Guest: Raymond Garibaldi, Tommy Lasorda
BOB KUR, NBC NEWS: Let‘s go back into the hearing right now.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
CURT SCHILLING, BOSTON RED SOX: Well, I don‘t think for a second that there‘s any question about making names public upon a failed test. I can‘t speak at length as to why the clause is in there, the “or.” But I was given the impression and I‘m under the impression that there will be absolutely no chance for a failed test to not be made public.
DAVIS: That‘s not what it says, just to let you know. I understand. But your position and your understanding is that it ought to be made public?
SCHILLING: I think that is the position of players as a whole.
DAVIS: Mr. Palmeiro, do you have the same...
RAFAEL PALMEIRO, BALTIMORE ORIOLES: Well, I agree that the players should be suspended. I believe that our policy needs to be strong and I think that we need to give it a chance. But I do believe that the player needs to be suspended.
DAVIS: OK, I mean, that—that‘s one of the major concerns and it was a huge surprise to us, as it walked through here. Mr. Canseco, let me ask you a question, going back. It‘s your position, basically, that Major League Baseball knew that there was steroid use going on and for years didn‘t do anything to stop it?
JOSE CANSECO, FMR. MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYER: Absolutely.
Yes.
DAVIS: When you signed a contract with a team they—is it your opinion that people knew about the players that they were signing and investigate them, given the investment they were making in them?
CANSECO: I‘m under the impression they even did background checks on them.
DAVIS: So, in all likelihood, they would know if the player was taking steroids, if they were—what their private lives were, because that could jeopardize their ability to perform?
CANSECO: I believe so, yes.
DAVIS: OK. And why do you think baseball didn‘t do anything about this?
CANSECO: I guess in baseball, at the time, there was a saying, if it‘s not broke, don‘t fix it. And baseball was coming back to life. Steroids were part of the game. And I don‘t think anyone really wanted to take the stance on it.
DAVIS: Okay.
I wanted to wait until we got some people in the room.
Mr. Palmeiro, I want to thank you for also agreeing to be representative on the zero tolerance—the advisory committee on ending steroid use in sports, want to thank Mr. Sosa and Mr. McGwire for agreeing to support the efforts of the advisory committee, as well.
It is important that we get all athletes out there publicly on this issue, the...
Mr. Waxman, I‘m going to recognize you. I appreciate you all being here.
Mr. Waxman?
REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D), RANKING MEMBER: Mr. Chairman, before I start with this panel, I want to acknowledge a third family that‘s here with us today. That‘s a the family of a Efrain Marrero, a 19-year-old kid from California who loved to play football, and he killed himself after falling into the grip of steroids. As his mother Brenda has said, steroids killed my son. I understand that Efrain‘s mother, his father, Frank, and sister, Erica, are here today. I also understand they‘re working with the Garabaldis and Hootons to get the message of steroids use out to America‘s youth, and I want to say on behalf of all of us, thank them for coming.
On the question I want to ask—and I don‘t know which of you to ask. What I want to know is, you‘ve seen steroid use in baseball. You‘ve seen it from inside the club house.
Mr. Palmeiro, maybe you would be best to ask and we‘ll see what others have to say. Is it something that most of the baseball players knew about?
PALMEIRO: Sir, I have never seen the use of steroids in the clubhouse.
WAXMAN: Well, how about just the players that are just using steroids?
PALMEIRO: Excuse me?
WAXMAN: The fact that players were using steroids, is that something other players knew?
PALMEIRO: I‘m sure that players knew about it. You know, I really didn‘t pay much attention to it. I was focused in what I had to do as part of my job.
WAXMAN: Well, let me ask Mr. Schilling. Did players know? You‘ve spoken out against this. Did you know that other players were using steroids?
SCHILLING: I think there was suspicion. I don‘t think any of us knew. Contrary to the claim of former players, I think, while I agree it‘s a problem, I think the issue was grossly overstated by some people, including myself.
WAXMAN: You grossly overstated it?
SCHILLING: I—absolutely.
WAXMAN: Why did you do that?
SCHILLING: I think at the time it was a very hot situation and we were all being asked to comment on it, and I think my opinion at the time was to go with someone who maybe had a better idea than me, but given the chance to reflect—when I made comments to that effect afterwards, when I look back on what I said, I‘m not sure I could have been any more grossly wrong.
WAXMAN: Do you think it‘s basically a nonproblem in baseball?
SCHILLING: No, absolutely not. I think it‘s an issue. I think if one person‘s using, it‘s a problem. I think the desire to get to zero players using is a great goal. I don‘t know how achievable that is.
WAXMAN: Mr. Sosa, did you know that other players were using steroids?
SOSA: To my knowledge, I don‘t know.
WAXMAN: You didn‘t know. Mr. Canseco?
CANSECO: Absolutely, yes.
WAXMAN: Now, you say it so affirmatively, you knew others were doing, but the others seem to be vague about it. Was it only where you were playing?
CANSECO: I didn‘t hear you, sorry.
WAXMAN: Well, they seem to be vague as to whether other players
· whether it was known by the players that some players were using steroids. Do you think there should have been any doubt in anybody‘s mind that steroids was being used by, you say a large number of players?
CANSECO: There should have been no doubt whatsoever. None.
WAXMAN: Well, does it stop with ball players? Steroid use has grown; do you think that the team trainers, the managers, the general managers and even the owners might have been aware that some players were using steroids?
CANSECO: No doubt in my mind. Absolutely.
WAXMAN: So, it‘s not a secret that stayed with just the players.
Others knew it in the baseball community.
CANSECO: Absolutely, I believe that, yes.
WAXMAN: Do any of you disagree with that?
Mr. Schilling?
SCHILLING: Disagree with...
WAXMAN: The idea that not only did some baseball players know that others were using it, but that managers and other teammates and the trainers also were aware of it.
SCHILLING: Again, I think it falls in the same—there was a lot of suspicion, a lot of questioning. But I don‘t think—unless you were Jose and you were actually using it, I don‘t think you have any first-hand knowledge of who knew.
WAXMAN: Let me ask this question, last week a very respected person in the athletic world and professional sports called me with a suggestion. He said that if we want to dramatically cut the use of illegal steroids by kid, we should pass federal legislation that applies one standard to all major sports, to colleges and high schools instead of a patchwork of different policies. He suggested taking the Olympic policy and applying that program to everyone. The first violation would result in a two-year suspension, and the second would bring a life-time ban.
Do you think that would be effective?
Let me start with Mr. Canseco.
CANSECO: I think, in my opinion, the most effective thing right now is would be for us to admit there is a major problem. It‘s got to start here. And we‘ve got to admit to certain things we‘ve done, and change things there. From what I‘m hearing, more or less, I was the only individual in Major League Baseball who used steroids. So, that‘s hard to believe.
WAXMAN: OK. Mr. Sosa, do you think that we ought to have that gold standard of the Olympic program, zero tolerance? You got caught using steroids for whatever the sport is, that you‘re suspended for two years and after that second offense you‘re out. That certainly discourages people in the Olympics. Do you think it would be effective with baseball and other sports, as well? Would you push the mic?
SOSA: I can tell you, Mr. Chairman, I don‘t have too much to tell you.
WAXMAN: You can think about it. We don‘t have to get the answer right now. How about you, Mr. McGwire?
MCGWIRE: I don‘t know, but I think we should find the right standard.
WAXMAN: And do you think the standard that the Baseball Commission is now using is the right standard?
MCGWIRE: I don‘t know. I‘m a retired player.
WAXMAN: OK, and you haven‘t looked carefully at that standard?
You haven‘t looked at it?
MCGWIRE: Correct.
WAXMAN: OK, how about you, Mr. Palmeiro? Do you think if we went to a tougher standard it would be more effective?
PALMEIRO: I wouldn‘t have a problem playing under any type of standard. Like I said before, I‘ve never taken it. So, if you want to play under the rules of the Olympics, I welcome it.
WAXMAN: OK, my time is up, and I hope we‘ll get another chance.
Mr. Sweeney.
REP. JOHN SWEENEY ®, NEW YORK: Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, all, and thank you for your participation. I want to ask a general question of the entire panel with the idea that I‘d follow up with a specific. The general question is, you‘ve all made very strong statements about your interests in helping us develop some public education process.
Very briefly because the time is short, I‘d like to hear from each of you what you think the danger is, what‘s your perception of what happened out there in the world because of the allegations of steroid use. And secondly, what can Major League Baseball and the Players‘ Association do tangibly, if you have ideas. And Mr.
Schilling, I‘ll start with you, since you‘re going to chair something that has to more formally answer that question. If you could.
SCHILLING: I think the inherent danger here is in the activity. I think—I don‘t think a PSA is going to do it. I think there needs to be some tough legislation mandated on the level that affects high school athletics, college athletics and any level of athletics. And do agree, I think if you can come to a one standard and a blanket standard for everybody that is tough and strict and enforceable, there‘s no question that‘s the way to go.
SWEENEY: Mr. Palmeiro.
PALMEIRO: I do believe that we are role models, and we do have a lot of power in what kids listen to, and the message that we send to them. And I believe that if we do send the right message, we can help tremendously.
SWEENEY: Mr. McGwire.
MCGWIRE: I believe that‘s one of the reasons why I‘m here, is to make this a positive thing instead of a negative thing. And I will do everything I can and in my power to turn this around from a negative to a positive.
SWEENEY: Mr. Sosa.
SOSA: I agree with Mr. McGwire. You know, one reason why we‘re here is to stop that. And you know, I think that we can do some more tests and one way or another we‘re here to help.
SWEENEY: Mr. Canseco.
CANSECO: I think the most important thing is going to be awareness here. It‘s in the forefront right now. We‘re looking at it. Major League Baseball Player, whatever comes out of this meeting, we‘ll say, wow, we have eyes on us. They‘re looking at us. We‘ve got to change something. Hopefully, this book I wrote educates people in what‘s really going on in sports. And how, you know, devastating the use is in Major League sports.
And no matter what comes out of this, at least, we‘re going to have some type of start, some type of position to say, look, you‘ve got to start this. The owners have got to stop this continuing. The Player Association, they‘ve got to stop this, period.
SWEENEY: I have two questions to follow up. One is that, given its impact, especially with the last panel on scholastic athletics and kids in this country, do any of you doubt that maybe Major League Baseball, when I say Major League Baseball, I‘m including in it the Players‘ Association. Don‘t you think Major League Baseball has some obligation to help pay for that kind of program, because all those things cost money. Does anyone disagree with that—the idea that Major League Baseball helps to subsidize such as...
SCHILLING: You‘re talking about the owners here, right?
SWEENEY: Well, I‘m talking about the owners and possibly the Players‘ Association in conjunction.
SCHILLING: For the owners, I say yes.
SWEENEY: Very well done, Mr. Schilling. When you‘re done you can become an agent. My point is, baseball has an obligation here, don‘t you agree?
Final question, and I‘m going to go into sensitive territory. And I don‘t—our intent is not to embarrass anybody, it‘s to get to solutions. But I have to ask this. We‘ve just established—we all agree that this is a public health policy issue. This is not treading on conduct that rises to the level of criminality—in past years, but this year it is. And that‘s the use of steroid precursors, and designer steroids and how prevalent that was in baseball, because that is part of the culture.
And specifically, Mr. McGwire, I have to ask you this question from your statement. In part 10, you essentially say that the impact on children is devastating, you recognize that. And you want people to understand that the use of any performance enhancing drug can be dangerous. It is rather an infamous occurrence that in the year you were breaking the home run record, a bottle of Andro was seen in your locker.
My question to you is, your position now says, the use of that product, which is now illegal but was not then. How did you get to that point where that was what you were using to prepare yourself to play? And if you could tell this committee how you ended up there. And then, if I have time left, I‘d like to know if other players have similar experiences. I think that‘d help us understand what you all live in.
MCGWIRE: Well, sir, I‘m not here to talk about the past. I‘m here to talk about the positive and not the negative about this issue.
SWEENEY: Were you ever counseled that precursors or designer steroids might have the same impact?
MCGWIRE: I‘m not here to talk about the past.
SWEENEY: Well, Mr...
(CROSSTALK)
SWEENEY: I‘d simply say that in order to eliminate and alleviate the kinds of questions that surround the game, we need to understand the game.
DAVIS: OK. Thank you. Time (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the time has expired. Gentleman from Baltimore.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: Yes, first of all, I want to thank all of you for being here. And, you know, Mr. Canseco, I‘ve been, you know, taking a look at your book and you said some things that really, you know, I hear all of you. I‘m sitting here and I‘m listening and I‘m trying to—trying to feel good about this hearing.
But at the same time, I see you, Mr. McGwire, with almost tears in your eyes when you‘re talking. I hear everybody saying that now they‘re willing to come and be the spokespersons to help those families who may be trying to deal with this issue and prevent it in the future.
But, Mr. Canseco, let me ask you this. You said in your book, and this is in your book, “I‘m tired of hearing such short-cited crap from people who have no idea what they‘re talking about. Steroids are here to stay. That‘s a fact, I guarantee it. Steroids are the future. By the time my 8-year-old daughter, Josie, has graduated from high school, a majority of all professional athletes in all sports will be taking steroids. And believe it or not, that‘s good news.”
Help me with that. You sit here one moment talking about how you want to do all these wonderful things to prevent it in the future, but then it sounds like you‘re saying something almost the opposite in this statement in your book.
CANSECO: I think that was very much pertaining to two subjects.
Number one, if Congress does nothing about this issue, it will go on forever. That, I guarantee. And, basically, steroids are only good for certain individuals, not good for everyone. I think I specify that in previous chapters. If you medically need it, if it is prescribed to you, I think those were the things I actually spoke about.
CUMMINGS: So, you are against it? You realize this is a federal crime? Is that right?
CANSECO: Yes.
CUMMINGS: The use of steroids?
CANSECO: Yes.
CUMMINGS: And so—so, are you now for a zero-tolerance policy?
CANSECO: Absolutely.
CUMMINGS: Now, we‘ve had—you made some allegations. And, as I understand it, both Mr. Schilling, Mr. Thomas Mr. Palmeiro and I think Mr. Sosa have said they never used the substances.
Is that right, Mr. Sosa? You said you that, right? You said you had never...
(CROSSTALK)
CUMMINGS: OK. Is that right? I—all right.
Now, McGwire, would you like to comment on that? I didn‘t get a definitive answer. I didn‘t hear you say anything about it. And you don‘t have to. I just asked.
You don‘t want to comment?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (OFF-MIKE) ... taking the Fifth?
CUMMINGS: Are you taking the Fifth?
MCGWIRE: I‘m not here to discuss the past. I‘m here to be positive about this subject.
CUMMINGS: I‘m trying to be positive, too. But just a few minutes ago, I watched you, as tears...
(CROSSTALK)
CUMMINGS: No, no, no. I need to be able to—answer my question.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think the gentleman, in his opening statement, made it clear that he...
CUMMINGS: Well, I‘m making a statement. I‘m just telling him something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
CUMMINGS: I listened. I sit here and I almost got tears in my eyes watching you testify. And, you know, the thing that I guess I‘m curious about is that, you know, it‘s one thing to say that we want to help. It‘s a whole another thing when those parents are sitting, by the way, directly behind you, and then they wonder, is this real?
And I guess, my question is, you said something about your foundation and trying to help out. Tell us exactly what it is you plan for your foundation to do.
MCGWIRE: Well, right now?
CUMMINGS: Yes. I‘m talking about the present and the future, as you said.
MCGWIRE: Well, my foundation helps out neglected and abused children. I am going to redirect it. We have not talked about it, but I am going to redirect about this subject.
CUMMINGS: And you are—you‘re willing to be a national spokesman against steroids?
See, we have got all these high school kids that are—have— are emulating you all, although you‘re out of the game now. They still look out to a McGwire and others.
And, so, you—I think you said you‘re willing to be a national spokesman?
MCGWIRE: I‘d be a great one.
CUMMINGS: So, that means you would do it?
MCGWIRE: Be a spokesperson?
CUMMINGS: Yes.
MCGWIRE: Absolutely.
CUMMINGS: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: The gentleman‘s time is expired.
Ms. Miller. Ms. Miller.
REP. CANDICE MILLER ®, MICHIGAN: Yes. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Perhaps just a question for Mr. Canseco.
And I appreciate all of the panelists coming here today sincerely.
But, in your book, you did admit that you were a user and abuser of steroids. And you did suggest that perhaps steroids perhaps were a good thing for players to use. I think you said in your book that, if used properly, steroids could help you live to be 120 years old.
Unfortunately, during your playing career, baseball did really not have the testing policy in place against the use of steroids, no testing regime. And I also want to applaud you for your testimony today, saying that you‘re willing to work towards educating our young people about the dangers of steroid.
