In a questionable manner, David Wright, the face of the Mets franchise, signed Gary Sheffield, the player who has past steroid links. The decision was made after giving appropriate time to the thought by Wright. Sheffield said about the Mets, “It’s been a lifelong thing for me. I wanted to fulfill my dream. I have a chance to win a championship here. If it comes to me coming off the bench, I’ll do that.”

It is reasonable from the player to join the franchise, but what is clicking in the mind is that why would the Mets want to enroll this player after knowing all the steroid gossips that have troubled him? Just because it was a no-lose move for Mets as they were only one who were paying Sheffield $400,000 and could cut him more easily than the infield grass.

But, one thing is sure if the reason is only this, the team could lose a great deal. Jerry Manuel spoke frankly before the game about how he isn’t worried about nursing along Daniel Murphy or Fernando Tatis. He said, “I’m not trying to develop or evolve. I’m trying to win a championship.”

From The Daily News:

It is perfectly reasonable that Sheffield decided to enroll in Flushing. The real question is: Why would the Mets want this guy after all the steroid rumors that have haunted him and this particular franchise? Why flirt with more bad headlines and drug disclosures, when the guy batted .225 last season for a team that dumped him?

As you move this spring from the Bronx to Queens, from the new Yankee Stadium to Citi Field, you go from oppressive, monolithic architecture to quirky nooks and crannies. You go from gray concrete to red brick.

The Mets have done this a whole lot better. Their place is now a happy, cozy joint, waiting to make baseball memories.

But of course, those memories can always turn out to be really, really bad. That’s where we get to Sheffield, who is bound to make noise of one variety or another.

This is supposed to be a no-lose move, because the Mets are only paying Sheffield $400,000 and can cut him more easily than they mow the infield grass. Except that it isn’t. The Mets can lose a great deal. They can mess with the chemistry of this still-young team, and revisit dark places where only the Mitchell Report has gone before.

Sheffield behaved in a proper way and knocked some bunch of runs then also the situtation remained the same as the real problem was in signing the player. Mets was once home to Kirk Radomski and signed Guillermo Mota to a two-year, back-loaded deal so that he would not suffer in monetary way due to 50-game drug suspension penalty.

Now the Mets have signed Sheffield, a player whose past links with performance-enhancing drugs are still a doubtful question. He himself had admitted the usage of a steroid cream in 2001 and was later named in the Mitchell Report as the steroid user. With all these mess ups, it would definitely not surprise anybody if Sheffield’s name was there in the list of positive tests from 2003 that could be leaked anytime.

Being a family-friendly franchise, the Mets have always tried to eliminate itself from any kind of potential embarrassment. But what appears to be questionable is that whether signing of Anna Benson’s Santa is more disgusting than the player, who himself has confirmed the acceptance of using a designer steroid, but without knowing what it was?

For the moment, however, the Mets could at least make the appearance that they are trying to implement the right ideology when it comes to battling the curse of steroids. By signing Sheffield, the team become the only one team that has signed the player after fully knowing his tainted past.

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Just this week, Andrew Michael Bogdan revealed the story behind how he found out about steroid use in the Major Leagues. Bogdan was the FBI informant that led the agents to Kirk Radomski. Although indirectly, he played an important role in the formation of the Mitchell Report. Bogdan helped the FBI in exchange for some leniency in his real estate fraud case.

From The Baltimore Sun

In an exclusive interview with The Baltimore Sun yesterday, Andrew Michael “Mike” Bogdan admitted to helping the FBI in a real-estate fraud case as part of a plea agreement. But he said he did not use his close friendship with former Orioles outfielder Larry Bigbie to assist the FBI in nabbing one of baseball’s primary steroid distributors.

“It sounds like Mike Bogdan single-handedly was bringing down Major League Baseball,” said Bogdan, while sitting in his rowhome in the Eastwood area of Dundalk. “I just had the pleasure of being friends with Larry Bigbie.”

