News

Critics who expected baseball's steroid probe to be a whitewash were given cause to rethink their position yesterday with news that investigators will name names.

According to ESPN.com, Tom Carlucci, a lawyer for Major League Baseball, told legal representatives of all 30 clubs on a telephone conference call that the investigators' report is going to be "salacious."

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig hired former U.S. senator George Mitchell to lead an inquiry into past steroid use by major-league players.

Mitchell's panel had been derided in some quarters because it lacked the legal power to subpoena, but people familiar with the committee's work have said its non-legal status also means it is less encumbered than it might be otherwise.

ESPN quoted a source familiar with the conference call as saying: "This is going to be enormous. … It's going to be a huge story when these names [of users] come out."

The report is expected to be published between the end of the World Series and the beginning of the new year.

Meanwhile, a source said yesterday that Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Troy Glaus, who according to SI.com received multiple shipments of nandrolone and testosterone between September of 2003 and May of 2004 from an online pharmacy that's under investigation by U.S. federal authorities, has met with representatives of the commissioner's office and was co-operative.