Newton Citizen

ATLANTA - Eleven former Atlanta Braves were named on the Mitchell Report list of Major League Baseball players connected to steroids, including former All-Star David Justice.

Gary Sheffield, Wally Joyner and Ken Caminiti were other All-Star players on the list, although Joyner was with Atlanta for just one season late in his career and Caminiti for only 64 games in 2001.

Other former Braves named as being linked to either use or possession of steroids were pitchers Denny Neagle, Kent Mercker and Mike Stanton, utility player Matt Franco and catcher Todd Pratt.

Pitchers Paul Byrd and John Rocker were cited under 'Alleged Internet Purchases of Performance Enhancing Substances ...'

The report noted that Sheffield, who played in Atlanta in 2002 and 2003, was among those linked through the BALCO scandal.

Justice is probably the most closely identified with Atlanta, where he was NL rookie of the year in 1990 and hit the winning solo homer in a 1-0 victory over the Indians in Game Six of the 1995 World Series, which gave the Braves their only title.

Byrd, who was with the Braves in 1997 and 1998 and again in 2004 and now pitches for Cleveland, was linked by the San Francisco Chronicle to purchases of human growth hormone between August 2002 and January 2005. The report surfaced toward the end of the American League Championship Series, when Byrd said he took HGH for a medical condition and did so under a doctor's supervision.

In March, after his name was linked to a nationwide investigation into the illegal sale of steroids through a prescription list of a raided pharmacy company, Rocker said he never had such a prescription. He said he had been advised by physicians to buy non-prescription growth hormones to treat an injured arm. However, HGH is not legally available anywhere over the counter.