Yankees Prominently Mentioned in Report

"McNamee injected Clemens approximately four times in the buttocks over a several-week period with needles that Clemens provided," the report said. According to the report, McNamee said "Clemens's performance showed remarkable improvement" after the injections. Clemens won the fifth of his seven Cy Young Awards that season.

The report said the relationship between Clemens and McNamee continued when Clemens was traded to the Yankees in 1999. At Clemens's behest, the report said, the Yankees hired McNamee as an athletic trainer in 2000, and Clemens paid part of his salary. McNamee told Mitchell's investigators that "Clemens made it clear that he was ready to use steroids again."

McNamee said he injected Clemens with human growth hormone and testosterone from a bottle at Clemens's apartment in New York. McNamee was not re-hired by the Yankees after 2001, but Clemens and Pettitte continued to use McNamee as a personal trainer.

Hardin, Clemens's attorney, said yesterday that he believes McNamee changed his story under pressure from federal investigators, with whom McNamee met this June. Last year, in an interview with SI.com, the Web site for Sports Illustrated, McNamee said: "I don't have any dealings with steroids and amphetamines. I didn't buy it, sell it, condone it or recommend it."

"As adamantly as he has apparently told them that Roger took steroids, he is just as adamant -- even more adamant -- back a year ago that he had no involvement," Hardin said. "If you look at what he said in that [SI] report, it does raise some eyebrows, because there are discrepancies between then and now."

Hardin said McNamee initially denied knowledge of Clemens's steroid use to federal investigators. He said McNamee changed his story when the investigators threatened to charge him as part of a steroid ring. The investigators, Hardin said, then brought in Mitchell's team.

But despite Hardin's objections to McNamee's testimony, he said in a subsequent e-mail that Clemens had no plans to pursue legal action because of the report.

Like Clemens, Pettitte, who recently signed a one-year, $16 million contract to return to the Yankees, is represented by brothers Randy and Alan Hendricks. Randy Hendricks said in a statement last night that Pettitte would remain silent on the matter until consulting with the players' union and other advisors.

"At the appropriate time," Hendricks said, "he will have something to say."

The wait-and-see approach seemed to be prevalent throughout the game yesterday. A top official from one club said: "We're not supposed to talk about it. No one wants to react yet because people are so worried we'll say the wrong thing."

Former commissioner Fay Vincent, in a telephone interview, also reserved judgment. Vincent initially put anabolic steroids under baseball's drug policy in June 1991. But he declined to analyze the fallout from yesterday's report.

"I will say, I think the report was important," Vincent said. "I think Mitchell did a very good job, and I'm supportive of the exercise."

Players, too, largely were hesitant to judge.

"Do they think they got everybody?" said one current player, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Even Mitchell admitted it wasn't complete. They couldn't get everybody. And now people will just focus on the names that are out there."