Clemens, Others Implicated in Banned Drug Case
Seven-time Cy Young Award winner is among six players accused by a former teammate of using performance-enhancing drugs
By Lance Pugmire and Tim Brown, Times Staff Writers
8:32 PM PDT, September 30, 2006
Roger Clemens, 44, one of professional baseball's most durable and successful pitchers, is among six players accused by a former teammate of using performance-enhancing drugs, The Times has learned. The names had been blacked out in an affidavit filed in federal court.
Others whose identities had been concealed include Clemens' fellow Houston Astros pitcher, Andy Pettitte, and former American League Most Valuable Player Miguel Tejada of the Baltimore Orioles.
The discovery ends four months of speculation surrounding the possible identities of Major League Baseball figures whose names were redacted from a search warrant affidavit filed in Phoenix on May 31. The document was based on statements made to federal agents by pitcher Jason Grimsley.
Grimsley, a journeyman relief pitcher who has played on several teams including the New York Yankees, Baltimore Orioles and the Angels, acknowledged using steroids, amphetamines and other drugs, investigators said in the document. He also implicated a number of former teammates, but the names were blacked out in copies of the affidavit that were made public in June after investigators used the warrant to raid Grimsley's house.
A source with authorized access to an unredacted affidavit allowed The Times to see it, but retained it to read back what had been blacked out of the public copies. A second source and confidante of Grimsley had previously disclosed player identities and provided additional details about the affidavit. The sources insisted on anonymity.
According to the affidavit, Grimsley told investigators that Clemens and Pettitte "used athletic performance-enhancing drugs." He also said Tejada used anabolic steroids.
Clemens and Pettitte did not respond to requests for comment made Saturday through their agents and the Astros. Tejada had previously declined to be interviewed.
Grimsley was detained after he allegedly received an illegal shipment of human growth hormones. The shipment was tracked to his Scottsdale, Ariz., home by a task force of federal agents investigating drug use in professional baseball, the affidavit said.
For a time, Grimsley secretly cooperated with investigators, they said, but stopped after retaining a lawyer.
According to the 20-page search warrant affidavit signed by IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky, Grimsley told investigators he obtained amphetamines, anabolic steroids and human growth hormones from a source recommended to him by former Yankee trainer Brian McNamee. The former team trainer is a personal strength coach for both Clemens and Pettitte.
McNamee did not return multiple messages left with his wife and on his answering machine.
The affidavit also alleges that Grimsley told federal agents that his former Oriole teammates -- Tejada, Brian Roberts and Jay Gibbons -- "took anabolic steroids." Roberts was the American League's All-Star second baseman in 2005 when Grimsley was an Oriole.
All three Baltimore players declined to be interviewed. Roberts said he had "nothing to talk about" and didn't know why Grimsley named him. A sixth player, retired outfielder David Segui previously came forward to say that his name was among those blacked out in the affidavit provided to the public. Segui told ESPN in June that he used HGH on the advice of his doctor as recently as the 2004 season. He did not obtain approval from the league, he acknowledged.
Government officials have declined to comment about either their ongoing investigation of drugs in professional baseball.
Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner who came out of retirement to pitch for the Astros in each of the last two years, was a teammate of Grimsley on the Yankees in 1999-2000, as was Pettitte, a two-time All-Star who is nearing 200 career wins. Grimsley, Tejada, Gibbons and Roberts were teammates in Baltimore during the 2005 season.
Grimsley started this year with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but requested voluntary retirement in June after his arrest. The National League also suspended him for 50 games. Edward Novak, Grimsley's lawyer, did not return calls. Previously, he publicly disputed the claims investigators made the affidavit, saying that his client did not volunteer the names of any teammates. He said federal agents asked Grimsley to wear a recording device to gather evidence against San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, but Grimsley refused.
Grimsley has not been charged. Since June, he has complained to friends that federal agents credited him with statements and disclosures he didn't make.
"Jason is loyal to the death, a hard-headed guy who would not give up his friends," one of Grimsley's friends said Saturday. "The only names he discussed with those investigators were names ... [the investigators] suggested to him."
The Grimsley friend, who talked about the investigation on condition that he was not named, said investigators warned the pitcher "if he didn't continue to cooperate, they would expose him as a rat."
Richard Levin, a spokesman for Major League Baseball, said the organization and players association are "doing everything we can to eliminate the use of performance-enhancing substances and amphetamines from the game."
Regarding the investigators' affidavit, Levin said baseball officials have "no information [about] how it was obtained or its accuracy."
Clemens has surprised many in the baseball world with his late-career success. Of his 348 career wins, 68 have come since the summer he turned 40. In a controversial tell-all book released two winters ago, former major leaguer Jose Canseco speculated that Clemens's late career surge reflected "classic signs" of steroid use.
"Roger says it is all nonsense," Clemens' agent Randy Hendricks responded to Newsday at the time. He said the pitcher "takes vitamin B-12 shots ... and will pass every [drug] test."
Pettitte, 34, pitched nine seasons and was a part of four World Series championships for the Yankees, then signed with the Astros after the 2003 season, helping Houston advance to the World Series in 2005, and winning 13 more games this year for a career record of 185-104.
Tejada, listed at 5-10, 170, hit 30 home runs for the first time in 2000 for the Oakland A's, and has established himself as one of the game's best middle-infield power hitters.
He was drawn into baseball's steroids scandal last August, when Rafael Palmeiro, who tested positive for an anabolic steroid and was suspended 10 games, told an appeals panel the test might have resulted from injectable vitamins given to him by Tejada. After investigating, the panel cleared Tejada.
Tejada's increasingly sullen demeanor has attracted hometown press coverage in Baltimore where he also has become a target of complaints from fans for not hustling.
During the summer, he cancelled an interview with The Times for this story. "I don't want to talk to you," he said. Later, Tejada referred a reporter to his agent, Diego Bentz, who did not return calls.
Outfielder Gibbons, a product of Mayfair High in Lakewood and Cal State Los Angeles, spent late June on the disabled list and rehabilitating a knee injury in Scottsdale, Ariz. But at his Lakewood home on July 5, his father, Jim, acknowledged the player was aware of the affidavit.
"Is this about Grimsley?" the elder Gibbons asked of a visiting Times reporter. "I'm not saying anything about it. I'll let him know you stopped by."
Roberts, listed at 5-foot-9, 170 pounds, hit 18 home runs in 561 at-bats last season, matching his combined total through the previous six years in the major and minor leagues.
Grimsley, a right-hander, told investigators he had used anabolic steroids beginning in 2000, tested positive during 2003 survey testing, and switched to human growth hormone, undetectable in a urine test, after that. He admitted also to using amphetamines until the joint drug agreement banned them several months ago, according to the affidavit.
In a major-league career that began with four starts for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1989, Grimsley played for seven organizations. He played alongside Clemens and Pettitte with the Yankees in 1999-00, and Tejada, Gibbons, Roberts and Segui with the Orioles in 2004-05.
Grimsley told investigators he had tested positive for steroids during baseball's survey testing in 2003 and that he, like others, had switched to HGH as a result, according to the affidavit.
Baseball's steroid scandal, which grew from the federal investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative [or BALCO], appears to have broadened. According to the affidavit, Grimsley also told agents about doctors in Florida and Colorado who have provided drugs to ballplayers. The federal task force handling the probe is headed by Novitzky.
Major League Baseball has set up a board of inquiry headed by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell of Maine to investigate steroid use among ballplayers. That investigation has been criticized as slow-moving and weak. Key figures, including retired slugger Mark McGwire, have reportedly declined to participate.
The baseball investigators cannot compel testimony.
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