The Boston hurler says players caught using steroids should have their achievements "wiped out."

01:00 AM EST on Friday, March 31, 2006

BY HOWARD ULMAN and RON BLUM
Associated Press

Curt Schilling says he feels bad for Barry Bonds after publication of a book that details alleged extensive steroid use by the San Francisco outfielder and other baseball stars.

If a player gets caught using steroids, Schilling said yesterday, his achievements during that period of use should be "wiped out."

But the Red Sox pitcher, who appeared last March before a congressional committee investigating steroid use in baseball, said he didn't know enough to comment about the Major League Baseball probe announced yesterday by commissioner Bud Selig.

The investigation centers on alleged steroid use by Bonds and others. It will look into events since September 2002, when baseball banned performance-enhancing drugs. No timetable for the investigation was announced.

Selig appointed former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell -- and currently a director of the Red Sox -- to lead the inquiry.

"I don't know enough about it to have an opinion other than it's sad," Schilling said. "It's unfortunate and you feel bad for everybody involved because the game got cheated. If guys that I faced cheated, then I got cheated."

The book, Game of Shadows, by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters details the alleged steroid use by baseball players, including Bonds.

"My life is in shambles. It is crazy," Bonds said Monday in an interview with The Associated Press.

That drew sympathy from Schilling.

"I feel bad. I don't want to see anybody go through what he's going through," he said. "As a human being, you don't want to see people go through that."

Bonds has 708 homers and needs 7 to pass Babe Ruth and 48 to overtake Hank Aaron for the career home run record.

"If you get caught using steroids, you should have everything you've done in this game wiped out for any period of time that you used it," Schilling said. "A lot of players, I think, have said as much because it is cheating."

Schilling appeared on March 17, 2005, before a congressional panel with Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Jose Canseco. Palmeiro denied having used steroids but was suspended last Aug. 1 after failing a drug test.

Later that month, Schilling said that Palmeiro has "no credibility" to talk about steroids, and the Baltimore slugger's achievements should be removed from the record books.

Yesterday, he blamed some of the media for ignoring the steroid problem in the late 1990s when McGwire and Sosa were locked in home run battles.

But Schilling was reluctant to speak at length about the latest probe.

"It depends on what they're after," Schilling said. "I don't know if they're in it to find out if guys used or a guy did."

Selig said Mitchell's report will eventually be made public. By then, Bonds may well have passed Babe Ruth's home-run mark on the way toward Hank Aaron's all-time record.

"The goal here is to determine facts, not engage in supposition, speculation, rumor or innuendo," Selig said.

Whatever the findings, it will be hard to penalize anyone for conduct before the steroids ban. Baseball began drug testing in 2003 and started testing with penalties the following year.

At San Francisco's home ballpark, Bonds wouldn't discuss the matter.

"I said no, no, no," he said, shaking his head. "I'm going to jump off the Empire State Building -- flat on my face," he added, laughing.

Mitchell, meanwhile, said he will not resign his position with the Red Sox. He also is chairman of The Walt Disney Co., the parent of ESPN, a national broadcast partner of baseball.

"I don't think there's any conflict," he said. "I'm going to be independent, have complete independent authority and will act."

Along with working for the Red Sox, Mitchell is a former director of the Florida Marlins and served on an economic study committee Selig appointed in 1999. He said he previously announced he would leave the Disney board by the end of the year.

"I've assured the Red Sox owners that should any matter arise, anybody affiliated with the Red Sox will be treated exactly as will anyone else," he said.

John Dowd, the Washington lawyer who headed baseball's investigation of Pete Rose's gambling in 1989, did not like the choice.

"Mitchell doesn't have a great track record with me. It doesn't look like he's independent," Dowd said.

Sen. Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican and baseball Hall of Famer, also criticized Mitchell.

"While George Mitchell is certainly a man of great integrity, I believe that baseball would have been wiser to pick someone who is not as close to the game and may be able to take a more objective look into the facts," Bunning said.

Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who helped lead a congressional hearing last year on steroids in baseball, praised the probe.

"This is precisely what I had asked MLB to do last year," he said. "Finding out the truth about the depth and breadth of this problem is the only way to close the book on this sad chapter of the game's history."