Baseball to Get IOC’s Advice

The International Olympic Committee plans to lobby major league baseball and other professional sports in the United States to conform with the Olympics’ drug policy, including a ban on the muscle-building compound used by Mark McGwire.

Patrick Schamasch, IOC medical director, confirmed Monday that he would meet with baseball officials to encourage them to adopt the IOC’s list of banned substances.

“I don’t want to focus on one substance, but I will say, ‘Let’s harmonize the list,’ ” Schamasch said.

McGwire, who hit his 62nd home run last week to break Roger Maris’ record, has acknowledged that he has used the performance-enhancing supplement androstenedione for the past year. But he has denied doing anything wrong, saying androstenedione was perfectly safe and legal and used by may other major leaguers.

While andro, as it’s popularly known, is banned by the NCAA, NFL and many international federations, it is not prohibited by major league baseball.

Androstenedione was added to the IOC’s banned list last year under the category of anabolic androgenic steroids.

IOC officials, gathered in Seoul for executive board meetings, said androstenedione should be prohibited in all sports.

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The IOC also declared its opposition to the possibility of athletes being jailed for taking banned performance-enhancing drugs.

The Australian Olympic Committee last month said the penalty for possession, manufacturing, trafficking and use of steroids and other banned substances should be the same as those for illicit narcotics.

There has been speculation the proposal could raise the prospect of an athlete being put in prison for failing a drug test during the 2000 Sydney Games.

AOC President John Coates said he never proposed that athletes should be jailed for a positive test, only if they were caught trafficking in drugs.

Tennis

Second-seeded Richard Fromberg of Australia defeated unseeded Razvan Sabau of Romania, 6-7 (7-4), 6-2, 6-3, to advance to the second round of the Romanian Open at Bucharest. . . . Unseeded Vadim Volchkov of Belarus upset David Prinosil of Germany, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, on the opening day of the President’s Cup at Tashkent, Uzbekistan. . . .Top-seeded Alberto Berasategui of Spain won his opening-round match in the Samsung Open at Bournemouth, England, defeating Nick Gould of Britain, 6-4, 7-6 (7-4).

Boxing

Jesus Salud (58-9) scored a second-round knockout over David Vazquez (13-4-1) in a junior featherweight fight and Santo Cardona (37-7) had a ninth-round knockout of Willie Wise (23-5-4) to retain his NABO welterweight championship at the Great Western Forum.

Names in the News

A visibly nervous Marv Albert made a low-key return to broadcasting with a 30-minute New York sports highlight show for the MSG cable network, a year after his career imploded in a lurid scandal.

A year earlier, Albert had resigned from MSG and was fired by NBC after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge.

Volker Frischke, a former East German swimming coach on trial at Berlin for allegedly giving anabolic steroids to seven female swimmers in the 1970s, paid a $3,000 fine as part of a deal with prosecutors to have the charges against him dropped. . . . Billy Soose, a former middleweight boxing champion, is dead at the age of 83. He died Sept. 5 in Honesdale, Pa., after a stroke. . . . Former NHL goaltender Harry Lumley, inducted into the Hall of Fame after a 16-year career that included a Stanley Cup ring, died Sunday. He was 71.