NYT: Lawyer Says 2003 Clemens Drug Test Was Negative (RR)

Cool!  Now we’re working backwards to see who’s on the list. 686 to go!

In recent months, Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa have been linked to the list of 100 or so players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, the first season such tests were conducted by Major League Baseball. But Roger Clemens is not on that list, says his lead lawyer, Rusty Hardin.

In telephone interviews this week, Hardin described how he obtained Clemens’s test results, then handed them over to Congress. Hardin said that before Clemens testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in February 2008, the panel requested the results of his 2003 test; under baseball’s agreement with the players union, those initial tests were supposed to remain anonymous.

Hardin said that after the panel’s request, one of the lawyers on Clemens’s defense team contacted Comprehensive Drug Testing, the company that oversaw the 2003 testing program, and said that Clemens would waive his right to have the results kept private. Hardin said the drug-testing company provided him with the results for Clemens and he then forwarded them to the House committee.

“The results show Roger was negative in every respect, performance-enhancing drugs and masking agents,” Hardin said.