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March 12, 2003
The White Sox Walkout
Now this is probably baseball's biggest story today, one I missed when I didn't check the wires closely enough last night: Sixteen members of the Chicago White Sox seemed willing Tuesday to be labeled as failing a steriods test and submit themselves to a treatment program in order to make testing in Major League Baseball mandatory through 2005. Why is this significant? We need to remember, the Players Association and the owners came to an agreement on this back in August. For any player who was taking steroids, the initial announcement of this first round of testing was an early warning siren to lay off the juice during the offseason. Next, the owners and the Players Association could announce that fewer than 2.5 percent of the players had tested positive, and that there really wasn't any steroid problem in baseball. Hence, there would be no more testing as per the labor agreement. Here's what I said about this last August: So what we're really looking at is simply a negotiating position for the union. Have to like the built-in "sunset provision" that's part of this proposal -- something that would essentially give players a season to drop steroid use, or utilize masking agents, to get the number of players exposed down to less than five percent. Then, bingo, no more steroid testing. Please note that in the interim, the threshold for continued testing was dropped to 2.5 percent. After this action, even a doubter about baseball and steroids like Dave Pinto sounds like he's ready to keep an open mind on the subject now. As for me, it seems as if the preponderance of the evidence against baseball is growing everyday. If baseball was really serious about testing for steroids and banned substances in a way that was designed to clean up the game, they'd adopt random and unannounced testing just as the NFL has. In pro football, the commissioner's office picks six players at random every Monday morning during the regular season who have to be tested. It's worked to counter the issue inside the NFL, and I think it would work for baseball too.
Eric
12:52 PM
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsPlus, way to stab a union which has done, by any account, pretty well for its members over the years in the back. Posted by: at March 13, 2003 02:19 PM The Sox should have gone through with it. I am sure they are sick of seeing a certain rightfielder-who amazingly went from looking like the probverbial wimp getting sand kicked in his face to Charles Atlas--in town getting all the attention from the sycophants that make up the Chicago sports press. Posted by: at March 14, 2003 11:32 AM Post a commentThanks for signing in, . (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |