Chapter[ Summary & Recommendations ]
Section[ A. The Investigation and this Report ]
A. The Investigation and this Report
On March 30, 2006, the Commissioner of Baseball, Allan H. (“Bud”) Selig, asked
me to investigate allegations that a number of players in Major League Baseball had illegally
used steroids and other performance enhancing substances. I accepted on the conditions that
(1) I have total independence in conducting the investigation and in preparing this report; and
(2) I have full freedom and authority to follow the evidence wherever it might lead, so that the
investigation would not be limited to any one player or team. The Commissioner readily agreed.
He pledged that this report, when completed, would be made public, a decision I agreed with.
He promised his full support and he kept his promise.
The Commissioner retained the authority to determine whether any activities in
the conduct of this investigation might violate his obligations under the Basic Agreement,
including the joint drug program. I agreed to be bound by his decisions in that regard.
The Commissioner also retained the right to prohibit publication in this report of
any information that he is under a legal duty to keep confidential. To enable him to make that
determination, I agreed to provide his office the opportunity to review this report three business
days before it was released publicly. No material changes were made as a result of that review.
I was assisted in this investigation by lawyers from the firm of DLA Piper US
LLP and by several experts. They include Richard V. Clark, M.D., Ph.D., a leader in the fields
1 I personally conducted many of the interviews that form the basis for this report, but
because more than 700 interviews were taken during this investigation it was not possible for me
to conduct all of them. Lawyers on my staff from the law firm of DLA Piper conducted the
interviews that I did not attend. In this report, I use the pronouns “I” and “we” interchangeably
because its findings are based on our work collectively, under my direction.
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of andrology and endocrinology and Richard H. McLaren, HBA, LL.B., LL.M., C. Arb.,
a professor of law at the University of Western Ontario and a distinguished arbitrator for the
Court of Arbitration for Sport.2
I requested the production of relevant documents from the Commissioner’s
Office, each of the thirty major league clubs, and the Players Association. We received and
reviewed more than 115,000 pages of documents from the Commissioner’s Office and the thirty
clubs and over 20,000 electronic documents that were retrieved from the computer systems of
the Commissioner’s Office and some of the clubs. We also gathered and reviewed many
documents from other sources, some of them public.
In the course of the investigation, we interviewed more than 700 witnesses in the
United States, Canada, and the Dominican Republic. Over 550 of these witnesses were current
or former club officials, managers, coaches, team physicians, athletic trainers, or resident
security agents. We also interviewed 16 persons from the Commissioner’s Office, including
Commissioner Selig, president and chief operating officer Robert DuPuy, executive vice
president for labor relations Robert D. Manfred, Jr., and former senior vice president for security
and facility management Kevin Hallinan.
We sought to interview as many current and former players as possible. We
attempted to reach almost 500 former players. Many of them declined to be interviewed, but
68 did agree to interviews. In addition, interviews of 3 former players were arranged through the
assistance of federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents.
2 Lawyers from Foley & Lardner LLP played a separate but important role as counsel for
the Commissioner and Major League Baseball. Lawyers from Foley & Lardner did not
participate in many of the interviews that we conducted and had no role in preparing this report
other than reviewing it, as representatives of the Commissioner, three days before its release.
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The Players Association was largely uncooperative. (1) It rejected totally my
requests for relevant documents. (2) It permitted one interview with its executive director,
Donald Fehr; my request for an interview with its chief operating officer, Gene Orza, was
refused. (3) It refused my request to interview the director of the Montreal laboratory that
analyzes drug tests under baseball’s drug program but permitted her to provide me with a letter
addressing a limited number of issues. (4) I sent a memorandum to every active player in Major
League Baseball encouraging each player to contact me or my staff if he had any relevant
information. The Players Association sent out a companion memorandum that effectively
discouraged players from cooperating. Not one player contacted me in response to my
memorandum. (5) I received allegations of the illegal possession or use of performance
enhancing substances by a number of current players. Through their representative, the Players
Association, I asked each of them to meet with me so that I could provide them with information
about the allegations and give them a chance to respond. Almost without exception they
declined to meet or talk with me.
My goal in preparing this report was to provide a thorough, accurate, and fair
accounting of what I learned in this investigation about the illegal use of performance enhancing
substances by players in Major League Baseball. To provide context for my conclusions and
recommendations, I also include in the report the medical, legal, and historical issues that are
part of this complex problem.
I have not included every allegation that we received or the results of every
interview we conducted or every document we reviewed. Inevitably, much of that information
was cumulative, not relevant, or of only marginal relevance. None of it would have materially
altered the account that is provided.
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