Larry Bigbie used to be a talented player of the Baltimore Orioles and of the St. Louis Cardinals. He was one of the young stars with lots of talent that even Ray King was traded in for him. Unfortunately, Bigbie always got stuck in the bench because of one injury or another. Back in his Orioles days, there was a locker room “hang-outer” also known as Mike Bogdan. Bogdan was a cool guy so he easily befriended the athletes. What they didn’t know was that even at that time, Bogdan was already working for the FBI. He was charged for real estate fraud but instead of serving his time in jail, he volunteered to be an informant to track down steroid dealers. It was easy to do so especially when he manages to befriend Bigbie. Bigbie eventually admitted to Bogdan that he took anabolic steroids and HGH. Bogdan ratted him out to the feds and even took a used syringed from his trash to serve as proof. This soon led to Radomski who had supplied Bigbie with the performance enhancing drugs. And so, Bigbie was soon forgotten and the Mitchell Report was born.

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Just recently, the man that led the FBI to anabolic steroids dealer Kirk Radomski has been revealed. He is actually one of the targets of  other FBI investigations involving real estate fraud. Andrew Michael Bogdan was the FBI lead who, according to Jeff Novitzky, has been acquainted with several athletes within the Major Leagues. For some time, the FBI depended on Bogdan to lead them to Radomski and this eventually led to the conviction of the steroid dealer. Radomski’s arrest was important especially to the Mitchell Report which served as a basis of charges against baseball athletes who had allegedly used performance enhancing drugs.

From The New York Times:

The identity of the man, Andrew Michael Bogdan, was first reported on The Smoking Gun Web site and independently confirmed by two people with direct knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Reached by telephone Wednesday, Bogdan said many aspects of the Web site’s story were either incorrect or taken out of context. He would not say whether he helped federal agents in their investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs by baseball players but later said: “I know nothing about that, that’s the funny thing. I know nothing about the steroids stuff.”

He added, “I’ve had friends who were ballplayers, and that’s the extent of it.”

Bogdan’s lawyer, Richard Karceski, did not return calls or an e-mail message Wednesday. Barbara Sale, the assistant United States attorney who prosecuted Bogdan’s criminal case, declined to comment in an e-mail message.

Bogdan was charged with fraud in a real estate flipping scheme to which he pleaded guilty in 2001. He was then under probation for 5 years and was asked to pay a sum more than $277,000 for restitution.

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In an interview done by Terence Moore, David Justice reiterates that he has never used anabolic steroids or any performance enhancing drugs in his career. Justice is a former player for several Major League Baseball teams but his best games were those with the Atlanta Braves. He was also one of the athletes names by Kirk Radomski in the Mitchell Report and the steroid dealer said that he had sold Justice human growth hormone when the athlete played for the Yankees. In Moore’s column, the writer looks at possible intentions behind Radomski’s actions.

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Radomski doesn’t like Justice. Either that, or the former clubhouse attendant has a vivid imagination. He told George Mitchell that he sold human growth hormone to Justice. That was significant, because Mitchell was in charge of baseball’s investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Then Radomski told ESPN that he gave Justice a box of HGH and steroids during a ride to the airport after Justice finished playing for the New York Yankees in the 2000 World Series.

Now consider this: Radomski has a recently published book on steroids and baseball. It’s a book with large passages disputed by Mitchell. Which means it’s wise to question anything leaving Radomski’s lips.

“When he said he took me to the airport after we won the World Series, hey, I got my cousins, I got friends who were up there with me, and they all said, ‘That dude didn’t take you to no airport,’ ” said Justice, who did recall Brian McNamee, the former trainer, now famous for saying Roger Clemens was juiced.

As for using HGH, Justice admits that Brian McNamee did offer him the substance and said that it is not steroids. The trainer did this because Justice was suffering from pains due to his hernia and groin. And he did admit that he would have taken it if he wasn’t afraid of injecting himself using a needle since that was the only form the strength coach offered him. So no, he didn’t use the HGH either.

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While former US Senator George Mitchell moves on to a new project in the Middle East, issues about his disagreement with certain passages in Kirk Radomski’s book, “Bases Loaded”, are still being examined. Radomski wrote that the senator himself asked him if he knew anything about the illegal steroid use of certain athletes such as Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez. Not all that were asked were identified in the Mitchell Report though and according to the anabolic steroids dealer, this was because Mitchell couldn’t get any second hand information about them. The senator’s deputy, John Clarke, denied any allegations. The problem is, however, it isn’t only Radomski who pointed out this tactic. Past interviews with other baseball personalities revealed the Mitchell’s office tried to fish for names and information.

