The guy who might, just might, force Major League Baseball to break into a full sweat -- and break out the asterisks -- is a 37-year-old nobody, a career jockstrap picker-upper, a glorified gofer who used to work for tips in the Shea Stadium visitors clubhouse. He wasn't the lowest person on the New York Mets' organizational food chain, but he was close.
Kirk Radomski is his name. He was a clubbie, and clubbies are supposed to shine up your cleats, fetch you the latest issue of Maxim and make sure there are enough forks and knives for the postgame food spread. They aren't supposed to be chirping to the feds like a robin in a birdbath.
But Radomski took the baseball service industry to a new level. He followed up his years of finding new shoelaces for the fellas by becoming, for dozens of yet-unnamed ballplayers both past and present, the one-stop shopping destination for human growth hormone and steroids, among others.
MLB, its players, their union and the record book could be on the verge of a massive cluster migraine. And all because a former no-name clubhouse assistant recently pleaded guilty in a San Francisco federal court to supplying dozens of big leaguers with performance enhancers and then laundering the drug money. He's looking at as many as 25 years in the big house and $500,000 in fines.
So Radomski is talking to federal investigators. And talking some more. And the more he talks, the more MLB commissioner Bud Selig and players union executive director Donald Fehr squirm in their suits. Isn't this great?
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