2008 Woodie Awards
Baseball Under A Microscope
Art LaPenotiere
Issue date: 4/21/04 Section: Sports and Wellness
Baseball is in the midst of finding out what most of us already knew: that putting the metaphorical toothpaste back into the tube just isn't possible.
The sweet, sticky stuff began oozing out years ago when baseball's players' union laid a couple of serious whippings on the owners. Players decided to flex their muscles by striking, and, in the Reader's Digest version of history, the owners folded up like a cheap lawn chair. From there, the players were in control and it was all downhill for their employers after that.
But at the last collective bargaining agreement meetings, baseball owners realized they had some public opinion on their side and took a strong stand on the issue of drug and steroid testing - or at least as strong as the owners can get. Realizing that they stood no chance of getting a salary cap system from the players, the owners got a concession of sorts on the substance abuse issue. They might have been better off if they hadn't even brought it up.
Essentially, the players union said its members would submit to drug testing program if the owners would agree to random, anonymous testing in the first year, and thus no disciplinary program. The owners countered by insisting that if five per cent of the anonymous tests yielded positive results, then a rehabilitation/disciplinary system would automatically kick in the following year. The players reluctantly took what it hoped would be a minor concession.
Instead, it turned out to be something just short of an apocalypse for the sport.
In that first year of what was to be random, anonymous testing, just over seven percent of all major league baseball players tested positive for an illegal or banned substance. And as a result, in the 2004 season, testing continues, and the agreed upon rehab/disciplinary system is in effect. It would be nice if that was the end of the story.
But in between, a nutritional laboratory in San Francisco was raided, and a new designer steroid was discovered. THG had been undetectable using conventional testing methods. Almost immediately, scientists developed a test for the new steroid. But while that was happening, a California grand jury investigating the BALCO lab thought it would be a good idea to subpoena records from the anonymous, random tests conducted by baseball the previous year. The players' union didn't really mind - until they found out that the tests had been deemed confidential but not anonymous by the lords of baseball.
The sweet, sticky stuff began oozing out years ago when baseball's players' union laid a couple of serious whippings on the owners. Players decided to flex their muscles by striking, and, in the Reader's Digest version of history, the owners folded up like a cheap lawn chair. From there, the players were in control and it was all downhill for their employers after that.
But at the last collective bargaining agreement meetings, baseball owners realized they had some public opinion on their side and took a strong stand on the issue of drug and steroid testing - or at least as strong as the owners can get. Realizing that they stood no chance of getting a salary cap system from the players, the owners got a concession of sorts on the substance abuse issue. They might have been better off if they hadn't even brought it up.
Essentially, the players union said its members would submit to drug testing program if the owners would agree to random, anonymous testing in the first year, and thus no disciplinary program. The owners countered by insisting that if five per cent of the anonymous tests yielded positive results, then a rehabilitation/disciplinary system would automatically kick in the following year. The players reluctantly took what it hoped would be a minor concession.
Instead, it turned out to be something just short of an apocalypse for the sport.
In that first year of what was to be random, anonymous testing, just over seven percent of all major league baseball players tested positive for an illegal or banned substance. And as a result, in the 2004 season, testing continues, and the agreed upon rehab/disciplinary system is in effect. It would be nice if that was the end of the story.
But in between, a nutritional laboratory in San Francisco was raided, and a new designer steroid was discovered. THG had been undetectable using conventional testing methods. Almost immediately, scientists developed a test for the new steroid. But while that was happening, a California grand jury investigating the BALCO lab thought it would be a good idea to subpoena records from the anonymous, random tests conducted by baseball the previous year. The players' union didn't really mind - until they found out that the tests had been deemed confidential but not anonymous by the lords of baseball.
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