Updated update: Deadspin has the six-page document detailing the case.
Update - 1:52pm: Miggs will plead guilty tomorrow morning at 11am.
I seriously doubt Tejada will see any jail time, and will spend part - or all - of the '09 season on probation. How will this affect his play? Who cares. I'm not comfortable with the "Oh man, Tejada's busted, I hope he doesn't suck now" response. Because we're dealing with an issue much larger than how our favorite team's shortstop plays. It's exactly that mentality that got us to the point where we are in baseball/performance-enhancing drugs, where if a "juicer" (or a "healer") is on your team, you just hope he doesn't get caught. I hated the Tejada trade from Day One, if only for the news we heard today.
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It came down the wire a few minutes ago that Miguel Tejada has been charged with lying to Congressional investigators about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Note, he was not charged with lying about his own use of PEDs. (A-Rod to Miggs: That's why you should lie to Katie Couric. Not Congress.)
Tejada faces a maximum penalty of a year in jail, but advisory sentencing guidelines call for a sentence of probation to six months behind bars.
So with a plea deal "seemingly near," it will be interesting to see the deal that is struck. It's also interesting that Tejada would be charged with lying about what turns out to be Adam Piatt's use, and not his own.
Here's the exchange which landed Tejada in trouble:
"Has there been discussions among other players about steroids?"
"No, I never heard," Tejada said, speaking through a Spanish interpreter.
Later, the investigator asked whether he knew of "any other player using steroids."
"No," Tejada answered. "I didn't know any player."
In court documents filed this morning, prosecutors said those statements contradicted evidence gathered from Piatt.
Piatt told investigators that he spoke to Tejada in the Oakland A's locker room in the spring of 2003. Tejada told Piatt that "he looked in great shape physically and asked [Piatt] what he was doing to help him be in such good physical shape," prosecutor Steven J. Durham, the chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office's public corruption unit, wrote in court documents.
I'm floored by the fact that he's going to get at least probation based on what Adam Piatt said, and not his own statements. The Post signals this turn of events shows "The charges also signal that prosecutors are serious about holding athletes accountable for their statements to Congress." Tejada is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow morning at 11am EST.
That tapping you hear? That's Roger Clemens' foot.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