But could you answer, even if the new random testing policy that the Major Leagues are putting in place today, if that was in place during your playing career, do you think it would have changed your behavior in regards to steroids, or do you think that the desire to play better was just so strong that the standard that is going to be in place today is going to eliminate steroid use in Major League Baseball?
CANSECO: I don‘t know exactly how the policy for Major League Baseball is structured right now, but I have heard it‘s a complete joke.
Obviously, if it were a proper system, completely educating athletes and so forth, I truly believe that no Major League player would do steroids, absolutely not.
MILLER: It‘s my understanding that the new policy is a random
test once—at least one time during the season for each player. So
· and I suppose we‘ll have some additional questions for the next panel on that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That‘s my only question.
DAVIS: If you have some time left, if you would yield to Mr.
Burton, he has a question.
MILLER: I will yield to the gentleman.
BURTON: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I don‘t have a question.
I‘d just like to say that it‘s evident from this hearing that a lot more needs to be done to make sure that not only the baseball world, but the entire world of athletics knows that these kinds of drugs need to be outlawed. And I‘d just like to say I understand the commissioner has started to move in the right direction. But, evidently, he hasn‘t moved fast enough.
So, rather than me questioning the players who are here today or pound on this subject anymore, I‘d just like to say that I hope the message is very loud and clear from this committee and from the Congress of the United States. We want this stuff stopped in all athletics, not just baseball. And I think you can tell by the tone of my colleagues up here, if it doesn‘t stop, you‘re going to end up with something that you don‘t want in the world of athletics. And that is the Congress of the United States doing what you don‘t do.
So, do the job. Baseball players, whom I have respected since I was a kid, go out there and tell the kids. Even if you used steroids, tell them, this is not the right thing to do. Tell them about the people who have lost their kids because of this misuse of steroids.
And if you do that job, if you preach the gospel and if the baseball commissioner and everybody in baseball gets the word out, this will change. You won‘t have to have Congress legislating. You‘ll get the job done. But do the job, so that we don‘t have to. And I hope this message goes loud and clear to people in every athletic endeavor, not just baseball.
And if it does, then this hearing, Mr. Chairman, because of you and Mr. Waxman, will be a great benefit to all sport.
Thank you very much.
DAVIS: Thank you very much.
Mr. Lantos.
REP. TOM LANTOS (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I increasingly feel a feeling of the theater of the absurd unfolding here. We‘re all interested in the future, but in order to plan a better future in this field, we must look at the past. In every single endeavor, as we plan for the future, unless we learn from the past, it will be a futile endeavor.
I am totally disinterested in individual past behavior. Let me make that clear. But there are a few specific questions I would like all of you gentlemen to respond to.
Jim Bunning, our former colleague, testified earlier today, who said that the industry is taking baby steps. Well, baby steps are clearly not adequate when we are facing a major national crisis impacting our young people. That‘s why we are here. That‘s why all the media is here. So, to pretend that baby steps will solve this problem is ludicrous.
So, I‘d like to ask each of you gentlemen to answer the following questions. You‘ve already said, some of you, that you favor the Olympics‘ formula. Could I ask all of you to say yes or no. It‘s a much tougher formula, much more demanding, with much more severe penalties.
Mr. Schilling, are you in favor of it?
SCHILLING: Excuse me. I would need to see it first. I wouldn‘t just give a blanket yes or no. I mean...
LANTOS: Are you in favor of much stricter penalties?
SCHILLING: I‘m in favor of allowing the current system to continue to work and where loopholes are found, those loopholes be fixed. I think the testing is doing what it‘s aimed to do, which is reduce the usage of steroids—the usage of steroids by players.
LANTOS: Mr. Palmeiro.
PALMEIRO: I‘m in favor—I‘m in favor of eliminating the problem completely.
LANTOS: Well, obviously, the Olympics are internationally recognized, as it has been referred to, is the gold standard. If, in fact, that is the gold standard, would you favor applying it to baseball?
PALMEIRO: I would play under any type of deal that would clean our sport and that would make it a playing level field for everyone.
LANTOS: Thank you.
Mr. McGwire.
MCGWIRE: Well, being that I‘m retired...
LANTOS: I know, but...
MCGWIRE: I think anything that Major League Baseball can do to get rid of this problem and do a positive, positive, put a positive light on this for our children of our future, I think it would be great.
LANTOS: Mr. Sosa.
SOSA: Yes, I am favor to the...
(CROSSTALK)
LANTOS: Mr. Canseco.
CANSECO: Well, I truly believe I‘m definitely in favor of it, but I think you have to monitor whoever is issuing this test.
LANTOS: The second question I have is, are you in favor of independent testing? Because one of the issues that emerged is that, unless all testing is done by a totally independent entity, which has nothing to do with the owners, the players, it stands by itself.
Would you favor that, Mr. Schilling?
SCHILLING: Yes.
LANTOS: Mr. Palmeiro.
PALMEIRO: Yes, sir.
LANTOS: Mr. McGwire.
MCGWIRE: I think it would be outstanding.
LANTOS: Mr. Sosa.
SOSA: Yes, sir.
LANTOS: Mr. Canseco.
CANSECO: It is going to be the only way you‘re going to solve this.
LANTOS: Fine question. On the assumption that, within a reasonable period of time, the industry doesn‘t clean up its own act, are you in favor of federal legislation?
Mr. Schilling.
SCHILLING: Yes. Yes.
LANTOS: Thank you.
Mr. Palmeiro.
PALMEIRO: I agree. I agree.
MCGWIRE: If that‘s what it takes, yes.
SOSA: Pretty much, yes.
CANSECO: Yes.
LANTOS: Thank you very much.
DAVIS: Thank you very much.
Mr. Souder.
REP. MARK SOUDER ®, INDIANA: My first question is to Mr.
Schilling,
And my belief is, is that all we‘ve seen is sampling, and it‘s not adequate. It‘s not independent. And it‘s so full of holes on ephedra and everything that, if it was cheese, it would definitely be Swiss cheese. So, clearly, the policy needs to be fixed and I‘m disappointed you don‘t seem to share that view.
But you said earlier, as I understood it, that we went from 5 to 7 percent positive, down to 1.7, and that‘s progress. I thought I also heard you say that it would be inevitably and the people—this would be public. I haven‘t heard 5 to 7 percent of the players named as using steroids. I haven‘t even heard 1.7 percent. Where is the public part?
SCHILLING: Well, my understanding is that, with this new— after the agreement put in place, renegotiated this past couple months, those are instituted now. Those previous results are from the last two seasons.
The 5 to 7 percent was the number that needed to be met for the testing to be put into effect, the different method of testing, which was put into effect last year.
SOUDER: Under the previous policy, was anyone suspended for steroids?
SCHILLING: I can‘t answer that.
SOUDER: We‘ll ask the—baseball.
I also wanted to say that the simple way to solve this is the way that Mr. Sosa, Mr. Palmeiro and, you, Mr. Schilling, and Mr. Thomas have said: I‘m clean. I‘ve been clean. I‘ve taken the test and I passed the test. This is pretty simple. And the American people are figuring out who is willing to say that and who isn‘t.
And, as far as this being about the past, that‘s what we do.
This is an oversight committee. If the Enron people come in here and say, well, we don‘t want to talk about the past, do you think Congress is going to let them get away with that? If when we were doing investigations on the Travel Office, on Whitewater, if President Nixon had said about Watergate when Congress was investigating Watergate, we don‘t talk about the past, how in the world are we supposed to pass legislation when you‘re a protected monopoly and all your salaries are paid because you‘re a protected monopoly?
How are we supposed to figure out what our obligations are to the taxpayers if you say, we won‘t talk about the past? I want to praise those people who have come forward and have been in awkward situations before because of peer pressure and said, look, I‘m clean, but I‘m really disappointed because we have to talk about the past, because there isn‘t any way to address this.
And unless there are independent entities doing this, I don‘t believe that this is going to pass the laugh test. I believe we have advanced some today, but we‘ve also gone backward some today. And this last panel with the management and Players Association is going to be very critical.
Yield back the balance of my time.
DAVIS: Thank you.
Mr. Owens.
REP. MAJOR OWENS (D), NEW YORK: I don‘t want to repeat what my colleague asked before. I just want a clarification.
He said that if the industry cannot clean this up, are you in favor of federal legislation? And I think most of you gave a positive answer. I want to go one step further and say, baseball is an industry. It is a business. It‘s our favorite pastime and whatever else. But it also is an industry and a business. And, in most instances, we have failed in attempts to have business self-regulate themselves. There are a few successes, but very few.
Do you think it is possible that self-regulation will solve this problem?
SCHILLING: Yes, absolutely.
OWENS: You think it is possible?
SCHILLING: I absolutely think it is.
PALMEIRO: I think it is possible, too.
MCGWIRE: Me, too.
SOSA: Yes, I think it‘s possible, too. If we work together, yes.
OWENS: Mr. Canseco?
CANSECO: My honest opinion, not completely, but because we have brought this to light, it is going to come very close.
OWENS: Thank you.
DAVIS: Thank you very much.
Mr. McHenry, any questions?
REP. PATRICK MCHENRY ®, NORTH CAROLINA: Thank you all for coming here today.
I know that it‘s not an easy situation for any of you. I certainly appreciate the fact that, as individuals, you don‘t like the idea of having to come before Congress and swear an oath. I certainly understand that and certainly respect your right to privacy as individuals.
Our hearings today are not about you as individuals. A lot has been made of a book written. A lot has been made of statements that have been made, but it‘s not about you as individuals. It is the overall societal problem. And you mentioned, you all mentioned what these families that testified earlier, the impact it had on you as individuals.
But that‘s a message that your sport, you and your colleagues are sending, in many ways. And so, I have a simple question. And you can answer yes or no or choose to not answer. That‘s certainly your right. Is using, are using steroids, the use of steroids, is that cheating?
SCHILLING: Yes.
PALMEIRO: I believe it is.
MCGWIRE: That‘s not for me to determine.
MCHENRY: For you, is it cheating, yes or no?
MCGWIRE: That‘s not for me to determine.
MCHENRY: Mr. Sosa.
SOSA: I think so.
CANSECO: I think so. And, in many ways, I think it also cheats the individual who uses it, because eventually, if found out or if come to the forefront, they have to go through this, absolutely.
MCHENRY: My follow-up question is to Mr. McGwire.
You said that you would like to be a spokesman on this issue.
What is your message?
MCGWIRE: My message is that steroids is bad. Don‘t do them. It‘s a bad message. And I am here because of that. And I want to tell everybody that I will do everything I can, if you allow me, to turn this into a positive. There‘s so much negativity said out here. We need to start talking about positive things here.
MCHENRY: How do you know they‘re bad? MCGWIRE: Pardon me?
MCHENRY: Your message is—coming from professional baseball, would you say that perhaps you have known people that have taken steroids and that you‘ve seen the ill effects on that, or would your message be that you have seen the direct effects of steroids?
DAVIS: You know, let me just note here that House Rule 11 protects witnesses and the public from the disclosure of defamatory, degrading or incriminating testimony in open session. And the House rules on this point are both clear and strict.
I think the testimony—if the testimony tends to defame, degrade or incriminate, the committee cannot proceed in open session. And we want to proceed in open session today.
So, with that in mind, you can choose to answer that or not, Mr.
McGwire.
MCHENRY: Well, Mr. Chairman, respectfully, my question is just about the message that he would carry to the people.
DAVIS: I understand. I just wanted to give...
MCHENRY: Certainly.
MCGWIRE: I‘ve accepted, by my attorney‘s advice, not to comment on this issue.
MCHENRY: OK.
If you‘ll go down the line again, I‘ll ask another question that everyone can ask answer simply and directly, I would hope. If it‘s proven that a player has set records while using steroids, should those records stand?
Mr. Canseco?
CANSECO: It‘s impossible to measure, I would guess, what one steroid does to one player and another player. There is no guideline to trying to say, well, if he hit 60 or 70 home runs because he was on steroids, we‘re going to take away 20 or 25 percent of his home runs. It‘s impossible.
MCHENRY: Mr. Sosa.
SOSA: It‘s not up to me.
MCGWIRE: It‘s not up to me to determine that.
PALMEIRO: I believe that‘s up to the commissioner.
SCHILLING: Absolutely not.
MCHENRY: Thank you for your frank answers.
And, as members of the Players Union, which you all are or were, your representatives sat down and negotiated on your behalf about the steroid policy. And part of what we‘ll hear from the commissioner, I‘m sure, and your union representative is the facts, well, from your union representative, that he was empowered to negotiate in certain directions.
Did you support the old policy, the old policy on steroids? Did you empower your union representative? What was your stance on the issue of steroids within your union votes as members of the union? Did you support a more stringent policy or did you ask your union representative to limit the policy when it comes to steroids?
We can start...
(CROSSTALK)
SCHILLING: No, I didn‘t support the old policy. And, as a team, the Diamondbacks made it very clear we didn‘t support the old policy, to the point where we spoke about not taking the tests ourselves to force a failed result to increase the toughness of the policy. And I think that that‘s exactly what happened.
(CROSSTALK)
PALMEIRO: Well, since there was a new policy in place and it was
the first time that we were tested, I was in favor of it. Now, I was aware that we needed to take bigger steps and more steps. And I think that we need to give a chance to this new policy. And if we do need to take more steps, I‘m in favor of that also.
MCGWIRE: I‘ve been retired.
MCHENRY: But when you were a member of the Players Union?
MCGWIRE: There was no policy.
MCHENRY: And you—well.
DAVIS: The gentleman‘s time has expired. We‘ll allow the previous question to be answered.
Mr. Sosa, if you want to answer.
SOSA: I really—I don‘t have the specific question to explain it to you.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: Mr. Canseco?
CANSECO: The policy was never an issue when I was there.
I think the only players that may have been privy to it briefly were members of the Players association. In other words, each organization had a representative that would go and represent that team. So, as—beyond that, no policy was ever mentioned or really talked about.
DAVIS: OK.
MCHENRY: Thank you, all.
DAVIS: Yes.
The gentleman from New York, Mr. Towns.
REP. EDOLPHUS TOWNS (D), NEW YORK: Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
You know, looking back over the rules and the recommendations that have been made, I think that we are overlooking the fact that we can‘t only hold the players accountable. But all wrongdoers, including management, trainers, front office and all should be involved in this, if we really want to clean up the situation we now find ourselves in.
Let me just go down the line, starting with you, Mr. Schilling.
Do you consider yourself a role model?
SCHILLING: Yes.
PALMEIRO: Definitely.
MCGWIRE: Yes.
SOSA: Yes.
CANSECO: Yes.
TOWNS: With that in mind, do you think that maybe posting something in a locker room might remind a person that they should not consider using, being you‘re saying the kind of damage that takes place if a person uses steroids.
For instance, you know, in locker rooms, sometimes, they put up what smoking will do to you and things like that. Do you think this would serve as a deterrent in any way? I am just trying to figure out what we might be able to do if it is a widespread kind of thing. Do you think that—sort of scare tactics to players...
SCHILLING: No, I don‘t.
TOWNS: No?
Mr...
PALMEIRO: I‘m not sure.
MCGWIRE: I can‘t answer that.
SOSA: I don‘t think so. I‘m not sure.
CANSECO: Yes.
I think bringing this issue to light is going to be a major deterrent. Players will be talking about this on a daily bases and they will be aware that there will be a lot of eyes on them, especially Congress.
TOWNS: See, my concern is the young people, the high school ballplayers and the people playing that—I just wondered if this kind of technique might not—you know, the scared-straight kind of thing, to sort of show them that, if you use, you could end up looking like this at the end of the day.
You know, that‘s the reason why I was thinking about that for high school players, more than professionals, because my concern is that, at that level, they might begin to really use it. And that‘s a real concern. So, what can we do with high schoolers? Any thoughts on that? Any suggestions? Because that‘s the area that I really think we need to focus on a great deal.
PALMEIRO: I believe that we can go around to high schools around the country, use our names, use our—who we are to send the right message, to send the message that steroids are wrong and they‘re costing lives every day.
SCHILLING: I think you need to—again, I don‘t think a PSA is going to do it. I think there needs to be some form of drug testing to—and there needs to be ramifications to failing a drug test, be it in high school or in college, because until you have to pay a price, I don‘t think there is going to be a lot of thought from a 16-year-old about the consequences of using.
TOWNS: If a trainer has information about the fact that somebody is using, you know, what should that trainer do? I‘m thinking in terms of, in colleges, that if you see someone cheating and if you don‘t tell, they put you out, too.
