Selig Open to Congress’ Intervening on Steroids

As player representatives from the major leagues’ 30 teams met with baseball union leaders, Commissioner Bud Selig said Monday he would welcome government intervention if he cannot persuade the union to agree to stricter drug testing.

Selig is attempting to pressure the Major League Baseball Players’ Assn. to consent to stiffer rules against steroids -- an effort that intensified last week after disclosure of reported grand jury testimony from the San Francisco Giants’ Barry Bonds and the New York Yankees’ Jason Giambi. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Giambi had admitted using steroids and that Bonds had admitted using substances that matched prosecutors’ descriptions of steroids.

Amid the fallout, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) warned that if baseball failed to rid itself of performance-enhancing substances through collective bargaining, Congress would pass laws aiming to do so.

“If we cannot resolve this issue privately, I gladly will accept whatever help is offered by Senator McCain,” Selig said in a statement, adding that the “illegal use of these substances is damaging” baseball’s credibility.

With some union leaders and league officials privately expressing optimism for accord and the steroid policy already scheduled for discussion, union officials and player representatives gathered in Phoenix.

The New York Times, quoting an unnamed official involved in the talks, reported on its website Monday night that union and baseball leaders had outlined a new drug-testing program that would be significantly more stringent than the current one. The new program could be in place by spring training, the report said.

Union chief Donald Fehr declined to comment Monday.

An official involved in the negotiations said that an agreement was not imminent. The official said that the union would have a better sense of its course after several meetings today.

During testimony before Congress in March, Fehr said the wholesale drug-testing of players turns the presumption of innocence on its head and is thus “at odds with fundamental principles of which we in this country have long and rightly been proud.”

He also has indicated a willingness to consider changes to the agreement “in light of different or changed circumstances.”

Sounding an ominous note, former commissioner Fay Vincent warned that if Selig hopes to amend the collective bargaining agreement’s steroid policy, the union could demand other elements of the agreement be reopened as well, leading to larger issues and, potentially, a work stoppage.

“That runs the risk of blowing the whole season away,” Vincent said in a telephone interview. “And nobody wants that.... That, theoretically, is what’s at stake here.”

The current labor agreement, baseball’s first to ban steroids, expires in 2006, and changing an existing agreement would be unprecedented. Selig has called for stricter testing and punishments by the start of spring training in February, and he has been joined by McCain, who has threatened congressional action by next month.The players’ union’s history suggests it would resist, Vincent said.

“To try to do a major confrontation over drugs, with all these other things on the table, would be a problem,” he said. “I think it’s very unlikely the union would revisit that contract.”

The healthiest scenario, according to Vincent, would have Selig and his lieutenant, executive vice president for labor relations Rob Manfred, meet with Fehr and Gene Orza, the union’s chief operating officer, and to have them agree to adjust the drug policy.

As a last resort, Selig has the power to invoke a “best interests of baseball” clause in the 83-year-old Major League Constitution, though in recent decades U.S. courts have challenged the notion of a commissioner’s limitless authority.

“You don’t want to have a major war,” Vincent said.

The size of the fight could be determined at the union’s Phoenix meetings, which began this week, just days after baseball was drawn further into a federal investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative and its alleged creation and distribution of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

Bonds and Giambi, two of baseball’s biggest stars, and other ballplayers testified before the grand jury a year ago, and the leak of those documents has sharpened criticism of the existing drug policy.

Hank Aaron, who holds the home run record that Bonds is chasing, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Drugs won’t help you hit the ball. But, can they make you recuperate consistently enough to hit the kind of home runs that these guys are hitting?

“Let me say this: Any way you look at it, it’s wrong.”

The issue is a test for the players’ association, which during the last three decades has produced stunning gains in wealth and workplace rights for its tiny membership -- and its willingness to challenge baseball’s owners and commissioner has reshaped the game. Eight times since 1972, play has stopped because players have gone on strike, or because owners have locked them out.

The union agreed to limited testing as part of the 2002 collective bargaining agreement, averting a work stoppage like the one in 1994, which nearly crippled baseball.

As part of the agreement, baseball conducted 1,438 drug tests in 2003 on major leaguers, and 5% to 7% tested positive.

As a result, baseball required annual testing of its players. Those who test positive for steroids are obliged to enter counseling, with severe sanctions coming only after repeated failed drug tests.

A key question is how much the union is willing to give, and the role that political and public pressure will play in altering the current testing rules.

David Eckstein, player representative for the Angels, said he welcomed a more stringent drug policy, for the reputation of the game and the long-term health of its players.

“We need to do something for the fans,” he said. “We need to get this out of the game. We don’t want to have people wondering, ‘Is he cheating?’ I don’t think America wants to see a bunch of cheaters.”

Times staff writer Alan Abrahamson contributed to this report.