Ueberroth’s Drug Plan Gains in Player Support

Players on several major league baseball teams indicated Wednesday that they are ready to participate in the kind of voluntary drug-testing program advocated by Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, but they insisted that Ueberroth must negotiate the precise arrangements with the players’ union.

In New York, a spokesman for the Major League Players Assn., although critical of Ueberroth for going around the labor group and straight to the players with his proposal Tuesday, said that the union is ready to negotiate and asked Ueberroth to submit a written proposal.

Ueberroth said he will issue a statement today outlining the next steps in his anti-drug campaign.

Although the commissioner had asked the players to respond, yes or no, to his voluntary testing proposal by Friday, he did not seem discouraged by the conditional response that seemed to be most common in club meetings Tuesday night and Wednesday.

“I’m pleased with the player reaction,” he said. “They’re considering the matter seriously and want to erase the amount of (public) doubt caused by drugs from the game.”

Among those endorsing Ueberroth’s basic concept--subject to a successful union negotiation--in a reportedly unanimous team vote were the San Diego Padres.

Padre first baseman Steve Garvey said of the drug problem: “It’s put a bad name on us. It’s been changing the public perception of us. . . . This has to go through appropriate channels. Once that’s put together, we’ll be making appropriate progress.”

Another of the teams lining up in favor of the voluntary testing program was the Pittsburgh Pirates, the main club involved in recent federal drug trials involving cocaine sales to major league players. Pirate Manager Chuck Tanner said that all but one player and the entire coaching staff voted in favor of a testing program, with the details to be determined by Ueberroth and the players’ union.

Jim Morrison, Pirate player representative and second baseman, said: “The players want drug testing but only with our union’s approval of the program. We are looking for ways of cleaning up baseball and showing the fans that baseball is a clean sport.”

Keith Moreland, Chicago Cubs player representative and right fielder, gave a more hesitant response after a Cub meeting. “I don’t want to make it sound like this is something we’re totally against. But . . . the commissioner did say (it) wouldn’t go into effect until 1986, so there is plenty of time for us to sit down and work something out on a voluntary basis,” he said.

The union leaders, Donald Fehr and Marvin Miller, have in the past strongly opposed testing as a violation of the players’ civil liberties, and Fehr’s first reaction Tuesday to Ueberroth’s proposal was to call it “silly . . . counterproductive . . . and likely to provoke confrontation.”

But the union appeared to have shifted its stance somewhat by Wednesday. Associate counsel Gene Orza said: “We’ll negotiate about anything they want to negotiate. . . . We will concentrate on the substance of the issue.”

Asked if the union would remain opposed to testing, Orza said: “I didn’t say that. Our membership will be consulted. I have little doubt we will discuss this matter over the next several days with the players.”

Orza and Dick Moss, a player agent who is the former counsel to the union and remains close to it, both accused Ueberroth of dirty pool for the way he had advanced his proposal. For weeks now, ever since Ueberroth had a hand in bringing about a settlement of the baseball strike to the players’ advantage, the union leadership has been nervous that the commissioner might succeed in bypassing the union and establishing direct links to the players on drug testing and other issues.

Orza said that in the five days before Ueberroth’s Tuesday news conference announcing his drug-testing proposal, Ueberroth had talked to Fehr three times but had not mentioned to him that he would call for immediate player meetings to discuss his proposal.

The counsel said that “a minimum sense of candor” would have compelled Ueberroth to let Fehr know what he intended to do. “The players are not appreciative of being bullied in that fashion,” he said. “No program is going to be successful unless it’s cooperative.”

Fehr, absent from his office because of a Jewish holiday, was unavailable for comment.

Moss said: “We’re willing to talk about the issue . . . as to how we can do something about the problem without destroying anybody’s dignity.” But he added: “What’s offensive to the union and the players is the attempt to bypass the players’ association.

“I think Peter Ueberroth has been in the forefront of keeping drugs and baseball in the headlines, and he’s done it for his own political advancement. It’s unfortunate.”

Ueberroth declined comment on that.

Actually, Tuesday’s press conference was the first time that Ueberroth had commented publicly on the drug issue in the weeks since the Pittsburgh drug trials began.

According to testimony, at least seven players purchased and used cocaine, and other players were implicated in amphetamine use. In one of the trials, a Philadelphia caterer, Curtis Strong, was convicted on 11 of 14 counts of distributing cocaine. The jury was deliberating a second case, against part-time disc jockey Robert McCue, Wednesday.

Before the trials began, Ueberroth indicated that he expected to move to end drug use in baseball before the end of the year. Last spring, acting within his authority, he ordered a mandatory testing program for minor league players and all front-office personnel. Major league players, however, are covered by a joint drug agreement negotiated last year by the union and management. Ueberroth does not have the authority to order mandatory testing for them.

Appearing Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” show, Ueberroth said: “I’m just saying let’s stand up and say that there’s no more drugs in baseball. And we’ll have to prove it. If we say it, it’s one thing. Secondly, we have to prove it.

“There will be a groundswell eventually,” he said. “It’s coming. . . . Baseball fans demand it, and basically, the majority of players who don’t touch the darn stuff have the right to be able to say their sport is clean. I think this is the sport that has to do it first.”

There is some backbiting over that point. National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle said over the weekend that Ueberroth ought to discipline those players mentioned in the Pittsburgh trial and in general be tougher on the issue. Ueberroth Tuesday said he was wrestling with the discipline question and would decide what to do after interviewing the players and looking further into their case.

According to Ueberroth’s voluntary testing proposal, those testing positive would be helped to cure their habit and would not be punished for it. It remains unclear from what Ueberroth has said what steps would be taken with those players not volunteering to be tested and yet found to be using drugs.

National Football League players have submitted to testing since 1982, when their union agreed to it.

In other baseball player reaction reported Wednesday:

--San Francisco Giants player representative and pitcher Jim Gott said he would undergo testing. “I don’t want anybody to question whether I’m using drugs because I’m not and I’m out there giving 100% every day. That’s the attitude of all the players here.” However, Gott said the Giants “want time to come back and say what we feel is the best way (to test).”

--Cincinnati Reds right fielder Dave Parker, who testified in Pittsburgh that he had used drugs over a six-year span, supported Ueberroth’s proposal but only as long as the players’ union was involved in the program. “I wouldn’t mind being tested for drugs and I don’t think there’s a guy in this clubhouse who would mind,” he said.

--Milwaukee Brewers player representative and third baseman Paul Molitor said the Ueberroth proposal “didn’t come through the proper channels. The joint drug agreement was established between management and the union. That agreement is still in effect. Anything that alters that should go through the union.”

--The New York Mets voted unanimously to support the plan, if negotiated by the union. But players on some teams, such as the Seattle Mariners and Kansas City Royals, declined to take any position pending such talks. The Atlanta Braves also decided not to vote, with players saying they wanted to know the details of how the testing would be administered.