You know, so, I‘m thinking about the fact that, if you have a trainer that‘s very much aware of the fact that illegal actions are taking place and nobody is doing anything about it, he doesn‘t do anything about it, should anything happen to that person?
Right down the line, yes or no.
SCHILLING: I‘m not sure—I‘m not sure I got the question.
TOWNS: The question is that you have a trainer who might be aware of the fact that somebody is using steroids. And, so, he knows it, but he just walks around every day and doesn‘t tell anybody about the fact that this is going on.
SCHILLING: Might be aware or definitely know? I mean, I don‘t
· he might be aware that there is someone using?
TOWNS: Yes, might be—has information that somebody is using and does nothing about it.
SCHILLING: Well, I think, unless you have a verifiable fact, I think you‘re treading on some dangerous ground. I think we‘re here because of some people that—loose tongue and said things that I don‘t believe are entirely true. And I think it causes a lot more problems than it solves.
TOWNS: All right.
PALMEIRO: I think that, if the trainer knows for sure, it‘s his responsibility to make the player aware and educate the player.
MCGWIRE: Yes, I agree with Raffy. I think that would be a great step. Exactly.
TOWNS: Mr. Sosa?
SOSA: I agree. I agree with Raffy. I think it is probably the trainer also on people (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
TOWNS: Mr. Canseco?
CANSECO: I definitely believe and know that they are under the same circumstance of some Major League players are under, meaning, if they come to the forefront and speak about it, Major League Baseball will do something to them, in the sense of maybe blackballing him from the game or cause him a lot of problems.
TOWNS: In other words, there should be some penalties, if the trainer does not report it, that he should be penalized?
CANSECO: It‘s a very delicate position he‘s in.
The example I can give you is, let‘s say one player knows of another player using steroids, but this player is still active, or one player wants to come to the forefront, but he‘s still active in Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball is very, very powerful. And if you act against them or speak out against them, it can cost you your livelihood, definitely.
DAVIS: The gentleman‘s—gentleman‘s time has expired.
Thank you.
TOWNS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Foxx.
VIRGINIA FOXX ®, NORTH CAROLINA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Candice Miller asked one of the questions that I wanted to ask about whether—if the policy were in effect years ago, would it have made a difference?
But I want to ask another question. And that is, why do you think—and I‘ll ask each player this—why has it taken so long for the league to act on this, since it seems to have been so wide—that it was so well-known that abuse was going on? Why has it take taken the league so long to act?
CANSECO: Basically, something like a book written about the problems in Major League Baseball had to be done, absolutely. I think it definitely triggered a lot of events.
I think it finally made Major League Baseball aware of that, you know, or in the sense of stopped covering up what was really going on.
SOSA: I don‘t really know. I‘m not sure.
MCGWIRE: Can you say question one more time?
FOXX: Why has it taken so long for the league to act, for professional baseball to act on this issue? There‘s a policy in effect now. I think it‘s a very weak policy, but why has it taken so long to institute any policy?
MCGWIRE: I don‘t know. But this is a great reason why we‘re here today, to try to fix it.
PALMEIRO: Ma‘am, I‘m not sure. I‘m not sure why it‘s taken so long. You may have to ask the commissioner and Donald Fehr, the Players Association leader.
SCHILLING: I don‘t know that it‘s taken—there was a policy in place before the book came out. The only thing that has happened, I think, in the last six months is that the policy has changed and gotten, in some ways, stronger.
DAVIS: It‘s weaker than minor league policy.
FOXX: Thank you.
DAVIS: Thank you.
The policy is weaker than the minor league testing at this point. And minor leagues had it way before. And I think one of the concerns is, among professional sports, baseball has been a little bit late coming to the table and maybe a little bit short of where some of the other standards are. That‘s one of the concerns. Obviously, we‘ll see how this is implemented. There‘s active testing going on now. But there is a concern, as you could hear from us.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I‘m Wolf Blitzer in Washington. You‘re watching continuing coverage of the hearings on Capitol Hill involving baseball and the use of steroids. Members of this congressional committee are grilling current and former baseball players.
WOLF BLITZER REPORTS goes back to Capitol Hill right now with continuing live coverage.
TOM DAVIS (R-VA), CHAIRMAN: There‘s still a lot of concern, not that it‘s just late but not as complete as we hoped it would be, but your speaking here is just very helpful to them. Next is—I think Mr. Kanjorski was next.
REP. PAUL KANJORSKI (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Canseco, can you tell us—I assume in your book—I didn‘t read your book, but I assume that you confessed to taking steroids. Is that correct?
JOSE CANSECO, FORMER PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL PLAYER: I think— yes, in the past, I have, yes.
KANJORSKI: Well, can you tell us—what we‘re trying to get here, one of the reasons I objected to the use of subpoenas at that— at this hearing was it highlighted just baseball, just superstars in baseball.
And I‘ve been listening to the examination now, and I‘m getting the indication that we want to clean up baseball at the highest level and not looking at the broad application. I want to get to motive. Why did you use steroids?
CANSECO: Well, there are many reasons. There‘s a chapter in my book where my mom passed away, and I was called in from California—
I was playing pay (ph) ball that year. And when I flew home, she was in the hospital and brain-dead from an aneurysm. And I—she never had seen me play minor leagues in general, and I promised her I was going to be the best athlete in the world, no matter what it took.
I definitely got caught up in the whole...
KANJORSKI: Would it be fair to say that you did it because the motivation was to build your body to be more competitive and ultimately make more money?
CANSECO: I don‘t even—I don‘t even think the money was an issue at that time. I think just becoming, you know, the best athlete I could possibly become.
KANJORSKI: Have you given a lot of thought that if we had the best damn testing system that baseball could possibly imagined, what type of implication or ramification would that have for all of those hundreds of thousands of high school athletes that we‘re trying to establish some help for? Shouldn‘t we be looking at what we can do for them?
And now my next question is, since you obviously favor testing for super athletes, would you favor a universal testing of the highest standard, the Olympic standard, for all athletics, regardless of where they are, and regardless of what level of schooling that they‘re in, and regardless of what sex is involved, whether it‘s male, female, or otherwise?
CANSECO: I truly believe that the major league level, everyone knew that there was no steroids at all and a competitive balance was even, it will trickle down to the minor league level, the high school level and beyond.
KANJORSKI: Well, but is it your idea that we can‘t do anything about steroids then?
CANSECO: No, we definitely can. I‘m saying that‘s...
KANJORSKI: Would it require we have a universal test with all athletes? Because you know, some kid that‘s 16 years old is looking up not only to you. He‘s looking at football players. He‘s looking at tennis players. He‘s looking at wrestlers. And probably, he‘s not doing it for some narcissistic reasons, but probably for accomplishment and success.
CANSECO: I agree, but if you just regulate it at, let‘s say, the minor league level and then the college level and high school level and don‘t regulate it at the major league level...
KANJORSKI: I‘m not suggesting not doing it at the major league level. I‘m saying a universal test for everybody that‘s in athletics.
CANSECO: From major league on down.
KANJORSKI: Everybody.
CANSECO: Absolutely, yes.
KANJORSKI: You would be in favor of that?
CANSECO: Yes.
KANJORSKI: Do you have any idea how pervasive steroids are used, particularly in our younger population, in college and high school?
Do you have any feeling as a result of being the center of this
controversy?
CANSECO: If it‘s any proportion to at the major league level at the peak of steroid use, I would say very high.
KANJORSKI: Do you have any percentages or fractions?
CANSECO: No, I don‘t, not beyond the major league level, no, I don‘t.
KANJORSKI: Fair enough. Well, carrying that on now, I‘m going to give you an analogy that‘s, I think, bothered me, and I don‘t expect that anybody would have an answer.
Supposedly somebody came out with smart pills and that smart pill could make you 10 times smarter than you are right now. And they may put a warning on there, it could cost you five or 10 years of your life expectancy. How many people would be tempted to try and win a Nobel Prize and take that smart pill?
CANSECO: You know, that‘s a very tough question, because we don‘t know if we‘re going to be around tomorrow or not. We don‘t know if our futures are guaranteed or not, but the smart pill guarantees something, meaning that you‘re going to win a Nobel Prize. It‘s a tough question to ask. I really don‘t even...
KANJORSKI: It‘s trying to get to the point, look, there‘s a motivation of why athletes, who have a high appreciation of their body, they‘re making a judgment of risking something. So what I‘m saying it‘s somewhat of an intelligent question that they raise.
I mean, I assume all of you fellows would have had— particularly you, I won‘t address it to the others, you had an idea it could be dangerous to your body, didn‘t you?
DAVIS: Your time has expired. If you‘d like to answer, you may.
CANSECO: I think as athletes have become more educated, yes, they‘re starting to realize that with more and more information that the dangers are greater and greater.
Thank you.
DAVIS: Thank you. Mr. Goodnick.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This has been one of the most fascinating hearings I have ever participated in, and I‘ve been in Congress now 10 years. I‘m like a lot of folks up here on this side of the panel. I grew up listening to baseball games on WHO Radio, listening to the Minnesota Twins, and my idols were people like Harmon Killebrew and Earl Batty (ph) and Richie Rollins, and I remember those games just like it was yesterday.
And when I started thinking about this issue and as this issue has sort of, you know, bubbled up over the last several years, my first reaction is how unfair this is to people like Harmon Killebrew. You wonder how many he might have hit if he‘d have been able to use chemicals, or particularly Hank Aaron.
You know, and in some respects it sort of cheats the game and it cheats history and it cheats things like that. I think about baseball, especially because I growing up watching Roger Maris hit 61 home runs and remembering that for years and perhaps even today there‘s an asterisk after his name.
And knowing that, for example, in Little Leagues now and even in softball leagues we use aluminum bats, but we don‘t do that in baseball, not in the major leagues and not even in the minor leagues. And the reason is we take those records so seriously. I mean, they‘re almost a part of history.
We all know where we were when Roger Maris hit that 61st home run, and we remember some of those things.
And so, in many respects, when I thought about this hearing, first I thought about some of the greats of the game. One of my favorite expressions is with all kinds of issues we deal with here in Washington is that it shouldn‘t take an act of Congress, but I‘d like to, all of you, perhaps respond to that question: can baseball heal itself? Or is it going to take an act of Congress to force them to come to grips with—with this problem?
And hopefully begin to spread the message down to the minor leagues and to the colleges and high schools, and ultimately to the little leagues that this is a bad idea and it‘s the wrong way to go, and it cheats you, it cheats the game and it cheats the history of baseball.
Is it going to take an act of Congress? Mr. Schilling?
SCHILLING: I don‘t think so. I—as a member of the players union and as a former players‘ representative, I believe, and I‘ve always believed that the 90-plus percentile of players that test clean want to make sure the ones that don‘t are found out.
And I think that, given what I‘ve heard from the commissioner and from the people and player representatives, that‘s going to happen now. And I think the fear of public embarrassment and humiliation upon being caught is going to be greater than any player ever imagined.
PALMEIRO: I don‘t believe it will take an act of Congress. I believe that our game will get straightened out and I believe that it will get cleaned up. We just need to give this policy a chance. And like I said before, if we need to enhance it, let‘s do it.
MCGWIRE: I don‘t know, being that I‘m retired, but whatever it‘s going to take to put more of a positive light on this situation to detract the young people of today away from this stuff, I‘m all for it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe it can heal itself. If Major League Baseball takes us seriously, we can do so.
CANSECO: I got to be honest again, I don‘t believe it can, unless Congress steps in, because of the frugal testing programs that Major League Baseball has, it will just be a joke. It will be all this all over again, no bones about it.
And talking about baseball the way it‘s changed, baseball is evolving. The ballparks, the bats, the—let‘s say there was no steroids invented today at all. The nutrition, the information on— on food supplements out there are incredible.
Nonetheless, let‘s say 10, 15, 20 years from now we had a shortage of wood in the world, and we have to go to aluminum bats. So it‘s constantly evolving, moving forward, striving to become biggest, faster, stronger. We just have to find a way of doing it legally. That‘s it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I yield back.
DAVIS: Thank you very much. Mr. Sanders.
REP. BERNARD SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you and the ranking member for calling this important hearing.
Mr. Chairman, this morning I was on a TV show, as I‘m sure many members of this committee were, and I was asked by the interviewer whether I thought this committee was grandstanding, whether in fact we were using the fame of these outstanding athletes to get our names in the paper and so forth.
And I said I didn‘t think so, because I thought this was a hugely important issue impacting millions of young people. And that‘s what I believe. But I do want to say that I am overwhelmed by the kind of media attention this has gotten. I have counted dozens of TV cameras, and I think some of the American people wonder, is this all we do? Because this is what they see on television.
So I want to say to our media friends, that when some of us talk about the collapse of our healthcare system and millions of people not having any health insurance, come and join us. And we talk about the United States having the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world at a time when the rich are going richer, come on down.
Now maybe we may have to bring great baseball players to help us talk about childhood poverty. I don‘t know. I would hope not. I‘d hope we could have some of the great experts and I would hope you would come. But to the American people, some of us are dealing with other issues, as well.
In terms of this issue, I have a couple of questions that I would like to ask our guests. I have heard a discrepancy of opinion about the seriousness of the problem. Mr. Canseco says it‘s rampant, everybody knows it, virtually—lots of people are doing it. Mr. Schilling says he‘s not so sure. He doesn‘t think it is a terribly serious problem. And I think Mr. Palmeiro has agreed with Mr. Schilling.
So let me start off. And I know this is a hard one. Are we talking about one percent of players, to your judgment, doing it? Are we talking about five percent? Ten percent? Is Mr. Canseco the only player in the world to have done this? Mr. Schilling.
SCHILLING: No, I don‘t think he is the only player. I think he‘s a liar. I think that what he did was grossly overstate a situation to make himself not look as bad.
SANDERS: What would be your guess in terms of what‘s your situation?
SCHILLING: I took an oath. I swore to tell the truth here today. In 19 years in the big leagues, I have never seen a syringe other than one prescribed by a doctor to a player. I‘ve never seen steroids.
SANDERS: But locker room gossip, you may not have seen it. People talk, right? This guy‘s doing something; that guy‘s doing something. I don‘t need names. What‘s your guess? You‘ve heard people saying that somebody is doing it?
SCHILLING: Absolutely. There‘s discussions about other guys on other teams. I would say the percentage is on or around where it‘s been tested at. I don‘t think it‘s much higher.
I think it‘s—I think it‘s—again, I‘m in a locker room.
I‘ve been with six different teams. I‘ve played with over thousands of players. I‘d guess that maybe five to 10 of my teammates the last 15 years were using, maybe.
SANDERS: Five in the last 15 years?
SCHILLING: Maybe. Five to 10 at most. I wouldn‘t know any more.
SANDERS: OK. Mr. Palmeiro, Mr. Schilling says he would guesstimate maybe five or 10 players in the many years he‘s been in the majors. What do you guess?
PALMEIRO: I wouldn‘t know. I couldn‘t take a guess. I just think as long as—even one percent is too high. That‘s way too high. We need to make sure it‘s zero percent.
SANDERS: Mr. McGwire, would you like to speculate?
MCGWIRE: I wouldn‘t know, but there‘s a big reason why we‘re here today to talk about it.
SANDERS: Mr. Sosa, what‘s your guess?
SOSA: I wouldn‘t know. I really...
SANDERS: Mr. Canseco?
CANSECO: I guess I‘d say Mr. Schilling is correct about today‘s statistics on how many people are using steroids. Because we‘ve made steroids aware. We‘ve brought it out. This book came out, scared a lot of individuals. If they were using steroids when this book came out, they cold stopped, period.
SANDERS: So you‘re suggesting that it went from wide prevalence down to what Mr. Schilling is saying, almost nothing? Is that what you‘re saying?
CANSECO: Well, when I mentioned the 80 percent, I mentioned at the peak of steroid use. That may have been somewhere from ‘94 onto the year 2000. That‘s when I played. I‘ve been retired for, I guess, three or four years now. It‘s been a long time. But because of certain incidents that have happened, definitely, it‘s definitely curtailed greatly, yes.
SANDERS: Let me ask the last question. I appreciate all of your efforts, and you‘re willing to stand up for the kids of America that you know you‘re role models. You know that steroids are bad and you want to do everything you can to prevent kids from emulating bad habits.
My question is this: if the major leagues does not come forth with an aggressive policy—and I think what you‘re hearing today is we are not overly impressed by what the major leagues have done— will you come back in a year from and say, “Members of Congress, we support you in passing federal legislation to tell the major leagues that they have got to be aggressive and pass strong and stringent requirements?”
In other words, will you come back and tell us to do that? Mr.
Schilling?
