Jason Grimsley raid/HGH

[jlb1705]

This could be the biggest thing yet in the whole performance enhancement crisis. He's apparently named some names, and commentators are saying this is gonna blow up big time.

I'm not gonna pretend baseball is any more or less innocent than any of the other major sports. I don't believe for one second that NFL players are any cleaner than MLB players. Baseball has a huge perception problem though - in part because this problem is taking place in the midst of an assault on the record books that just isn't taking place in other sports.

I hope they get this sorted out eventually, and that the league and the union commit to doing something meaningful about this problem.

D-Backs release Grimsley a day after feds searched his home
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr valign="top"><td width="10"> </td> <td> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr valign="top"> <td nowrap="nowrap"> June 7, 2006
CBS SportsLine.com wire reports</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>
PHOENIX -- Pitcher Jason Grimsley was released by the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday, a day after his home was searched by federal agents following his admission he used human growth hormone, steroids and amphetamines.

The raid -- and Grimsley's implication of other major league ballplayers -- was the latest sign that widespread investigations into drug use by athletes are still active, even in the era of tougher testing.


Grimsley's agent told the Associated Press he thought this would mark the end of the 38-year-old reliever's career.


"My guess is Jason's done playing," Joe Bick said in a telephone interview. "I couldn't anticipate that he would play again, but that's his call.


"He didn't want to be a distraction to the team."

Diamondbacks general manager Josh Byrnes said Grimsley asked for his unconditional release in meetings with team officials Tuesday and Wednesday.


<table align="left" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="175"> <tbody><tr> <td width="175"> </td> <td width="15"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="175"> Jason Grimsley was 1-2 with a 4.88 ERA in 19 games as a long reliever this season, his first with Arizona. (AP) </td> <td width="15"> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> "We accepted his request," Byrnes said.
Thirteen federal agents searched Grimsley's home in Scottsdale, Ariz., for six hours Tuesday, but they would not reveal what they found. Investigators who cracked the BALCO steroid scandal in San Francisco said Grimsley initially cooperated in the probe but withdrew his assistance in April, prompting Tuesday's search.


According to court documents released Tuesday, authorities tracked a package containing two "kits" of human growth hormone -- about a season's supply -- that was delivered at Grimsley's house on April 19.


Moments later, agents armed with a warrant offered him an option: Cooperate with their investigation into athletes using performance-enhancing drugs, or submit to an immediate search. Grimsley agreed to be interviewed.


He proceeded to detail his "receipt and use of anabolic steroids, amphetamines and human growth hormone over the last several years," but said he went exclusively with HGH when baseball's testing program began.


Grimsley also identified several other players who he said had used or supplied the drugs, though their names were blacked out from court documents. They included a handful of former teammates and one player he identified as one of his "better friends in baseball," adding that it was common knowledge that "Latin players" were a major source for amphetamines in the sport.


He also identified a personal fitness trainer to several major league ballplayers who once referred him to an amphetamine source that later supplied him with an array of drugs.

The investigation is being run by prosecutors and authorities in San Francisco, where five Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative defendants pleaded guilty to distributing or developing steroids.

U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan of San Francisco said the government's continuing investigation will "diligently follow the evidence."


"Clearly," he added, "we're not done."


A federal grand jury in San Francisco is also investigating whether San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds lied under oath about using the performance-enhancing drug known as "the clear" during his grand jury testimony that led to the indictment of four people connected to BALCO.


Grimsley's locker was empty when the clubhouse was opened to the media before the afternoon game against Philadelphia at Chase Field.


As for the remainder of Grimsley's $825,000 salary, "there was no negotiation," Bick said. "Released players get paid."


Grimsley was 1-2 with a 4.88 ERA in 19 games as a long reliever this season, his first with Arizona.


Diamondbacks pitcher Terry Mulholland said Grimsley addressed his NL West-leading teammates after Tuesday's loss to the Phillies.


"He expressed to us that he had too much respect for us to allow this to bring us down," Mulholland said. "He's that kind of guy."


