Ueberroth Mum on Discipline for Cocaine Scandal Players

Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth plans to have face-to-face meetings early next year with as many as 40 major league players who testified or were implicated in the Pittsburgh cocaine-trafficking scandal that shook the sport earlier this year.

The individual meetings will include “two or three management personnel,” Ueberroth said in answering written questions after a luncheon speech at the National Press Club. He gave no hint on the course of action he is considering.

He did say, however, that he has told major league general managers of the impending interviews and has advised the executives that, if a player is called before the commissioner, it does not mean he will be unavailable for the 1986 season.

“The subject will be reviewed carefully, but I’m not going to make judgments on any individual at all until that individual has a chance to sit down and review the facts as they were in the case, review the other facts that have come to light, discuss it with me and talk about ways that we can jointly eliminate this problem from our game,” he said.

With major league owners and the players’ association once again at sharp odds over the sensitive issue of drug tests for players, the commissioner carefully avoided specifics, but he predicted that there will be a drug agreement.

“I think as long as you protect somebody’s privacy and get some help, testing should be included in baseball,” he declared.

In the wake of the major league owners breaking off the drug agreement put into effect last year, the players’ union has charged the commissioner and management with unfair labor practices and asked the National Labor Relations Board to call hearings and render a judgment.

Ueberroth did not downplay the seriousness of baseball’s drug scandal. But when he was pressed to say whether players involved with drugs should remain in the game, he responded:”I think baseball players can’t be considered much different from the rest of society. It’s unfair to make commitments until I have had a chance to talk with each of them individually, so I won’t.”

Aside from his serious and cautious responses to a string of questions on the drug issue, Ueberroth dealt with questions ranging from his own political aspirations to former President Nixon’s possible mediation of baseball’s labor-management crises.

He answered with a flat “no” when he was asked whether he intends to run for the Senate and gave the same answer when asked whether he could foresee asking Nixon to help out, as major league umpires did last month.

Ueberroth also told his audience that he:

--Opposes the use of instant video replays to back up umpires. “Umpires have integrity,” he said, “but they are going to miss one once in a while--if they do, so be it.”

--Believes Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, must be lighted if it is to serve as a major league ballpark. “In my opinion, if Wrigley Field doesn’t have lights . . . sometime in the future, it won’t be a field,” he said.

--Is studying the possibility of a series between an all-rookie major league all-star team and a similar team from Japan.