Chapter[ VI. Incidents Providing Evidence to Baseball Officials of Players’ Possession
or Use of Performance Enhancing Substances ]
Section[ L. Unreported Incidents ]
L. Unreported Incidents
During this investigation we learned of a number of other instances in which club
personnel came across potential evidence of a player’s use of steroids or other performance
enhancing substances but did not report that evidence as required by baseball’s drug policy.
Those unreported incidents included the following.
In 1999, Barry Waters, the director of team travel for the Houston Astros,
received a telephone call from an employee of a hotel where the Astros had just stayed, reporting
that a package had arrived at the hotel addressed to an alias that was used by Ken Caminiti, who
then played for Houston. The hotel forwarded the package to Waters, who opened it and found
glass vials containing a white liquid that he believed to be anabolic steroids and pills that he
believed to be vitamins.
Waters did not deliver the vials to Caminiti, but believing incorrectly that there
was no policy requiring him to report the incident, he did not report the matter to anyone else
with the Astros or to the Commissioner’s Office. Caminiti later admitted that he had used
steroids during his playing career in a widely read Sports Illustrated article that was published in
June 2002.290
During either the 1998 or 1999 season, a clubhouse employee with the San Diego
Padres was walking through the players’ clubhouse when he saw two players standing huddled
over, and looking into, a small box. The Padres employee overheard one of the players say
290 See Tom Verducci, Totally Juiced, Sports Illustrated, June 3, 2002, at 34.
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“Winstrol.” When the players noticed him watching them, they put the box away and walked
away. The Padres employee did not report the incident.
In 1999 or 2000, Chuck Hawke, an attendant working in the visiting clubhouse in
Kansas City, found syringes and vials that were hidden in an Oakley sunglasses bag when he was
unpacking luggage for David Segui. Hawke brought the situation to the attention of his
supervisor, but after discussing the incident they decided to replace the materials where he had
found them and did not report the incident to anyone.
A second incident involving Segui also was not reported. It occurred when he
was playing with the Baltimore Orioles in September 2004. In a conversation with Orioles cogeneral
manager Jim Beattie, Segui said that he wanted to see a doctor who had given him
human growth hormone and monitored his blood levels. Beattie said he had no knowledge of
Segui’s alleged human growth hormone use prior to this conversation. Beattie’s co-general
manager Mike Flanagan confirmed that Beattie informed him that Segui was “going to Florida to
get human growth hormone.”
No one in the Orioles organization reported Segui’s admission of human growth
hormone use to the Commissioner’s Office. Segui has since admitted that use publicly.
In 2000 or 2001, a visiting clubhouse manager working for the Minnesota Twins
found a used syringe on top of a trash can in the visitors’ clubhouse. He brought the incident to
the attention of the Twins manager, Tom Kelly, who told him to dispose of the syringe and to be
careful doing so. Kelly confirmed the incident and said that he did not report the incident to
anyone because he felt it “wasn’t any of [his] business” and that it was the other team’s issue to
address.
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In an article in 2006, a similar story was recounted by Paxton Crawford, a pitcher
who was on the roster of the Boston Red Sox in 2000 and 2001. Crawford admitted to using
steroids and human growth hormone while with the Red Sox. He described an incident in which
syringes he had wrapped in a towel were spilled onto the floor of the Red Sox clubhouse, which
he said caused laughter among his teammates.291 Crawford declined our request for an
interview, saying that he did not “do that stuff anymore,” that he was sorry he had used those
substances in the past and that he just wanted to be left alone. In the course of this investigation,
we interviewed 23 individuals who are, or had been, affiliated with the Red Sox organization
including 6 persons who were with the Red Sox at the time of the reported events. While some
said that they had suspicions about Crawford’s use of steroids when he was a player, no one
could recall the incident that Crawford recounted in the article.
At the end of the 2004 season, a clubhouse employee was cleaning out the Detroit
Tigers locker room when he found a black toiletry kit that was locked. He and another Tigers
employee opened the bag and found unused syringes and vials that they determined were
anabolic steroids. They did not report the incident. The employee said that he could not
remember who the bag belonged to.
291 Paxton Crawford, “It’s Like Playing with Fire,” ESPN The Magazine, June 20, 2006;
Associated Press, Crawford Comes Clean, SI.com, June 22, 2006.
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