Spencer Lader wants to take Carlos Delgado down with him

Matthew Pouliot

Jan 27, 2013, 7:58 PM EDT

19 Comments

If you don’t know who Spencer Lader is, that’s OK. Don’t feel bad. Still, the New York Daily News thought he was important enough to dedicate an article to his rantings, mostly because he’s trying desperately to connect Carlos Delgado to steroids.

Sports memorabilia dealer Spencer Lader and other defendants in the case want [Jose] Reyes, now with the Blue Jays, to tell them under oath what he knows about Delgado’s relationship with Anthony Galea, the controversial Toronto sports medicine doctor — and human growth hormone proponent — who pleaded guilty in July 2011 to transporting misbranded and unapproved drugs into the United States.

“I’m not saying Delgado used steroids, but I do have a right to know if he did,” Lader says. “We thought his name had commercial value, but everybody knows players linked to steroids have no commercial value.

“I want to be the first person in memorabilia to keep these people accountable.”

Ummm, no. You want to make money.

Here’s the case: Delgado is suing Lader and other defendants, saying them owe him at least $767,500 under the terms of the an exclusive memorabilia deal agreed to in 2006.

Lader, apparently, thinks his best defense is trying to get Reyes to say Delgado used steroids, something that seems both highly unlikely to happen and very irrelevant anyway. If Delgado’s memorabilia proved next to worthless, it certainly had nothing to do with him being connected to steroids, because no one really ever linked him with steroids until Lader.

Lader does make some other claims, of course, including the funny note than Delgado would sign Alex Rodriguez bats for Lader instead of his own. The article closes with one little gem:

Delgado never did reach the 500 home run club. He hit 473 home runs in a career that ended with a whimper. Delgado played in just 26 games for the Mets in 2009 before his season ended that May with hip surgery. Hip problems are a long-term side effect of performance-enhancing drug use, Lader notes.

Yeah, let’s just take his word for it. After all, it fits right in with the Daily News trying to link steroids and A-Rod’s hip injury last month.

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