SCHILLING: I‘m not sure I can answer that. I mean, we are in support of a stronger system that eradicates the use of steroids by players.
SANDERS: But if the majors don‘t do anything, if the league doesn‘t do anything, are you going to come back if we ask you to come back?
SCHILLING: That‘s a hypothetical I don‘t believe is going to happen.
SANDERS: You sound like a politician.
Mr. Palmeiro.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Bernie, he‘s a Republican. You better not encourage him.
PALMEIRO: I‘m going to agree with Curt. You know, I don‘t think it‘s going to happen, but, you know, if it doesn‘t...
SANDERS: You think the league is going to do the right thing?
PALMEIRO: I believe so, but if it doesn‘t, I would be more than happy to come back and address the problems again.
SANDERS: Mr. McGwire, will you come back and join us?
MCGWIRE: Well, I have no idea. Being a retired player, I have no idea what the policy is, but if you‘d like me back, sure.
SANDERS: OK. Mr. Sosa?
SOSA: Yes, I believe that, you know, Major League Baseball is going to do something, no question. If you have to come back here, I‘m happy to do it.
SANDERS: Thank you. Mr. Canseco?
CANSECO: I think it would be a major mistake to let the league do this itself, no ifs and buts about it. We‘ll be back here quicker than quick.
SANDERS: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
DAVIS: Mister...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
DAVIS: I‘m sorry—I promised Mr. Issa first. And then we‘ll go to (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
DARRELL ISSA ®, CALIFORNIA: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Schilling, I must say I came here intending on throwing softballs to all of you whenever possible, but listening, I‘ve been a little disappointed that I‘m sort of hearing a consistent pattern from you as a players‘ rep, that there isn‘t a problem, that we don‘t need to intervene.
So would it surprise you if I told you that I talked to multiple professional team owners, including baseball, and had an absolute positive please legislate a zero-tolerance?
SCHILLING: Would it surprise me? No.
ISSA: So that‘s a position you feel comfortable comes from the owners?
SCHILLING: Position being?
ISSA: That a zero-tolerance, go ahead and mandate it, that that doesn‘t surprise you that the owners feel that way?
SCHILLING: Not that they say it, no.
ISSA: OK. Well, I take people—Mr. Schilling, I take people...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is a pretty good politician, isn‘t he?
ISSA: Yes, he is. By the way, as to my colleague on the other side, talking about that pill to make us 10 times smarter, I think it could be mandated for Congress to save the nation. So I‘m not sure that that wouldn‘t be one we would give ourselves a special exemption as we do so many other things.
The earlier panel, I asked every member, and they were medical and grieving parents, basically a question, and I‘ll set it up. If you use a—the aluminum bat. If you were to sneak one into a game and use it, that would be cheating, wouldn‘t it?
And if you were to—if you were a pitcher, you were to bring in a dull ball so that nobody could really hit a home run off of you, that would be cheating, wouldn‘t it?
Anyone disagree here?
So using an illegal drug to attempt to enhance the performance of a player would be cheating, wouldn‘t it? Anyone here disagree in any way, shape or form? And wouldn‘t you agree that Congress has a vested interest in ensuring that baseball does not have cheating going on?
Mr. Chairman, I‘ve got all my questions answered.
DAVIS: Thank you very much. Mr. Kucinich.
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D), OHIO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee.
Some have used steroids, and with respect to baseball, it defies credibility that only the players know. We were holding players accountable here, but what about those who profited from a system of enhanced performance? Others knew, including the owners, which may explain why they owners may be congenial to some changes, so good for them.
What has not been investigated today or documented is the win at all costs mentality which has infected not only sport, but business, the media, and I might add, politics. Our steroids are called PACs and special-interest contributions.
This does not excuse anyone, but if we leave here today without
looking at the larger questions of pressures to succeed, pressures to
win, pressures to make money, pressures to be bigger, pressures to be
better, win at all costs, at the cost of health, at the cost of
reputation, at the cost of life, if we don‘t look at these larger
questions of win at all costs, if we don‘t think about this, if we don‘t go deeper with our thinking here today, we‘ll be back here years from now, regardless of what these players so graciously commit to do.
We only need to go back to Mr. Waxman‘s initial testimony, his statement about how we‘ve been here before.
Now, I‘d like to have the remaining time belong to the players who have said that they want to communicate with the young people of America. Take the opportunity now, because I think this is an important moment to do it.
What can you say right now, Mr. Schilling, to America‘s youth with respect to the youth of steroids, just in a half a minute to a minute.
SCHILLING: I think that...
KUCINICH: If you speak directly to the young people.
SCHILLING: I think to the youth of America, we‘ve made it very clear that steroids is cheating, and winning without honor is not winning.
KUCINICH: Mr. Palmeiro?
PALMEIRO: I would have to say that I am the perfect example of someone that came from another country and took advantage of the situation that was given to me. I‘ve worked very hard and I‘ve dedicated my life to my sport.
KUCINICH: Mr. McGwire?
MCGWIRE: I would say that steroids are wrong. Do not take them.
It gives you nothing but false hope. That‘s what I would say.
KUCINICH: Mr. Sosa, (speaking Spanish).
SOSA: Yes, sir, si. I would say pretty much hard work, believe in yourself, you know, grow up good and work hard, you know. Myself is an example, coming from the island, work hard, and make it to the majors. So that‘s the only thing that I can say to everybody up there. You know, believe in yourself.
KUCINICH: Mr. Canseco—thank you. Mr. Canseco.
CANSECO: I can speak to myself and say I made a mistake using steroids, no ifs and buts about it. I don‘t think any youngster using steroids.
KUCINICH: Speak to the young people.
CANSECO: Yes. I probably haven‘t slept in three or four days— my attorney can verify this—because of this issue. The first hearing about these children that took their lives, it‘s not worth it.
And I‘m going to say this again, if Congress does nothing about this, Major League Baseball will not regulate themselves. The players association will not regulate these players. That I guarantee.
I‘ve been a major league player for 17 years. Sure, the players association and the owners disagree on most things, but when it comes to making money, they‘re on the same page.
KUCINICH: Well, and that‘s what I alluded to earlier. And I would—I would suggest to the members of the committee that we can take these players at their word about their commitment.
Wherever they‘ve been in the past—as a matter of fact some who know the territory well may be the best spokespersons about a new direction. Even if you‘ve not been in that territory, as some witnesses have said, you can also make a strong statement. People— young people look up to you.
And so thank you for being here today. And I agree that we need to look forward, and we need to move forward. Thank you.
DAVIS: Thank you. Mr. Dent.
REP. CHARLES DENT ®, PENNSYLVANIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We‘re here for a variety of reasons today, because, one, this committee has oversight on federal drug policy. We‘re all concerned about our youth. I think we all can say that.
And the other—the other constituency I think that has to be considered today are the taxpayers of this country. In my state, where we subsidize Major League Baseball, taxpayers do. Over $150 million went to support stadiums in the city of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. We subsidize that industry, which is treated like a monopoly because of the antitrust exemption your industry enjoys.
That said, here‘s my main question. In 1919, Major League Baseball went through the Black Sox scandal and the gambling issues that, I guess, created the commissioner‘s office in order to deal with that problem. And I believe that in 2005, we‘re about where—that‘s about where baseball is now, 1919, 2005 is another seminal year for baseball.
And I guess my question is really this: do you believe that steroid use in baseball is as serious an issue for Major League Baseball as is the anti-gambling policy that Major League Baseball currently has imposed? Mr. Schilling, do you want to start?
SCHILLING: I think it‘s cheating. I think any form of cheating is—I don‘t think there‘s any more serious than the next.
PALMEIRO: I agree. As long as there‘s positive tests, it‘s wrong, and we need to clean it up.
MCGWIRE: I don‘t know, but if it‘s a positive—it‘s a positive move I‘m all for it.
SOSA: I would say the same thing.
CANSECO: I didn‘t quite hear the question.
DENT: The question is was this issue, steroid abuse by ball players, as serious an issue as gambling or potential gambling by players?
CANSECO: The steroid issue is much more serious, because it takes lives. You have to be very careful.
DENT: I get the sense you think it‘s as serious or more serious in your case, because I guess several years ago Pete Rose was banned for life from the game—banned for life from the game of baseball because of a violation of gambling policy.
And I guess this is the second question. Why do you think Major League Baseball was so aggressive then in going after Mr. Rose on that issue, and seems to have been so much less aggressive on this steroid issue? Do you think it‘s because of money? What drives that? Start with you, Mr. Canseco.
CANSECO: I think it‘s simple when you really look at it. It didn‘t affect the game in the sense of this issue, steroids, I say affects their game. It‘s a completely different subject matter.
DENT: Mr. Sosa?
SOSA: I have no idea. I can‘t answer that.
PALMEIRO: Would you repeat the question?
DENT: Why do you think baseball is so much more aggressive about Pete Rose‘s gambling issue than it has been about this whole issue of steroid use which has been described by some as rampant?
PALMEIRO: I‘m not sure. My guess would be that, you know, it is illegal to gamble, it‘s illegal to bet on baseball. It‘s always been that way. That‘s about all that I can say about that.
SCHILLING: I have no answer.
DENT: I‘m curious what your perspective would be, because it was always clear to me. I thought that baseball players knew not to bet on games, particularly ones they‘re playing in, and there were serious sanctions for that kind of behavior.
It just—I just get the sense from hearing what I‘ve heard that Major League Baseball just doesn‘t take this issue nearly as seriously as it does the gambling issue.
And I commend Major League Baseball for what they did when they found the instance of gambling. I mean, they dealt with it decisively, as they should have. And I‘m just trying to get a sense from players or former players why you think they‘re less aggressive on this. If anybody has anything to say, I‘d be glad to hear it.
DAVIS: You might ask the next panel. They might have something.
DENT: I‘m going to ask them that one, too. Don‘t worry. I thought I‘d get a players‘ perspective on this one, but I understand your reluctance to want to answer that question. Thank you very much.
DAVIS: Mr. Davis.
REP. DANNY K. DAVIS (D), ILLINOIS: Thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman.
Representatives of the league have emphasized that the current policy—that is, the current testing policy—is a negotiated labor agreement, you know, that was negotiated. It‘s a collective bargaining agreement. And I have a great deal of respect for that.
But I guess the question becomes for me that, since the impact, the outcome, the results of what we‘re dealing with is far more reaching than just the players themselves in terms of their work situation and the owners themselves in terms of the work environment, how do we get the two—Mr. Canseco, you emphasized consistently that you just don‘t believe that there is enough will within the industry itself—that is, enough will among the owners and players—to put together a serious policy that will—will impact the situation to a level of satisfaction.
Is there any possibility that—that the industry can, in fact, really police itself, that—that would make it unnecessary for federal legislation to further regulate baseball and drug use, if you will, among players of the game? And so maybe we could just revisit that.
Is there, Mr. Schilling, any—any real possibility of that happening?
SCHILLING: Absolutely. I think it‘s already happened. I think that what you‘ve seen in the last couple months is a direct result of Senator McCain‘s anger over the original policy.
And I understand that, after yesterday, he‘s a little bit more perturbed than he might have been two days ago. But my understanding is—and after having spoken to him, that we are taking steps. And I believe if you, as a body, are voicing your displeasure, which you have done, baseball will listen. I know that—as a player, I know we‘ve listened. We understand that there needs to be more stringent testing. There needs to be more stringent things done.
There are loopholes. I don‘t question for a second we‘ll close them to make sure, because, as a player, we want the playing field to be level.
D. DAVIS: Mr. Canseco, could you—why are you so adamant that nothing will really happen unless Congress steps in?
CANSECO: I try to think about this in a positive way, and—but if you really look at it and you look at the drug tests policies today, nothing has really been done.
I think we‘re looking at a drug testing policy that is not even down on paper yet. So, I mean, I‘m hoping, just out of this, something happens, at least the public is aware, at least, you know, children, children‘s parents are aware what‘s really going on, and maybe they can help also.
D. DAVIS: So, then, all of you actually are disagreeing with those who have suggested that there is no role in this activity for Congress to play, and that this committee and the Congress is overstepping its bounds?
SCHILLING: I don‘t think any of us said that.
D. DAVIS: No, I didn‘t say that any of you said it, but there are people who are suggesting it. And I‘m trying to get a verification from you that you‘re in agreement with my side of it, which is that we‘re doing exactly what we ought to be doing.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHILLING: The media and Democrats, maybe, but no. We‘re...
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We owe you guys one after Ms. Watson‘s thing.
That was...
D. DAVIS: Absolutely.
(LAUGHTER)
D. DAVIS: Could we finish?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
PALMEIRO: I believe that we are policing ourselves right now, and I believe that we will clean the game, because I believe that players, like Curt said, want a level playing field.
D. DAVIS: Mr. McGwire?
MCGWIRE: Whatever it takes.
D. DAVIS: Mr. Sosa?
SOSA: Yes, I believe they take it seriously, yes.
D. DAVIS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have no further questions.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: The gentleman has a little time yet. Would he yield to me?
D. DAVIS: Yes, I yield to Mr. Waxman.
WAXMAN: Why should we believe that the baseball commission and the baseball union will want to do something, when we have a 30-year record of them not responding to this problem?
Why should we believe it‘s all going to be done now, the way it should be done?
Mr. Schilling, could you answer that question? Thirty years, they‘ve done nothing, and even the proposal that you‘re vouching for is not in effect yet. It‘s only a draft, and it‘s filled with loopholes. And what you seem to be telling us is what baseball seems to be telling us: Trust us. Don‘t you think there‘s a reason not to trust them?
SCHILLING: What do you mean by 30 years of history?
WAXMAN: Well, 30 years ago, there was a committee hearing in Congress that looked at this problem. And Bowie Kuhn was the commissioner. And he assured the congressmen that they were going to do testing and they were going to stop steroids. That was 30 years ago.
There have been so many other incidents of reports in the last 10, 15 years of widespread steroid use. Nothing has happened from the baseball industry. And even now, when they put a testing program in place, it seems to be full of holes. Don‘t you think, at some point, even a Republican would say, as a Democrat would say, how long do we go along with this trust that something is going to be done when we don‘t see a very good record?
SCHILLING: I can‘t answer for the prior 30 years. I can answer to for my time in the game as a player. I think there‘s a huge contingent. Like I said, there‘s 98.3 percent of us that have tested clean, that are all for as stringent testing as we can get that‘s constitutional and fair. And...
WAXMAN: You accept the test and the results?
SCHILLING: Absolutely.
WAXMAN: OK. Thank you. My...
T. DAVIS: The gentleman‘s time has expired.
Mr. Westmoreland.
No questions. Let me move to Ms. Ros-Lehtinen.
REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN ®, FLORIDA: Thank you so much, Mr.
Chairman.
And I‘m very honored to be here today. This is a very important issue, not just for the nation, but as all of the players have pointed out, what an important message it sends to the young people. And I‘m glad to hear that everyone is saying the right thing.
And I just wanted to point out, the testimony given by two of my favorite athletes, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa, they‘re hometown favorites in our community in South Florida, as Rafael said. My parents and I came to the United States after fleeing communist tyranny that still reigns over my homeland of Cuba. We came seeking freedom, knowing that, through hard work, discipline, dedication, my family and I could build a bright future in America.
And, as a matter of fact, when he was asked by the team owner to go to Cuba and play baseball diplomacy and do that with Castro, he said, not me. And we admire him for his courage, because we know that that was not an easy decision.
And I thank Chairman Davis for being open to the possibility of having Rafael belong to the—be a member of the task force that they‘ll be putting together. He‘ll be a valuable addition, a person who says that his goal is to stamp out steroids out of the sport, and he would certainly add a lot to the debate. As all of us know, there are a high number of Hispanics playing baseball throughout the nation at all levels. And he would certainly be a leading role model for that.
And Sammy Sosa, what an outstanding athlete, growing up dirt-poor in the Dominican Republic, undergoing very difficult circumstances to get where he is today. And he says very strongly he supports testing professional athletes for illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
And we congratulate you, Sammy, for that stand.
And both these individuals do so much charity work, especially in our area of south Florida, and we congratulate them.
Felicidades. Muchas Gracias.
And Jose Canseco is a Miami boy, growing up just a few blocks from where I grew up, a graduate of Coral Park High School. And I‘m pleased to have Jose say that he‘s devastated when he listens to the testimony that we heard today, and I know that he‘s heard it in the past, of parents of young people who have—the young who have killed themselves as a result of steroid use.
And I hope that, as a proud graduate of Coral Park, the Rams, that, in a street that‘s named for him right there, Southwest 16th Street, that you go back to Coral Park, and you go back to my alma mater, Southwest, just a few blocks away, and talk to the young people about the dangers of steroid use. And your voice will be heard. And I encourage all of you to continue that battle. And I especially congratulate Rafael and Sammy.
