Baseball Players Association

Embattled Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker, whose infamous diatribe against gays, immigrants and minorities made him the off-season poster boy for political incorrectness, got a limited reprieve from arbitrator Shyam Das and is expected to report to the Braves' spring training camp today. Das cut the 28-day suspension imposed by baseball commissioner Bud Selig to two weeks, ended Rocker's spring training ban effective today and reduced his $20,000 fine to $500 in a controversial decision that was condemned by both Major League Baseball and the players union officials who had asked the arbitrator to strike down the penalty entirely.

WASHINGTON -- Last March, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain warned baseball to get serious about drug testing. "Your failure to address these issues straight on will motivate this committee to search for legislative remedies," the Republican senator from Arizona told leaders of the sport and its players union. Nine months later -- with baseball still not having acted -- McCain issued a second, sterner warning last weekend. This time, according to sports lawyers, marketers and Capitol Hill staff, the senator's coaxing has a better chance of achieving the desired results.

Major League Baseball's confusing on-again, off-again contraction proposal may not succeed in solving the industry's financial problems, but it already has had one unintended consequence. It has allowed baseball fans in Washington and Northern Virginia to dream again. The uncertainty surrounding the plan, which is on hold pending legal proceedings, grievance hearings and congressional decisions, has created such an information vacuum that almost anything seems possible. The Washington Post reported yesterday that baseball owners are considering moving the Montreal Expos to RFK Stadium for the 2002 season - that speculation based on a reported inquiry to stadium officials about the possible availability of the facility.

NEW YORK -- Lost among the economic complexities of baseball's brand new labor agreement was a simple fact that probably had as much to do with preventing the industry's ninth consecutive work stoppage as any revenue-sharing number or luxury tax threshold. They got it. They finally got it. The owners realized that they didn't have to force the Major League Baseball Players Association to turn the clock back to 1972 to get a contract that would enhance competitive balance and solve some of their economic problems.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- It doesn't seem like yesterday, but it doesn't seem that long ago, either. It was 1984, to be exact, and Major League Baseball was faced with its biggest public embarrassment since the Black Sox threw the World Series. The great Pittsburgh cocaine scandal, which really wasn't confined to Pittsburgh, shocked the nation and sparked the first serious call for strict measures to assure that the national pastime was protected against a national epidemic of drug abuse.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - In this, baseball's steroid spring, it was only a matter of time before somebody started naming names. Superstars Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield were among a group of professional athletes who allegedly received illegal steroids and human growth hormone from one of the figures indicted in the BALCO grand jury investigation, according to information given to federal investigators and obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle....

Baseball owners are getting more and more serious about their plan to start the 1995 season with replacement players if members of the Major League Baseball Players Association remain on strike, but there still are questions about the workability of their hard-line strategy.The Orioles are resisting the call to begin assembling a team of strikebreakers, and they may not be the only team that is less than enthusiastic about the prospect of recruiting former professionals and fringe minor-leaguers to play in major-league uniforms.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Along with trying to build on his 10-win season and perhaps make a push for the Opening Day start, pitcher Jason Johnson has accepted the added responsibility of being the Orioles' player representative during a potentially turbulent year. Johnson has replaced Sidney Ponson, who didn't want to continue in that capacity. Ponson was filling in for Mike Mussina after the right-hander vacated the job by signing with the New York Yankees after the 2000 season. With Ponson on vacation, Johnson said he was contacted by Phil Bradley of the Major League Baseball Players Association and agreed to attend the December union meetings in Dallas.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- There were too many 12-hour work days for Rod Robertson to keep up with the baseball strike. Robertson, who will complete a decade of minor-league service this year -- his first year in the Orioles organization -- would occasionally hear bits and pieces about the negotiations from his father.But Robertson never made any phone calls or studied the issues deeply. He was either going full bore at the paper mill near his home in Everdale, Texas, six days a week, or spending time with his three children.

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.