Not so fast

Just over a week since new House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Edolphus Towns said he wasn't interested in hearing from Alex Rodriguez, Congressman Steve Lynch held a different stance Thursday, saying they haven't ruled it out

"I'd say it's still a possibility," said Lynch (D - MA) on the sports-talk show I'm Just Sayin' Thursday night. "It depends what facts come to light in the coming weeks.

"We thought that with the Clemens case, and the Justice Department's movement on that, that we were actually at the point of maybe getting closure on some of this, and that's been blown away by this last revelation. I have to say that having listened to the press conference that Alex Rodriguez had [Tuesday], it raises as many questions as it answered."

What's true and what's not remains to be seen, other than the fact that Rodriguez' cousin does actually exist in Yuri Sucart, as first reported on ESPN.com.

And it's Sucart's alleged transportation of steroids into the U.S. from the Dominican Republic that could be the reason this issue gets to Capitol Hill.

"That may be an individual offense in itself that needs to be addressed by the authorities," said Lynch. "This is a controlled substance. That's sort of how we look at this. It's no different than if it was heroin or opium, or any other of the listed substances that our committee has jurisdiction over. It is a controlled substance, and it would appear that at least some of this activity is in violation of that."

Lynch watched Rodriguez' press conference, and found many gaps in his statement, and how he was addressing the issue.

"He spoke to it as a violation of a baseball rule, at a time when it wasn't punishable, but that is not the case with our committee," said Lynch. "We're looking at violations of the controlled substance act. Certainly that's a more serious offense, and so, looking at it from our standpoint, on the committee, he hasn't begun to address some of the issues that we have."

Lynch stressed that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform would prefer Major League Baseball to police itself, especially during the country's economic hardships, but if they're forced to step in, they will do so again, as Congress plans to call Major League Baseball to Washington at some point in the future to discuss this issue.

"For an explanation, certainly," said Lynch. "They won't be subpoenaed, by any stretch, but I think they'll be required to give Congress a briefing on what all this represents. And we will want to know what their response will be to all of this.

"We do that on occasion, out of the spotlight. Usually it precedes a formal hearing, where we subpoena people, if necessary, and call them in. But in this case I think Congress, and the committee especially, is just looking for an explanation on this."

Congress will ask why the list of 104 players wasn't destroyed, like it was supposed to be, under the collective bargaining agreement in 2003, and now leaving the knowledge of 103 more anonymous names out in the open.

Though he said there's plenty of speculation as to who leaked Rodriguez' name, Lynch couldn't confirm anybody at this point. He also believes that if the rest of that list is revealed, it could lead to something bigger than we could ever expect.

"I don't know how this one name came up," said Lynch. "Could the same source decide to just dump the other 103 names and put it in the public domain? I can't rule that out.

"If someone were to try to go back and open up the records of all 103 remaining players, I think there'd be great liability attached to that, because apparently, Major League Baseball, and perhaps the testing company are the only people who have authorization or custody of those records. There may be a huge liability anyways, because the records were not supposed to be disclosed, but certainly, if there are 103 players in addition to what we have now, with 103 attorneys, suing baseball and the testing agency, I think it would be a huge mess at that point."

Danny Picard can be heard as the host of Boston's newest drive-time sports talk show - I'm Just Sayin' - weeknights from 4-6 p.m. on WBNW 1120 AM and YouCastr.com.