Incredibly, he’s got time for investigative reporting and playing bass for Velvet Revolver. The New York Times’ Duff Wilson on the latest black eye for MLB.

Dr. Elliot J. Pellman, the medical adviser for Major League Baseball whose recent testimony to Congress praised baseball’s steroids policy and challenged its critics, has exaggerated his educational and professional credentials.

Dr. Pellman, who is also team doctor for the Jets and the Islanders and a former president of the National Football League Physicians Society, has said repeatedly in biographical statements that he has a medical degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

But Dr. Pellman attended medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico, and he received a medical degree from the New York State Education Department after a one-year residency at SUNY Stony Brook, state records show. He does not hold an M.D. from Stony Brook, according to Dan Rosett, a university hospital spokesman.

In papers sent to Harvard University for a seminar and to the House Committee on Government Reform, which held the hearings on steroids in baseball two weeks ago, Dr. Pellman identified himself as an associate clinical professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

But he is an assistant clinical professor, a lower-ranking and honorary position that is held by thousands of doctors, a medical college official said. Dr. Pellman does not teach at Albert Einstein.

In interviews this week, Dr. Pellman, 51, said he had not tried to mislead anybody about his credentials. He characterized the errors as minor and said he would correct them. And he primarily blamed other people, including his secretary and the Jets, for the discrepancies.

“In a way, I thank you, because those discrepancies are not important enough to be there, and they have all been fixed,” he said in a telephone interview yesterday.

But Dr. Dan Brock, director of Harvard Medical School’s Division of Medical Ethics, said, “If I told you I graduated from medical school in the United States, and I went to Guadalajara, then I think I would have deliberately misled you, so I would say that was unethical.”

When informed of the errors in Dr. Pellman’s biography, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, who is the ranking minority member on the House committee, said in a statement yesterday: “Major League Baseball told us Dr. Pellman was their foremost expert, but he was unable to answer even basic questions about the league’s steroid policy at the hearing. This new information raises further questions about his credibility and the credibility of baseball’s steroid policy.”

Robert White, a spokesman for Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia, who is the chairman of the House committee, said he was “stunned” that baseball would send “a doctor with a questionable résumé.”

Rob Manfred, baseball’s executive vice president, said the errors were insignificant. He said Dr. Pellman had disclosed his Guadalajara education to baseball on his résumé. He said it was unfair to criticize Dr. Pellman for the false listing of an M.D. from SUNY in the “Reader’s Digest version” of his bio from the Jets.

“I don’t see why it should impact his credibility, I really don’t,” Mr. Manfred said.


(Dr. Pellman, far left, supervising the amputation of John Abraham’s foot at the Meadowlands last autumn)

Perhaps George O’Leary would like this job?