The sixth man

Clemens' trainer denies link to Grimsley drug probe

November 14, 2006

Whoever said steroids can be harmful just might have had Brian McNamee in mind. The word "steroids" alone has done immeasurable, maybe irreparable, harm to McNamee.

If you don't recognize his name, well, that's OK. Few do. He's known mostly to baseball insiders.

McNamee is a no-nonsense, no-frills fellow who works in baseball as a trainer and who has whipped a few pitching stars into shape, including Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. He is well-known in the industry as the one who helped coax the last four Cy Young awards out of Clemens and kept Pettitte throwing when a sizable gap in his pitching elbow should have felled him by now. He is a work from sunrise-to-sunset kind of guy who spent two years as an undercover police officer, says he has a BS in Athletic Administration from St. John's and a masters in Sports Medicine from Long Island University. But these days the workaholic is getting a little less work, though not by choice. His name recently appeared in a blockbuster steroids story and things just haven't been the same since.

In a report that "shocked" him, McNamee read an L.A. Times story on the Internet that said his name supposedly appeared in the search-warrant affidavit of IRS agent Jeff Novitzky. The affidavit, which had previously become public with the names redacted, included this passage about reliever Jason Grimsley:

"Grimsley stated that [redacted], a former employee of the [redacted] and personal fitness trainer to several Major League Baseball players, once referred him to an amphetamine source. Grimsley stated that after this referral he secured amphetamines, anabolic steroids, and human grown hormone from [redacted's] referred source.

According to the Internet report, which preceded a print version in the Oct. 1 Los Angeles Times, McNamee is the fitness trainer in question. Moreover, the story -- based on an unnamed source who supposedly allowed a reporter to view the unredacted affidavit -- alleged that five other baseball people, including McNamee's two biggest clients, were also in the affidavit.

The story was deemed major news and it was rerun or repeated in about every major media venue in the country. Later, when the report was criticized as containing "significant inaccuracies" by Kevin Ryan, the U.S. Attorney heading the case, smaller stories ran much less prominently in sports sections across the nation. Luke Macaulay, a spokesman for Ryan's office, told SI.com the inaccuracies "do regard names." Macaulay didn't say which names were incorrect, but did say there were "plural" inaccuracies involving names. He did not say whether McNamee was one of the incorrect names.

McNamee breaks his silence

McNamee had remained silent in the wake of the Times report, even as his name became dirt in the very circles in which he was previously admired as one of the best trainers going. But he said that with jobs being lost, opportunities drying up and a reputation built on years of hard work sinking like one of Clemens' split-fingered fastball, he decided to speak out. In two exclusive interviews recently with SI.com, McNamee stated several times that he is not involved in steroids, that he has not spoken with anyone from the U.S. attorney's office and that he was stunned to be in the report since he had very little interaction with Grimsley, who is under federal investigation for the use and possession of performance-enhancing drugs and is now out of baseball.

"No one's concerned about Brian McNamee or how it affects my life," he said. "They just want to use me to get to them [Clemens and Pettitte]. And I'm the one getting hit by the bus. I got hit, and I'm still standing there. And the bus has kept going."

Clemens and Pettitte issued denials the day after the Times story ran and then got on with their charmed lives. They are now considering whether to play next season, and if they do, they will make eight-figure salaries, just as they have for the preceding several years. Their current team, the Astros, stood by them, as you'd expect in a case of one report relying on an anonymous source. The Orioles also stood behind their three mentioned players -- Miguel Tejada, Brian Roberts and Jay Gibbons.

But McNamee hasn't been as fortunate. He says Clemens and Pettitte pay him an average working wage and expenses, but not so much that he didn't have to do several other jobs to support a wife and three kids, one with diabetes. Now some of those jobs are disappearing, he says. His professorship at St. John's University, has been suspended and some of the deals he was working on with fitness facilities and nutritional companies dried up. A couple clients even backed away. "I get a lot of 'don't call us, we'll call you,'" McNamee said.

Before the damning report, McNamee was strictly a behind-the-scenes sort of guy. He's not like some trainers you'd see in major-league clubhouses who are there to play catch with their superstar client, gab it up with reporters in an effort to win publicity for themselves, are themselves out of shape and carry a satchel full of who-knows-what. McNamee shunned the spotlight. He kept to himself. He didn't try to make friends with players he wasn't training. He didn't curry favor with the bosses, and he rubbed a few people the wrong way with his intentionally brusque, no-nonsense manner. He just did his work and went home.

