Drug Testing Begins in Latin America

Players in Latin America with minor league contracts will be tested for drugs by Major League Baseball starting next year.

“There was enough out there in terms of issues people had raised to us that the prudent thing to do from our perspective was to spend the money and find out if we have a problem,” Rob Manfred, executive vice president for labor relations in the commissioner’s office, said Wednesday.

The commissioner’s office has been testing minor leaguers in the United States since 2001 but decided to expand its program after a series of articles in the Washington Post, which first reported baseball’s decision Wednesday.

The Post reported in June that many prospects in the Dominican Republic had injected veterinary drugs, including steroids. Major league teams run academies in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, signing many prospects to minor league contracts.

“The real winners today are the children of families of Latin America,” said Fernando Mateo, president of Hispanics Across America. “Young players in the Dominican Republic and across Latin America will now enjoy the safeguards against dangerous steroids that they deserve.”

Players with minor league contracts undergo up to three random tests a year under baseball’s policy.

There is a different policy for players with major league contracts. Under a drug-testing agreement that began this year, each major league player was given two announced tests for illegal steroids as part of a survey that will determine whether more substantial testing is done in 2004.

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Cleveland Indian shortstop Omar Vizquel probably will sit out the rest of the season because of his injured right knee.

Vizquel, batting .244, had surgery on the knee in June and might need another operation.

He went 0 for 4 in Tuesday night’s 8-6 loss to the Detroit Tigers, then left the team after the game to undergo tests at Cleveland’s Lutheran Hospital. He was to have an MRI Wednesday.

“He’s probably not going to be back this year,” Cleveland Manager Eric Wedge said.

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The San Diego Padres’ Ryan Klesko will have surgery on his right shoulder today and his season will be finished.

His shoulder has been bothering him since spring training, and doctors will shave down the end of his collarbone.

“It’s like wear and tear, all those years of swinging,” said Klesko, a left-hander who was available to pinch-hit in Wednesday afternoon’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The first baseman anticipates up to six weeks of rehabilitation and a full recovery in two months.

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Tiger rookie Jeremy Bonderman, one of two Detroit pitchers on a pace to lose more than 20 games, was removed from the starting rotation by Manager Alan Trammell.

Bonderman, 6-18 with a 5.66 earned-run average, was scheduled to start Sunday in Toronto, but will be replaced by Chris Mears. Bonderman is 2-4 with a 7.53 ERA in seven starts since Aug. 1.

Mike Maroth of the Tigers is 6-19 with a 5.42 ERA.

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The New York Yankees acquired right-hander Juan Padilla from the Minnesota Twins as the player to be named in the trade for Jesse Orosco.

Padilla went 7-4 with a 3.36 ERA in 57 appearances at triple-A Rochester.