(SPEAKING SPANISH)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING SPANISH)
ROS-LEHTINEN: And I would like to yield my remaining time to Mr.
Souder.
T. DAVIS: Mr. Souder.
REP. MARK SOUDER ®, INDIANA: I would just like to add for the record, as Major League Baseball and Congress work together in how you look at drug testing, in 1989, I was a staffer for then Senator Dan Coats, and we passed the first drug-testing legislation through the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act.
And we looked at a high school in Indiana, the McCutcheon High School, where they drug-tested their kids because of several injuries on their baseball team. And one third had tested positive for marijuana. That led to it being sustained by the courts that, in any type of athletic or athletic-type event in any school in the country, they could drug-test it. Still, as to what other kinds of random tests, but the courts have also ruled for students that, when there is possible cause or something that a student does, then you can test and not have it be legally challenged.
For example, if you‘re tardy three days to school, you can be tested, because that may be a sign that you have been partying. In baseball, I would suggest there are other things, such as sudden dramatic changes in performance. Hey, if you‘re clean, it doesn‘t matter. Like Rafael Palmeiro said, if you‘re clean, hey, a drug test shouldn‘t be a problem.
Also, dramatic proving when you‘re aging, like Senator Bunning referred to. After a strike, when there‘s a financial incentive to alter the game, that would be a good time to have more drug testing than usual. Also, if a particular franchise in financial trouble, those are motivations that cause question to the game and drug testing should be accelerated, also including ephedra and other things in it.
So, there‘s lots of loopholes in the policy. And I hope the players are very serious, that you will talk to your player reps about doing logical testing, like we do for truck drivers, like we do in schools, not just in the Olympics, but across this nation.
I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you.
T. DAVIS: Thank you.
Mr. Clay.
REP. WILLIAM LACY CLAY (D), MISSOURI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McGwire, I, along with all of Saint Louis and the country, watched with great excitement when you and Mr. Sosa chased and broke Maris‘ home run record. A stretch of Interstate 70 that runs through the heart of my district is named after you. In Saint Louis, Cardinal baseball has held a special place in the hearts of millions of fans for over 100 years, so naturally I‘m very concerned about allegations of player misconduct that, if substantiated, could damage that proud tradition.
Mr. McGwire, we are both fathers of young children. Both my son and daughter love sports, and they look up to stars like you. Can we look at those children with a straight face and tell them that great players like you play the game with honesty and integrity?
MCGWIRE: Like I‘ve said earlier, I‘m not going to go into the past and talk about my past. I‘m here to make a positive influence on this.
CLAY: Mr. McGwire, you have already acknowledged that you used certain supplements, including Andro, as part of your training routine.
In addition to Andro, which was legal at the time that you used it, what other supplements did you use?
MCGWIRE: I‘m not here to talk about the past.
(CROSSTALK)
Mr. Clay...
(CROSSTALK)
CLAY: Mr. Chairman, let me finish with my time.
Mr. Canseco, how did steroids enhance your effort to hit the home run or your ability to hit the ball?
CANSECO: For me, I think, it was a little different, because I‘ve also had a background of, since I was a child, coming home from baseball practice and bending over and falling to the ground paralyzed. I‘ve had—diagnosed with degenerative disc disease, scoliosis, arthritis. I‘ve had four major back surgeries, elbow surgery.
So, for me, I was a separate, different case than anyone else, in the sense of, I truly believe, yes, it helped me. Yes, it helped my physical stature and my muscle density, helped me stand up straight. But I had so many other physical problems that—that‘s why I said, if you‘re completely healthy, I would never, ever touch the stuff, never.
CLAY: Would you have been able to perform at that level that you did achieve without those, without steroids?
CANSECO: I‘m an exception to the rule, because I had all these ailments. And I truly believe that, for myself—and I‘m just, you know, one in a billion in this sense—it helped me because of my physicality, back problems...
(CROSSTALK)
CLAY: Thank you for your honesty.
Mr. McGwire, let me go back to you and ask you, would you have been able to have performed at that level without uses Andro?
MCGWIRE: I‘m not going to talk about the post.
CLAY: OK, let me go on to Mr. Schilling then.
I commend you to speaking out against steroids, even before baseball implemented testing. Who benefits from having a weak drug-testing policy?
SCHILLING: Nobody.
CLAY: Nobody benefits. Do clean athletes speak out often?
SCHILLING: I‘m not sure I can answer that with any accuracy.
CLAY: And how do your colleagues receive your message when you do speak out? Do they look at you funny? Do you...
SCHILLING: I don‘t think I speak for—I‘m not trying to speak for everybody, but I think I speak for a majority of the players when I say that we all feel that, you know, stricter testing is not something we‘re against.
CLAY: OK. Thank you for that response.
Just in closing, Mr. McGwire, I wish you had taken this opportunity to actually answer some of these questions about your career, about the records that you established.
T. DAVIS: Thank you. The gentleman‘s time has expired.
CLAY: Thank you.
(CROSSTALK)
T. DAVIS: Mr. Shays.
REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS ®, CONNECTICUT: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Gentlemen, it‘s nice to have you here. This is an important hearing. It‘s about drugs and, frankly, modestly interested, until we saw the response of Major League Baseball, which I think has been outrageous. Some of your testimony has been very helpful. I want you to know that this committee had requested a Major League Baseball joint drug prevention and treatment program. We wanted a copy of it.
We asked for it. We wrote a letter, and then we had to subpoena it. Now, I would like to ask the three who are active baseball players, I would like to have you tell me what you think, or thought, until today, the policy was. And let me first say, we thought that it was the first positive test, 10-day suspension, second positive test, 30-day suspension, third positive test, 60-day suspension, fourth positive test, one-year suspension. And then, any subsequent positive test, you‘re out for life. That‘s what we thought it was.
I want to ask the three active players, starting with you, Mr.
Sosa, if you thought that this—that was the policy, or did you
think it was what we now have learned, that you could also be fined up
to $10 on the first offense, fined up to $25,000 on the second
offense, fined up to $50,000 on the third offense, fined up to
$100,000 on the fourth offense? Were you aware you could be given a fine, instead of suspension?
SOSA: No.
PALMEIRO: I wasn‘t aware of it. I knew about the 10-day
suspension for the first offense and your name being public and so on, but I wasn‘t aware of the fine.
SHAYS: I need an answer, so they can record it.
SCHILLING: No, I wasn‘t aware of it.
SHAYS: What does that tell you about Major League Baseball and the management, if we couldn‘t get this information voluntarily, we couldn‘t get it through a request by letter, after asking for it, and we had to subpoena this? Why would this document and why should this document have been prevented from coming to us? Would anyone care to answer that question?
Let me ask you another question. I hear the concept of team player. And, trust me, I don‘t care at this hearing—I don‘t care to get into the issue of cheating or records. I don‘t care at this hearing to know if you took drugs or not. I don‘t care to have you name names. But what piqued my interest was the concept that, as a team player, I‘m not going to name names.
I‘d like to know the obligation that each of you think you have for your team to make sure you don‘t have drugs being used by teammates.
And let me start with you, Mr. Schilling.
SCHILLING: My obligation first is to the lord and then to my family, my family name, above any of my teammates that I‘ve ever had.
SHAYS: OK. Well, what do you think the lord would want you to do?
SCHILLING: To be as truthful and honest as you could be and had to be.
SHAYS: Do you feel that means that you should confront your— even privately, your colleagues that are using them, drugs?
SCHILLING: I think that varies with different people.
SHAYS: OK.
PALMEIRO: I‘m not sure how I would handle that. I‘ve never had that problem. You know, if it became a problem, I guess I would confront the player.
MCGWIRE: I agree. I‘ve never had that problem, and being retired and out of the game, I couldn‘t even think about that.
SHAYS: Never had a problem of seeing your colleagues use drugs? MCGWIRE: Pardon me?
SHAYS: Never had a problem of seeing your colleagues use drugs, steroids and so on? Is that what you mean? I don‘t know what you mean by, you never had that problem.
SHAYS: Let me just go to Mr. Canseco.
T. DAVIS: I think he‘s—I think he‘s...
MCGWIRE: I‘m not going to get into the past.
T. DAVIS: He‘s not getting into that.
SHAYS: OK, I‘m not really asking about the past.
Mr. Sosa, what obligation do you think you have to your team if you are aware that someone is using drugs on your team?
SOSA: I‘m a private person. I don‘t really go, you know, ask people whatever it is.
SHAYS: Well, I will just conclude by saying, I think I know your answer, sir.
It just seems to me that one of the messages you may be telling young people is that a team player—it‘s an interesting concept of a team player, it seems to me. It seems to me, you do have an obligation.
T. DAVIS: The gentleman‘s time has expired.
Ms. Watson.
REP. DIANE E. WATSON (D), CALIFORNIA: I want to thank everyone in front of us for being here in this most grueling session. Believe me, some of us feel very deeply for you.
My concern is this, when I read statistics like this. More than 500 high school students have tried steroids, nearly triple the number just 10 years ago, nearly 20 percent of eighth graders, nearly 30 percent of tenth graders, and more than 40 percent of 12th graders that were surveyed in 2004, they were using steroids and found them fairly easy and very easy to obtain.
So, I want to ask a question about, where does that come from? And I think it seems to be that drug use goes across all sports. And it‘s the sign of the times. It seems to be so acceptable today to take some kind of drug. I don‘t care what kind of sport you‘re using. And I guess we have to know that our youth are living in a different era when they do this as a matter of standard.
So, what I want to ask is, what happened to sportsmanship? I‘m using that in the generic, sportsmanship. And why are drugs so accessible? And is it the money that drives this kind of practice? Does anyone want to talk about that?
I am highly concerned about our youth today. And, believe me, I know of what I‘m talking about. I used to sit on a school board in Los Angeles. I was a school counselor, I chaired the Health Committee for 17 years. We fought along, with Representative Waxman, tobacco use. And that‘s why I held this up, too. I had a dual purpose. This is a man who used steroids and smoked cigars and was on the front of “Sports Illustrated.”
I‘m really disturbed by the messages we‘re sending to young people today. And, so, that‘s a general—those are general questions. If you‘d like to espouse on them, fine. If you don‘t, it‘s all right with me. But I just had to get it out.
T. DAVIS: Anybody want to say anything?
WATSON: OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
T. DAVIS: All right. Thank you very much.
Mr. Lynch.
WATSON: I will yield.
REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Canseco, I just want to start off by saying the testimony I‘m hearing today from you at this hearing is much, much different than what I have read in your book. I have to say, it‘s a stark, stark change. I just want to remind you, at the end of your book, you stated, “What I‘m hoping is that some more intelligent forward-looking voices will come out and urge baseball to embrace the potential of steroids and to fight for their place in the game and in our lives.”
That‘s what you‘re selling here in this book. I don‘t know if there‘s a new book coming out with what you‘re saying today. But I‘ve got to tell you, I‘m a little surprised what I read and what you‘re saying. So, can you enlighten me a little bit? Because I‘m a little bit surprised.
CANSECO: I think we have to put it in context. This book took, I think, over two years to write. And while maybe that may have been my opinion two years ago, it‘s not today, absolutely not.
I have spoken with people, seen certain things that steroids has done, and it‘s—I‘ve completely done, you know, a turnaround when it comes to that.
LYNCH: All right. We‘ll wait for the sequel.
Mr. Schilling, you actually live in my district. I want to say, in fairness to you, there‘s never been any allegation or any suspicion that you‘ve ever had anything to do with any of this stuff. You‘re here for two reasons. That‘s what they tell me. One, you‘ve been outspoken on this stuff and a voice for right in this case, and that you‘re well-respected among all the parties, the owners, the managers, the players, everyone.
I‘ve got to tell you, though, I‘m a little bit surprised that you still believe in self-regulation. And I‘m looking—I‘m a former ironworker president, and I would negotiate for my guys and ladies. And then I would come back to them with the contract after I negotiated with the companies, and I would ask them to ratify it.
And Mr. Davis touched on this a little earlier. Did you folks ratify this contract? Because it‘s not signed by the Players Union.
SCHILLING: Right.
LYNCH: It‘s not signed by management. It says it‘s a draft agreement. And I just wonder, did they ever come back and say, here‘s the drug policy. Here‘s the collective bargaining agreement, like I would do with my members. I would read it to them page by page and say, OK, now we‘re going to vote on this.
Did they do that?
SCHILLING: I don‘t think it‘s possible. I think the dynamics in which we negotiate are very different than when—the ones which you negotiated. We have over 1,000 players spread around the world.
LYNCH: And the salaries are much different than ironworkers as well, I might add.
SCHILLING: Right. But we—we—we elect player representatives to negotiate, to represent us.
LYNCH: OK. So, they ratify on behalf of—did that happen, though? Did...
SCHILLING: Yes. That always happens.
LYNCH: It always happens, even with the drug policy?
SCHILLING: I can‘t speak to that specifically, though. You‘re going to have to ask the panel following us exactly how that happened. But, as a player, I assume it did, yes, absolutely.
LYNCH: OK.
I just want to just talk about where—where self-regulation has got us. You‘re allowed to leave in the middle of the urine test. There are a bunch of substances that are not included on the list.
The players and the league have to agree on what‘s going to be banned. It says on the text of your agreement—and that‘s what you—that‘s what you negotiate, the text of the agreement—that the first offense of steroid use, the players, according to the agreement, can pay $10,000 and keep it quiet.
They‘re not publicized for their violation. They can buy it off. For $10,000. And the average starting salary is over $2 million. So, it‘s not even a slap on the wrist. We have an escape clause here, where, if the government comes in and starts investigating your drug policy, it goes away. You just get rid of it. The parties agreed.
That‘s where self-regulation has got us. And I‘m just—I don‘t
· I‘m not with you on that, I have to admit. I just don‘t think that baseball is capable. And I‘m going to—we‘re going to have a little chat with the next panel coming in. I just don‘t think that they have demonstrated good faith on their ability to be able to—to be able to police this type of thing. But I want to thank you all for coming here today. Thank you.
T. DAVIS: The gentleman‘s time has expired.
Mr. Duncan, any questions?
REP. JOHN J. DUNCAN JR. ®, TENNESSEE: Very briefly, Mr.
Chairman.
I heard Mr. Palmeiro say that he could live with a one-strike-you‘re-out, Olympic standard on the steroids. But then I had to go to other meetings. And Mr. Souder tells me that some of you defended the present Major League policy. After seeing all the interest, all the concern, after hearing all this testimony and seeing all these news reports about young people dying, and I saw a news report where a light heavyweight boxer who became a heavyweight boxer, this weekend, they had a report on the national news that his legs were amputated, all these horrible things.
Do any of you on the panel—would anybody object to the Major League coming in or instituting a much, much tougher, stricter policy, whatever that might be, much tougher than it is now? Do any of you have an objection to or problems with something like that, even if it‘s not quite as strict as what Mr. Palmeiro said, an Olympic standard, but I mean, a much, much tougher policy? Anybody have any problems with that?
Objections to it, Mr. McGwire?
MCGWIRE: Well, I‘m retired. But I‘m telling you, whatever anybody can do to improve it, so there‘s no more meetings like this, I‘m all for it. So...
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think everybody seconds that here on the panel.
(LAUGHTER)
DUNCAN: All right. I think everybody agrees, a much tougher standard is necessary.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
T. DAVIS: Thank you very much.
Mr. Van Hollen.
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), MARYLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank all of you for your testimony here today. And thank all of you also for your commitment to use your star power on going forward to send the message to our young people about the dangers of steroid use and the fact that it‘s just simply the wrong thing to do in baseball or any other sport.
One of my sons, one of my young sons, Mr. Sosa, wears—wore your T-shirt to bed just about every night, couldn‘t get it off of him. And that‘s when you were with the Cubs. I‘m from Maryland. Now that you‘re with the Baltimore Orioles, he‘s a real—real fan, an even extra fan. So, all of you understand, I know, that you have a great responsibility, given the fact that you are heroes to so many young people, to convey the right messages. And I thank you for that.
A part of making that message, I think, also requires conveying to people an understanding of the scope of the problem, and that‘s why we‘re here today, is to try to get a handle on the scope of the problem and the best way to approach eliminating the problem.
And, in that regard, Mr. Schilling, I do have a question for you regarding your earlier statements regarding the extent of steroid use within baseball, because, as I understood your testimony, you said that steroid use in baseball is less than 2 percent. Is that right?
SCHILLING: That‘s the results of the testing from the last season, yes.
