Major League Baseball is in the early stages of investigating player agents who may be connected to the sport's steroid scandal.
"It's a whole new territory we're looking into," a person with direct knowledge of the investigation told FanHouse. "Our information has led us to believe there are some [agents] worth going after."
The 50-game suspension of Manny Ramirez last week proves MLB's intention to rid the game of performance-enhancing drugs is expansive in its scope and aggressive in its tactics.
Now that nearly 30 players have been suspended for using PEDs since the penalty phase of testing began in 2004, the natural progression, say people familiar with baseball's Department of Investigations, is to target the suppliers, as well as users.
In order to drum up publicity for his soon-to-be released book, Kirk Radomski offered a juicy sneak preview of what readers can expect while appearing on ESPN's Outside the Lines last weekend.
And what better way to get the attention of the biggest newspapers in New York than to lob accusations at former Mets and Yankees?
Kirk Radomski's book, Bases Loaded, will hit bookshelves all across the country Tuesday, and inside it will spill all the details of every baseball player he has ever supplied steroids to during his time spent as the Mets' towel boy from 1986-95. Radomski, of course, was the main source of information in the Mitchell Report, and now he figures it's his turn to make some money off of all this to help pay off some of those lawyer fees.
* There's been plenty of talk about Mark McGwire lately, what with the Hall of Fame vote last week, and his long lost (estranged?) brother seems ready to cash in on it. From Deadspin comes the news that Jay McGwire has been shopping a tell-all book that will detail, among other things, how he got Mark hooked on steroids and how he "crashed and found God." Don't worry it probably won't be on our Amazon pre-order list either.
In the annals of Major League Baseball's steroids legend, much has been made of the books of former player and current professional scumbag Jose Canseco. Those books -- the first, Juiced, especially so -- managed to blow the lid off of MLB's as-yet-quiet performance-enhancing drugs story. They also managed to make Jose Canseco look like a terrible person.
One imagines it will be much the same with steroid dealer Kirk Radomski's tome, "Bases Loaded" -- the titles of steroids books are not renowned for their subtlety -- which comes out next week on Hudson Street Press. The New York Times was given a copy of the book to review for a story today (what, no copy for FanHouse?) and Times sportswriter Michael S. Schmidt summarizes the book nicely, preventing either you or I from having to actually buy and read something written by a creepy steroids dealer. Win-win:
Last night's marathon All-Star Game -- woe to the livebloggers charged with chronicling that nonsense -- served several functions. One of them: to prove to casual baseball fans just how long and boring baseball can be. Another: to mask new Roger Clemens revelations.
According to the New York Daily News, steroid dealer Kirk Radomski -- not to be confused with Brian McNamee, Clemens' personal lackey-turned-snitch -- provided receipts to the government which prove he sent steroids to the Clemens household in late 2002 or 2003.
The official line from the Clemens camp is, as usual, denial, but the receipts are timed to corroborate the government's claim that the Rocket was responsible for his wife's use of HGH as she got ready to look sort of scary in her now-infamous Sports Illustrated pictorial. The timing works out, and the circumstantial evidence is almost overwhelming.
In other words, everyone in the world is now convinced that Roger Clemens (and his wife!) took some mixture of steroids and HGH at several stages of his Hall of Fame baseball career. This is nearly a foregone conclusion. McNamee and his lawyers don't need to convince anyone now; each new piece of evidence is just another nail in a coffin that was built in front of the House Oversight Committee.
Move over Jose Canseco, you're not the only author with juice in this town! Kirk Radomski, the former Mets clubhouse assistant whose work as a steroid supplier fueled much of the Mitchell Report, is going to get six figures to write a tell-all book. I assumed he would have told all to Mitchell & Co., since he was doing it to avoid jail time, but his agent promises juicy secrets.
"Radomski's estimation is that 80 percent to 90 percent of players used performance enhancers," said Waxman. "He's going to tell about guys who would do too much of the stuff when he told them not to. He said the memoir would have "new info on Roger Clemens," but he declined to be more specific.
If Radomski's got more names and substantive proof, a la the checks featured in the Report, it's hard to imagine he wouldn't have given them up already. Even if there are a few more names, how could he possibly have a book's worth of information to add to what we already know?
I'm thinking not too much which will leave a lot of time to discuss auto detailing, his current profession, and other anecdotes from the clubhouse assistant trade. That new info on Roger Clemens? He likes cream in his coffee! I'm looking forward to the chapter that sheds some light on Frank Viola's moustache care techniques. That soup-strainer couldn't have been all-natural and I'd like to know just what he was using.
Wednesday is supposed to be the fun day for the whole Brian McNamee-Roger Clemens did-he-or-did-he-not debacle. After all, they'll be witnesses during a public hearing put on the the House Oversight Committee. They'll be in the same room; I can only hope a brawl breaks out. Also, they're set to be joined by a few other friends, including Andy Pettitte, Chuck Knoblauch and Kirk Radomski. But, it's looking like Pettitte might not join in on the fun and the others might not either.
The chairman, Democrat Henry A. Waxman of California, wants to take Pettitte off the witness list but he is consulting with Republican members of the panel first, said the person, who asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Two other people familiar with the case said it is also possible that Clemens and his accuser, the former trainer Brian McNamee, may be the only witnesses who will ultimately testify on Wednesday.
Pettitte asked out of public testimony because he did not want to say something to hurt his friend and former teammate while in the glare of national television coverage, according to a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Can't say I blame Pettitte here: this is a rather awkward position to be in. But if this goes through and McNamee and Clemens are ultimately the only ones who show up, well, it's certainly going to be somewhat less entertaining. Because I think we've all had enough of McNamee and Clemens trading barbs.
The government has made it very clear that they are, for the sake of our nation's youth, interested in holding Miguel Tejada accountable for the lies he allegedly told in 2005 when he denied knowing anything (nope, nothing!) about the demon steroids. Those checks in the Mitchell Report to steroids dealer Kirk Radomski suggest otherwise, however, and now the government wants to punish Tejada for his supposed perjury.
"Perjury is difficult to prove," Gary Roberts, dean of the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, said in an e-mail.
"Because it is a criminal case, the government would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Tejada made a statement ... that could not be construed in any way except as a falsehood, and that he knew that it was a falsehood," Roberts said.
"Even if one believes the Mitchell Report's claim that Tejada did use steroids, proving it beyond a reasonable doubt is hard unless there is a smoking gun or the evidence is just overwhelming," Roberts said.
So there you go, straight from Indiana University's School of Law (Go Hoosiers! At law and stuff!). Not only is perjury a difficult thing to prove even if there is convincing evidence of the crime, in Tejada's case, it might be almost impossible. Which is why you can assume that though the House Oversight Committee's desire to indict Tejada for perjury is legitimate, it may end up as nothing more than political theater. And who doesn't love that?
Major League Baseball is in the early stages of investigating player agents who may be connected to the sport's steroid scandal.
In order to drum up publicity for his soon-to-be released book, 
In the annals of Major League Baseball's steroids legend, much has been made of the books of former player and current professional scumbag 
Last night's marathon All-Star Game -- woe to the 
Move over 
Wednesday is supposed to be the fun day for the whole 
The government has made it very clear that they are, for the sake of our nation's youth, interested in holding 