Former Kansas City teammate Jeremy Affeldt said he talked to Grimsley earlier in the day.


"He's down. It's an embarrassing thing when you get caught. It was a judgment call on his part. I think he knows it was wrong. I don't think he would deny that," Affeldt said.
Grimsley began his big league career with Philadelphia in 1989 and pitched for Cleveland, California, the New York Yankees, Kansas City, Baltimore and Arizona. He has a career record of 42-58 with a 4.77 ERA.


According to court documents, Grimsley failed a baseball drug test in 2003. Authorities said when he was cooperating, he admitted to using human growth hormone, amphetamines and steroids.


Commissioner Bud Selig had no comment on the specifics of Grimsley's case. Major League Baseball executive vice president Rob Manfred said HGH "is a problem for all sports because there is no universally accepted and validated test."


"No governing body in any sport has ever been able to discipline an athlete for the use of HGH," he said.


Grimsley has spent much of his career as a journeyman, but he made headlines in 1999 when he confessed to his role in the infamous Albert Belle corked bat caper.


Grimsley, who had been Belle's teammate with Cleveland, admitted he worked his way through a crawl space at Comiskey Park in 1994 and dropped through the ceiling in the umpires' room to replace the illegal bat. Five years later, he came clean and solved one of baseball's ongoing mysteries.


"I went sky diving once, and I can compare it to that," Grimsley said at the time. "The adrenaline rush I got from that caper was just like jumping out of an airplane. It was being in a place you're not supposed to be."


Grimsley spent only a few months with the Diamondbacks but was liked by teammates, who seemed stunned by Wednesday's news.


"He was a good teammate to have here while he was here," Diamondbacks catcher Johnny Estrada said. "It's not my business what happens off the field. Obviously, he had some issues."

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

ABJ

6/8/06

Baseball, players left curious about names on Grimsley's list

BY T.J. QUINN

New York Daily News

<!-- begin body-content -->NEW YORK - A disgraced Jason Grimsley asked for his release from the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday, as baseball found itself facing a human growth hormone controversy it never expected.
A day after the pitcher's Arizona home was raided by IRS agents seeking evidence of HGH, amphetamine and anabolic steroid use, the calls began for baseball to find a way to close the gaps in its testing program.
"MLB and the Players Association must take immediate action or face Congressional interference yet again," U.S. Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY) said in a statement, raising the same threat that forced baseball into toughening its steroid policy.
At the same time, the world of Major League Baseball was abuzz regarding the mystery of which players Grimsley named to federal agents investigating the case, and whose names were covered in black ink in the search warrant affidavit. Grimsley has not been charged.
Anti-doping experts said the raid on Grimsley's home and the potential fallout for other players was a clear sign to baseball that "the steroid era" was far from over, and that players are actively seeking other ways to beat drug testing.
"It's very significant and it's good that the authorities are following up on it," said Dick Pound, the firebrand chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency and a frequent critic of MLB. "We may be in the early stages of this. Baseball is in such a stage of institutional denial - they say it's only steroids and clearly it's not."
Another troubling sidebar from the Grimsley raid is his claim to agents that he was told in 2003 he had tested positive during baseball's "survey" testing program. Testing that year was supposed to be anonymous, and MLB and the union assured players' test results would not be connected to names. However, when federal agents raided a lab where the samples were held and another lab holding a list of names, the two lists were united, making it possible for MLB, the Players Association and law enforcement to connect names and results.
Sources told the Daily News at the time that MLB and union officials could have ordered the tests destroyed but did not for unexplained reasons. Other sources said that had the union agreed to turn over the samples connected to the 10 players involved in the BALCO scandal, rather than seek to quash those subpoenas, the Feds would not have executed a search warrant to seize samples from all players.
Grimsley was not one of the BALCO players.
MLB and union officials declined to comment Wednesday, but Grimsley's agent, Joe Bick, told the New York Daily News that he and his client had no official reaction to the raid. Grimsley left the Diamondbacks, he said, because "anybody that knows anything about Jason knows he's a very good teammate and he told all the players, `I don't want to be a distraction now.' "
Bick said he wasn't sure what Grimsley, who will still be paid because he was released by the team, will do next.
"Obviously there's some issues to be cleared up first," Bick said. "I don't anticipate that it includes any plans to play."
Even without a positive test, Grimsley could face a 50-game suspension for possessing performance-enhancing drugs based on the information collected by agents. And because the affidavit sought phone and bank records that could connect Grimsley to other players, he could face an 80-to-100 game suspension for distributing.
MSNBC host Keith Olbermann said Wednesday night that Grimsley once told him that he was an investor in his brother-in-law's nutritional supplement company.
Experts have long claimed that motivated cheats will avoid being caught, even under strenuous drug-testing programs. HGH, which is produced naturally by the body, is banned but not tested for, and players can easily take mild steroids in amounts that will not trigger a positive test, yet still enhance performance, or take difficult to detect hormonal agents. They can also hide from testers during the offseason.
MLB officials released a statement from commissioner Bud Selig on Wednesday saying he will not comment on Grimsley's case but urged players to cooperate with law enforcement and former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell's investigation into baseball's history of performance-enhancing drugs.
The statement also quoted MLB's senior VP for business and labor, Rob Manfred, saying, "No governing body in any sport has even been able to discipline an athlete for the use of HGH."
The only testing methods available to detect HGH require blood, and those are considered unreliable by much of the scientific community.
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[OSUBasketballJunkie]