From Newsday.com

Former Yankees outfielder Chad Curtis, in an interview with Newsday that ran May 13, 2007, said his session with Mitchell’s investigators featured a fishing expedition involving Curtis’ former teammates.

“They tried to dig and prod,” Curtis said. “They at least tried to head down that road.”

In a report for ESPN.com on Dec. 11, 2007, Howard Bryant wrote that team strength coaches and trainers believed that the Mitchell team “explicitly pressured them to ‘guess’ about steroid use by specific players.”

Radomski is an important witness to the Clemens case and the Mitchell Report. It would look back if people start having the notion that the senator only wants positive news about his office and would rather hide the dirt on how the report was created. Although the Mitchell report had done a lot of good in naming athletes who had used steroids, the methods by which this information was taken would be scrutinized by the public.

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It has been a week since the disputes on Kirk Radomski’s book, “Bases Loaded”, began  coming out. There have been so many factual errors in what he has written that even Sen. Mitchell and Major League Baseball had to release more accurate accounts. This time it is Brian McNamee, the chief accuser and Roger Clemens’ former trainer that gave out a statement contradictory to a passage from Radomski’s book. According to Radomski, McNamee bought steroids from him and had informed him that he injected Clemens with the steroid Winstrol. During his appearance for his deposition with committee investigators, McNamee had a different account than the steroid dealer.

From The New York Times:

“Did you ever indicate to Mr. Radomski that Roger Clemens was using steroids or  Human Growth Hormone” McNamee was asked by a committee investigator.

“No,” McNamee said.

“Did you ever drop hints to that effect?” McNamee was asked, referring to Radomski.

“No,” McNamee said.

McNamee added: “He would ask me how I was doing. You know, obviously he knew I trained him in the off-season.”

“But you’re saying you never told him that Clemens was using these substances?” McNamee was asked.

“Yes,” McNamee said.

Even if McNamee is the more important witness and that they could probably let go of Radomski, the cooperation of the two is essential in swaying the jury to believe the accusation against Clemens. According to a former federal prosecutor, the contradictory statements of McNamee and Radomski would hurt the perjury case and would give Clemens an uncalled for advantage. Ever since the release of his book, Radomski’s credibility has been put into question. The defense can use even the slightest inconsistencies to plant some doubt in the mind of the jury.

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Kirk Radomski has been bumping into a lot of disputes lately, just after his book, “Bases Loaded”, had been available for preview. First there was this 2-time “correction” by George Mitchell, and now, Major League Baseball officials are not happy with what they’ve read.

Radomski wrote that players were summoned in order to tell them that they had positive results during tests for steroid use. According to the steroid dealer, one player approached him and told him that the commissioner’s office wanted him to drop by for that reason. The main problem with this is that testing during those times were introduced on an anonymous basis and that it would imply that the baseball officials had been trying to limit the number of athletes who would have positive results the next season by warning them early.

Rob Mandred, one of the drug test’s officials, tried to clarify the mistakes on the passage.

From The New York Times:

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Rob Manfred, baseball’s top drug-testing official, said that the passage in Radomski’s book was “categorically incorrect.”

“By no means were we involved in that process; any suggestion that we were involved is untrue,” he said.

What actually occurred in 2004, when anabolic steroids testing began in earnest, is murky. In his report on baseball and performance-enhancing drugs, George J. Mitchell said that at least one player was told in 2004 by the players union that he tested positive in 2003 and that he would be tested again in the coming weeks. Mitchell said other players who tested positive in 2003 might have received similar warnings from the union. He did not cite any attempts by the commissioner’s office to tell players about positive tests or warn them about coming tests.

Interestingly, there is some misinformation written on Radomski’s book. One of these is that he mentioned that Roger Clemens and Jose Canseco even if they had played together several times. Another is an incident with Dwight Gooden testing positive for cocaine use during the wrong year.

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The famous Mitchell Report lists down 90 current and former Major League Baseball players that had been using performance enhancing drugs. In order to create this list, George Mitchell needed the cooperation of steroid dealer Kirk Radomski who had provided anabolic steroids to different athletes. Radomski currently wrote a book, “Bases Loaded” that discusses how Mitchell attempted to tie athletes with steroid use. He wrote that before the release of the Mitchell Report, Mitchell himself asked him specific questions on the athletes. Mitchell had good information but needed a second source to confirm which of those players were using performance enhancing drugs. Mitchell needed Radomski to remember whom he had dealt with and make sure that the stories are correct. Radomski wrote that he didn’t have firsthand knowledge on some of the players that Mitchell asked about. These individuals were left out of the Mitchell Report.

