New Steroid Policy, The Selig 50, if you will

[Guest OlerudOwned]

Whole article in link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2224832

"New steroids testing agreement at a glance
A glance at Tuesday's drug-testing agreement between baseball players and owners:

Steroid Penalties
� First positive test -- 50-game suspension, up from 10 days.
� Second positive test -- 100-game suspension, up from 30 days.
� Third positive test -- Lifetime ban, with player having right to apply for reinstatement after two years and an arbitrator being able to review reinstatement decision. Under the previous agreement, the earliest a player could be suspended for life was for a fifth positive test.
� In addition, a conviction for possession carries a 60-to-80 game penalty, while a second offense carries a 120-game to one-year penalty. A third offense nets the offender a lifetime ban. If a player is convicted for distribution, he will be suspended 80-to-100 games, while a second offense equals a lifetime ban.

Amphetamine Penalties
(There was no testing for amphetamines in previous agreement)
� First positive test -- Mandatory additional testing.
� Second positive -- 25-game suspension.
� Third positive -- 80-game suspension.
� Fourth positive -- Commissioner's discretion, with an arbitrator being able to review.
� In addition, a conviction for possession carries a 15-to-30 game penalty, while a second offense carries a 30-to-90 game penalty. A third offense nets the offender a one-year ban, while a fourth offense equals punishment at commissioner's discretion. If a player is convicted for distribution, he will be suspended 60-to-90 games, while a second offense equals a two-year ban and punishment for a third offense is commissioner's discretion.

Testing frequency
A player will be tested during spring training physicals and at least once during the regular season, with additional random testing. Under the previous agreement, each player was tested once from the start of spring training through the end of the regular season, with additional random testing. Both the new agreement and the previous deal provided for offseason testing.

Independent Administrator
A person not connected to management or the union will schedule and supervise the tests, which currently are administered by a join management-union committee.

-- The Associated Press contributed to this glance. "

Can we retroactively bomb away Heredia?

[seawolf17]

Pressure's on now, baseball. I see they included uppers; interesting. We'll see how this goes.

[Guest sharpie]

We'll be seeing some sleepy ballplayers next year.

[nymr83]

this is good news.

[Frayed Knot]

Sounds like the threat of Congressional pressure did some good after all.
I can't imagine that the players' assoc would have agreed to virtually everything Selig wanted were they not afraid of getting something even more strict stuffed down their throats.

I'm shocked that this happened and that it happened so quickly - at least relatively quickly considering the history of this whole topic.


btw, I just finished


It's a history of the drug issue in baseball over the last 15 years or so.
A very detailed and very comprehensive examination of the issue from every possible angle.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

I'm glad to see baseball finally get serious about cleaning up the game. I am quite surprised that the new plan was able to be passed so quickly. I expected Selig's paln to be significantly watered down before the players union would ever approve it.

Next season will be interesting.

[Guest Rotblatt]

I understand their next stop is making pornography illegal! This Congress has really got its finger on the issues affecting Americans today.

Well done!

[Guest silverdsl]

I'm glad they finally got around to enacting a policy with teeth - the penalties are a big deal now. I'm pretty surprised though that the players agreed to the inclusion of testing for greenies because of how wide-spread and frequent their use supposedly is. But the penalty for a first offense with the greenies is pretty much a warning and the public will likely never know who tested positive with that unless it's a multiple offender since they don't miss games until a second offense. The only other thing is that MLB still hasn't been able to come up with a way to test for HGH so players can keep on using that as much as they'd like. Overall, though I think this will cause more players to think twice before using.

[Elster88]

silverdsl wrote: I'm glad they finally got around to enacting a policy with teeth - the penalties are a big deal now..

Me too. I guess last year was just to prove they weren't fucking around so people would get off the juice before the real penalties went into effect.

[metirish]

I think "greenies" should be allowed in extra inning games, how can we expect players to play at a "high" level in a 16 inning game.

[Zvon]

The game needed this.
Good for the game.