VAN HOLLEN: Right. And that‘s based on the league‘s current steroid testing policy.
SCHILLING: Right.
VAN HOLLEN: Right.
SCHILLING: Right.
VAN HOLLEN: But I think we‘ve heard testimony today about the weakness in that policy. As I understand, it does not include testing in the off-season. Is that right?
SCHILLING: Yes. It‘s random.
VAN HOLLEN: OK. All right.
As I understand—OK, it does not include, I understand, new designer steroids, like a recent steroid recently recognized by the World Anti-Doping Agency. It did not include Andro, which is an anabolic steroid precursor that we understand players used. And it did not include human growth hormone which we also believe, from at least from news accounts, that players used.
And so I guess, given that information, are you confident that the 2 percent testing...
And so I guess given that information, are you confident that the two percent testing results really reflect the use of steroids?
CURT SCHILLING, BOSTON RED SOX: I don‘t believe as written by the author of that book that 78 percent of them slip through the cracks if that‘s what you‘re asking me.
VAN HOLLEN: No, no, I‘m really asking very simple, you‘ve used the number two percent...
SCHILLING: Right.
VAN HOLLEN: ... and that two percent, I think is just important to understand for everybody is based on the current...
SCHILLING: Right.
VAN HOLLEN: And I think that a lot of the testimony today we heard from earlier panels, suggests that that policy is a very weak policy. And as I understand your testimony, you would be willing to accept a much tighter policy...
SCHILLING: Right.
VAN HOLLEN: ... right? So I think it‘s something we would all have to acknowledge that when you have a weak testing regime, you can‘t be confident in the results, is that right?
SCHILLING: Right. I think my answer earlier was given, again, on my one9 years of being in the Major League clubhouse. I can honestly tell you, I have never seen a syringe. I‘ve—the discussion is nothing more than you get on high school lunch breaks. You talk, you wonder, you speculate, but none of us—not many of us, if any, are experts. But I have never seen it. I have never seen—I wouldn‘t know what it looked like.
VAN HOLLEN: No, I appreciate that. I just—the two percent number has been out there and I think it‘s important people understand that‘s based on a testing policy that I think most people have acknowledged today is relatively weak and would agree to strengthen it. And I think it‘s important that we understand the scope of the problem when we‘re trying to get a solution to.
And I think it‘s important when we‘re communicating to young people that we are not trying to narrow a scope of the problem, which at least by all press accounts is much broader. So I really think there has been some progress today. I think the fact that you are all committed to going forth after the testimony today to dedicate yourselves to sending a strong message, I think that‘s a very important part of it. Obviously tightening the testing policy is what gives some teeth to the message going forward. But I thank you for your testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
DAVIS: Thank you very much (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Ms. Sanchez.
REP. LINDA SANCHEZ (D), CALIFORNIA: Thank you. Let me just start by saying that I am a huge baseball fan and I admire all of your talent and dedication to the sport. As a young girl who played competitive softball, I looked up to Major League Baseball players as my heroes and as somebody who plays on the congressional baseball team—and that‘s baseball—I still look up to you all and admire your talent.
But because baseball is so intertwined in our, you know, like our
national heritage and our history, to me you know this hearing is about
being upfront and honest about the problem. I think everybody here has
agreed that there is a problem, but so far today, and I have to say I‘m
really disappointed because I‘m hearing differences in terms of how
widespread it is. We have one member of the panelist who says it‘s rampant
and we‘ve got four-fifths of the panel that couldn‘t really speculate
because you know they never saw it, they never heard it, they‘ve never been
around it, they don‘t know anything about it. And I just want you to know
· tell you that it‘s hard to reconcile those two visions about how rampant is this problem in baseball.
And I think, you know, if we want to move forward, we have to start with being honest about how deep is this problem. I want to just read to you really briefly some news accounts. In 1995, the “Los Angeles Times” reported that anabolic steroids apparently have become the performance drugs of the ‘90‘s in Major League Baseball. And the paper quoted the San Diego Padres general manager stating, “we all know there‘s steroid use and it‘s definitely become more prevalent. I think 10-20 percent.” That‘s in 1995.
In July of 1997, the “Denver Post” quoted a player for the Colorado Rockies estimating that two0 percent of ball players use steroids. In 2000, “The New York Times” quoted Brad Andress, the strength coach for the Colorado Rockies as estimating that 30 percent of Major League Baseball players had used steroids at some point in their careers. And one veteran all-star outfielder said he believed that two-thirds of the top players in the National League are using some kind of steroid.
In 2002, “Sports Illustrated” reported that the game has become a pharmacological trade show and outfielder Chad Curtis estimated that 40 to 50 percent of the players use steroids. So, it‘s hard for me to imagine that two percent of the players are using. We‘ve had extensive questions on the testing and my understanding is the current policy, the two percent testing, is not testing that‘s done more than once a year randomly. It could be done in the off-season. It can be done in the preseason, but that‘s two percent they are catching using at the time that the test is administered.
We had a colleague that tried to pin you all down and have you just I mean estimate for us what percentage of ball players do you think are using. I mean you guys are in the clubhouses. We‘re not. We don‘t have access there. We don‘t know. But we‘re getting this hear no evil, see no evil, don‘t know anything that‘s going on. I mean the first step is admitting, hey, there‘s a problem. Next step how widespread is it. And then the next step what do we do to try to combat it.
And I‘m not hearing that from you all today and I‘m very disappointed. I have to say extremely disappointed in the testimony today. So I‘m going to ask—you know we‘re not asking you to name names. We‘re not asking you to implicate anybody. We‘re asking you because everybody admits it‘s serious for young kids. But you know you as a teammate, as a player, and if you are all nonusers, which you - four-fifths of the panel has testified you guys didn‘t use. If you guys are users I would think that you would be the first to step up and say, hey, there‘s a problem with teammates that are using because it‘s potentially hazardous to their health and because it‘s unfair.
It is cheating. It is not a level playing field. And if I‘m not using, why should teammates be allowed to use? And yet I‘m not hearing that. Have any of you ever confronted anybody over the use, asked them about it? You hear rumors in the locker room. That was some of the testimony today, but none of you went to management or said, hey, there may be a problem here. Have any of you ever confronted a player or made that problem known? I mean I‘m hearing that one percent is too much, yet none of you throughout all the years that you‘ve collectively played together has ever stood up and said that before now and I would just like an answer to that question as briefly as possible...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the question...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... I‘m sorry the question is?
SANCHEZ: Have you ever made—I‘m sorry. But I‘m very passionate about this. Have you ever made the problem of use among players that you have heard rumored of, made that known to somebody responsible?
SCHILLING: No. I haven‘t. And I never would because I‘ve never known for sure.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I wouldn‘t know who to go to. I wouldn‘t know who‘s on it.
SANCHEZ: Nobody knows.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I‘m not here to discuss that.
SANCHEZ: You‘re not here to discuss the past and you‘re out of baseball now. Mr. Sosa?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I really am not going to tell you something that I don‘t know, period.
SANCHEZ: Mr. Canseco, when you played, did you ever notify anybody about the use by other players?
JOSE CANSECO, RETIRED MLB PLAYER: In my days—we‘ll just stick to my book—I was a source of information for it.
SANCHEZ: But you never made...
CANSECO: Yes.
SANCHEZ: ... the problem aware to...
(CROSSTALK)
SANCHEZ: ... anybody responsible?
CANSECO: It wasn‘t - it‘s funny because it wasn‘t a problem. There wasn‘t anyone that said you know don‘t do it or you shouldn‘t do it or if you get caught, this is going to happen to you. It was acceptable in the ‘80‘s and mid to late ‘90‘s as a cup of coffee.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. Thank you (UNINTELLIGIBLE) time expired. We have two questioners left. And then we‘re going to dismiss the panel and move to the final panel. Mr. Ruppersberger, any questions?
REP. C.A. RUPPERSBERGER (D), MARYLAND: Well when you come to the end of the panel, a lot has been discussed and we‘ve been here all day. The first thing, I think, that in the beginning I was concerned about this hearing. Now I think it‘s a very positive. It‘s very positive for baseball. The issue is now on the table. I guarantee you Jose Canseco is not going to win a popularity contest with the players, but he might be the best thing that‘s happened to you all.
Baseball has a public relations problem, and in my opinion, you players can solve it. Now, we can talk about management and management has a lot of responsibilities, but we‘ve been going through this testimony about who knows what, would you talk to a player, and it all comes down in the end, I think, to having a good drug policy that works. If the NFL can have a policy, if the Olympics can have a policy, especially the Olympics who had a credibility problem, then you can do it. We love your game.
You know, I look at you, Curt Schilling, it was one of the worst trades we ever had. I‘m a Baltimore Orioles fan, but bottom line you can fix it, and you have been dodging a little bit today, in my opinion, about saying well if I don‘t know about it, I‘m not going to say about it. If I think my colleague is taking a bribe, I‘m going to deal with it, and it is your responsibility I think with baseball.
You have one of the best negotiators in Fehr and if he can‘t negotiate with management, and management, really, I am putting more burden on you than management because management would love to fix this, and let‘s get on with the game of baseball. So my question, bottom line, would you take the position to go to Fehr and organize your players who have a responsibility to this country, for our national pastime, for our children, would you go to Fehr and say, we want the best and the strongest program that we can have to bring integrity to baseball? Because if you don‘t have integrity, eventually this game is going to have problems, and we don‘t want that to happen.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
RUPPERSBERGER: Would you go to Fehr and do whatever and work with us.
You might know - you might not know the intricacies of drug policy. I do. I was a former prosecutor who dealt with drugs. You have to have accountability. You can‘t tell people when they‘re going to test somebody. You have to make sure that you follow the vial when you take the urine test. These are things that have to be done, but if each one of you would agree and I challenge each one of you here today to organize your players.
You‘re a world champion now. You‘ve got a momentum to challenge your players to say, we won‘t go and we will go what we can do. We will match the NFL. Do you think you are a better sport than the NFL? Well?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Definitely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Yes.
RUPPERSBERGER: Well, why...
(LAUGHTER)
RUPPERSBERGER: Well then why can‘t you have a drug policy like the
NFL?
(CROSSTALK)
RUPPERSBERGER: So bottom line, you can fix it. OK. You can‘t blame the owners. The owners have responsibility. But you go to Selig—I‘m sure he would love to have the strictest policy you could have and then you can go about playing baseball. How about you...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I agree. I agree. I would go to Donald Fehr for that.
RUPPERSBERGER: OK. If you were there, Mr. McGwire?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, being that I‘m retired...
RUPPERSBERGER: I know that...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... I still would go to him, yes.
RUPPERSBERGER: Sammy Sosa, welcome to Baltimore, but would you do that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would do the same thing.
RUPPERSBERGER: OK. And what do you think Jose? I gave you a plug. You know you put this issue on the table. And by the way, if I was going to question you, I would have questioned you about credibility because you made some inconsistent statements about how many people—I‘ll go over it later at a private time—if I was going to question you, but the more I think about it, you had the—you put it out there on the table and now we‘re dealing with it. And if players and baseball management don‘t do it now, shame on you. OK, that‘s all. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much...
RUPPERSBERGER: I lost my voice, by the way...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... you‘re cleanup batter.
REP. JOSE SERRANO (D), NEW YORK: Cleanup batter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just going to make two comments very briefly. One, a request, which probably falls more on the shoulders of Mr. Sosa and Mr. Palmeiro than anybody else. If we talk about an education program for young people, please remember that according to statistics, I think, it‘s 40 percent of all professional ball players from rookie league up are Latin Americans. And so an educational program that doesn‘t include an outreach to the Dominican Republic, to Venezuela, to Mexico, and to other places in Latin America will not be in preparation for what needs to happen.
There have been already scandals reported about an anticipation of signing as free agents people in different parts of Latin America that are being beefed up and hurt with drugs. And secondly—and I hope that would happen. And secondly, I hope that as one of the last speakers today, you see us for who we are. I‘m not a member of this committee. The chairman and the ranking member gave me the privilege of being here today because I, like so many of these people on this panel, are baseball fanatics.
For me, baseball is not a game. It‘s a passion. We may be looked and some reporters may see us as politicians having another hearing, but we‘re concerned about a game we love. When Mr. McGwire and Mr. Sosa took us on that ride that summer, that wasn‘t just hitting homeruns. That was a country hanging onto heroes. When Mr. Palmeiro—I will watch you this summer as you become the only—the fourth player joining Aaron and Murray and Mays to get 500 homeruns and 3,000 hits. As a Latino, I feel proud, and as an American, I‘ll be excited.
Mr. Canseco, I wish I could have helped you get those 38 homeruns to reach 500. You stopped at 462. Perhaps baseball stopped you, you claim at times. And Mr. Schilling, even though you did it to my Yankees, you‘re still my hero.
(LAUGHTER)
SERRANO: That‘s who you are. You are not just normal, regular people. It‘s not the kids who look at you alone. That‘s the excuse we use. This autograph is for my son. It‘s for me. I already signed up for Major League game day audio for my computer. I already brought my first 25 packs of baseball cards for this year to add to the closet full of baseball cards that I have.
Mr. McGwire, I‘ll never sell your rookie card. I‘ll leave it to my children and my grandchildren because you‘re heroes. There‘s no price on my love of this game, and so I hope that when you leave here today and think about it tomorrow and the next day, that you don‘t think of us as another legislative committee. You think of us as no different than the people you see in the stands. We‘re baseball fans who love this game, and we‘re terrified of what could happen to it.
I don‘t like the fact that you‘re here. I don‘t like to see the breakup of the bash brothers in front of me. I don‘t like the fact that Mr. Sosa hasn‘t smiled that famous smile. I don‘t like the uneasiness of all of you today. You shouldn‘t be here. Circumstances put you here. Please save the game. Without this game, this country is in deep trouble and I‘d like to yield now to Mr. Waxman.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: I thank you for yielding to me. That was a very eloquent plea. And I thank you for it because you speak on behalf of so many of us. But Mr. Schilling, I just want to raise something that just came to my attention and read you some quotes that were attributed to you which sound so different than what you said today. So you‘ll be prepared for in it case somebody raises it later.
This was from “Sports Illustrated” June 2002. Schilling says that muscle-building drugs have transformed baseball into something of a freak show. Quote—“you sit there and look at some of these players and you know what‘s going on,” he says. “Guys out there look like Mr. Potato Head with a head and arms and six or seven body parts that just don‘t look right. They don‘t fit. I‘m not sure how steroid use snuck in so quickly, but it‘s become a prominent thing very quietly. It‘s widely known in the game.
And that also I know guys who use and don‘t admit it because they
think it means they don‘t work hard. And I know plenty of guys now are
mixing steroids with human growth hormone. Those guys are pretty obvious”
· end quote. Were those your quotes?
SCHILLING: Yes.
WAXMAN: And you feel don‘t those quotes seem to indicate you thought that at least when you gave them that there was a widespread use with some people because you could see it.
SCHILLING: I think we saw it as a problem. I think that any player looks at anybody on the field as—that gave themselves a competitive advantage by cheating as a problem.
WAXMAN: You don‘t think this is inconsistent with your statements today?
SCHILLING: No, I think—I said those are my quotes. I made those quotes and I think I said earlier today there were some quotes I made in the past referring to some of those, where I think I grossly overstated the problem due to being uninformed and unaware.
WAXMAN: Thank you very much. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you very much. And let me just thank all of you. It‘s been a long afternoon for you. This has been very helpful to us and I think this will be very helpful. Hopefully the owners, management, and the union are listening to this as well. We have a lot of different perspectives up here. We are the elected representatives of the people, and I think we share that perspective which is a little different from being a player or in management.
But this has been very helpful for us. I just appreciate the willingness of all of you to step forward. This has been, I think, a victory in itself. We look forward to continuing to work with you. We wish all of you good luck on the field this year as the season begins as well. And I‘m going to release this panel. Thank you very much. Take a five-minute recess.
(CROSSTALK)
WITT: There you have it. That wraps up panel three of four panels today. Some two-plus hours of testimony there on Capitol Hill by that which everybody was truly waiting for today, those star baseball players, and perhaps most eloquently it was said by Representative Jose Serrano of New York at the very end, that last legislator to speak and ask questions. He really seemed to really lose a hat as a legislator and almost be just a fan and begged of those players to go out and do the right thing and spread the right message and take ownership for any mistakes they may have made in the past.
For my part, Natalie, there was one very interesting question that was asked and that was asked of all six of them that were sitting there. Is taking steroids cheating? Every single one of them said yes with the exception of Mark McGwire whose testimony today may be perceived as being a rather peppery, to say the least. He was very obstinate at times and that I think...
MORALES: Right.
WITT: ... is what many will be talking about when we wrap this up later today.
