Steroids investigation comes to town: CARDINALS INSIDER, By: Joe Strauss

07/16/2006, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Major League Baseball's investigation into the use of performance-enhancing substances within the game reaches St. Louis this week, as lawyers from a committee headed by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell spend three days interviewing more than a dozen Cardinals executives and employees.

The Cardinals have elected to not announce who will appear before Mitchell's lawyers. The firm that represents the team, Armstrong Teasdale LLP, has instructed employees not to discuss their participation in the process.

The interviews are Monday through Wednesday at the firm's downtown offices, according to a source who is familiar with the process.

General manager Walt Jocketty, manager Tony La Russa, assistant general manager John Mozeliak and director of player development Bruce Manno have been asked to appear, as have team president Mark Lamping, vice president of stadium operations Joe Abernathy and visiting clubhouse manager Jerry Risch. Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan and first base coach Dave McKay will be interviewed. Only Duncan and McKay share ties with La Russa when he was managing in Oakland.

The club's traveling secretary, C.J. Cherre, and director of security Joe Walsh also have been summoned. Mitchell's lawyers have requested the club produce clubhouse access logs as well as records of the club's minor league drug policy dating to 1996.

Team doctors are exempt because their treatment of players is considered confidential unless a legal proceeding requires the information.

Prompted by publication of the book "Game of Shadows," which alleges steroid use by San Francisco Giants right fielder Barry Bonds, Commissioner Bud Selig announced formation of the committee in March.

The committee has since expanded its focus to include allegations levied by former Oakland A's outfielder Jose Canseco, the self-described "godfather" of steroid use. That focus is said to include former slugger Mark McGwire, who played for La Russa in Oakland and St. Louis.

The club, as instructed by the commissioner's office, is ordering employees to appear as requested. Employees are not allowed to bring personal attorneys.

Counsel from Armstrong Teasdale will attend. Cardinals vice chairman Fred Hanser is a partner with the firm.

Because sessions with the Mitchell Committee are interviews, not depositions, threat of perjury does not exist. The committee roster includes legal heavyweights Charles Scheeler, a former U.S. prosecutor; Jeff Collins, a former U.S. attorney; and Thomas Carlucci, a former assistant U.S. attorney.

Canseco spoke with two lawyers from the committee Tuesday. One source familiar with the process classified St. Louis as a potential "hot spot" for the investigation.

Players, either active or retired, are not subject to appear for interviews.

La Russa declined to comment on the matter Friday. Numerous other club employees also refused to discuss the matter.

Initially charged with investigating steroid use after 2002, the committee has since adopted a broader focus. During its tour, Mitchell's team has interviewed some of those connected to La Russa's Oakland teams from 1988 to 1992.

Canseco and McGwire were core players on those clubs, which won three consecutive American League titles from 1988 to 1990.

Canseco last week informed Mitchell's investigators not only "from a player participation level, but also managers, trainers, administrators or people who would have known or been appraised of what was going on," his attorney, Rob Saunooke told the New York Daily News on Tuesday.

Canseco said in a subsequent interview that he gave "one or two" additional names to investigators last week.

In Canseco's book, "Juiced," he suggested La Russa could not have helped but know what was happening in his own clubhouse and cited an instance when Jocketty, then Oakland's farm director, approached him about his transformed physique. Canseco claimed that McGwire indoctrinated former teammate Jason Giambi in how to use steroids.

La Russa mocked Canseco and offered a strident defense for McGwire before the 2005 congressional hearings. He has since been more measured in his defense of McGwire but never conciliatory regarding Canseco.

The Cardinals manager asserted, following revelations four years ago by former NL MVP Ken Caminiti of rampant steroid use in the majors, that he had no knowledge of any player of his using steroids.

But during the swirl of publicity created by Canseco's book, La Russa said last year that he did, however, harbor suspicions.

"He would laugh about the time other guys were spending there (in the weight room) and ... how he didn't have to ... he was doing the other helper," La Russa told CBS' "60 Minutes" in February 2005.

La Russa told the Post-Dispatch the same month that he confronted "less than a handful" of Oakland players he suspected of using steroids. A month before McGwire appeared at a congressional hearing, La Russa said "without qualification" that he believed McGwire did nothing improper.

Now, it's the Cardinals organization's turn to answer questions.

"You're going to go in and tell the truth, not speculate," said one Cardinals employee. "You're involved in a process that could ruin somebody's life if you speculate on something that may not be true."