Players support harsher penalty for steroids
NEW YORK – Baseball players offered to accept a stiffer penalty for first-time steroid offenders – 20 games instead of 10 days – along with agreeing to amphetamine tests, but their proposal Monday still fell short of what commissioner Bud Selig wanted.
In an April 25 letter to the union, Selig called for a 50-game suspension for an initial positive test, a 100-game ban for second-time offenders and a lifetime ban for a third violation.
Union head Donald Fehr’s response said Selig’s proposal was meant to quiet criticisms of baseball’s current policy, not deter steroid use.
“We share your concern about the criticism our program has received, and, in response, the players have demonstrated, several times now, their willingness to take all reasonable measures in response,” Fehr wrote.
Nine players have been suspended this year under the MLB program, with Baltimore’s Rafael Palmeiro the most prominent.
“Doubling it is good,” Orioles player representative Jay Gibbons said. “I think 10 is a little light.
“Ten you can get away with as a team. You can do without a guy for 10 days, but 20, you’re kind of hurting your ballclub, too. Not just your own public scrutiny, but you’re hurting your ballclub to win.”
Fehr’s letter came ahead of Wednesday’s congressional hearings on steroids in sports, the latest in a series of sessions on Capitol Hill. Selig and Fehr are expected to join the commissioners and union heads of the NFL, NBA and NHL in testifying about legislation to standardize testing and punishment policies.
“It’s good to see the players’ union moving in the right direction. But it remains to be seen whether this is good enough for members of Congress,” said Rob White, spokesman for House Government Reform Committee chairman Tom Davis, R-Va.
In a telephone interview, Fehr said he released the union’s position because of the upcoming hearing and to ensure players are up to date before they scatter when the regular season ends Sunday. He’s met separately with players on all 30 teams since April “to give everybody an opportunity to weigh in who wanted to.
“We knew we were dealing with 2006 all along. I never saw the crisis to do something in a short-circuited process,” he said.
Fehr said the sides disagree “on what the first penalty should be and the first penalty range.”
“We always thought there was a need for a review,” he said. “You don’t have a cookie-cutter approach.”
Some congressmen have criticized baseball for not adopting the standard of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which in most cases calls for two-year suspensions for first offenses and lifetime bans for second positives.