Bob Levey / Getty Images

Houston shortstop Miguel Tejada fights back tears as he makes a statement during a press conference Wednesday. Earlier in the day Tejada plead guilty to making misleading statements during a transcribed interview with congressional staffers in 2005 over the use of banned performance-enhancing substances in Major League Baseball.

When the judge asked Tejada whether he had taken any medicine, drugs or alcohol, legal or illegal, in the previous 24 hours that could affect his decision, Tejada answered softly, “Um, last night, I took a couple of drinks.” But he told the judge he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Toward the end of the proceedings, when Tejada was asked how he wished to plea, his voice cracked as he replied: “Guilty.” One of his lawyers patted him on the shoulder.

The shortstop has been a source of distractions during his short time in Houston. He was mentioned in the Mitchell Report on doping in baseball, the day after the Orioles traded him to the Astros in December 2007. Then, last year, Tejada admitted to Wade he was actually two years older than the team believed him to be.

The legal case grew out of the March 17, 2005, congressional hearings on steroids in baseball at which Mark McGwire refused “to talk about the past,” and Rafael Palmeiro — Tejada’s teammate with the Baltimore Orioles — jutted a finger at lawmakers and denied taking steroids.

Palmeiro was suspended by baseball later that year after failing a drug test. That House panel looked into whether Palmeiro should be investigated for perjury; he said the positive test must have been caused by a tainted B-12 vitamin injection given to him by Tejada.

That led investigators to Tejada, who was questioned at a Baltimore hotel. He was not under oath, but court documents say he was advised “of the importance of providing truthful answers.”

During that interview, Tejada told congressional staff “he had no knowledge of other players using or even talking about steroids or other banned substances,” court documents say.

But in the Mitchell Report, Oakland outfielder Adam Piatt is cited saying he discussed steroid use with Tejada and provided Tejada with testosterone and HGH. The report included copies of checks allegedly written by Tejada to Piatt in March 2003 for $3,100 and $3,200.

Congress decided not to ask the Justice Department to pursue charges against Palmeiro. But in January 2008, lawmakers referred Tejada to DOJ, a little more than a year before they asked that Clemens be investigated.

Before Tejada was allowed to leave the courtroom Wednesday, he was handed forms outlining the conditions of his release — weekly phone calls to check in, a standard drug test — and told to sign them. A man accustomed to putting his name on so many bats and balls forced to provide an autograph of a different sort.

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