Players reacted with both reservations and resignation to the news that Commissioner Bud Selig plans to beef up baseball’s steroid testing policy, even if it means acting unilaterally.
Pitcher Mark Prior, the Cubs’ player representative, said he didn’t know if the owners had to go to the union first or “if [Selig] has this almighty right to do whatever he wants.”
“He might, for all I know,” Prior said. “I’m not going to say it would be the worst thing [but] I assume [Selig’s] going to call the union and find out our opinions.
“I think the way everything is right now and the way everybody is heading into the season and the way it’s been speculated about–the problems, the game –it might, unfortunately, be the only way to clean up the integrity [of baseball], or at least make it seem like things are on the right track.”
Frank Thomas of the White Sox said he’s kept quiet because he knows something eventually would be done.
“We all know it’s illegal, but it’s over our heads,” Thomas said. “That’s why I haven’t said anything all spring because the bottom line is that it’s going to be handled and we’ve really got no choice.”
Dodgers infielder Robin Ventura seemed open to a change in the drug policy, saying the issue has become much bigger than when the collective bargaining agreement was signed two years ago.
Prior agreed, saying that when the agreement was signed, claims of widespread steroid abuse in baseball by former players Ken Caminiti and Jose Canseco were big stories that were widely discounted.
Distrust between players and owners complicates matters.
“We were told last spring that we were taking anonymous tests,” Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling said Wednesday. “[I’ve] come to find out that that’s not the case.”
He said if tests were administered by someone not aligned with the union or management, players would be overwhelmingly in favor of taking them.
While the tests last year were administered by third parties–Comprehensive Drug Testing and Quest Diagnostics–the results for some players have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury in California investigating illegal steroids and their distribution.
