Orange County Register

TEMPE, Ariz.

Darren Oliver said he had to pull over to the side of the road when he got “the dreaded call.”

“I was like, ‘Hey, man, what’s going on?’” the Angels left-hander said. “‘Uh — what??’”

The call came from his financial advisors a couple weeks ago informing Oliver that he was one of several professional athletes caught up in an $8 billion investment scheme hatched by Texas financier Robert Allen Stanford. Stanford is under investigation by the federal government for fraud.

“Eight billion dollars. That’s greed, man,” Oliver said incredulously. “What — $8 billion isn’t enough?”

Oliver has had some credit cards and bank accounts frozen as a result of the federal investigation. He said his investment goes “pretty deep — just like everyone else.” But the freeze hasn’t prevented him from paying his bills and his optimistic he will get the assets back at some point.

“It’s not gone. It’s only frozen,” Oliver said. “If it were gone, I’d be real upset. But we just have to ride it out.

“I’m glad it didn’t happen in October (after his final paycheck for 2008). That might have been tough. I might have been in here (the Angels’ clubhouse) asking guys for gas money to get through the spring.”

Oliver said he was guilty of not delving too deep into his own finances, relying instead on advisors. That has changed. He reads the Wall Street Journal daily now, he said, and with a much more intense focus.

“You read that stuff (about frauds like Stanford and Bernie Madoff) but you really don’t understand it,” he said. “You read about people getting caught up in it and go, ‘What an idiot.’ When it’s you, you start paying attention.”

Other major-leaguers identified as being involved with the Stanford Financial Group include Adrian Beltre, Mike Pelfrey, Johnny Damon, Xavier Nady, Carlos Pena, Jacoby Ellsbury and Scott Eyre — but Oliver says “there’s gotta be more guys” caught up in the scheme.

“That’s not the people I feel bad for, though,” he said. “I feel bad for the people who had their pensions, their savings tied up in it. Retired people who were counting on living off that money.

“I read about one (case) where a father had given his money to his son to invest (with Stanford). Now he won’t talk to him. That’s wrong.”

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