Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell will unveil his report on performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball on Thursday, and it’s likely to include the names of nearly five dozen players.
Mitchell has called a press conference for 2 p.m. (et) at the Grand Hyatt hotel in New York to release the results of his 21-month investigtion. MLB commissioner Bud Selig will hold a news conference at 4:30 p.m., and the players’ association will hold their own briefing at 6 p.m.
The New York Daily News reports 60 to 80 players will be mentioned in the Mitchell report, which was delivered to the MLB offices on Tuesday so officials could review its contents.
Mitchell, also a director of the Boston Red Sox, was tabbed by Selig in early 2006 to head an investigation into steroid use by MLB players.
Baseball has been beset with reports, testimony and legal wranglings of players using performance-enhancing drugs, and at the center of the issue is home run king Barry Bonds. It was just last Friday that Bonds appeared in U.S. District Court in San Francisco and pleaded not guilty to perjury and obstruction of justice charges stemming from his alleged performance-enhancing drug use. Bonds is due back for a status hearing on February 7.
Documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California indicated that Bonds was hit with a five-count indictment — four counts of perjury and one for obstruction of justice — after one of the longest federal grand jury investigations in Northern California history involving the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO).
The charges against Bonds stem from his December 4, 2003 grand jury testimony when he testified that he did not knowingly take performance enhancing drugs supplied by BALCO and his personal trainer Greg Anderson.
One person reportedly being focused on in Mitchell’s investigation is former New York Mets clubhouse attendant and bat boy Kirk Radomski. This past April, Radomski pleaded guilty in United States district court to money laundering and illegal distribution of anabolic steroids and human growth hormone to several major leaguers.
Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, Jose Guillen and Jay Gibbons are other prominent names with tattered pasts.
McGwire, who played in the majors from 1986-2001, sent shockwaves through the league with his incredible then-record 70 home run season in 1998. However, he later reportedly admitted to taking androstenedione, an over-the-counter muscle enhancement product. McGwire appeared before the House Government Reform Committee in March 2005, but declined to answer questions under oath regarding whether he used performance-enhancing steroids, saying “I’m not here to talk about the past.”
Canseco admitted to using anabolic steroids in 2005 in a book with the title “Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big.” Canseco claimed up to 85 percent of baseball players took steroids.
Although he never publicly admitted to using steroids, reports leaked that Giambi claimed in grand jury testimony that he took human growth hormone in 2003 and also used steroids for at least three seasons.
Guillen and Gibbons were each suspended 15 days earlier this month for violating the league’s joint drug prevention and treatment program.
BREAKING NEWS!!!
My Opinion: BREAKING NEWS!!!! —- Roger Clemens revealed on Mitchell Report!!! Stay tuned to ESPN at 2 p.m. EST for the Mitchell Report….
- Steve
