Segui defends Clemens' former trainer McNamee

BY JIM BAUMBACH | jim.baumbach@newsday.com

January 9, 2008

David Segui, one of the few major-leaguers to admit using steroids and human growth hormone and not apologize for it, is sick of seeing himself quoted in newspapers. That was one of the first things he said when reached on his cell phone by Newsday yesterday.

But when Segui was asked about Brian McNamee, the trainer involved in a messy battle with Roger Clemens, his tone changed completely. Suddenly, Segui was eager to speak and defend the trainer whom he believes is taking far too many hits for his role in baseball's steroid mess.

A day after McNamee told Newsday he never should have gotten involved in steroids, Segui said no one should think McNamee was a steroid pusher. He even recalled hearing McNamee telling players during their two months together on the Blue Jays in 1999, "You don't need that --."

"A lot of people don't understand the bigger picture of what was really going on," Segui said. "It wasn't this BALCO, big, high-tech type of thing. Guys would go scramble and find stuff at a local gym, or they'd get it in Mexico, or whatever. Most of the time they didn't know what they were getting, what dosage it was or if it was even real. That's how it was.

"The guys who decided to do this, they made their choices on their own. It wasn't because of a person like Brian or Kirk [Radomski] encouraging them to do it. Anything you ever did, it was your own choice.

"I'm not trying to make him a hero. But he probably did what most people out there would have done in the same situation."

According to McNamee's testimony in the Mitchell Report, Clemens approached him with steroids in 1998 and asked him to inject him with them. McNamee testified that he continued to do so in 2000 and 2001 when Clemens was a Yankee and McNamee was an assistant strength coach.

"People have to understand we're dealing with grown men here," Segui said. "We're not dealing with adolescents. We're dealing with grown men who have their own minds, make their own choices and for the most part are pretty strong-willed people ...

"He wasn't going to change their minds. I'm sure he tried. But players were going to do what they were going to do. For him to go out and help them gather as much information as they could, to me, he was doing them a service.

"When you say that, or someone reads that, it comes off as if you're encouraging it or you're justifying it, but you have to look at things in realistic terms. That's what it was. We can pretend this wasn't going on. We can pretend something prettier was going on. But that was just the reality of it."

Segui said he learned for the first time that McNamee was involved in steroids when the Los Angeles Times reported in 2006 that McNamee was included in the Jason Grimsley affidavit. Before then, the friends never discussed steroids, something Segui found interesting because he said it was no secret among players that he tried them.

"A lot of players asked me if I ever tried steroids. I never lied. I told guys, 'Yeah, I tried them before.' They would ask me questions about it," he said. "With Brian, it never came up."

Like McNamee, Segui also was in the Mitchell Report, in his case for purchasing steroids from Radomski, whom he first met when he was with the Mets in 1994 and Radomski was a clubhouse attendant. Segui previously has said he did not meet with Mitchell out of respect for his fellow players, but he doesn't hold it against McNamee for speaking to Mitchell - and for implicating Clemens and Andy Pettitte.

"There's a certain amount of loyalty with any friendship," he said. "Just think of any of your friends. There's loyalty there. But there also comes a point where you have to do what you have to. Obviously, he felt like - I'm not speaking for him - but he had to talk about it. I know Brian well enough to know he wouldn't have talked about certain things if he didn't absolutely have to."