ABJ

6/8/06

Grimsley's allegations test the game again

BY STEVE KELLEY

The Seattle Times

<!-- begin body-content -->SEATTLE - Even as Jason Grimsley dressed for Tuesday night's game with the Philadelphia Phillies, 13 federal investigators were completing a six-hour search of his house, looking for evidence in their on-going probe into illegal drug use in major -league baseball.
Even in the first inning, as he warmed up in the Arizona bullpen in what probably would be the final night of his big-league career, agents were sifting through data and preparing another haymaker to the game's integrity.
Arizona manager Bob Melvin didn't get word of the investigation until the second inning and decided not to use his long reliever in the blowout loss.
Maybe it will be a journeyman pitcher who delivers the most telling blow to baseball.
It won't be Barry Bonds' grand-jury testimony. It won't be Jose Canseco's book. It won't be Rafael Palmeiro's failed drug test or the suspicions that followed Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa into retirement.
Maybe it will be the cooperation of a reliever named Jason Grimsley, a guy who has pitched for seven clubs in a mediocre career that began in 1989, that accelerates the investigation and shakes the game to its foundation.
According to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, Grimsley, who asked for and got his release from the Diamondbacks before Wednesday afternoon's game, was caught receiving two kits of human growth hormone (HGH), apparently a season's supply, by federal agents on April 19.
HGH is on baseball's list of banned substances, but there are no reliable tests for its usage, and it is believed it has become the substitute-of-choice for other performance-enhancing drugs that can be detected in urine samples.
The affidavit, which first appeared Tuesday night on the Arizona Republic's Web site, said Grimsley had cooperated in the ongoing federal investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO). He named names, then stopped cooperating sometime in April.
Grimsley, who court documents say failed a league drug test in 2003, allegedly told investigators that "boatloads" of players use HGH. He also said that amphetamine use was prevalent and that the drugs were hidden in coffee makers marked "leaded" and "unleaded."
He said Latino players were major sources of the amphetamines, and said players from California teams were sources for speed because it was easy for them to take quick trips to Mexico to buy the drugs.
Allegedly Grimsley even talked about a player who had used steroids and had the worst case of back acne he'd ever seen.
Now an investigation that, at least publicly, seemed to stall after the BALCO defendants had plea bargained and served their short jail sentences could pick up more momentum than a 10-game winning streak.
And players, who are sick of the questions and the suspicions that have followed them through the first third of this season, will be peppered with more questions and shadowed by more accusations.
Members of Congress looking for an issue with more substance than the gay-marriage amendment might go back on the attack against baseball and open up more investigations and call for more hearings.
More important, this is the kind of news that will force baseball to, once again, take a hard look at itself and come up with even more stringent tests.
It is one thing for Palmeiro to wag his finger at congressmen and lie that he never used steroids. It's one thing for McGwire to indignantly refuse to answer the hard questions or for Canseco to make allegations in a book.
This is quite another thing.
This is a big-league pitcher who has been around the game for almost two decades, caught in the act and giving up the names of other players he says are doing exactly what he is doing.
This is the kind of thing that should scare every dirty big-leaguer to death. Grimsley's confessions could be the start of a flood of information that brings down dozens of other players.
But it should also give new impetus to the league and to the Players' Association to clean up a mess that had been maybe 30 years in the making.
The way it is now, every time Albert Pujols hits a home run, he's under suspicion. Every time the Jason Giambi of 2006 resembles the thunderous Jason Giambi of 2002, he raises eyebrows.
The perfect storm is swirling around baseball again.
Jason Grimsley had a long big-league career. But until this week, we had no idea of the extent of his legacy.
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[OSUBasketballJunkie]