MORALES: Yes, his typical responses, I don‘t know, I‘m retired now.
I‘m a retired baseball player, and I don‘t want to talk about the past. Let‘s talk about the future. That‘s why we‘re here today. And a lot of disappointment as well expressed by the committee members on the subject of how pervasive the use of steroids in—is in baseball.
Not getting much response or perhaps the response that they wanted to hear on that. And our coverage here continues now, though, because of course what could be the most fiery part of the testimony will be within the next five minutes or so when the next panel will meet. And this is when we will hear from the owners, the Commissioner Bud Selig, as well as members of the Players Union and of course, our coverage continues here on MSNBC with Chris Matthews and “HARDBALL”.
Chris, good evening.
WITT: Hi Chris.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST OF MSNBC‘S “HARDBALL”: Thank you Alex and thank you Natalie. I‘m Chris Matthews in Washington and you are watching MSNBC‘s live coverage of the House hearing investigating steroid use in baseball. We‘re expecting Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball, to begin his hot testimony in five minutes, and it‘s going to be very hot.
We‘re sitting here with a man who led off the testimony today. He‘s a civilian, Raymond Garibaldi, whose son Rob was a baseball player who committed suicide after using steroids. Thank you very much. You testified today. Are you satisfied with the testimony by people like Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, the rest?
RAY GARIBALDI, SON COMMITTED SUICIDE AFTER STEROID USE: Mr. McGwire, I‘m happy with some of the positive things he said what he wants to do as far as trying to get the word out, but I‘m a little disappointed about not coming forward and taking a stand on whether he took steroids or not.
MATTHEWS: He apologized in very emotional terms to you. He was crying. What do you make of that? What is your reaction to that? That he felt responsible in some way...
GARIBALDI: I think he‘s...
MATTHEWS: ... for what happened to your son.
GARIBALDI: ... he‘s a father of four and I think he probably inside kind of feels what I—you know what my wife and I have gone through.
MATTHEWS: Did you feel that these guys were lawyered up today?
GARIBALDI: Yes.
MATTHEWS: That‘s what I thought watching them. David Shuster is joining us. One of the things that struck me was the power of the emotions and the weakness of the testimony. There was a disconnect. These great name brand players who are in baseball cards now for 20 years, some of these guys like McGwire, Canseco, these guys are going for the Hall of Fame a lot of them. They didn‘t give us much information today. Lot of emotion, no facts.
DAVID SHUSTER, HARDBALL CORRESPONDENT: And Chris, it was jarring to see these hulks of a human being like Mark McGwire who everybody that was a baseball fan, followed in ‘98 when he was chasing the Roger Maris record, and for him to be pushed around by some of these pencil-necked geeks that sit on this committee, these dwebby (ph) guys in Congress who are pushing around this baseball star and the only thing that Mark McGwire, who‘s a hero to so many people, can say is I‘m not going to talk about the past. That was jarring.
But Chris, one of the things that I want to get to which is why I think the hearing—the best part is still ahead. Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball, as it stands right now, he has said that the baseball steroid testing system he has is comprehensive and effective. Last night Selig submitted documents to the House Government Reform Committee. The committee went crazy. They looked at this and said when you look at the fine print this is not effective. This is not comprehensive. Their questions have been building all day long and that‘s why the testimony is about to be so hot.
MATTHEWS: Selig, the commissioner of baseball, of course, is coming up. His testimony is going to be very hot tonight, whatever he says. But let‘s take a look at Mark McGwire and what we said about his sense of guilt about what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My heart goes out to every parent whose son or daughter were victims of steroid use. I hope that these hearings can prevent other families from suffering.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Raymond, again the emotions are manifest. This man is hurting. He looks like a man of conscience. Maybe his lawyers told him, you‘ve got the Fifth Amendment to lean on, don‘t say anything that will incriminate you or other players, but there wasn‘t even a generic, a general discussion. These guys lined up one after another and said they don‘t know anything about steroid use except for Canseco.
GARIBALDI: Well, I have a hard time buying that. Any kid that plays baseball in college or in high school just knows that the stuff is going on. If you know of kids that are—that have gone up and gone into the Minor Leagues and have worked their way up, they all talk about it. It‘s there. Some of them have to use because they need to do it to compete.
MATTHEWS: You were telling me that it‘s part of the scouting process, and you were telling me an amazing story about how kids when your son Rob was 15, they are out looking for—they‘re out—the net is out for talent. But the net is also out to sell the kids drugs, right?
GARIBALDI: Well...
MATTHEWS: To say if you want to make it beef up, you need 50 more pounds, as you said. Well God is not going to give you 50 more pounds. Maybe weight lifting will, but most—the easy way to get 50 more pounds on your back is drugs, right?
GARIBALDI: Well, not quite that way. When Rob was 15 years old, he played on a scouting team for the California Angels and the coaches were scouts. And he played with top northern California 15 and 16 year olds. He was—they were constantly being monitored for, you know, what they do for your different tools that are required to be a ball player and the one tool Rob didn‘t have was the size. He was 5‘9”, 130 pounds...
MATTHEWS: Which is about average...
GARIBALDI: ... for his age and...
MATTHEWS: He was normal.
GARIBALDI: Yes and he was asked and I was there with him to—that he needed to work on putting on 55 pounds by the time he‘s out of high school and to meet, again, the—to meet the criteria of the model that baseball is looking for. So this was 1995...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: We got to go back to the hearings. We‘ll come right back.
GARIBALDI: OK.
MATTHEWS: Thank you Raymond. We‘ll hear more throughout the evening. Let‘s go back. There‘s Tom Davis, the chairman of the committee. He‘s about to introduce Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball.
REP. TOM DAVIS ®, VIRGINIA: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) executive vice president of baseball operations, former general manager of the athletic and Mr. Kevin Towers, general manager of the San Diego Padres. As you know, it‘s our policy that we swear in all witnesses before they testify, so if you could rise with me and raise your right hand. Thank you.
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give to be the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Which of you are going to make opening statement? Bud and Bob—Mr. Fehr, are you going to make an opening statement as well? Very brief and then (UNINTELLIGIBLE) questions. That‘s fine.
Commissioner Selig, welcome very much. You know the rules. You have a light after four minutes and one after five, but you take what you need. Your entire written statement is in the record, but take what you need. This is important and I can‘t thank you enough. Just for the record, he sat out here the whole day. He listened to everybody that testified, the parents and everything else, and I know it‘s been an interesting experience for you as it has for us. And we appreciate you being with us.
BUD SELIG, BASEBALL COMMISSIONER: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Major League Baseball has made progress in dealing with the issue of performance-enhancing substances. Today I would like to describe for you that progress at both the Minor League and Major League level. I would also like to describe for you the newly negotiated Major League steroid policy as well as an effort we have undertaken with the partnership for drug free America aimed at educating America‘s youth on the dangers of steroid use.
Before I start, Mr. Chairman, let me clarify an issue that was raised yesterday so that there is no misunderstanding from my perspective. I will suspend any player who tests positive for an illegal steroid. There will be no exceptions. The union is aware of that and they accept it. In 2001, I promulgated the first ever comprehensive drug testing policy for Minor League baseball. In the first year of testing under that policy, the positive rate in the Minor Leagues was approximately 11 percent. Confronted with this high rate, we responded with more testing and tougher discipline.
In each subsequent year, that positive rate has decreased, and the overall decrease has been dramatic. The rate was 4.8 percent in 2002, four percent in 2003, and just 1.7 percent in 2004. As we embark on the 2005 season, baseball has committed even more resources to the eradication of steroid use in the Minor Leagues. We will do more testing, expanding the program into the Venezuelan Summer League and we will continue to discipline violators in a manner that our medical advisors believe will eradicate steroid use.
Similar progress has been made at the Major League level. In 2002, we
· Major League Baseball reached a new agreement with the Major League Players Association, which for the first time provided for testing of Major League players for steroids. The positive rate for performance-enhancing substances in 2003 testing was in the range of 5-7 percent. This disturbing rate triggered a more rigorous disciplinary testing program in 2004.
That more effective program resulted in a decline of the positive rate to one to two percent. In other words, the 2002 agreement that has been roundly criticized in some circles actually resulted in a significant reduction in steroid use. Despite this improvement, Major League Baseball has continued to move ahead on this most important and challenging issue. Last December at my urging, the Players Association took the unprecedented step of reopening an existing collective bargaining agreement to allow for the negotiation of an even stronger new policy on performance-enhancing substances.
This new policy addresses all of the major areas of concern raised in congressional hearings conducted in 2004. Before I turn to the specifics of the new policy over, I want to review the background that led to our concerns and ultimately the adoption of a new policy. In the period of time following the 1994-‘95 strike, I began to hear more about the possibility of the use of performance-enhancing substances by players. That concern escalated with the 1998 statements involving Mark McGwire and Andro.
At that time we began a comprehensive review of the medical and health issues given the limitation in our collective bargaining agreement, we were prohibited from testing players to determine which particular players were using what substances. To assist us in the development of our Minor League policy and later our bargaining proposals to the Players Association, we hired and relied upon experts in the areas of drugs and sports. I have relied heavily on those experts in developing and refining our policies.
I want to say a word about our players, four or five of them who have just left. For some time now the majority of our great and very talented athletes have deeply and rightly resented two things. They have resented being put at a competitive disadvantage by their refusal to jeopardize their health and the integrity of the game, by using illegal and dangerous substances. And they have deeply and rightly resented the fact that they live under a cloud of suspicion that taints their achievements on the field.
The cloud has been produced in part by some critics of baseball who, although well intentioned, are not well informed about baseball‘s multifaceted campaign against such substances. This campaign has produced the dramatic quantifiable successes that I outlined earlier. Now I‘d like to turn to the detail of our new Major League policy. First, the new policy broadens the list of banned substances in baseball. The list includes not only all steroids, but also steroid precursors—Ephedra, human growth hormone, diuretics and other masking agents. I should add that Congress‘ passage of the anabolic steroid...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Commissioner, could you move the mike a little closer to you...
SELIG: Oh I‘m sorry...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, that‘s fine...
SELIG: ... of 2004 was a key development in allowing baseball to move closer to accepted international standards in that area. Second, the new policy greatly increases the frequency of testing of Major League players. Under our prior policy, each player was subject to one steroid test per season on an unannounced randomly selected date. This type of testing was an important first step and will be continued in 2005. Under the old testing program, however, once a player had completed his one test for the year, the threat of discipline for the use of steroids was gone until the next season.
To address this issue, Major League Baseball added an ongoing program of random testing for 2005 under which players can be tested multiple times in a given year. Under the new policy, no matter how many times a player is tested in a given year, he will remain subject to an additional random test. Third, the new policy for the first time introduces off-season or out of competition testing. In the traditional employment context, unions have understandably resisted employer efforts to intrude into off-duty hours and vacation time. To its credit, however, the Players Association has agreed to compromise the legitimate privacy concerns of its members and allow off-season testing.
This off-season testing, which will literally be carried out around the globe, will insure that players cannot use the winter as an opportunity for drug-induced performance enhancement. Baseball‘s new policy also provides for increased policy—penalties. Under the new policy, first time offenders—and as I said at the beginning of my remarks, make no mistake about this, will be suspended for 10 days without pay and will be publicly identified as having violated the policy against the use of performance-enhancing substances. A 10-day suspension will cost the average Major League player approximately $140,000 in lost salary.
Penalties for subsequent offenses include—increase to 30 days, 60 days, and one year. More important in terms of deterrence, however, is the fact that no player wants to be identified to his peers and the public as a cheater. As baseball‘s testing program have become more strict, we‘ve also worked to improve its quality. Last year baseball moved its testing programs into independent Olympic laboratories certified by WADA. These labs are the gold standard in testing for performance-enhancing substances.
Equally important, our relationship with these facilities has put baseball in a better position to monitor new development in the area of performance-enhancing substances. For example, baseball has already banned at both the Major League and Minor League levels the designer steroid DMT that was recently discovered at the WADA laboratory in Montreal. Baseball is, of course, an international game. Recognizing that fact, our efforts at eliminating use of performance-enhancing substances have an international component. Last year the Minor League policy was expanded to the Dominican Summer League, complete with testing and educational activities.
Our partners in the Mexican League have announced recently their intention to implement a program much like our Minor League policy, and we will extend our Minor League policy to the Venezuelan Summer League this year. Next spring baseball and the MLBPA will conduct the first ever international baseball tournament in which countries from around the world will field teams that include the best professional players, including the biggest Major League stars. As part of that event, Major League Baseball and the Players Association and the International Baseball Federation have reached an agreement whereby all participants in this event will be subject to Olympic style drug testing in accordance with the World Anti-Doping code.
The world tournament will not only provide great international competition, but it will mark yet another step forward in baseball‘s effort to deal with the problem of performance-enhancing substances. In promoting this event, baseball will emphasize this important anti-steroid message. Major League Baseball has always recognized the influence that our stars have on the youth of America. As such, we are concerned that recent revelations and allegations of steroid use have been sending a terrible message to our young people.
Over the past year, we have been working with our friends at the Partnership for a Drug-Free America to determine the appropriate timing and content of public service announcements that will discourage young people from using steroids. In the coming months, you will see the product of those efforts on television, and we can only hope that those announcements will contribute to better decision making by young athletes.
My office has also had conversations with Congressman Sweeney about Major League Baseball providing support for his proposed legislation on steroid education and becoming involved in the educational programs created by that legislation. I expect that these conversations will continue and will bear fruit. Baseball will not rest and will continue to be vigilant on the issue of performance-enhancing substances as we move towards my publicly stated goal of zero tolerance. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I request that my entire written statement be placed in the record.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Without objection and thank you for bearing with us. Mr. Manfred.
ROBERT MANFRED, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS ASSOC.: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, ranking member, committee members, I especially appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening, and I‘d like to take the opportunity to respond to some of the issues raised in the committee‘s letter to Commissioner Selig and Mr. Fehr. At the outset, I should say that baseball has worked hard to negotiate and improve its drug policy in recent years. We know that we have made significant progress in this area.
At the same time, we know that the policy is not perfect. Our collective bargaining agreement, like every collective bargaining agreement is a living document. There is the pure language, there‘s the understandings of the parties, and there are the parties‘ practices. Tonight I would like to try to explain to you what the agreement means based on those language understandings and practices. I hope I can convince you that I am reading the agreement correctly, and in making that determination, I urge you to take into consideration that the gentlemen that I negotiated the agreement with, Mr. Fehr, agrees with everything that I‘m about to tell you.
First, much has been made out of the fact that our agreement sets forth penalties in the disjunctive. For each offense, there is a suspension of a specified length or a fine amount. The formulation of the penalties was included in our 2002 agreement, and was carried forward into the new agreement. In retrospect, the language as a drafting matter should have been altered. There is, however, no misunderstanding or dispute between the bargaining parties as to how the agreement is going to operate.
We informed the MLBPA at the bargaining table while we were negotiating the agreement that the commissioner intends to and will suspend across the board for all violations. The owners ratified the agreement with this understanding. It is also my understanding that Mr. Fehr‘s constituents are in the process of ratifying based on the same understanding. The agreement might have been drafted better, but even as it sits, it provides the commissioner with the unfettered right to do what he has said he is going to do, namely, suspend all players who violate the agreement.
Moreover, those are—suspensions are automatic in the sense that they are for stated periods of time, and the union has taken the unprecedented step of waiving its right to contest the length of those suspensions. Our commitment to suspend also undercuts the committee‘s criticism with respect to the topic of disclosure. Under the agreement, if a player tests positive and is suspended, it will be reported in the transaction list that is published in every paper in America that the player tested positive for violating the joint drug agreement. Given that we only test for steroids under the joint drug agreement, everyone will understand that the suspension was based on a steroid test.
In terms of the general confidentiality language in our agreement, I would point out that virtually every drug program in America contains such general confidentiality language, including the programs that have been adopted by the federal government to cover its employees. The assertion that all steroids are not banned under the baseball policy is simply not correct. The plain language of our agreement bans all steroids that are on schedule three as well as any other anabolic, androgenic agent that cannot lawfully be obtained in this country. The list of substances in the agreement is clearly identified, explicitly, identified, as a non-exhaustive list.
As to the four substances specifically mentioned in your letter, we have discussed those with our experts. Two of the substances are anabolic androgenic agents that cannot lawful be obtained in the United States and as such are banned under the general language in our program. A third, Boldenone, is a nutritional supplement that Congress inappropriately excluded from the Steroid Control Act of 204. We have been in conversations with the DEA, and we understand that that substance is going to be added to schedule three as the first additional substance under the Steroid Control Act at which time it will be automatically banned under our agreement.
