Panel seeks Tejada inquiry

WASHINGTON -- A congressional committee exploring baseball’s steroids scandal asked the Justice Department on Tuesday to investigate whether shortstop Miguel Tejada lied in denying he used performance-enhancing drugs as lawmakers ratcheted up pressure on Major League Baseball to clean up its act or face possible legislative action.

The top Democrat and Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee called for the investigation as they convened the first hearing into former Sen. George Mitchell’s report on doping in baseball.

The request signals that lawmakers are scrutinizing every word of testimony as they prepare for next month’s Capitol Hill showdown between Roger Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher who has denied using performance-enhancing drugs, and his accuser and former personal trainer, Brian McNamee.

During Tuesday’s hearing, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and players’ union chief Donald Fehr took responsibility for failing to recognize the scope of the problem and act sooner.

“Baseball’s problem with performance-enhancing substances was bigger than I realized,” Fehr said. “The players’ association accepts its share of responsibility for what happened, and . . . so do I.”

Selig said he wants Mitchell’s recommendations in place when spring training starts in one month, but a number of the recommendations need the approval of the players’ union.

Fehr, complaining about the commissioner’s “unilateral imposition” of some of the recommendations, cited the collective-bargaining process as the way to reach agreement.

“We believe that unproven allegations against players should not be aired publicly and that the fundamental protections of due process should be strictly adhered to,” he told the committee.

In his report, Mitchell recommended creating a special unit to investigate allegations of illegal drug use, keeping track of packages shipped to players at ballparks, increasing the number of off-season drug tests, requiring background checks on clubhouse personnel and using an independent party to do the sport’s drug testing.

A number of lawmakers, signaling their impatience Tuesday, said they expect baseball to act quickly.

“Baseball needs to fix these problems, change this culture, alter how it does business with regard to steroids, human growth hormone and all manner of dangerous performance-enhancing drugs, or -- and this is a promise, not a threat -- Congress will do it for you,” said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, the panel’s ranking Republican.

“This is almost surreal to me,” added Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.). “Why should cheating be a matter of collective bargaining?”

The scandal may give momentum to measures pending in Congress aimed at combating drug use by athletes, including bills imposing new restrictions on the sale of human growth hormone and the online sale of drugs.

In seeking the investigation of Tejada, committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) said the 2002 American League most valuable player told committee investigators that he never used performance-enhancing drugs and that he had no knowledge of other players using or talking about steroids.

Tejada spoke to congressional investigators in 2005, when Congress last looked into steroid use in baseball. Tejada, accompanied by his lawyer, Mark Tuohey, and a Spanish-language interpreter for the interview at a Baltimore hotel, was not put under oath but was advised that he could still be prosecuted if he lied.

“The Mitchell Report, however, directly contradicts key elements of Mr. Tejada’s testimony,” Waxman said.

According to the Mitchell Report, Adam Piatt, a Tejada teammate on the Oakland Athletics in 2003, told investigators that he discussed steroid use with Tejada and provided Tejada with steroids and human growth hormone.

Congressional investigators sought the meeting with Tejada in 2005 after his Baltimore Orioles teammate Rafael Palmeiro testified before Congress that he never used steroids and then, about six weeks later, tested positive for steroids. Palmeiro was not prosecuted for perjury charges because lawmakers said there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that he lied in denying that he used steroids at the time of his testimony.

Tuohey declined to comment Tuesday.

Late in the day came news that Tejada’s older brother, Freddy, was killed in a motorcycle accident in the Dominican Republic, according to the Aguilas Cibaenas, the shortstop’s winter league team. Tejada, scheduled to play Tuesday night, wasn’t at the ballpark and could not immediately be reached for comment.

Mitchell, asked about Clemens during the hearing, said that McNamee had an “overwhelming incentive to tell the truth” or risk prosecution.

“We believe that the statements provided to us were truthful,” Mitchell told the committee.

Neither Selig nor Fehr publicly embraced Mitchell’s call for baseball to adopt an independent drug testing program, at least the way Mitchell defined it.

Selig and Fehr said the current program is operated by an independent administrator. But Mitchell said that administrator can be fired by management or the players’ union at any time and without a reason. “I do not believe he qualifies as independent,” he said.

Mitchell did not specifically recommend how baseball should proceed, but critics have often called for the sport to outsource its testing program to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency or another third party.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s congressional delegate, asked Selig and Fehr whether they would abide by international doping control standards, which ban more substances and compel longer suspensions than baseball does.

“We will closely evaluate it,” Selig said.

A number of lawmakers expressed concern that players may already be looking for ways to get around the ban on use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.) said the number of players who have received “therapeutic exemptions” to use stimulants for problems such as attention deficit disorder has increased from 28 in 2006 to 103 in 2007 -- “almost eight times the normal adult usage in our population.”

Selig said that his office was looking into the matter but noted that the use of such drugs must be approved by two doctors.

With human growth hormone emerging as a major problem, Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.) urged that players give blood samples that could be tested for human growth hormone as a possible deterrent, even though the commissioner’s office and players’ union say there is no effective and widely available test at the present time.

Selig said it was “not practical” to store samples. Fehr added: “When a scientifically valid and effective test is available, or some other procedure that the medical experts tell us we can rely on, then we have to look at it very hard.”

Selig noted that club personnel found to be complicit in steroid use, as well as players cited by Mitchell, could be at risk of punishment. “I’m going to review each one of these matters -- management and players -- on a case-by-case basis,” he told the committee.

Waxman grilled Selig about the San Francisco Giants management’s failure to act on warnings from as early as 2000 about the presence of Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds’ former personal trainer, in the clubhouse, and suspicions about possible steroid use.

Asked whether the suspicions should at least have been reported to his office, Selig responded: “Of course, but I don’t really want to say any more, because it is a matter that I have under review.”

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Times staff writer Bill Shaikin and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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richard.simon@latimes.com