His business was his business. But now his business is everyone's business. Except, by his account, the stories so far have painted the wrong picture.

McNamee is one of those old-school people who believes to his core the sign on the clubhouse door that says, "What happens in here, stays in here." But he's been around. He knows what goes on and he takes a realistic approach to steroids. He knew they were becoming bigger in baseball, so he read up on them. He is a quick study and he educated all the players under his purview about steroids. But he said he never procured them, and he never advocated them.

"I don't have any dealings with steroids or amphetamines," McNamee said. "I didn't buy it, sell it, condone it or recommend it. I don't make money from it, it's not part of my livelihood and not part of my business."

History with Grimsley

As a person who knew Grimsley casually, McNamee was following the sordid tale with interest, including the news that IRS investigators had confronted Grimsley after he received a package containing two kits of human grown hormone at his home in Arizona. Then McNamee's name appeared in the Times story, and he says he began racking his brain to figure out how his name could be connected to Grimsley's.

"I have no idea why I'd be mentioned in the same breath with Grimsley, other than that he was a relief pitcher on a team with Clemens and Pettitte," McNamee said. "I barely even knew Grimsley."

McNamee started working with Clemens in 1997, after the pitcher joined the Toronto Blue Jays, with whom McNamee was a strength and conditioning coach. Clemens won two Cy Young awards with Toronto before being traded to the Yankees in 1999. McNamee went with him. Clemens, Pettitte and Grimsley were teammates for two seasons with the Yankees, who listed McNamee as a strength and conditioning coach in 2000, but didn't renew his contract in 2002.

In recollecting his dealings with Grimsley, McNamee says all he can come up with are two conversations, neither of which he recalls involving amphetamines nor anything stronger. On one occasion he says Grimsley requested the contact sheet for the Blue Jays, and McNamee thought nothing of it beyond that Grimsley had a friend on Toronto he wanted to get in touch with. "There was no inkling of trying to get amphetamines from anybody," McNamee said.

Another time McNamee recalls Grimsley requesting a drug to help his wife lose weight after having a baby. McNamee said he believes he recommended a Metrex product, Thermacor, which is a fat burner.

McNamee pleads guilty to knowing the ins and out of steroids, but says, "I had no involvement as far as supplying it, getting it, telling 'em to use it. I just educate them. The good, the bad and the ugly of using the drugs. I had to educate myself because there was more and more concern in baseball. I just adjusted to the times."

He said the bulk of the advice he gives relates to nutrition and multivitamins. "I'm not a witchcraft kind of guy," McNamee said. "There is no legal magic bullet other than hard work, sound nutrition and rest."

'Hit by a train'

Rick Down, the Mets' hitting coach who worked with McNamee with the Yankees, thinks his friend is getting railroaded. "It's like he's been hit by a train and he's left to pick up the pieces." As for the allegations, Down said, "[Brian's] aware of all that stuff. Does he supply them? I've never heard a word that he does. We are close. If he was involved, I would have heard something."

The McNamee that Down knows is a solid family man from a down-to-earth working class neighborhood, Breezy Point, Queens, where just about everyone else works as a fireman or cop. McNamee himself was an undercover police officer for 3 1/2 years with an amazing record for making arrests and who gathered citations for excellence.

"He's probably the best police officer I've ever been around," said New York City Police Lt. Tim Lyon, McNamee's former partner. Lyon has risen to head a detective squad in a Brooklyn precinct but said McNamee "lapped me" in terms of arrests and would have been a captain or better, maybe an inspector, had he stayed on the force. (McNamee says he left the force to take a job with the Yankees, and later left them to join Toronto.)

The thing that Lyon couldn't get over was how hard McNamee worked and how loyal he was. "He was probably loyal to a fault," Lyon said.

McNamee has a history of taking hits for folks, causing some of his friends to wonder if maybe he's taking an undeserved hit now.

