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Major League Baseball announced plans last month to begin testing for HGH in the minor leagues, but that's not enough for the World Anti-Doping Agency. John Fahey, the head of the agency, said Monday that the sport's integrity was at stake, and that if the league doesn't bring their testing up to WADA specifications that fans will eventually stop coming to the ballpark. "Baseball is the most recalcitrant (American sport league)," he said. "You had the Mitchell inquiry and clear and concise recommendations from it and they effectively did nothing."
Fahey's frustration seems to stem mostly from the fact that the NFL works fairly closely with the agency while developing it's drug policy, while baseball's rarely solicits the organization's advice. The truth is that the league has stiffened the policy greatly in the last 10 years and it will again come up for debate when the current collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2011 season.
Since the league is willing to test minor leaguers for HGH now, it stands to reason that they'll push for big-league testing during the next round of negotiations.
It's true that baseball's testing policy isn't perfect, but for a sport that effectively had no rules in place to punish players for steroid abuse as recently as 2003, it's also true that their drug policy has come a long way.
WADA has constantly hounded MLB over their testing policies since then, but given the strength of the MLBPA and their opposition to what many think is an ineffective blood test for HGH, it's impossible for baseball to just implement drug policies as they see fit. The truth is that the union has expressed an openness to HGH testing, but only when the effectiveness of any test can be improved.
In any case, baseball's attendance certainly hasn't suffered from judgmental fans disapproving of the league's steroid testing policies. The league set attendance records every year from 2004-07 and the last five years are the league's five best of all-time in terms of total attendance.
Information from the Associated Press used in this report.
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