Hearst Corp. wants the federal government to explain why it unsealed a sworn statement containing names of players implicated by former Mets' clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski after telling a court the information had to remain secret. In a four-page brief filed Friday with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Hearst said the government, "May have been violating the very same sealing order it was defending" when it gave former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell permission to publish the names of players accused of using performance-enhancing drugs by Radomski. Hearst contends they were the same names contained in the affidavit of IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitzky. When Novitzky's Dec. 2005 affidavit was initially made public in April, names of the players he implicated were blacked out. Hearst, on behalf of the San Francisco Chronicle and Albany Times Union, went to court in June asking that the complete affidavit be made public. The U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco and the Major League Baseball Players Association opposed the request, and in September U.S. District Judge Thomas C. Platt in Central Islip ruled there was no public right to the names.