Gossage calls for steroid confessions

Rich Gossage, baseball's newest Hall of Fame pick, said players who took steroids should confess to preserve the sport's integrity.

"There is too much great history, too many great players that played the game on a level playing field," Gossage said. "If you did it, the best thing to do is come clean. Fess up and life will go on."

Gossage's comments came Tuesday, less than an hour after the Hall of Fame announced he was the only player elected this year. On Monday, Roger Clemens continued to defend himself against claims made by his former trainer in a report on Major League Baseball's drug problem that the pitcher used steroids.

Gossage, who saved 310 games for nine teams, said as he grew older, he could no longer perform like an All-Star. Players like Clemens and Barry Bonds, who has pleaded not guilty to federal charges he lied about taking steroids, excelled after they turned 35.

"These guys, it didn't happen that way," said Gossage, who retired in 1994 at age 42.

The Mitchell Report named more than 80 players, including Clemens and former teammate Andy Pettitte, in chronicling the use of steroids in the sport over the last 20 years. In the report, Clemens' trainer, Brian McNamee, said he injected the pitcher with steroids and human growth hormone and gave Pettitte HGH shots. Clemens has denied the charges, while Pettitte confessed.

Clemens, Pettitte and McNamee are among the players and executives invited to testify before a congressional committee during two days of hearings next week.

"This steroid thing is hanging over baseball and, hopefully, we can put this thing behind it," Gossage said.

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Hearing postponed

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress wants to be prepared when Roger Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, head to Capitol Hill.

The House hearing involving Clemens, McNamee and Andy Pettitte was postponed Wednesday from Jan. 16 until Feb. 13, giving lawmakers more time to gather evidence, to take depositions from the witnesses and to coordinate their investigation with the Justice Department.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was to begin meeting with lawyers for the witnesses Thursday. Clemens' attorney, Rusty Hardin, said he hopes to meet with committee staffers next week. In addition, McNamee is to meet with federal prosecutors Thursday in New York.

"Roger hasn't done anything," Hardin said. "The federal government looking at Roger is fine with me."

Plans are still in place for the Jan. 15 hearing before the same committee about the Mitchell Report on baseball's Steroids Era. The witnesses that day will be commissioner Bud Selig, union leader Donald Fehr and former Senate majority leader George Mitchell, the report's author.