Lyon recalled one time when McNamee's female prisoner escaped after he asked a colleague to watch the handcuffed collar while he completed paperwork. Since it was a female prisoner, she was handcuffed outside the holding cell. When McNamee returned minutes later, the handcuffs were still there but the prisoner was gone. McNamee knew the incident would hurt his colleague's bid for a promotion. So McNamee took the hit, knowing he'd suffer only a 30-day suspension. "Brian said, 'It's my prisoner, I'll take responsibility,'" Lyon recalled. And so he did.

Down recalls that McNamee also "took the hit'' for an incident at a St. Petersburg, Fla., pool during a 2001 Yankees' road trip. McNamee was questioned by police regarding an alleged sexual assault at the hotel where the Yankees were staying, but no charges were filed. McNamee says now that he wasn't exactly forthcoming when questioned by officers. "He won't rat on anybody,'' Down said. "He's as loyal as they come." Still, the Yankees didn't renew McNamee's contract shortly thereafter, and McNamee feels he got hit again recently when the pool incident was mentioned by another paper as a follow-up to the L.A. Times report. He feels that the mention of the old pool incident makes him look guilty, when, for all intents and purposes, he was exonerated.

'Significant inaccuracies'

Beyond the fact that the Oct. 1 Times story is now alleged to contain "significant inaccuracies," Grimsley himself is now saying through his people that he didn't volunteer or confirm the names of Clemens, Pettitte or McNamee. "His contention is all three of those names were generated by the agents and that he didn't corroborate any of them," Grimsley's longtime and well-respected agent Joe Bick told SI.com. And Grimsley's lawyer Ed Novak said he was standing behind his original comment to the Arizona Republic that Grimsley told him "not in a million years" would Clemens or Pettitte use performance-enhancing drugs.

Another friend of Grimsley's said that when asked by the federal agents whether Clemens used, Grimsley told him he had no idea. When asked whether Pettitte used, Grimsley said "not in a million years." And when Grimsley was asked whether McNamee had been the source for performance-enhancing drugs, which includes amphetamines, Grimsley said no, he wasn't.

So the "proof'" against McNamee apparently amounts to an anonymous leak to one newspaper regarding what the very likely desperate Grimsley may or may not have told an IRS agent about McNamee and the others. If they took it to court, they'd have a witness, Grimsley, who was caught red-handed with a package of human growth hormone in a raid in June at his Scottsdale home and was known to be a big-time partier while with the Yankees, and who denies and contradicts what they claim he said about McNamee, Clemens or Pettitte. Whew, that's some star witness! But in this case, it appears to be enough to convict, at least in the court of public opinion. That's why McNamee is speaking up now.

"I've never done anything to jeopardize the integrity of my profession," McNamee said.

Clemens and Pettitte

If Clemens or Pettitte are guilty, McNamee would be presumed by many to be guilty. But the evidence against the pitchers is spotty, at best. Beyond the repudiated report, the main "proof" seems to be that Clemens is too good at his age to be doing this without help, and Pettitte is Clemens' shadow. McNamee denied any knowledge of steroid usage on the part of Clemens and Pettitte. "As ballplayers they are different when it comes to their work ethic, how hard they train, how diligent they are," McNamee said. "Andy, who doesn't spend a dime, built a 10,000 square foot facility next to his home."

McNamee said the religious Pettitte once got upset with him when he brought two beers onto his property to wash down a sandwich. McNamee also pointed out that over the years Clemens' training methods and equipment have improved dramatically, and that Clemens even has a personal massage therapist now. As far as Clemens' mid-career improvement and continuing late-career success, McNamee pointed out that a lot of fine pitchers are thriving into their 40s, from Tom Glavine to Jamie Moyer to Kenny Rogers.

"I have the utmost respect for Roger as a person, as a family man and as a pitcher," McNamee continued. "Roger is the consummate 25-year-old with an 18-year-old body with a lot of childlike mannerisms. I've been to his lake house with the jet skis, it's nonstop moving. He's got more energy than anybody I've ever seen. It's a genetic thing. It's analogous to the beautiful woman who stays beautiful throughout her life without cosmetic surgery."

McNamee was actually the third trainer suggested to have been named in the affidavit, and like the others, he hoped it would just go away. "People who know me know I don't have to defend myself,'' McNamee said

But that's the problem. Few people know the real McNamee. To most folks now, he's just a name in the middle of the steroid mess.