Senate Calls on Baseball to Alter Steroid Testing

The U.S. Senate again prodded major league owners and the baseball players’ union to adopt a more stringent policy on steroid testing, passing a resolution Thursday that urged both parties to immediately revise an agreement reached two years ago through collective bargaining.

“We cannot and will not allow professional baseball to collectively bargain away the legitimacy and history of the sport,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who introduced the resolution.

McCain said he would prefer that owners and the union resolve the issue on their own, short of congressional intervention. Without any action, Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-S.D.) said “real legislation” could follow in two months.

In another development, the union met Thursday’s deadline to file a motion to quash subpoenas seeking last season’s test results for several players, according to a source familiar with the process.

Major league owners did not file a motion of their own, the source said, but submitted as a supporting document a copy of the sport’s policy, which promised privacy and confidentiality to all players during last season’s initial testing.

“We just supported the confidentiality of it because we had agreed to do that, and we do live up to our word,” Commissioner Bud Selig said. “That’s all. It was very limited.”

The subpoenas were issued by a federal grand jury investigating BALCO, the San Francisco Bay Area laboratory whose owner and vice president are two of four men indicted on charges of illegal drug distribution. The subpoenas, issued to the two laboratories that conducted the tests, demand results from a handful of players, including the seven who testified before the grand jury.

Those players include Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants, holder of the single-season home run record. His trainer, Greg Anderson, also has been indicted in the case. Bonds has denied using steroids.

Selig, in San Diego for the grand opening of Petco Park, met with Bonds before Thursday’s game between the Giants and Padres.

“It was very constructive and very congenial, and that’s all I’m going to say about it,” Selig said.

McCain publicly warned Selig and union Executive Director Don Fehr last month that Congress might act if owners and the union did not. McCain said Thursday that the current testing program, under which players are tested once a year and first-time offenders are provided counseling but not fined, suspended or publicly identified, does not sufficiently deter cheaters.

“Without quick and significant change to the way the league tests for drugs ... the owners and players will continue to be viewed by the public as the knowing perpetrators of a shameful fraud,” McCain said.

Selig favors adopting the stricter minor league policy, in which players are subject to year-round testing and first offenders are suspended. He said he has not yet seen the Senate resolution.

“They have very intense feelings, and I understand them very well,” he said. “What they’re saying is frankly what I’ve said all along.”

The union is reluctant to scrap a policy -- fully implemented for the first time this year -- before it has a chance to succeed. Union spokesman Greg Bouris declined to comment on the resolution.