ABJ

6/8/06

Diamondbacks' players thankful Grimsley chose to leave team

BY JACK MAGRUDER

East Valley Tribune (Mesa, Ariz.)

<!-- begin body-content -->PHOENIX - The Arizona Diamondbacks wish the best for Jason Grimsley, but most appear glad that he chose to walk away from the clubhouse in the wake of his involvement in a federal investigation into illegal drugs in baseball.
"If he was here, it might be a media circus like Barry (Bonds),'' catcher Johnny Estrada said on Wednesday.
"Now that he is gone, I don't know what hoopla is going to be all about. We have to go on and play and try to stay on top of this division.''
The D-Backs still lead the NL West despite losing three straight games, the last two after news of Grimsley's involvement in an Internal Revenue Service probe was made public.
"I think we'll get past it,'' general manager Josh Byrnes said.
"I think this team is very resilient. It's a team that nobody expected to do much and has played well. It's a team that has come back. It's a great bunch of guys that has surpassed expectations so far and will continue to do so.
"We have to do our part to be sensitive to Jason, to what the federal government wants and to what Major League Baseball wants. To Jason's credit, he didn't want to be a distraction to the team, and that was his decision to make.''
Grimsley, in his first season with the D-Backs, was 1-2 with a 4.88 ERA but had made several valuable appearances as a long reliever when D-Backs' starters faltered early in the season.
"I don't think we've had adversity. This isn't adversity,'' Craig Counsell said. "We had an unfortunate situation with a teammate. He's not a teammate any more. We have to move on.''
Terry Mulholland: "We have to keep playing, regardless of how the roster changes, whether it is due to injury or trade or disciplinary action or whatever. You are still a part of a group of guys.
"We feel for our teammate, obviously, but you don't let that affect you when you cross the lines. It is all about playing the game. Anybody's personal life, if you don't leave that outside the clubhouse and the ballpark, you are not doing your job.''
Grimsley told IRS agents, according to court documents, that he used anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and amphetamines, all of which are on MLB's list of banned substances.
Major League Baseball does not test for human growth hormone, which managing partner Ken Kendrick sees as a loophole that must be closed.
"We are very focused on that already, and there is work being done right now with UCLA to develop a urine test that hopefully would be successful and would be definitive,'' Kendrick said.
"There is no test right now, blood or urine, that is definitive. The only time that blood testing was used was in the Olympics, and that was not conclusive. The results were never released publicly, and our medical experts say those tests were not conclusive enough for us to put them in the protocol for our program.
"So we need a reliable test, and we are going to get one. It's obviously an important matter, and there is work going on as we speak.''
Kendrick said management has talked to the team about moving forward.
"The team wants to get focused on playing,'' he said.
"We think we can put this behind us and go out and continue what we think is a very good season.''
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[OSUBasketballJunkie]

