Former Baseball Player Admits HGH Use
A 15-year major league baseball player said that he's one of the players named in an IRS affidavit that said pitcher Jason Grimsley received two packages of human growth hormone in April.
David Segui, who left Major League Baseball in 2004, admitted to taking human growth hormone, but told ESPN Saturday, that it was perfectly legal.
Grimsley told the IRS a player "told him of a doctor in Florida that he was using at a wellness center to obtain human growth hormone... the player told him, "if you are going to do this, you should do it right," according to the affidavit.
Segui, who played with Grimsley in Baltimore in 2004, said the conversation recorded in the affidavit is practically identical with what he recalled, except for one piece.
"You know, 'legal' was one of the major – probably the most major – omission in the affidavit. You know, made no mention that I was, you know, deemed human growth hormone deficient through blood work on a pre-op blood work that I had taken," Segui said on ESPN.
Primarily a first baseman and designated hitter throughout his career, Segui was often injury prone, never playing more than 150 games in any season.
Segui was insistent that his use of the performance-enhancing drug was legal. He said that after several surgeries on his wrist and knees that the doctor found he had a deficiency. "I felt like a 90-year-old man," Segui said in the interview.
Segui said he came forward because he knew eventually the names from the affidavit would leak and he did not want to increase suspicion by having to make a public statement. However, Segui said, "I truly don't feel like I have anything to hide."
Grimsley, most recently a pitcher with the Arizona Diamondbacks, was suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball last Monday, less than a week after federal agents raided his home during an investigation into performance-enhancing drugs.
Commissioner Bud Selig's office suspended Grimsley for violating baseball's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, based on his statements to authorities regarding human growth hormone.
According to court documents, authorities tracked a package containing two "kits" of HGH, about a season's worth, that was delivered at Grimsley's house on April 19. He failed a baseball drug test in 2003, documents showed.
Regarding his conversation with Grimsley, Segui said he told the pitcher, who at the time was recovering from Tommy John surgery on his elbow, to see a doctor and obtain human growth hormone legally.
"Do it under the doctor's supervision. And my exact words to him (Grimsley) were, if you're going to do it, do it the right way," Segui said on ESPN.
Despite his position that he did nothing wrong, Segui said that he respects that Major League Baseball has banned human growth hormone. "If that's what the rules are, then they're illegal,' he said.