Steroid Policy Is Bush League

His name is Derrick Turnbow, and he was the first.

The first major league baseball player publicly identified as testing positive for a banned steroid.

The first major leaguer suspended for three years from international competition because of the drug.

One of the first guys to report to Angel camp.

“I guess USA Baseball is different from Major League Baseball,” he said, shrugging.

His name is Derrick Turnbow and, despite carrying barely 200 pounds on a 6-foot-3 frame, he is more representative of baseball’s inane steroid policy than all these bulging muscles and wagging fingers.

He was booted from the U.S. team not for doing anything illegal, but for taking a common, over-the-counter dietary supplement found in lockers everywhere.

He was booted from the U.S. team for being, well, a normal major leaguer.

Which should tell you what the rest of the world sports community thinks about normal major leaguers.

Punished by one group, embraced by another, Turnbow sometimes wonders where he stands.

“I never, ever thought I would be in this position,” he said. “It is unfathomable to me how this happened.”

It started with a small-town dream, this Tennessee kid wanting to do his patriotic part by trying out for the U.S national team.

Coming off a brilliant final month in Anaheim -- 15 innings, 15 strikeouts, three walks, one run allowed -- he was quite the catch.

“I thought I was doing a good thing for my country,” he said.

But, shortly after taking a drug test, he learned something new.

What Major League Baseball considered legal, his country considered wrong.

What Major League Baseball claims will not hurt you, his country feels could kill you.

“I didn’t know their testing rules would be so different,” he said. “I never even thought about it.”

He was dismissed for testing positive for traces of metabolites of a steroid known as 19-norandrostenedione.

“I was like, ‘What?’ ” Turnbow said. “I don’t take steroids. I’ve never even seen steroids.”

But, see, these weren’t your basic baseball-banned steroids.

This, in fact, was a derivative of a drug that perhaps contributed to one of the greatest moments in baseball history.

Turnbow was booted for taking the same basic stuff that Mark McGwire was taking in 1998 when he hit 70 home runs.

You can’t take it in the Olympics, you can’t even take it in the minor leagues, but the major league union has been able to keep it on the shelves for big leaguers.

So he could still be taking it today. But he isn’t.

“No way, I’ve stopped taking it,” he said. “I don’t really need it. Why take any chances? I don’t want to go through this again.”

But until baseball changes a weakling steroid policy that morally isolates it from the rest of the sports world, things like this will happen again and again.

The policy was instituted last year to avoid a work stoppage. From Turk Wendell’s daggers to Barry Bonds’ glares to Derrick Turnbow’s confusion, it is now the cause of a credibility stoppage.

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It figured that the old-fashioned manager of an old-fashioned team would be among those who said it first.

In a discussion unrelated to Turnbow on Thursday, the Angels’ Mike Scioscia was asked if he thought baseball’s steroid policy was tough enough.

He stared for a moment. He slowly shook his head.

“I don’t think the penalty phase is appropriate,” he said.

He didn’t need to elaborate about how baseball punishes its steroid users with a velvet batting glove.

The first offense, you aren’t named, and you aren’t suspended. The second offense, you are benched for all of 15 days.

It is impossible to be banned for three years as Turnbow was banned from international competition. The longest suspension is one year, and that’s after five -- five! -- offenses.

Perhaps the union agreed to that suspension because, after five positive steroid tests, the player might already be dead.

“I think it’s a huge first step, but more needs to be done,” Scioscia said of the policy. “I think there’s been a lot of rumors floating around about players, and I think it’s unfair. I think if you had a testing system in place that was effective, it wouldn’t be an issue.”

So far this spring, in the wake of the grand jury investigation into those supplying muscle-enhancing drugs to athletes, steroids have been the only issue.

Wendell’s accusing Bonds. Writers accusing Gary Sheffield. Dusty Baker’s asking everyone to stop the witch hunt. Nobody quite believing how Jason Giambi looks so much ... skinnier.

“Our policy needs to be much tougher, because it puts guys in bad positions,” Angel pitcher Jarrod Washburn said. “There’s all kind of guys getting fingers pointed at them. If we had a stricter policy, nobody would be talking about it.”

Why didn’t the players fight for a stronger policy when it was being bargained last summer?

“Lots of guys did disagree with the policy,” Washburn said. “But the majority voted for it.”

While baseball announced that about 5% of its players tested positive for steroids last year, it is the other 95% who are most harmed by this.

In the wake of the legal proceedings, it is surprising that those 95% couldn’t convince union boss Donald Fehr to tweak the new policy to help clear their name.

“We worked so hard to come this far, it would be very difficult to go farther at this point,” said the Angels’ Tim Salmon, an outspoken proponent of tough steroid rules. “Is this as tough as the IOC? No. Could it be tougher? Sure it could. But at least we have something now.”

Scioscia agreed that the players should be proud of forcing the issue. But he also agreed, this ban on juicing needs more, um, juice.

“I think there has to be some reasonable deterrent to say ... if you are caught, there has to be some downside to it,” he said.

After all, what does it say when purportedly the world’s purest athletic event has far stricter standards than our country’s national pastime?

“The Olympics have one standard, and Major League Baseball has another,” Scioscia said.

Doesn’t Derrick Turnbow know it.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.