Tejada pleads guilty of lying to Congress
WASHINGTON — Miguel Tejada's steroids-related conviction had nothing to do with using a banned substance.
It was not about buying performance-enhancing drugs, either, although the 2002 AL MVP and five-time All-Star did admit he paid for human growth hormone.
No, Tejada stood in federal court Wednesday, hands clasped in front of him and lawyers flanking his sides, and uttered one, key, voice-cracking word — "Guilty" — in pleading to one misdemeanor count of misleading Congress.
That made the Houston Astros shortstop the first high-profile player convicted of a crime stemming from baseball's steroids era — yet only the latest big name to bring attention to the sport's seamier side as spring training approaches.
"Hopefully, we're one more step for putting a lot of stuff behind us," Astros general manager Ed Wade said in Houston a few hours after his player's 45-minute appearance in federal court in Washington. "It's been a tough week for baseball and sports in general. We're finding out that it takes a lot of time for lies to dissipate and for sins to disappear."
Tejada's plea agreement was with the same prosecutors pursuing a perjury indictment against seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens. As with the pending cases against Clemens and seven-time MVP and home-run king Barry Bonds — whose trial begins March 2 in San Francisco — Tejada wound up in legal trouble not so much for what he did, but what he said.
And Tejada's hearing came just two days after his AL MVP successor, Alex Rodriguez, said he took banned substances while playing for the Texas Rangers in 2001-03.
Dressed Wednesday in a defendant's dark suit instead of an All-Star's crisp uniform, Tejada admitted he withheld information about an ex-teammate's use of steroids and human growth hormone when questioned by a House committee's investigators in August 2005.
Tejada also acknowledged he bought HGH while playing for the Oakland Athletics, but said he threw the drugs away without using them. Prosecutors said they have no evidence to contradict that.
"I just want to apologize," Tejada said as he fought back tears at a Houston news conference, where he did not take questions. "I made a mistake, and now I know how serious of a mistake that I made for not answering a question about another teammate."
The misdemeanor can lead to as much as a year in jail. Federal guidelines call for a lighter sentence, and one of his lawyers, Mark Tuohey, said he thinks Tejada will receive probation.
