<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>FBI agent hits
MLB on 'roids
</TD></TD><TR><TD>Says baseball knew of Canseco & probe
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</CENTER>
</TD></TR><TR><TD>BY CHRISTIAN RED, MICHAEL O'KEEFFE and T.J. QUINN
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS
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</TD></TR><TR><TD>[size=-1]Bud Selig has reason to be more grim than usual. It's one thing for a troubled ex-player to write a book, but now an FBI agent is in his face. [/size]</TD></TR><TR><TD width=10 height=10><!-- /images/shim.gif --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!-- Component: NYDailyNews : component/story/picture.comp -->Federal investigators warned Major League Baseball a decade ago that some of its players were using steroids, but MLB brass failed to address its looming drug scandal, an FBI agent told the Daily News yesterday.
Special Agent Greg Stejskal, who oversees the Bureau's Ann Arbor, Mich., office, said he told baseball security chief Kevin Hallinan that Jose Canseco and many other players were using illegal anabolic steroids. Stejskal's warning was based on evidence gathered during a far-reaching steroid investigation he conducted in the '90s, but the agent says the lords of the game did not act on the information.
"I alerted Major League Baseball back in the time when we had the case, that Canseco was a heavy user and that they should be aware of it. . . . I spoke to the people in their security office. Hallinan was one of the people I spoke to," Stejskal told The News.
Hallinan "seemed interested," Stejskal said, but the agent says there was little baseball security could do about the problem. Major League Baseball and the union did not agree to a steroid testing program or disciplinary sanctions until 2002. A proposal during negotiations preceding the 1994 players' strike went nowhere. The FBI investigation focused on dealers rather than users.
Baseball officials denied yesterday that they were informed of steroid use, and angrily denounced Stejskal's charges.
"It did not happen," Hallinan said. "Not with this guy, not with anybody else."
Stejskal said the FBI's investigation into steroid use by bodybuilders and weightlifters was centered in Michigan but reached as far as Canada, Mexico, Florida and California and revealed widespread steroid use in baseball during the 1990s.
"There's little question the use of steroids was very widespread in baseball," Stejskal said. "And Major League Baseball in effect, they didn't sanction it, but they certainly looked the other way."
Had he been aware, Hallinan said, he would have pursued an investigation.
"If a guy comes to me and makes a statement like that, I'm going to squeeze him like a wet rag," Hallinan said. "The name doesn't ring a bell at all. Some guy makes a statement like that, give me specifics, I'm on it."
Stejskal said he first contacted baseball security in 1995 or 1996 to inform officials about steroid use by Canseco and other players. He also contacted MLB after Canseco claimed in 2002 that up to 80% of ballplayers use steroids.
"The first time I talked with Kevin about it was in the mid-to-late '90s," he said. "I wouldn't have talked to him about it when our case was going on. I'm guessing probably '95, '96 at the earliest," Stejskal said.
Stejskal said he put Hallinan's office in touch with a convicted steroid dealer who was connected to several players, including Canseco, just a year ago.
Stejskal said the case started in 1989 when then-Michigan head football coach Bo Schembechler contacted him, wondering how players were getting steroids and what could be done to stop them. At the time, Stejskal said, there were no active federal investigations into steroid trafficking or use.
"Schembechler's concern was that so many college, even high school football players were using them," Stejskal said. "We got involved."
At first, he said, he had no support from superiors in the FBI.
"They gave me six months and told me, 'Don't even bother to ask for an extension on this thing. You can do it, go have fun and then close the thing down,' " he said. "About four or five months into the first six-month period, the first President Bush called over to the Department of Justice and made an inquiry as to what we were doing regarding anabolic steroids. Everybody checked around and the only case we had open was mine. All of the sudden I got a call from headquarters that said, 'How come you haven't put in for an extension on this?' So we went on for three years."
In an investigation that involved wiretaps and undercover work in the United States and Canada, Stejskal says about "70 subjects" were investigated. Many athletes' names came up, he said, but the Bureau only pursued dealers.
Some of the names dredged up in the investigation were listed in Canseco's best-selling book, "Juiced," which was released yesterday, Stejskal said, but he would not say who they were. Canseco was a well-known steroid user, he said, but as for Mark McGwire, he could not say whether he used steroids or not.
"His name came up, but beyond that, it was more in terms of street talk and stuff," he said.
MLB VP for business and labor Rob Manfred and Hallinan said baseball was not aware that players were juicing at the time and a proposal to test for steroids was dropped during the 1994 bargaining sessions. The problem started to emerge in 1998, they said, when McGwire was discovered to have used androstenedione, a steroid "precursor" that was legal at the time but banned by most sports federations. "You couldn't test them so I don't know how you'd catch them, short of walking in on them when they were injecting themselves," Stejskal said. MLB and the Players Association agreed to a beefed-up testing policy earlier this year.
