By: Joe Strupp The Hearst Corporation, which owns 12 daily newspapers, filed suit for access to a list of Major League Baseball players who purportedly received performance-enhancing drugs, the San Francisco Chronicle, a Hearst paper, reported Friday.
Legal papers filed in U.S. District Court in New York on Thursday sought access to a list of up to 23 players who received the drugs from admitted steroids dealer and former New York Mets employee Kirk Radomski. He pleaded guilty to distribution of steroids and money laundering in April, the Chronicle reported, and admitted he had sold the substances to dozens of current and former major-league players on teams throughout the league.
"But the names of the players or their associates were redacted from public court files," the Chronicle stated. "More than 90 lines of an application to search Radomski's Long Island home were blacked out, including the names of possibly nearly two dozen 'MLB associated individuals' who, from May 2003 to March 2005, wrote checks to Radomski totaling $33,935."
Steroid use by professional ball players "is a matter of public interest and concern," Hearst attorneys wrote in a motion filed on behalf of the Chronicle and the Albany Times Union, another Hearst daily.
"Those athletes who choose to use controlled substances to gain a professional advantage are at the heart of this controversy," the motion continued. It went on to point out that the names are being made available to former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, who is conducting a steroid investigation on behalf of Majot League Baseball, according to The Chronicle.
"If athletes' names are made available to Mitchell," the motion read, "they should be made available for all to see." Radomski worked for the Mets from 1985 to 1995 before becoming a personal trainer, the Chronicle said.
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