Mitchell rebuts what Radomski had written, saying that the steroid dealer’s account on the conference was inaccurate.

From The New York Times:

“At no time did we raise the names of specific players who had not previously been identified to us by Mr. Radomski, including in the Dec. 11, 2007, telephone call,” John Clarke, a spokesman for Mitchell, said in an e-mail message Tuesday night.

This isn’t the first time Mitchell commented about what was written in Radomski’s book. The claims of the first dispute were similar to the second one.

On Monday, Mitchell disputed a separate passage in the book in which Radomski describes being asked by Mitchell about five high-profile major leaguers who were not among his customers. Radomski writes that Mitchell had suspicions about the five players and had been told by baseball officials that some had tested positive for steroids.

Radomski says he told Mitchell he had no firsthand knowledge linking these five players to drug use, and ultimately, only one of them was named in the report. Mitchell, however, said Monday that at no time did he raise with Radomski the names of specific players who had not previously been identified by Radomski.

While the publishers of the book have not yet released their comments on the ongoing dispute, “Bases Loaded” will be released in stores by next week.

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After Kirk Radomski, a steroid supplier, appears and gives his statement in front of the federal grand jury, Roger Clemens might not be the only Major League Baseball celebrity in the hotseat. According to a source close to the investigation, Houston Astros star Miguel Tejada might face the same fate as Clemens. Tejada is one of the athletes identified in the Mitchell Report which gave out names of players who had been tested positive or had been reported to use anabolic steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. Tejada has been investigated by the FBI last January 2008 at the request of Rep. Henry Waxman amidst the athlete’s statement that he did not use any steroids. According to the Mitchell Report, however, a former teammate was able to purchase performance enhancing drugs from Tejada which the later got from Radomski.

From Daily News:

“It is often the case, for the sake of economy, for the Justice Department to name two or more defendants in a single indictment with respect to crimes that are related,” said former federal prosecutor Mathew Rosengart, now a partner at Manatt, Phelps and Phillips. “That seems to fit for Clemens and Tejada.”

Both players should be worried that the grand jury will authorize indictments.

“I’d be preparing for an indictment,” said William Callahan, a former federal prosecutor in New York and Washington who is now a consultant for law firms.

It is common for grand juries to deliver charges when asked by prosecutors and the bad news for Tejada, his defense lawyer won’t even be present in the proceedings. The grand jury for Clemens’ and possibly Tejada’s cases were hand picked by the court to investigate steroid use in various sports. They had been looking over the evidences for some time now and are definitely knowledgeable in this field.

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Roger Clemens’ name has been quite the buzz in the recent Major League Baseball news. Have you ever wondered who is the man behind all these evidences and reports that have been released? It is federal agent Jeff Novitzky who now finds himself away from the back stage where he had been working for the past year.

Novitzky serves as the bridge between the prosecutors and two major witnesses to the Clemens case — convicted anabolic steroids dealer Kirk Radomski and Clemens’ then-trainer, Brian McNamee. Novitzky has been helping in the investigations and in gathering evidences to present to the grand jury. These will help determine if Clemens has been telling the truth in saying that he did not use any performance enhancing drugs.

From New York Times:

Novitzky uncovered evidence that Radomski was a steroids supplier who had provided major league players with performance-enhancing drugs. As part of Radomski’s plea agreement with the government, he helped lead Novitzky to McNamee, who like Radomski cooperated with George J. Mitchell’s investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. A little more than a year ago, the Mitchell Report linked dozens of players — including Clemens — to performance-enhancing drugs. Much of what was in the report was based on information from Radomski and McNamee.

Two athletes had been found to use steroids based on McNamee’s accounts. These were Andy Pettitte (who has now declined a contract with the Yankees) and Chuck Knoblauch (who is currently not playing anymore). While the two have confirmed that McNamee had been providing them with performance enhancing drugs, it is still unknown when they will testify in Washington.

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