Originally published on February 15, 2005
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
MLB on 'roids
</TD></TD><TR><TD>Says baseball knew of Canseco & probe
<CENTER>
</TD></TR><TR><TD>BY CHRISTIAN RED, MICHAEL O'KEEFFE and T.J. QUINN
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Component: NYDailyNews : component/story/picture.comp --><TABLE cellSpacing=10 cellPadding=0 width=50 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
Special Agent Greg Stejskal, who oversees the Bureau's Ann Arbor, Mich., office, said he told baseball security chief Kevin Hallinan that Jose Canseco and many other players were using illegal anabolic steroids. Stejskal's warning was based on evidence gathered during a far-reaching steroid investigation he conducted in the '90s, but the agent says the lords of the game did not act on the information.
"I alerted Major League Baseball back in the time when we had the case, that Canseco was a heavy user and that they should be aware of it. . . . I spoke to the people in their security office. Hallinan was one of the people I spoke to," Stejskal told The News.
Hallinan "seemed interested," Stejskal said, but the agent says there was little baseball security could do about the problem. Major League Baseball and the union did not agree to a steroid testing program or disciplinary sanctions until 2002. A proposal during negotiations preceding the 1994 players' strike went nowhere. The FBI investigation focused on dealers rather than users.
Baseball officials denied yesterday that they were informed of steroid use, and angrily denounced Stejskal's charges.
"It did not happen," Hallinan said. "Not with this guy, not with anybody else."
Stejskal said the FBI's investigation into steroid use by bodybuilders and weightlifters was centered in Michigan but reached as far as Canada, Mexico, Florida and California and revealed widespread steroid use in baseball during the 1990s.
"There's little question the use of steroids was very widespread in baseball," Stejskal said. "And Major League Baseball in effect, they didn't sanction it, but they certainly looked the other way."
Had he been aware, Hallinan said, he would have pursued an investigation.
"If a guy comes to me and makes a statement like that, I'm going to squeeze him like a wet rag," Hallinan said. "The name doesn't ring a bell at all. Some guy makes a statement like that, give me specifics, I'm on it."
Stejskal said he first contacted baseball security in 1995 or 1996 to inform officials about steroid use by Canseco and other players. He also contacted MLB after Canseco claimed in 2002 that up to 80% of ballplayers use steroids.
"The first time I talked with Kevin about it was in the mid-to-late '90s," he said. "I wouldn't have talked to him about it when our case was going on. I'm guessing probably '95, '96 at the earliest," Stejskal said.
Stejskal said he put Hallinan's office in touch with a convicted steroid dealer who was connected to several players, including Canseco, just a year ago.
Stejskal said the case started in 1989 when then-Michigan head football coach Bo Schembechler contacted him, wondering how players were getting steroids and what could be done to stop them. At the time, Stejskal said, there were no active federal investigations into steroid trafficking or use.
"Schembechler's concern was that so many college, even high school football players were using them," Stejskal said. "We got involved."
At first, he said, he had no support from superiors in the FBI.
"They gave me six months and told me, 'Don't even bother to ask for an extension on this thing. You can do it, go have fun and then close the thing down,' " he said. "About four or five months into the first six-month period, the first President Bush called over to the Department of Justice and made an inquiry as to what we were doing regarding anabolic steroids. Everybody checked around and the only case we had open was mine. All of the sudden I got a call from headquarters that said, 'How come you haven't put in for an extension on this?' So we went on for three years."
In an investigation that involved wiretaps and undercover work in the United States and Canada, Stejskal says about "70 subjects" were investigated. Many athletes' names came up, he said, but the Bureau only pursued dealers.
Some of the names dredged up in the investigation were listed in Canseco's best-selling book, "Juiced," which was released yesterday, Stejskal said, but he would not say who they were. Canseco was a well-known steroid user, he said, but as for Mark McGwire, he could not say whether he used steroids or not.
"His name came up, but beyond that, it was more in terms of street talk and stuff," he said.
MLB VP for business and labor Rob Manfred and Hallinan said baseball was not aware that players were juicing at the time and a proposal to test for steroids was dropped during the 1994 bargaining sessions. The problem started to emerge in 1998, they said, when McGwire was discovered to have used androstenedione, a steroid "precursor" that was legal at the time but banned by most sports federations. "You couldn't test them so I don't know how you'd catch them, short of walking in on them when they were injecting themselves," Stejskal said. MLB and the Players Association agreed to a beefed-up testing policy earlier this year.
Originally published on February 15, 2005
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