La Russa, Garner Decry Steroids

St. Louis Cardinal Manager Tony La Russa, reacting to the latest round of steroid allegations involving Barry Bonds at a time when the Houston Astros were still lamenting the death of acknowledged steroid user Ken Caminiti, said Major League Baseball couldn’t adopt any stance with its drug policy “too tough to make sure we’ve got everybody’s confidence that we’re doing it right.”

“All I know is that I’m a fan of the game more than anything else, and I want the same certainty they do, that you’re seeing players out there like the old days, without any enhancement,” La Russa said before the Cardinals played the Astros on Sunday in Minute Maid Park in Game 4 of the National League championship series.

Houston Manager Phil Garner, who on Friday attended a memorial service for Caminiti, the All-Star third baseman with the Astros and San Diego Padres who died earlier in the week of an apparent heart attack, also took a tough stance on illicit drugs.

“I would hope in the discussion about Caminiti that we finally decide once and for all that No. 1, illegal substances, we don’t need to be using,” Garner said. “No. 2, substances that are bad for your body we don’t need to be using. No. 3, if this message gets out to young people in the country that baseball is going to clean it up, I do think the testing program will work.”

Garner said his players had been tested on four occasions since he arrived at the All-Star break as the replacement for the fired Jimy Williams.

“These are random tests, and nobody knows when it’s going to happen,” Garner said. “So I think that is in the right direction.”

Garner said it was premature to draw conclusions regarding a report in the San Francisco Chronicle that said Bonds’ former trainer had supplied the San Francisco Giant outfielder with performance-enhancing drugs.

“Certainly, tapes can be incriminating,” said Garner, referring to the secretly taped interview in which Bonds’ former trainer told investigators that he had supplied Bonds with an undetectable performance-enhancing drug during the 2003 season.

“You also don’t know what the motive is from the alleged person on the tape or even if the tape is authentic. So I think it’s not fair to Barry and not fair to baseball to draw a conclusion yet on that.”

Garner said the lure of performance-enhancing drugs could be strong, especially among players looking to make an impact early in their careers.

“One of the things that young people fail to look at is the finality of some of the things you do in your youth,” Garner said. “We tend to say, ‘Well, you know, I’m 25, I can do whatever because I feel bulletproof and I don’t feel so bad the next day and it may even make me feel good.’

“The long-term use, the effects of steroids over the long term, it’s not good.”

Even if the cumulative effect of Caminiti’s death and the allegations involving Bonds isn’t enough to prompt baseball to toughen its drug policies, Garner said players might now realize that performance-enhancing drugs aren’t in their best interests.

“From what I hear, scuttlebutt around the clubhouse and everything else, I think this has had an effect, and I think if you couple this with what’s going on with Caminiti, it will start to hit home.”