WASHINGTON - Pressure mounted on baseball to toughen its steroid-testing regimen, as the White House yesterday urged "strong steps" to combat the drugs and a well-placed senator said it was time for the players union to end its history of "stonewalling."
"The president has made it very clear that he believes Major League Baseball needs to act to address the problem," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said at his daily press briefing.
"Players who use drugs undermine the efforts of parents and coaches to send the right message to our children. Drug use also poses some real risks, health risks to athletes, and it also diminishes the integrity of sports."
McClellan said the White House is encouraged by "positive discussion" recently between baseball and the union that could lay the groundwork for an agreement to test players more often.
"We hope that they will continue to move forward on that," the press spokesman said.
The progress in those talks could be enough to head off congressional intervention, said Sen. Byron Dorgan, a Democrat from North Dakota, who chaired the Senate's first hearing on steroids in baseball before a Commerce subcommittee in 2002.
"There are some hopeful signs," Dorgan said in an interview. "The question is do they move forward in a way that really does create a system that is believable."
There were still signs this week that baseball and the union weren't quite on the same page. After union official Gene Orza seemed to question baseball's commitment to getting a deal, Major League Baseball executive vice president Rob Manfred said in a prepared statement: "It is wholly inappropriate for the Major League Baseball Players Association's chief operating officer - who recently compared steroid use to cigarette smoking - to question the commissioner's commitment to the elimination of performance-enhancing substances."
Dorgan serves on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which oversees baseball. The panel's chairman, Arizona Republican John McCain, threatened last weekend to introduce legislation in January to guarantee that players adhere to a new minimum drug-testing standard - if no agreement is reached first.
"Our desire is to have the problem solved by the players union themselves, that's the optimum," Dorgan said.
Dorgan said he doesn't believe the Senate will hold baseball to a particular steroid-testing model - for example, the one used in the minor leagues - so long as the program eventually created is "serious."
