Selig Is Willing to Testify

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig told the House Government Reform Committee on Monday that he would testify in Thursday’s congressional hearing investigating steroids in baseball.

Major League Baseball lawyers had told the committee Selig would be represented by baseball executives Rob Manfred, who negotiated the new drug policy with the Players’ Assn., and Sandy Alderson, formerly the general manager of the Oakland A’s.

Monday, subpoenaed documents detailing baseball’s current and past drug policies and results were delivered to the committee, and lawyers for three players -- Jason Giambi, Frank Thomas and Rafael Palmeiro -- asked the committee to reconsider its subpoenas of them.

Selig then announced he would attend, saying, in part, that he was “proud of the progress baseball has made on the subject of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs,” and that “all of us in baseball are committed to reaching zero tolerance.”

Jose Canseco, whose book, “Juiced,” helped provide the witness list for the committee, has said he would testify, though he has requested immunity.

Thomas, who was not accused of steroid use in Canseco’s book, had also said he would testify.

His lawyers, who also represent Giambi and Palmeiro, asked the committee to withdraw its subpoena, however, because the travel would be “not feasible” while he rehabilitates from ankle surgery. In separate letters, the attorneys cited Giambi’s involvement with the federal investigation of BALCO as a potential conflict, and the inclusion of Palmeiro as unwarranted.

Curt Schilling, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, San Diego Padre General Manager Kevin Towers and union chief Don Fehr also were subpoenaed.

-- Tim Brown

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Dwight Gooden, a special assistant for the New York Yankees, was released from jail at Tampa, Fla., one day after he was charged with punching his live-in girlfriend in the face.

Gooden was told to stay away from Monique Moore before a judge, who ordered him released without bail on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge. Previous reports by Associated Press had erroneously said that Moore was Gooden’s ex-wife.