Dodger Notebook : Drug Testing to Be Resolved Soon: Fehr

If Donald Fehr, executive director of the Major League Players Assn., is correct, the drug-testing controversy in major league baseball may be decided for good before the start of the 1986 season.

Fehr said here Monday that the union’s grievance regarding drug-testing clauses in player contracts will be heard by an arbitrator in the next few weeks.

“It’ll probably be the end of this month or the first week of April,” said Fehr, who along with aide Mark Belanger met here with Dodger players as part of their tour of spring training camps.

“The fact of the matter is that it will be over in 30 days or so,” he said. “If the arbitrator rules in our favor, none of the drug-testing language will be enforceable at all. It will be just as if it didn’t exist.”

Fehr said that on Friday in Scottsdale, Ariz., an arbitrator also will rule on a grievance filed by the union on behalf of Joel Youngblood, who agreed to contract terms with the San Francisco Giants this winter but refused to sign a drug-testing clause.

Youngblood was invited by the Giants to training camp but has refused to work out, pending the resolution of the grievance.

“He’s out of baseball because he wouldn’t sign a clause fast enough to suit the club,” Fehr said. “The Youngblood case is being heard on an expedited basis, with no prejudice against the other case. There will be no precedent set. We have to try both cases, whether we win or we lose.”

Commissioner Peter Ueberroth has advocated the use of drug testing to combat drug use in baseball, and estimates are that about half of the big league players have drug-testing clauses in their contracts.

Asked for his estimate, Fehr said: “I don’t know. Legally, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10 or 10,000. . . . The players who sign those clauses know we have the challenge, and, if we’re right, they’re unenforceable.”

Fehr’s predecessor, Marvin Miller, had suggested that the union was “under siege” and that too many players had reverted to individual action rather than turning to the union for leadership.

“I don’t think things are falling apart,” Fehr said. “We had a circumstance this year where a lot of players responded to pressure from their clubs on an individual basis. They did that knowing we had an overall grievance pending. That will, hopefully, take care of it.”

Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser said that in his meeting with the players, Fehr still maintained that the terms of the now-defunct drug agreement were the best way to address the problem.

“Under the old plan, you could test any player in baseball (for drugs) if there was just cause,” Hershiser said. “Now you can test everybody.”

Hershiser’s contract went to arbitration this winter and thus does not contain a drug-testing clause. Asked if Fehr predicted the outcome of the grievance hearing to the players, Hershiser said:

“He said for sure we’d win. A lot of unions in the United States will be in trouble if we lose.”

Fehr left little doubt regarding his personal view of drug testing.

“I think you’re talking about real important stuff here,” he said. “You’re talking about whether a society will operate on a premise that you don’t accuse somebody without proof. You don’t require him to testify against himself. That you don’t invade his privacy, in this case by the search of bodily fluids, without a good reason to do so.

” . . . or wheTher we are going to live in a society where the accepted behavior is to suspect everybody. To demand people to prove themselves innocent, and if somebody is unwilling to prove himself innocent, you assume . . . even without evidence, that he is, in fact, guilty. That’s pretty serious stuff.

“It is interesting that this whole drama is being played out with baseball players. . . . I think we are seeing the beginnings of the first serious national debate (on the issue). Do we really want 220 million Americans tested for drugs all the time . . . Is that what we really want? Is that the kind of place you want to live in? I don’t.”

Three days ago, the agent for Dodger shortstop Mariano Duncan was quoted as saying there was no way he would accept the Dodgers’ final contract offer of $150,000 for the 1986 season. Better, agent Tony Attanasio said, that the Dodgers renew Duncan’s contract at a lesser figure--in this case, $135,000--than for Duncan to accept unsatisfactory terms.

But in an apparent change of heart, Attanasio reversed himself before the Dodgers could officially file for renewal. Monday, the Dodgers announced that Duncan had signed a new contract, and though terms were not announced, sources confirmed that Duncan had agreed to the $150,000 figure.

“Prior to officially filing the renewal papers, we received a call from Duncan’s representative, Tony Attanasio, expressing an interest in signing,” Dodger Vice President Al Campanis said in a statement released by the club. “We are very happy we were able to reach a mutual agreement.”

Duncan, who made the major-league minimum of $60,000 last season, will be paid the same as Vince Coleman, the National League Rookie of the Year whose contract was renewed by the St. Louis Cardinals. Duncan was believed to be seeking $200,000.

Dodger Notes Orel Hershiser left his first game of the spring behind, 2-0, to the Boston Red Sox Monday afternoon. But even before Hershiser had reached the Dodger clubhouse after working the first three innings, he had been taken off the hook, as the Dodgers scored twice in the top of the fourth before losing, 7-6. “Better not waste any of these,” Hershiser said afterward. “You can’t go 19-3 unless they come back.” Hershiser, who gave up seven hits in three innings, said: “I had no control, but I felt good. This is the first day I threw any curve balls, and that’s what they were ripping everywhere.”