ABJ

6/8/06

A grisly outlook for baseball, thanks to Grimsley

BY PHIL ROGERS

Chicago Tribune

<!-- begin body-content -->CHICAGO - You want to scream, don't you?
Jason Grimsley, a guy whose 15-year career proves only that some mediocre right-handers can survive as long as mediocre lefties, is popped in a federal investigation with two "kits" of human growth hormone, and you wonder why you still care about baseball or professional sports in general. What about the pitchers who throw really hard? If a mope like this is using, who isn't?
I share your frustration, but probably not the naivete that caused you to be so surprised about sports' latest scandal involving performance-enhancing substances. The reality is, no matter how much we long for days when the foreign substances were on the baseballs, science is here to stay. Welcome to the rest of your life as a sports fan or, heaven help you, a competitor.
For Commissioner Bud Selig and his labor/testing bulldog, Rob Manfred, the revelations that an Arizona Diamondbacks reliever confessed to using HGH shipped to his house qualifies as dog biting man. That's probably also true across Manhattan at the offices of the players union, although there the lawyers' tendency is almost always to protect the users, not those who don't use.
Since Major League Baseball finally cracked down on steroid use, everyone involved knew the next firestorm would be over HGH, which has the advantage of still being undetectable. It is banned, of course, but can be detected only through blood tests (and not reliably enough then), and the union won't consider allowing collectors to draw blood.
Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick hopes the Grimsley situation will cause the union at least to re-examine its position.
"We just hope the union will look at it as we do," Kendrick said. "We have to do the very best that is possible to rid ourselves of any and all drugs in our game."
That's wishful thinking. The headlines ahead won't be good ones.
In Grimsley, the HGH version of the steroid story_call it Beyond BALCO_is here. It even stars some of the same cast as the Bay Area probe that has tainted Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi, among others, with the most notable holdover being federal investigator Jeff Novitzky.
Before lawyering up, Grimsley told Novitzky he had used the steroid Deca-Durabolin in 1999 and 2000, before there was testing, but had used only HGH since the union_with a strong arm from Congress and a large number of principled players_reluctantly signed off on testing.
Grimsley also named names. They were blacked out in the search warrant the Arizona Republic obtained, but it's fair to say that at least six to 10 unnamed big-leaguers soon will be getting a call from Novitzky, if they haven't already.
If some of them name other names, this could spread wider than BALCO. And while all of the BALCO athletes were granted immunity before they testified before that grand jury, there's no guarantee the HGH guys will be treated as kindly.
The tactics Novitzky applied to Grimsley were very similar to the way he handled BALCO founder Victor Conte and Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, but there's no knowledge of any of their homes being raided. The feds did that to Grimsley after he stopped cooperating.
Many thought the volume would be turned down with MLB running its own investigation of the steroid era, but they were wrong. If anything, Novitzky and former Sen. George Mitchell, who heads the MLB investigation, might be getting ready to turn up the volume.
In one of the biggest surprises ever, Grimsley decided Wednesday to walk away from the spotlight. He asked for his release, and Arizona was thrilled to give him the rest of his $825,000 salary early.
"He didn't want to be a distraction to the team," agent Joe Bick said.
I know what you're thinking: Hey, the White Sox need relievers, don't they?
Just kidding there. At 38, Grimsley (yes, he's the guy who claims to have crawled through the suspended ceiling at the former Comiskey Park to retrieve Albert Belle's allegedly corked bat from the umpire's room in 1994) probably is finished as a player.
But you can bet this isn't going to end with one rank-and-file reliever. Before this investigation runs its course, a lot of garbage is going to be combed through, and some of it almost certainly will be All-Star garbage.
Players and their general managers alike are less comfortable today than they were before the feds barged into 10792 East Fanfol Lane in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Imagine if it's August when the hammer drops again, and this time it strikes a key player or two from contenders. Could Novitzky or Mitchell decide a playoff race or two with their allegations or findings?
You bet they could. But that's just the world we're all going to have to live in for, oh, the rest of ours lives.
The science isn't going away. Once there's a test for HGH, there's going to be something else athletes will take that is undetectable.
It might be different if parents taught their children that cheating is always wrong. But who is being naive now?
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