THE MITCHELL REPORT: THE ILLEGAL USE OF STEROIDS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JANUARY 15, 2008 Serial No. 110–206 Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html http://www.house.gov/reform U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 55–749 PDF WASHINGTON : 2010 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:02 Apr 30, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 U:\DOCS\55749.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman TOM LANTOS, California TOM DAVIS, Virginia EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee DIANE E. WATSON, California MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts DARRELL E. ISSA, California BRIAN HIGGINS, New York KENNY MARCHANT, Texas JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina Columbia BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota BILL SALI, Idaho JIM COOPER, Tennessee JIM JORDAN, Ohio CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland PETER WELCH, Vermont PHIL SCHILIRO, Chief of Staff PHIL BARNETT, Staff Director EARLEY GREEN, Chief Clerk DAVID MARIN, Minority Staff Director (II) VerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:02 Apr 30, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 U:\DOCS\55749.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE C O N T E N T S Page Hearing held on January 15, 2008 ......................................................................... 1 Statement of: Fehr, Donald M., executive director, Major League Baseball Players Asso- ciation ............................................................................................................ 112 Mitchell, Hon. George, former U.S. Senator .................................................. 21 Selig, Allan H. ‘‘Bud’’, commissioner, Major League Baseball ...................... 91 Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by: Fehr, Donald M., executive director, Major League Baseball Players Asso- ciation, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 116 Mitchell, Hon. George, former U.S. Senator, prepared statement of ........... 26 Selig, Allan H. ‘‘Bud’’, commissioner, Major League Baseball, prepared statement of ................................................................................................... 96 Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State of California: Letter dated January 8, 2008 ................................................................... 11 Letter dated January 15, 2008 ................................................................. 4 Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 14 (III) VerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:02 Apr 30, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 U:\DOCS\55749.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE VerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:02 Apr 30, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 5904 Sfmt 5904 U:\DOCS\55749.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE THE MITCHELL REPORT: THE ILLEGAL USE OF STEROIDS IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2008 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM, Washington, DC. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:31 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry A. Waxman (chairman of the committee) presiding. Present: Representatives Waxman, Towns, Cummings, Davis of Illinois, Tierney, Watson, Lynch, Yarmuth, Norton, McCollum, Van Hollen, Sarbanes, Welch, Davis of Virginia, Burton, Shays, McHugh, Souder, Turner, Issa, and McHenry. Staff present: Phil Schiliro, chief of staff; Phil Barnett, staff di- rector and chief counsel; Karen Lightfoot, communications director and senior policy advisor; Brian Cohen, senior investigator and pol- icy advisor; Michael Gordon, senior investigative counsel; Steve Glickman, counsel; Earley Green, chief clerk; Teresa Coufal, deputy clerk; Caren Auchman and Ella Hoffman, press assistants; Zhongrui ‘‘JR’’ Deng, chief information officer; Leneal Scott, infor- mation systems manager; Kerry Gutknecht, William Ragland, and Miriam Edelman, staff assistants; David Marin, minority staff di- rector; Larry Halloran, minority deputy staff director; Jennifer Safavian, minority chief counsel for oversight and investigations; Keith Ausbrook, minority general counsel; Steve Castor, minority counsel; Patrick Lyden, minority parliamentarian and Member services coordinator; Brian McNicoll, minority communications di- rector; Benjamin Chance, minority clerk; Ali Ahmad, minority dep- uty press secretary; Jill Schmalz, minority professional staff mem- ber; and John Ohly, minority staff assistant. Chairman WAXMAN. Good morning. The committee will come to order. When our committee held its first hearing 3 years ago on Major League Baseball’s steroid scandal, I talked about how the culture of Major League clubhouses trickled down to become the culture of the high school gym. Later that same day, Dan Hooten and Denise and Raymond Garibaldi proved that connection with their powerful testimony about the deadly impact that steroids had on their sons. The Hooten and Garibaldi families were frustrated that baseball wasn’t doing more to confront its role in a growing epidemic. For our part, this committee made it clear to the players and owners that they needed to take steps, and major ones, to deal with this problem. The first was to dramatically strengthen the league’s test- (1) VerDate 11-MAY-2000 15:02 Apr 30, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 U:\DOCS\55749.TXT KATIE PsN: KATIE 2 ing program for performance-enhancing drugs. The second was to investigate the extent of steroid use. The starting point for addressing any scandal is in the facts. If a cheating scandal broke out at any university, the bare minimum we’d expect a thorough review of what happened and how it hap- pened. This, unfortunately, wasn’t baseball’s first impulse. The commissioner, the owners and the union didn’t want to look at the past. The code of silence in baseball clubhouses was threatening to become baseball’s official policy. To his credit, Commissioner Selig listened to the testimony at our hearing and recognized that baseball had a serious problem. He then did the right thing and asked Senator George Mitchell to take a hard look at baseball’s steroid era. I thank Commissioner Selig for that, and I thank Senator Mitch- ell for taking on an enormous task. Anyone who reads the Mitchell report will come to understand how difficult this challenge was. Virtually no one volunteered information to Senator Mitchell. In fact, only one active player, Frank Thomas agreed to speak with his investigators. Senator Mitchell and his staff did a superb job, but I think even they would acknowledge that their report isn’t a comprehensive accounting of the steroids scandal. If reports had epitaphs, this one’s would be: It didn’t tell us everything, but it told us enough. And what it tells us is damning. The illegal use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs was pervasive for more than a dec- ade. Major League Baseball was slow and ineffective in responding to the scandal, and the use of Human Growth Hormone has been rising. The Mitchell report also makes it clear that everyone in baseball is responsible. The owners, the commissioner, the union and the players. Despite that shared responsibility, most of the media at- tention over the past month has focused on the players. They are the face of the game, and they are the ones our kids emulate. As Chuck Kimmel, the president of the Athletic Trainers Associa- tion, recently pointed out: ‘‘Young athletes are very impressed by what their sports heroes say and do. There’s a real authority carry- over in these situations. They assume because a person is an ex- pert in one area that they’re qualified in another.’’ Our committee hasn’t had an easy experience with individual players. We have tried to be sensitive to their legitimate privacy rights and to the obvious harm this issue can do to their reputa- tion. But too often their responses to legitimate questions have been evasive or incomplete. This investigation is no different than any other that we undertake. We expect and the law requires truthful testimony. In one important instance, the Mitchell report provides new information relating to one of our previous inquiries. Three years ago, we initiated an investigation into testimony that Rafael Palmeiro provided on March 17, 2005. Mr. Palmeiro testified that he never took steroids. Several months later, he has tested positive for Winstrol, a powerful steroid. As part of that in- vestigation, we interviewed Miguel Tejada for relevant information.