Steroids 100 Players to be revealed in MLB

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SAN FRANCISCO -- The names and urine samples of about 100 Major League Baseball players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs three years ago can be used by government investigators in their probe of steroids in sports, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The government's perjury case against Barry Bonds could be bolstered if the slugger's name is among those who tested positive. The San Francisco Giants slugger has been the target of a perjury investigation since he testified before a grand jury that he didn't knowingly ingest performance enhancing drugs.

Investigators seized computer files containing the test results in 2004 during raids on labs involved in the Major League Baseball testing program the previous year.

The samples had been collected by the league in 2003 as part of a survey to gauge the prevalence of steroid use. Baseball players were told the results would be confidential, and each player was assigned a code number to be matched with his name.

Quest Diagnostics of Teterboro, N.J., one of the largest drug-testing firms in the nation, analyzed more than 1,400 urine samples from players that season. Comprehensive Drug Testing, of Long Beach, coordinated the collection of specimens and compiled the data.

The testing was part of baseball's effort to determine whether a stricter drug-testing policy was needed. When more than 5 percent of tests for steroids came back positive, the league adopted a stricter plan the following season.

Subpoenas were issued to both companies in late 2003, a day before the test results were to be destroyed, and in April 2004 Internal Revenue Service agents seized the test results and samples. It's unclear whether the data seized includes test results or specimens from Bonds.

Bonds has always maintained he never tested positive for illegal drug use, but federal investigators demanded to see the 2003 test results for Bonds and nine other players. When they raided the testing labs for those 10 results, investigators also seized computer files containing the test results of nearly 100 other players not named in the governments subpoena and warrants.

The Major League Baseball Players Union protested the seizure as a violation of the players' constitutional rights.

Michael Weiner, general counsel for the Major League Baseball Players Union, declined to immediately comment, wanting first to review the decision.

The government's investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a now-defunct Burlingame supplements lab at the center of the steroid scandal, has also already netted guilty pleas from BALCO president Victor Conte, Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson, BALCO vice president James Valente, chemist Patrick Arnold and track coach Remi Korchemny.

Anderson is currently in prison for refusing to testify in the perjury probe of Bonds. He was previously convicted of steroids distribution.

Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press

Im intrestred to see the reaction when big names are realized. I really think clemens will be one of them.