroids stance, was the only other active player who agreed to talk
with Mitchell?s investigators.

Mr. Mitchell?s 311-page report was based on interviews with 700 people,
including 60 former players, and 115,000 pages of documents including
receipts, canceled checks, telephone records and e-mail messages. The key
evidence was provided by Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant,
and Brian McNamee, a former trainer for Mr. Clemens and Yankees pitcher Andy
Pettitte, who was also named in the report. In the report, Mr. McNamee is
quoted describing how he injected Mr. Clemens with illegal drugs at least 16
times from 1998 through 2001. 

Mr. Clemens adamantly denied the report?s accusations of his use of steroids
and human growth hormone, his Houston lawyer, Rusty Hardin, said in a phone
interview Thursday night. Mr. Hardin said he had been told Mr. McNamee was
pressured by the I.R.S. Special Agent Jeff Novitzky, who has led the Bay
Area Laboratory Co-Operative and Radomski investigations, to give up names
or face prosecution. 

Mr. Hardin criticized Mr. Mitchell for naming players based on
uncorroborated allegations. 

?He has thrown a skunk into the jury box, and we will never be able to
remove that smell,? Mr. Hardin said.

Pettitte?s agent declined to comment.

In his comments at a midtown Manhattan hotel Thursday, Mr. Mitchell
acknowledged that his report was inhibited by limited cooperation and the
absence of subpoena power, and that there was still much about drug use in
baseball he did not know. The report was critical of the commissioner?s
office and the players? union for knowingly tolerating performance-enhancing
drugs in major league baseball. It cited many instances where club officials
knew about particular steroid use among players and did not report it.

?There was a collective failure to recognize the problem as it emerged and
to deal with it early on,? Mr. Mitchell said. He recommended that the
players on the list not be disciplined, but instead said that baseball
needed to ?look ahead to the future? and establish stronger testing. 

Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball, praised Mr. Mitchell?s
recommendations and said they would act immediately on 3 of his 20
recommendations for reform and negotiate the remaining 17 with the players?
union. Mr. Selig said he would review each player?s case individually and
was inclined to discipline them.

?If there are problems, I wanted them revealed,? Mr. Selig said. ?His report
is a call to action and I will act.?

Donald Fehr, the executive director of the Major League Players?
Association, said he did not think the investigation was fair. ?Many players
are named,? Mr. Fehr said. ?Their reputations have been adversely affected,
probably forever, even if it turns out down the road that they should not
have been.?

Mr. Mitchell said ?baseball?s steroids era? started roughly in 1988. It took
15 more years for baseball to start random testing, Mr. Mitchell said,
noting that testing has reduced steroid usage but players have switched to
human-growth hormone, which cannot be detected in urine tests, which
baseball?s program administers.

?Everybody in baseball ? commissioners, club officials, the players
association, players ? shares responsibility,? Mr. Mitchell said.

The report revealed for the first time that baseball secretly suspended drug
testing for part of the 2004 season and gave advance warning of tests to
more than 100 players who had failed tests in 2003. The suspension occurred
for fear of criminal prosecution after federal authorities seized the 2003
drug results as part of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative case, the
report said. The suspension, of unclear length, was kept secret by agreement
of the commissioner?s office and Major League Baseball Players Association.

Mr. McNamee spoke to Mr. Mitchell?s investigators under pressure from
federal prosecutors investigating the use of steroids in baseball. Mr.
McNamee, who was linked with Mr. Radomski, provided evidence against Mr.
Clemens, Mr. Pettitte and first baseman David Segui. Mr. McNamee agreed to
cooperate with the United States Attorney?s Office under the terms that he
would not be charged with a crime if he told Mr. Mitchell and investigators
the truth.

McNamee, who was employed as a trainer with the Yankees and Toronto Blue
Jays, described in detail how, in a number of instances, he injected Mr.
Clemens with steroids. Mr. Clemens had previously been suspected of steroid
usage, but denied it. 

The report was littered with vivid details including Mr. Radomski telling
investigators that he once found a wet delivery package filled with $8,000
in cash from the former Dodgers and Yankees pitcher Kevin Brown on his
porch. Mitchell?s report describes how David Justice denied using steroids
to investigators while providing names of players that he suspected of using
them. Justice, a former Yankees and Atlanta Braves outfielder, is among the
89 players named in the report.

A Congressional committee that held a televised hearing on steroids in
baseball in 2005 called another hearing for next Wednesday and summoned Mr.
Mitchell, Mr. Selig, and Donald Fehr, executive director of the Major League
Baseball Players Association.

Mr. Radomski, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges for selling steroids
from 1995 through 2005, cooperated with Mr. Mitchell as part of his plea
bargain. He is to be sentenced next year on federal charges of steroid
distribution. Other evidence came from Brian McNamee, and from an
investigation led by the Albany County district attorney into Signature
Pharmacy.

?The players union was largely uncooperative for reasons which I think were
understandable,? Mr. Mitchell said.

The report described case after case where players were caught with steroids
but not pursued by club officials or the commissioner?s security office.

The report listed nine members of the New York Yankees, including starting
pitchers Clemens and Pettitte, the left-handed and right-handed set-up men
Mike Stanton and Jason Grimsley, right fielder David Justice and second
baseman Chuck Knoblauch, key members of the Yankees? 2000 World Series team.


Mr. Selig baseball would immediately cease giving advance notice. Drug
testers had been calling teams the day before testing to get parking passes
at ballparks. That practice was revealed recently by The New York Times.
?For more than a decade there has been widespread anabolic steroid use,? Mr.
Mitchell said. He said the use of performance-enhancing substances ?poses a
serious threat to the integrity of the game.?

The other prominent names in the report were Most Valuable Player
award-winners Barry Bonds, Ken Caminiti, José Canseco, Giambi, Juan
Gonzalez, Mo Vaughn and Miguel Tejada. 

Other players named included Chuck Knoblauch, Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown,
Lenny Dykstra, Denny Neagle, Todd Hundley, Mike Stanton, Paul Lo Duca and
Eric Gagné.

Don Hooton, who became an outspoken critic of steroid use after his son
Taylor committed suicide after using the drugs, attended the news conference
Thursday and said of the Mitchell report: ?This is more than about asterisks
and cheating; it?s about the lives and health of our kids.?

Mr. Selig noted that he had the authority to implement several of the
recommendations, but that the majority ? including any changes to the
sport?s drug testing policies ? would first have to be agreed to by the
players? association under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
Fehr said the union would be willing to take a look at the possibility of
adjusting the testing procedures before the agreement expires in 2011.

Mr. Mitchell?s report did not address the use of amphetamines in sports, nor
did it call for blood testing, the only way to detect human growth hormone.

?Former commissioner Fay Vincent told me that the problem of
performance-enhancing substances may be the most serious challenge that
baseball has faced since the 1919 Black Sox scandal,? Mr. Mitchell said in
the report, referring to the Chicago White Sox? throwing of the World
Series.

Mr. Mitchell has conducted the reported $20 million investigation with the
help of his law firm DLA Piper, where he is a partner. Mr. Mitchell has made
few public statements throughout the investigation and many of the details
have been guarded.

He serves as a director of the Red Sox, a post he refused to vacate despite
accusations that his investigation might be biased toward the team.

?The Players Association was largely uncooperative,? he wrote, discouraging
every active baseball player from talking with him, rejecting all requests
for document, and permitting just one interview with Mr. Fehr. 



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