Excerpt: Mitchell Report on Tejada

The following is excerpted from Pages 201 to 204 of the Mitchell Report; footnotes are not included here.

Miguel Tejada is a shortstop who has played for two teams in Major League Baseball since 1997, the Oakland Athletics (7 seasons) and Baltimore Orioles (4 seasons). He was the American League Most Valuable Player in 2002. He played in every game from June 2, 2000 until June 21, 2007, the fifth longest streak of consecutive games played in Major League Baseball history. Tejada has played in four All-Star games and was the Most Valuable Player of the 2005 All-Star game.

In 2003, Adam Piatt's locker was located next to Tejada's in the Oakland Athletics clubhouse. According to Piatt, Tejada asked specifically if he had any steroids. Piatt believed that Tejada asked him because Piatt was in good shape and generally friendly with him.

Piatt had several conversations with Tejada before a transaction occurred. Piatt admitted he had access to steroids and human growth hormone and agreed to obtain them for Tejada. Piatt recalled that he provided Tejada with testosterone or Deca-Durabolin, as well as human growth hormone. Piatt emphasized that he did not know whether Tejada actually used the substances.

Piatt's bank provided two checks deposited into Piatt's account that had been written to him from Miguel Tejada. The checks are dated March 21, 2003 and are in the amounts of $3,100 and $3,200 respectively. Both are included in the Appendix; one is shown below. [Image of $3,100 check shown.]

Separately, before our interviews of him, Piatt also spoke with federal agents by telephone. Piatt had his personal lawyer present for this call, as he did in his meetings with me and my investigative staff. The federal agents later advised my staff that Piatt also informed them of Piatt's sales to Tejada during their telephone interview.

[Kirk] Radomski recalled receiving a call from Piatt during which he said he needed extra testosterone because "one of the guys wanted some." In a later conversation, Piatt told Radomski that the testosterone was for his teammate, Miguel Tejada. Radomski never spoke, or sold performance enhancing substances, directly to Tejada. Radomski provided this information to me without knowledge that I had spoken to Piatt or that I was otherwise aware of Piatt's alleged sales to Tejada. Similarly, Piatt was unaware of any statements by Radomski on this subject when he was interviewed by my investigative staff.

As discussed earlier in this report, Tejada was interviewed as part of a congressional investigation into whether Rafael Palmeiro had lied under oath about his use of performance enhancing substances during a March 17, 2005 congressional committee hearing. In that investigation, Palmeiro said he had received injectable, and legal, vitamin B12 from Tejada; Palmeiro said it was possible the vitamin B12 had been tainted and had been the reason for his positive test for steroids. Tejada admitted to investigators that he provided injectable vitamin B12 to Palmeiro and two other unidentified Orioles players during the 2005 season. The congressional report said that the Players Association had tested another vial of vitamin B12 provided by Tejada and it showed no signs of steroids.

Tejada is also mentioned in two books on the subject. In Juicing the Game, the author Howard Bryant wrote that during the 2002 season, an airport security screener found a syringe in Tejada's briefcase. Tejada reportedly explained that he received a supply of vitamin B12 from the Dominican Republic that he administered to himself. Mickey Morabito, the director of team travel for the Oakland Athletics, confirmed the incident in an interview with my investigative staff. He acknowledged that he did not report the incident to anyone with the club or the Commissioner's Office.

In his book Juiced, Jose Canseco wrote that, in 1997, when he and Tejada were teammates on the Athletics, they discussed the use of performance enhancing substances:

I started giving him [Tejada] advice about steroids, and he seemed interested in what I was saying. Tejada and I had a secret weapon: We could speak in Spanish, which made it easier to talk about whatever he wanted, even if there were reporters around.

Tejada denied that he had ever had any discussions with Canseco about steroids. He was further reported to say: "I work very hard to keep in shape and any suggestion that I use steroids, or any banned substance is insulting and not worth discussing further."

In December 2005, Texas Rangers owner Thomas O. Hicks and general manager Jon Daniels engaged in an email exchange about possible trade discussions. In one email, Daniels stated that he had "some steroids concerns with Tejada," and cited Tejada's decreased productivity over the second half of the 2005 season.

In order to provide Tejada with information about these allegations and to give him an opportunity to respond, I asked him to meet with me; he declined.