Committee Head Urges Drug Tests for Players

Players named in court as having been involved with drugs should be asked to undergo testing by their teams, the head of the committee that reviews suspected drug abuse in major league baseball said Tuesday.

Dr. Donald Ottenberg, chairman of baseball’s three-member Joint Review Committee, made his comments during a panel discussion here on “The Drug Problem as Seen in Today’s Professional Athlete” at the HealthCare Expo ’85.

“In my opinion, any information of a new player named in a court of law is sufficient reason for management to ask for testing,” Ottenberg said.

Under baseball’s agreement with the players’ association, a team may not require unannounced urine tests of its players. It may, however, ask for tests of players suspected of drug dependency.

On Monday, Dale Shiffman, one of seven men charged with selling drugs to players, pleaded guilty in federal court in Pittsburgh to 20 drug trafficking charges. An assistant U.S. prosecutor said that had the case gone to trial, Pirate pitcher Rod Scurry was prepared to testify that he had bought drugs from Shiffman.

In subsequent trials in Pittsburgh, as many as eight players, all of whom have been promised immunity from prosecution, are expected to testify.

“There is a drug problem in baseball but we do not know the extent of it,” Ottenberg said, adding: “There is no evidence whatsoever that it is a runaway problem. In fact, there is some evidence it is waning.

“We have not had a new case of substantive use in two years. What we have had is relapses,” Ottenberg said.

The New York Times, meanwhile, in the second of a series of articles on cocaine abuse by major leaguers, reported in Tuesday’s editions that John McHale, president of the Montreal Expos, blamed cocaine use for his team’s failure to win its division championship in 1982, when the team generally was considered to be the best in the National League.

Tim Raines, a sensation as a rookie in 1981, was the only one of the ’82 Expos to be publicly identified as a cocaine user and voluntarily entered a treatment center after the season.

“Now that I look back, I probably was the only one that did undergo treatment, but I wasn’t the only one that needed to,” Raines is quoted as saying.

Raines said that he became involved with cocaine through older teammates and became a heavy user, using cocaine virtually every day.

“I had it in little gram bottles that I kept in my pocket,” Raines said. “Actually, a lot of times I would put it in my batting glove and then in my pocket. I was trying to find ways of not getting caught.”

When he slid into a base, Raines said, he protected his investment. “Usually, when I carried it in my pocket, I’d go in head first,” he said.

In 1982, Raines’ batting average dropped 27 points to .277. In 1981, he stole once out of every 1.97 times he reached base; in 1982, he stole once out of every 3.26 times.

“I struck out a lot more,” Raines said. “My vision was lessened. A lot of times I’d go up to the plate and the ball was right down the middle and I’d jump back, thinking it was at my head. The umpire would call it a strike and I’d start arguing. He’d say, ‘That ball was right down the middle.’ When you’re on drugs, you don’t feel you’re doing anything wrong.”

Lonnie Smith, an admitted heavy user when he played the outfield for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1983, was quoted in the Times as saying: “I think it slowed me down, not just running but my mental thinking. I wasn’t as alert.

“Look at my defense. It seemed like I was averaging two or three errors a game. I was getting picked off. Everything I swung at was away.”

Said Lee MacPhail, president of the club owners’ Player Relations Committee, who also took part in Tuesday’s discussion: “I think the Times gives an unfortunate and inaccurate slant to the problem. All of the information in the Times article occurred two to three years ago. We have had none of this since the joint review council was initiated.”

MacPhail, meanwhile, lay baseball’s inability to get a handle on the drug problem on the players’ union.