Source: Report names 'potential Hall of Famers'

Former Sen. George Mitchell spent at least $20 million of baseball's money investigating the sport's steroid era. AP

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Twenty months after former Maine Senator and statesman George Mitchell accepted the responsibility to investigate baseball's steroid problem, he is set to release his findings at a 2 p.m. news conference on Thursday. Early indications are that the long-awaited Mitchell Report will be a bombshell, with somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 to 70 players to be named as steroid users, according to several high-ranking team officials.

One baseball official familiar with the findings called the report "painstaking" in detail and said that it runs 300-400 pages and may include some documentary evidence (as did the Dowd report, baseball's 1989 investigation of gambling allegations involving Pete Rose). Another person familiar with the findings said that those named in the report include "potential Hall of Famers." (The report will be available online via Mitchell's office.)

Mitchell faced a series of obstacles in compiling his report, not the least of which was the lack of cooperation from active players (only a compelled Jason Giambi and one other as-yet-unnamed player testified) and the perception that Mitchell is too close to commissioner Bud Selig. Mitchell's position as a director of the Boston Red Sox also came into question as a possible conflict of interest.

A hefty segment of the report, which cost Major League Baseball at least $20 million and may have been delivered to Selig's top people as early as Monday, will center on the testimony of former Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, according to sources. Mitchell appears to have hit the mother lode with the previously unknown Radomski, who was convicted for two felonies involving the sale of steroids to big leaguers from 1995 through 2005. Part of Radomski's agreement with federal prosecutors included full cooperation with Mitchell's probe.

There will be an official response from Selig 2˝ hours after Mitchell's news conference. Penalties for players, however, will occur only in some cases and will be tied to the penalties the sport had in place at the time of the transgressions.

Here are some key questions surrounding the Mitchell Report:

How many players will be named?
At least two high-ranking team officials independently said they were bracing for "50 to 70 names" of players. Mitchell declined comment regarding that estimate in an e-mail, but no one has suggested that the number is off base. The New York Daily News reported on its Web site on Tuesday that the number is expected to be between 60 and 80. Some will claim that's still a relatively low number and well in line with the first survey steroid test, back in 2003, which resulted in 5 to 7 percent failures (as many as 98 players). However, it will far exceed the early projections of most skeptics, who believed that Mitchell would be wasting his time and that his report would yield no new names.

Considering there's a federal case pending against Barry Bonds, can he be mentioned in the report?
Mitchell did not address that question in an e-mail query to him. But baseball people say the report would be incomplete without mention of Bonds, who was indicted for perjury for telling a grand jury that he didn't knowingly take steroids.

Where did Mitchell get all the names?
Sources indicate they came from a combination of the BALCO case, the Albany, N.Y., district attorney who has made significant progress in busting rogue pharmacies and doctors, and of course Radomski. But by all indications Radomski appears to be the main supplier of names, especially the ones we have yet to hear. In an e-mail, John Clarke, a lawyer with Mitchell's firm, DLA Piper, and spokesman in this case, wrote, "As part of his plea agreement with the United State Attorney's Office in the Northern District of California, Kirk Radomski agreed to cooperate with Senator Mitchell's investigation." By other accounts, that undersells Radomski's value to the case.

There's no question that Mitchell's big break came when the ex-clubbie turned steroid supplier agreed to testify for MLB as part of his plea deal, and his sentencing has been postponed twice, possibly related to his general cooperation. Not only is he said to have had dozens of steroid clients, but the feds also reportedly found phone records and bank statements tying many players to Radomski. So there's a significant paper trail that will be tough for implicated players to refute.

Word around Radomski's Long Island neighborhood is that he is none too pleased with what he perceives as a lack of support from some of his former baseball-playing customers. And if that isn't enough to get him to talk, the possibility of a vastly reduced sentence (the two felonies he pled to meant he could be sentenced to up to 25 years) surely did the trick. Sources say he has cooperated fully with Mitchell, granting multiple several-hour sitdown interviews. (Click here for a profile of Radomski.)

Should the Mets be more worried than other teams since Radomski was their employee?
The proximity of Radomski to Mets players (he worked as a Shea Stadium clubhouse attendant for years prior to selling steroids) could mean they have representation on the list. However, it appears that Radomski worked to become a league-wide supplier, so the assumption shouldn't be made that the Mets will be significantly over-represented.

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