Time to come clean

Players' union needs to get behind steroid testing in baseball

It's goofy, isn't it? Just when you've written off baseball owners as the gang that couldn't shoot straight, the rich guys fall into a PR winner.

Forget the backroom contraction schemes, the fuzzy bookkeeping and the commissioner parading his tired act up to Capitol Hill. If you think Jesse "The Body" Ventura jumping in Bud Selig's face is wild stuff, just catch the players' union shuck-and-jive when the subject turns to drugs. You'd think Cheech and Chong were in the house.

Union leadership has balked at any mention of "random, non-cause testing'' since the subject first came up in the early 1980s. Then the issue was recreational drug use -- specifically, cocaine. It was around the time you had four players (Willie Wilson, Jerry Martin, Vida Blue and Willie Aikens) busted in Kansas City and a group of at least 18 others either granted immunity to testify or identified in the Pittsburgh trial of a drug dealer.

Now it's about anabolic steroids -- which, at last check, are illegal unless prescribed by a doctor -- and an ever-increasing number of big leaguers resembling blown-up cartoon characters. The owners want to drug test. So far, the union persists in just saying no.

But the union can't be happy on a couple of developing fronts. First, a fair number of players have broken rank to advocate testing for performance-enhancing drugs. And this coming week, thanks to Senate hearings, the woes of steroid use will once again enjoy center-stage treatment.

You'd hope a Washington lawmaker might ask, "If testing for steroids is OK with the NFL, NBA and Olympic athletes -- then why are baseball players privileged characters?'' The union portrays testing as an invasion of privacy. Off the record, it suggests that the whole steroid issue is overstated, that there isn't yet enough research on the benefits and potential dangers.

This all sounds like a defense concocted on the fly. You'd assume union boss Don Fehr might be a tad bit more enlightened on the value of drug testing, especially since he enjoys a board seat on the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Another honcho with Olympic ties, Dick Pound, sits in his Montreal office, bemused at the predicament in which this country's pastime finds itself. As head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the former International Olympic Committee vice president is arguably the No. 1 voice on the subject of drugs in sports and, as might be expected, is pro drug testing.

"I think that is errant nonsense, as is the claim that 'Oh well, if we let management put in these requirements it is a downward slide and pretty soon labor will have no strength,'" says Pound of the union's position. "That is what you do if you have a defense mindset -- you delay. I don't think they're doing their athletes any favor. There's just too much evidence despite not having the same kind of rigorous study you'd like to have if you were trying out a product for which you were getting FDA approval. But it is quite clear that damage is done. Your injuries are more severe.''

And, hey, don't kid yourself -- the stuff works. They don't call them performance-enhancing drugs without a reason, right?

So the owners have themselves an issue they look good on as the two sides are hung up in contract negotiations. Ah, yes, ethical champions that they are, they don't want to be selling false heroes to America's youth. And they can pitch themselves as interested in protecting the players and the integrity of the game, even while the union has its head buried in the sand.

Q&A Frank Coonelly, a management labor lawyer, addressed the topic of steroids in baseball with CNNSI.com senior writer Mike Fish. CNNSI.com: What is the owners' position on steroids? Coonelly: We're extremely concerned about the health and safety risk that our players are taking, if in fact they are taking steroids. We're also concerned deeply about young kids who are going to emulate what they think is going on at the major league level. We want there to be no steroids in baseball. CNNSI.com: What has been the player union's reaction to the latest proposal for random drug testing? Coonelly: The union has not yet been any more receptive to our proposal that we engage in testing this time around than they were in previous rounds of bargaining when we made such proposals. I think, particularly with all the publicity regarding the dangers of steroids and the player revelations regarding the use of steroids, that things are going to be different this time. And that they are going to be receptive to a comprehensive, meaningful testing program that will insure everybody is playing on an equal playing field and nobody is taking risk to their health. CNNSI.com: Do you see the use of performance-enhancing drugs as an ethical or moral issue? Coonelly: Well, as matter of criminal law, the government has determined it is illegal to take these drugs. I think they did that because they concluded it was a dangerous substance. CNNSI.com: Could you explain why it is that the commissioner's office has in place a program to randomly drug test minor league players? Coonelly: Because all of the minor league players of teams affiliated with major club are employees of major league clubs. Minor league clubs that put on the games don't employee the players -- major league clubs do. So in our role as the major clubs' labor and administrative arm, we provide that support to the 30 major league clubs. We're not providing support to either the minor leagues or minor league clubs. We're providing this service and support to the major league clubs. CNNSI.com: What is baseball's position on the use of supplements such as Andro? Coonelly: They are not illegal, so they are not banned. Along with the players association, we commissioned a study at Harvard on Andro. It did indicate that it does produce high levels of testosterone, and we are continuing to study that issue.

"[The union] has expressed to us a suggestion that they are not so certain that steroids are bad for you," says Frank Coonelly, a management labor lawyer. "We don't share that view. We think that the evidence is clear that it is a danger for you. And in any event, it is illegal and we're not willing to have the players take the risk while the union or somebody else is conducting additional studies to attempt to prove that something that is outlawed by the federal government is really not dangerous.''

There's plenty of evidence out there that speaks to the dangerous side effects, including past testimony in Senate hearings by track and field athletes. Former NFL lineman Steve Courson has blamed steroid usage to his heart problems. Before his death 10 years ago, former NFL defensive lineman Lyle Alzado blamed his brain cancer on steroid use.

Ex-big leaguer Ken Caminiti told Sports Illustrated that he used steroids so heavily during his MVP season of 1996 that by the end of the year his testicles shrank and retracted. Meanwhile, doctors found his body had almost stopped producing natural testosterone and his level of the hormone had fallen to 20 percent of normal.

In 1991, I surveyed more than 500 retired NFL players and of the group 32 identified themselves as former steroid users. Almost one-quarter of them said they'd experienced side effects -- ranging from decreased sperm count, shrunken testicles, high blood pressure, aggressive behavior, abdominal cramps to severe headaches.

Get the picture? Score one for the owners.

But under federal labor law, drug testing, including tests for steroids, is a mandatory subject of bargaining and so the owners can't simply impose random testing. Management is still waiting to hear back on a plan proposed in February that would test three times a season for steroids, plus once for recreational drugs.

A similar plan was put in place before last season to twice a year randomly test minor leaguers, except for those on the major league 40-man rosters. The commissioner's office contracts with CDT, a Long Beach, Calif., laboratory -- with a first offense requiring participation in an educational program and subsequent offenses being subject to disciplinary action.

This is a nice first step, but anyone familiar with steroids knows that the time to crack down is in the offseason, when athletes are more likely to combine performance-enhancing drugs with intense workout regimens. That's why many Olympic sports have gone to unannounced out-of-competition testing.

So why shouldn't the players' union finally come around? If a 16-year-old has to drug test for a minimum wage gig at the local grocery story, why should a professional ballplayer be any different? Other pro athletes are tested, aren't they?

This is an industry with team payrolls topping $100 million and where nobody blinks at $10 million players. If you were an owner, you'd be silly not to do everything to insure you're getting your money's worth. The fact that the union has won out for this long is mind-boggling.

It's different this time, though. The players hung together on the earlier drug issue, because they could accept that if a fellow union member indulged in recreational drugs it didn't benefit him on the field. If anything, it hurt. Here, if he's pumping himself with steroids, there's an assumed advantage and the playing field is no longer level.

So on ethical grounds alone, this is an issue the union finally deserves to lose.

Mike Fish is a senior writer for CNNSI.com.

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