Steroid cloud headed for Tribe, By: Paul Hoynes

June 18, 2006

Major League Baseball's steroid investigation, headed by former Senator George Mitchell, hasn't reached the Indians yet, but it will.

"We will be treated the same as every other club," General Manager Mark Shapiro said.

When Commissioner Bud Selig named Mitchell to head the investigation into players' past and present use of performance-enhancing drugs, Barry Bonds was the center of attention. Bonds was approaching Babe Ruth's mark of 714 homers and a book detailing Bonds' alleged use of steroids and other substances had just been published.

Bonds has since passed Ruth on the homer list, while Jason Grimsley has passed Bonds as baseball's lat est face of the steroid problem. Grimsley, after being caught by the Internal Revenue Service fol lowing a shipment of human growth hormones to his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., in April ad mitted to using steroids, HGH and amphetamines in his career. Grimsley, who was pitching for Arizona at the time, also gave investigators names of other players, active and retired, who have used the same substances.

Grimsley's admissions have reportedly brought Mitchell's bloodhounds to the doors of Grimsley's past teams and teammates. The New York Daily News reported Friday his investigators have been talking to Yankees employees and players. Grimsley pitched for the Yankees in 1999 and 2000.

The Indians employed Grimsley from 1993 through 1995 and again at Class AAA Buffalo in 1998.

Shapiro did not think Grimsley's time with the Indians would put the organization under added scrutiny from Mitchell.