Investigators into steroid use in baseball are seeking medical records from at least two of baseball’s premier sluggers over the past dozen years, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro, along with dozens of other players suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs, a baseball official with direct knowledge of the request says.
The investigators in the inquiry headed by former Sen. George J. Mitchell have also asked the Baltimore Orioles to send medical files relating to Jason Grimsley, David Segui and Fernando Tatis to those players, the official said. The players will then be asked to authorize their release to Mitchell, although they are believed to be unlikely to do so.
These are the first names to be definitively associated with the year-old Mitchell investigation. Grimsley’s lawyer and Sosa declined to comment; efforts to reach Segui, Tatis and Palmeiro’s agent late Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Sosa, 38 and still playing for the Rangers, is fifth on the career home run list at 595. He testified before a congressional committee that he had never used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
“I don’t want to talk about that thing,” Sosa said when asked about the Mitchell investigation before Tuesday night’s game against the Yankees. “No comment.”
Other players under Mitchell’s scrutiny have not been publicly identified, although people who have been briefed on the development said that the full list included players both expected and unexpected — and that it excluded some players who might have been expected to be on the list of steroid suspects.
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The Orioles, for instance, were not asked to release medical records to Miguel Tejada, Jay Gibbons and Brian Roberts, the official said. Those players had been implicated by news-media reports describing a statement by Grimsley and, in Tejada’s case, by Palmeiro, who said Tejada had given him an injection that might have contained steroids. The official, who was granted anonymity because baseball officials have been ordered not to talk about the Mitchell investigation, said their exclusion showed a lack of evidence against those three players, who are all on Baltimore’s active roster.
Federal criminal investigators and the Mitchell commission are sharing information. The Times reported last week that Mitchell was looking at more than three dozen current and former major league baseball players, many of them named by Kirk Radomski, who worked for the Mets from 1985 to 1995.
Radomski, 37, of Manorville, N.Y., pleaded guilty April 27 to federal charges of supplying steroids and other drugs to dozens of major leaguers from 1995 to 2005. It emerged that he had been a secret informant for federal agents since his home was searched in December 2005, and he is also cooperating with the Mitchell investigation.
Tatis, 32, had not previously been linked to steroids. A third baseman, he hit 34 home runs for St. Louis in 1999. His previous high was 11 and his later high was 18. He currently plays for the Mets’ Triple-A minor league team, the New Orleans Zephyrs, but is not on the Mets’ 40-man roster. Efforts to reach him through the Mets and the Zephyrs Tuesday were unsuccessful.
Palmeiro, 42, ninth on the career home run list, jabbed a finger at the congressional committee chairman in March 2005 and testified, “I have never used steroids, period.” Two months later, he tested positive for stanozolol, a powerful anabolic steroid. He said he took it accidentally, possibly from a vitamin injection from Tejada, although a test conducted by baseball showed no steroids in the substance.
The House committee investigated Palmeiro for perjury but could not prove whether he had taken steroids before his testimony. Palmeiro has not played since the 2005 season. His agent did not return a phone call Tuesday. Grimsley, 39, admitted using steroids throughout his career and human growth hormone after 2003, when baseball began to test for steroids, according to a 2006 federal affidavit after a search of his home. Segui, 40, has admitted using human growth hormone but said it was with a doctor’s prescription. He played for seven teams from 1990 through 2004