Posts tagged KirkRadomski at FanHouse

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.

From the NY Times:

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.

The problems? Not only was Tejada not under oath in 2005, proving perjury's not exactly a cinch:

"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?

Warning: contains NSFW language and really bad acting:



It may be a spoof on Law & Order, but it reminds me of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure more than anything else. And I have to agree with Will: the Kirk Radomski character pretty much steals the scene. What? What? What? What?

David Segui's name appears in the Mitchell Report quite a few times. It's not something Segui minds though because he fully admits he's used steroids in the past. There is one part of the report though that Segui is very unhappy with, and that's the fact that it implicates Brian Roberts as a cheater as well.

Segui says that former teammate Larry Bigbie has no idea what he's talking about when it comes to Brian Roberts and steroids.

"By far that's the thing that's bothered me the most about the whole entire thing," Segui said today. "[Bigbie] threw Brian Roberts' name out on complete hearsay. Calling it hearsay would be giving it more credibility than it deserves. I'm at a loss as to why Brian Roberts' name would come out of his mouth.

"Brian Roberts has never met Kirk Radomski, at least not in my presence," said Segui, who has admitted to taking steroids and to providing Radomski's contact information to several players who wanted to know more about performance-enhancers. "And I don't know wherever else he would have met him.

"I'm not worried about damage control on my part, I don't care about that," Segui said. "What I care about is Brian Roberts. He is the kind of guy you want your daughter to marry. He is the kind of guy you want your son to grow up to be. Leave him out of this [stuff]. He has nothing to do with this."

Segui seems sincere in his defense of Roberts, but what he says doesn't explain why another former Oriole, Jason Grimsley, named Roberts along with Jay Gibbons and Miguel Tejada as steroid users in a federal affidavit. Some other players Grimsley included in that affidavit?

Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite.

So excuse me if I think David Segui is mistaken in this case.

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See, Rondell White's smart. When he decided to buy his steroids from Kirk Radomski, he knew that leaving a paper trail might be a bad idea. So what did he do? Oh, he still wrote a check. But he wrote a disguised check. A-ha!

The above image is one of several checks White made out to Radomski (image via the Mitchell Report, natch). There's nothing especially different or interesting about this particular image ... besides the fact that White's memo is "bought something." Seriously, look right there.

Hmm, "bought steroids?" I probably shouldn't just write it like that. Bad idea, Rondell. "Bought groceries?" Naw, too obvious, and plus, not even Latrell Sprewell spends this much on groceries. Think, you idiot, think! ... I know! Bought something! Rondell, you genius! They'll never figure this out!

Next time Rondell might want to consider paying in cash. Unbelievable.

(HT: Our own T-Ziller for the find.)

As we hash out everything that's a part of the 409 page Mitchell Report, one of the first things that jumps out is the section dealing with Paul Lo Duca. The newly signed catcher for the Washington Nationals is one of many players linked to former Mets clubhouse boy Kirk Radomski in the report and is alleged to have purchased performance enhancing steroids from him on several occasions.

Some of those occasions were while Lo Duca was a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers and what's interesting is that the Dodgers appear to have known that their backstop was on the juice. The report quotes from an internal discussion among Dodger officials in October 2003.

Steroids aren't being used anymore on him. Big part of this. Might have some value to trade . . . Florida might have interest.. . . Got off the steroids . . . Took away a lot of hard line drives.. . . Can get comparable value back would consider trading. . . . If you do trade him, will get back on the stuff and try to show you he can have a good year. That's his makeup. Comes to play.

Much like the revelations about Eric Gagne, this serves as notice of just how many people knew about major leaguers using steroids. That raises the question of why Mitchell's report is not harder on Major League Baseball and its teams for their willingness to just go along with steroid use for so long. And, most damningly, that they equate it with Lo Duca being a "gamer" who comes to play.

Read FanHouse's complete coverage of the Mitchell Report.
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ESPN's Howard Bryant dropped a banger today. Bryant's story outlines the numerous doubts surrounding the Mitchell Report's legitimacy, doubts originating from managers, trainers, general managers, and various other people who were interviewed in the past year by Mitchell's people. Before we get too far into the business of implicating people on the word of Kirk Radomski, it's certainly worth reviewing Mitchell's methods, yeah?

So, since Bryant's story is so long (worth your time, but long) here are a few highlights:

-- Nearly every player (Jason Giambi, stand up!) refused to cooperate with George Mitchell's team. This left Mitchell trying to circumvent that system by interviewing general managers and trainers. Both groups felt not only compelled to submit by Bud Selig's office at some point -- Selig told all team personnel to cooperate with Mitchell's report -- but also expressed separate paranoid assumptions that the report would target each group. General mangers are scared they'll get all the blame; trainers too.

-- The investigation had almost totally stagnated until the fortunate Radomski bust. Radomski was then prompted to speak with Mitchell as leverage for a friendlier plea agreement, and many baseball people were concerned by the way Mitchell seemed to be suddenly operating in both public and private sectors in his report.

There's been a ton of George Mitchell report news the last day or two because of its impending release. (Who's excited!?!) And well, according to the NY Daily News, MLB took a gander at it today in Manhattan.

Officials arrived at Mitchell's Manhattan office Tuesday, according to sources familiar with the investigation who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic, and began what is believed to be a 48-hour review period before Mitchell releases the report on Thursday. The report is believed to contain the names of 60-80 former and current players, according to sources, and is based in large part on information provided to Mitchell by former clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski.

"We cannot comment on anything," MLB spokesman Rich Levin said.

MLB officials were reviewing the information in the report to make sure there are no disclosures of confidential information that would violate the collective bargaining agreement.

Hmm. If a "large part" of the information is solely based off a person some people have deemed a clubhouse "rat" in Radomski, I have a feeling these same people aren't going to be very happy about that and may call into question its validity. (But, oh did Georgie boy try and get players to talk to him.) In any event, 60-80 names ... wow. Any guesses, friends?

Via BBTF.