Player agents in Major League Baseball referred clients to a doctor in California who illegally wrote prescriptions for performance-enhancing drugs, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday by federal authorities....

The players were referred to Scruggs by agents "for the purposes of obtaining anabolic steroids and other drugs which those individuals knew to be banned by Major League Baseball and therefore unavailable to the players through lawful medical channels absent the illegal prescripts provided by Scruggs," the indictment said....

The indictment did not name any players or agents, and did not specify how many players might have been involved, although lawyers familiar with the case have said it is expected to be less than a dozen.