As baseball struggled to come to grips with the latest and most damaging permutation of its ongoing steroid scandal -- the revelation that New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi admitted to using the drugs for three years beginning in 2001 -- Commissioner Bud Selig yesterday vowed to strengthen the sport's three-year-old testing program, while the Yankees began examining the feasibility of voiding the remainder of Giambi's contract.
Meanwhile, San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds also reportedly told a federal grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream but that he never thought they were steroids, according to the San Francisco Chronicle Web site.
The Yankees' Jason Giambi, left, admitted in grand jury testimony for BALCO case that he used steroids for a three-year period beginning in 2001.
(Frederic Larson -- The San Francisco Chronicle Via AP)
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_____From The Post_____
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Yankees slugger Jason Giambi admits to steroid use for three-year period.
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Thomas Boswell: Baseball's weighty problem is front and center.
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BALCO founder said Marion Jones used banned drugs leading up to the 2000 Games.
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Federal prosecutors charge that the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, known as BALCO, distributed undetectable steroids to elite athletes, including several track and field participants who have already admitted to their use.
Bonds reportedly testified that he received and used clear and cream substances from his personal strength trainer, Greg Anderson, during the 2003 baseball season but was told they were the nutritional supplements for arthritis, according to the report on the Web site.
Giambi's admission, revealed in grand jury testimony obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle and detailed in a story in yesterday's editions, marks the first time a current star baseball player has acknowledged knowingly using steroids to enhance on-field performance.
"We need a very tough policy," Selig said yesterday during an impromptu news conference that followed his speech to the Greater Washington Board of Trade, "and I am going to be very aggressive in the implementation of that policy. . . . This is no longer an issue that we are going to debate about anymore. This is something for everybody's sake -- the sport, the players, the clubs, the fans, everybody. So we will do something. We will do something."
According to Giambi's testimony as reported in the Chronicle, his steroid use began in 2001, when he was still playing for the Oakland Athletics, and increased after Bonds introduced him to Anderson, while the three were on an all-star barnstorming tour of Japan in November 2002.
Anderson, according to Giambi, provided him with various injectable steroids, plus "the cream" and "the clear" -- supposedly undetectable drugs that were applied in cream form to the skin and in liquid form under the tongue, respectively. Giambi also acknowledged using human growth hormone (HGH), which he acquired from a Las Vegas gym.
"So I started to ask him, 'Hey, what are the things you're doing with Barry? He's an incredible player. I want to still be able to work out at that age and keep playing,' " Giambi testified about his first meeting with Anderson, according to the Chronicle. "And that's how the conversation first started."
Anderson is one of four men who have been indicted by the federal grand jury investigating an alleged steroid-distribution ring run out of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. Giambi, along with Bonds, Gary Sheffield and several other players, testified before the grand jury last December. A trial is expected next spring.
Giambi, 33, could not be reached to comment yesterday, and his agent, Arn Tellem, declined an interview request. In the past, Giambi publicly has denied using steroids.
Selig deflected a question about potential league action against Giambi, reiterating his stance that the league needs a tougher testing program than the one that was negotiated with union leaders and implemented in 2002.
However, any changes to the policy before the expiration of the current basic agreement, which runs through the 2006 season, would need the cooperation of the union. Union officials yesterday, through a spokesman, declined interview requests.
The Yankees, who signed Giambi away from Oakland with a seven-year, $120 million contract following the 2001 season, declined to comment on its potential course of action regarding Giambi. "We have made no decisions," team president Randy Levine told the Associated Press, "and will keep all our options open."
