King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Boom. Baseball's latest steroid bombshell means we might know more soon. And that's about all. Plus: Warriors go up 3-1 on Mavs.
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April 30, 2007 | A former New York Mets batboy and clubhouse attendant named Kirk Radomski may have become one of the most important figures in baseball history April 27 when he pleaded guilty to distributing illegal drugs to major league players from the time he left the Mets' employ in 1995 to the day federal investigators raided his Long Island, N.Y., house in 2005.
Radomski, 37, is naming names and must now cooperate with baseball's internal investigation into illegal drug use. It's possible that in the not-distant future, the relatively few steroid revelations so far are going to look like the calm before the storm.
And if Radomski is the only former or current clubhouse kid who was using his vast network of millionaire athlete contacts to run a performance-enhancing-drug ring, then baseball clubhouse kids are the most unambitious, unimaginative group in the history of forever.
Or the most honest and law-abiding.
What the storm will accomplish is anybody's guess. Ridding baseball of its drug problem is almost certainly not among the possibilities, but the more we know about any problem the better, and Radomski could lead to a whole lot of knowledge.
Radomski, who pleaded guilty to one count each of distribution of a controlled substance and money laundering in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, began cooperating with agents immediately upon the December 2005 raid, and as part of his agreement will continue to cooperate with law enforcement and with former Sen. George Mitchell, who is conducting a toothless internal investigation into drug use in baseball.
Mitchell has no subpoena power, and thus no power, but at least now he has Radomski, who can give him the names of some guys who will continue to refuse to talk to him.
Radomski became a gym trainer after leaving the Mets. He admitted to having sold steroids, human growth hormone and amphetamines to "dozens of current and former Major League Baseball players and associates [on teams throughout Major League Baseball] and their associates," according to the plea. He could face a long prison term.
Though Radomski isn't connected with the BALCO case, he was nabbed by the same investigation. IRS agent Jeff Novitzky turned his attention to Radomski after the raid on pitcher Jason Grimsley's house in 2005. Novitzky had heard about Radomski from the FBI, which had learned of him from an informant, according to a story by Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada of the San Francisco Chronicle, the reporters who broke the BALCO story and wrote the book "Game of Shadows."
Players union officials reportedly spent the weekend calling current and former players, warning them that Radomski might have sung or might still sing their names. A number of names were redacted from a search warrant in the case. The warrant quotes an informant as saying Radomski became a PED go-to guy in the wake of BALCO, that he "took over after the BALCO Laboratories individuals were taken down" in 2003.
And here we all thought BALCO scared everybody straight.