The fourth substance listed is DHEA, which despite our lobbying efforts, was excluded from the Steroid Control Act of 2004. I would now like to address the issue of diuretics and masking agents. At page six of our agreement, it says any test conducted under the program will be considered a positive under the following circumstances. Item three, a player attempts to substitute, dilute, mask, or adulterate a specimen sample in any other—or in any other manner alter a test.
In order to enforce this provision of the agreement, the Montreal laboratory has been instructed by the MLBPA and I that they are to test for their standard list of diuretics and masking agents, continuing a practice that is existence—existed under our agreements. The assertion that our policy fails to ban designer steroids is contrary to the language and history of this agreement.
The language banning quote—“anabolic androgenic steroids that are not covered by schedule three, but that may not be lawfully obtained in the United States has been previously used by the bargaining parties to ban THG and DMT. The bargaining parties have relied on this language in the contract to ban designer steroids in the past and will do so in the future. I would also point out that substances that fall within this definitional language in the contract are added automatically to our banned list without the necessity for action by the Health Policy Advisory Committee.
The committee‘s criticisms and our position with respect to human growth hormone were addressed earlier today. I want to reiterate that our experts, including the director of the WADA certified laboratory in Montreal and our drug testing expert, Dr. Gary Green (ph) from UCLA, has informed us that there is not a verifiable blood test and blood test kits for this test are not available. The labs do not have testing kits to perform this blood test. They may have had 300 of them before the Olympics this summer, but they are not currently available.
We are actively involved in efforts to accelerate the development of a urine test and there are actually some advantages associated with a urine test as opposed to a blood test. I should also point out that no professional sport in America conducts blood testing of any type. The committee also raises issues with respect to the Health Policy Advisory Committee. No other professional sport uses an independent, outside agency to supervise its drug-testing program. This includes the NFL.
In fact, I am unaware of a single collectively bargained private employer drug-testing program anywhere in the United States that is supervised by an independent outside agency such as USADA. While the Olympics may take a decidedly different approach, the Olympics operate in a decidedly different environment unrestrained by a collective bargaining obligation or the obligations that accrue to an employer under many state and federal statutes. The committee‘s letter characterizes as extraordinary a provision that would suspend testing in the face of a government effort to obtain across-the-board testing results from our program.
At the outset, I should point out that this provision relates only to individually identified by name drug test results and not general oversight activities of the type reflected in the subpoena that was issued to baseball. It also does not apply if the government‘s investigation is supported by individual—individualized probable cause for particular players. It is also important to understand that this provision did not arise in a vacuum. Baseball has faced efforts by law enforcement authorities to obtain across-the-board testing results absent any individualized showing of probable cause.
All the provision does is temporarily suspend the program while we resist an attempt by law enforcement officials to premise a criminal probe on private drug testing results. Last, the committee‘s letter raises issues with respect to some of our collection procedures. In particular, the letter makes the point that they are not consistent with those used by WADA. At the outset, it is important to understand that there are many federal and state laws that make it very difficult for an employer like Major League Baseball as opposed to an oversight organization like the Olympics to follow strictly the WADA requirements. On the fundamentals, however, our collection procedures are entirely sound.
All urine specimens are provided under the direct observation of an independent, not employed by Major League Baseball, collector. While players are occasionally allowed to leave the portion of the locker room that is identified as the testing sight for approximately an hour if they cannot provide a specimen in order to continue their preparation for the game, the opportunities for a steroid user to avoid detection during this hour are very limited given that baseball tests for diuretics and masking agents and checks the specific gravity of all urine samples. I don‘t know whether anyone on the committee has been in a Major League clubhouse, but there is precious little privacy in those clubhouses.
While they may leave the particular area where the samples are being provided, our collectors are in and out of that clubhouse and the players are still subject to observation by those collectors during that period of time. In closing, I would like to point out that no one likes to receive a letter like we received from the committee yesterday. When one really understands the substance of our policy, however, there are few legitimate criticisms that can be directed at this policy. This is particularly true when one gives some appreciation for the fact that this policy was negotiated in the context of a voluntary reopened of a collective bargaining agreement that is encouraged and protected by the federal labor laws.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Manfred, thank you very much. I—Mr. Fehr, thanks for being with us.
DON FEHR, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS ASSOC.: Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. Is my mike on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is.
FEHR: I push the button the right way. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
FEHR: It‘s been a very long day. I have listened to a lot of testimony. And rather than read some remarks that were prepared last night, I‘m going to try and make a number of other comments that perhaps may be more central to the questioning.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you like to put remarks in the record...
FEHR: My full testimony, I understand, will be in the record...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will be in the record...
FEHR: Yes. Before going on, I‘d like to make two introductory comments. First of all, we had concerns—a lot of people had concerns, as the chairman knows, about the fairness of the hearing and I would like to thank him and the members for the fashion in which the hearing has been conducted. Secondly, I want to address the parents of the three individuals that were the subject of testimony and comment earlier in the hearing.
I have four children. My wife and I can‘t think of nothing more tragic than losing a child under any circumstances. Our hearts simply go out to them. In my own family, although it wasn‘t of a child, we‘ve experienced something of suicide, and it just is tragic beyond description. Third, I appreciate the committee‘s interest and concern about the unlawful use of steroids and I want to just take a minute to repeat the basic position we‘ve had, which I expressed twice before Senate committees, once in 2002 and once in 2004.
Simply put, Major League Baseball Players Association does not condone or support the use by players or by anyone else of any unlawful substance or condone the unlawful use of any substance legal for certain purposes. I can‘t put it any more plainly. The use of any illegal substance is wrong. And lest there any question on the matter, I should add that we are committed to dispelling any notion that the route to becoming a Major League athlete somehow includes the taking of unlawful performance-enhancing substances.
I‘m not a physician. One doesn‘t have to be to understand that these are powerful drugs that are dangerous and should not be fooled around with. And we understand that this is particularly true for children. Next, as I indicated in my full written statement, this has been one of the most difficult and divisive issues that we have faced. As I have explained to other committees—let me just take one moment to go through the process. The summer of 2002 when we were in bargaining, I met, as I do normally in bargaining, with the players on every team one at a time, to talk about all issues involved in that negotiation. Half of each meeting and a little more was devoted to steroids.
And a lot of issues were discussed with a lot of different and a lot of conflicting opinions. There was a lot of discussion, for example, about the difference between legal and illegal steroids. And in fact, people wondered what percentage of the claimed steroid use was legal substances. We didn‘t know. There was a lot of speculation.
There is a lot of speculation about whether we could be certain that dietary supplements authorized and made legal by action of this Congress some 11 years ago unanimously in both Houses could be counted on to have the purity of products, or whether they were adulterated. There were questions raised as to whether or not testing does not amount to an assumption of guilt. What I mean by that is you go up to someone and you say take a test and the failure to take a test even without any other evidence is considered guilt.
Normally, some players said, if someone accuses you of doing something wrong, it‘s up to them to have some evidence of that. And in a similar fashion, there was a question as to whether you should have to make a preliminary showing to test some reason to believe there was inappropriate conduct. Not a precise Fourth Amendment standard, but the concept is similar. That produced, if I can use the words of Mr. Sosa earlier today, some bristling among the players. We talked it through and we came to the following solution.
We will do an anonymous test in 2003, and we will get some empirical data. And if it‘s five percent or more, we will shift to a program with disciplinary consequences. Did I hope and expect it would be substantially below five percent: Yes, I think I did. Was I right? No, I wasn‘t. It was slightly above five percent, so we shifted in ‘04 to a program with disciplinary consequences.
The incidents of use dropped to somewhere in the neighborhood of one percent. I‘ve heard a lot of the comments about holes in the program. I‘m not sure they‘re really there or that any real analysis has been done of the program. But in any event, the trend line is pretty clear.
Notwithstanding that, after the hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee a year ago this month, in which I indicated as I will today or as I will now today that we understand the concerns raised by the members of the committee. I have listened all day and that we will discuss them with the constituents.
We entered into discussions with Major League Baseball about expanding that program. It took longer than we thought in part because there were some legal matters that we had to await the resolution of to see how certain matters could be resolved. I went to the players in December at our executive board meeting and made the recommendation that they give us the authority to finish that agreement, and make the changes that we had negotiated. They gave me that authority without question.
The result is without going into the details, although I‘ll be happy to with questions, there is much more frequent testing this year, and as Mr. Selig has indicated, there is never a time in which a player is free from other tests. There is off-season testing. The substances Mr. Manfred has covered and just to reiterate a point, we both copied the applicable law and provided that if any substance is shown to be anabolic and is unlawful, it gets automatically added, and the penalties were enhanced.
With respect to the quote—“or clause”—closed - quote—about which there has been a lot of discussion. Let me echo what Mr. Manfred has just told you. During bargaining, we were explicitly told there will be suspensions. During bargaining, we expressly waived our right to contest that. It‘s not up to us. Normally a union can file a grievance and say we think the penalty is too severe. In this case up to the limits set forth in the agreement, we can‘t.
This was such a non-issue that in my transmittal to the players on ratification, I didn‘t even mention the “or” possibility. It was just the straight suspensions. By any reasonable estimation, this is a considerably stronger and more enhanced program than we had a year ago. Will it work? I have my own belief. I believe that it will. And I believe that the evidence we have from last year is, but we won‘t have to guess about that. We won‘t, Mr. Selig won‘t, none of you will, because the data will be the data.
It will show us. And if it‘s successful, we‘ll know it, and if it isn‘t, we won‘t. We were asked about ratification. The players are not together during the off-season. They‘re together now. They are ratifying this agreement on an ongoing basis through spring training. A lot of clubs haven‘t because I have not had an opportunity to meet with them yet, answer questions and explain the agreement, and make sure they can understand it. I can envision no circumstance in which it will not be overwhelmingly ratified.
Finally, the committee‘s letter inviting me to testify asked me to comment a bit on what can be done to help educate America‘s young people about the dangers of abusing drugs and so on. As I previously testified, we stand prepared to work with the Congress, to meet with all of you, and see what makes the most sense, what would be the most effective, and I think you heard that from the players that were here today. I don‘t have to speak for them.
I also want to echo that we ought to make certain that we don‘t explicitly or implicitly give credence or notoriety to those who claim or have claimed that steroids are the future of sports, et cetera. I applaud the Advisory Committee, which has been the subject of some testimony. I didn‘t know about it until today. It seems to me to be a fine idea, and I‘m very glad that the players are involved, and I certainly hope that it gets off the ground. If we can help as an institution as apart from the individual players, I‘m sure that we‘ll be willing to do so.
Finally two, points. And I thank you for hearing me, Mr. Chairman. I think that the Congress needs to consider the reality that for many young people, steroids may only be a mouse click away. They‘re getting them from somewhere or the fact that our culture does not have a uniformly negative image of steroids. And I was struck by testimony before House Energy and Commerce last week—and I don‘t remember the individual testifying—I apologize—but who pointed out that a number of corporate giants have premised advertising campaigns for products linking those products to being bigger and better like they were on steroids. I mention it to indicate the breadth of the issue that perhaps is out there in the public mind.
Congress should consider not limiting its attention exclusively to a top-down review of testing programs, but also how to furnish parents, coaches, athletic directors, team physicians, teachers, principals, and others who work with young people to have the information that they need. I know there was a bill pending in California that has not come into law yet. I don‘t know what‘s in the bill. It seemed to me the idea behind it was good.
Last point, and I will conclude. There‘s an article today in “The Washington Post” talking about gene doping. That article was similar to one that was in, I believe, “Scientific American” or “Discover” that I saw about a year ago. The principle point is, what has been going on now is chemical efforts to change muscle mass. And the science may be progressing to a point where it may be genetic efforts to directly change the genetic code.
I suggest to you that that is something, which bears the closest scrutiny. And I don‘t know of anyone who can do that other than the Congress of the United States. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize if I went a little long.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, that‘s fine. Thank you very much. Anybody else wish to say anything up there? If not, then we‘ll move right to questions.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I‘ve got a statement if I can. It will be abridged. But I would like to make an opening statement, if I can.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Waxman, committee members, I have been employed in baseball for almost 24 years, 17 of them with the Oakland Athletics. Fourteen of those years from 1984-1997 I was the general manager of the A‘s. I‘ve been executive vice president, baseball operations at Major League Baseball since 1998.
of those years, from 1984 through 1997, I was the general manager of the A‘s. I have been executive vice president of baseball operations at Major League Baseball since 1998.
With the considerable attention now being paid to the steroid issue, it is difficult to imagine that there was a time when those in baseball had barely heard of steroids, much less suspected that they were a problem in the game. When I first became the general manager of the Athletics, the conventional wisdom within professional baseball was that strength training would not result in improved performance.
Many players and clubs placed no emphasis at all on strength development. In the early and mid-1980s, the Oakland Athletics embarked on many innovative programs. We were the first to embrace quantitative analysis for the evaluation of players. We hired the first mental coach, someone actually in uniform to assist with the development of our players and staff. We may have been the first team to promote strength training and to configure a team weight room at the ballpark.
At the Major League level, a former Major League player already on the coaching staff was assigned additional responsibility as the strength coach. One of the players developed by Oakland during this time was Jose Canseco. Canseco was a mid-round draft selection, but he quickly developed a reputation for bat speed and power. By the end of the 1984 season, which was before Canseco claims he began using steroids, Canseco was a possible future star with great power potential.
“Baseball America” considered him the A‘s‘ No. 1 prospect. Consequently, his subsequent development, physically as well as professionally, was gratifying, but not surprising to those in the organization. By the time Canseco was an established player, many organizations had adopted similar strength training programs and, as a result, many players throughout Major League Baseball were getting stronger and bigger.
There did come a time when I did wonder whether Jose Canseco might be using steroids. There was a column written in late 1988 that speculated about his steroid use and led to a brief fan reaction in Boston during the 1988 playoffs. But his reaction to that speculation was a vehement denial, a much different response than the recent admissions in his book.
Also, probably in 1989, Canseco reported to spring training looking markedly bigger and more physically developed than he had been the year before. However, under the collective bargaining agreement then enforced with the Major League Players Association, Major League players could not be tested for steroid use.
Steroids were not even illegal until 1991. During my time in Oakland, I never saw a player use steroids, never saw steroids or steroid paraphernalia. Steroid suspicion was not a consideration of mine in trading Canseco in ‘92, in trading for him in ‘97 or not re-signing him in ‘98.
There were many factors in work in baseball in the 1990s which may have obscured a steroid problem. Home runs and run production were increasing during this time, but not always year to year. At the same time, strength programs were in vogue across baseball. Hitler-friendly ballparks were being built. Expansion had occurred was in 1993 and again in 1998. Two seasons, ‘94 and ‘95, had been shortened by a player strike.
Bat design had changed and there was an emphasis with many clubs on having more offensive players, even at traditionally defensive positions. Beginning in the late 1990s, there has been a growing awareness of steroid use and professional baseball. This greater awareness first emerged with the inquiry into the use of androstenedione in 1998.
Since then, we‘ve become much more knowledgeable as a result of the strong testing program in the minor leagues, as well as a testing program contained in the 2002 collective bargaining agreement with the Players Association. Participation in international competition such as the Olympics, where professional players have competed since 2000, has also contributed to our knowledge and I believe to the willingness of the Players Association to finally accept drug testing for steroids.
Out of this greater awareness have come a strength in minor league drug policy, the new Major League drug policy implemented for this season, and a medical advisory committee that was formed partly to keep the commissioner and Major League Baseball informed about performance-enhancing substances.
Also, tighter controls on the access to Major League clubhouses have been instituted. Hindsight is 20/20 vision. All of us in baseball, including me, wish that we had been able to detect steroid use earlier in the 1990s. But I and we can only learn from this recent history.
In the meantime, the new Major League steroid policy effective for this season is a great step forward. The program represents on the part of both players and management an affirmation that the integrity of the game, the health of Major League players and the health of the youth of the United States are vitally important to baseball. Thank you.
DAVIS: Thank you very much.
Mr. Towers (ph), do you want to make an opening statement?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just questions, Mr. Chairman and committee.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Thank you very much.
ROB MANFRED, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: Mr. Chairman, I noticed that this list went up over here. And I just might, so that we‘re clear, the second item from the bottom, clenbuterol, that‘s listed there is not covered by our policy. If you review my letter of March 14, 2005, we reported a positive for that substance to you.
It is in fact covered by our program. It is in response No. 5. In addition, the first item under the list of anabolic steroids is the base molecule for THG, which is also banned under the program, just in terms of being accurate.
DAVIS: Actually, I think that‘s Mr. Waxman‘s chart. And when he gets to his...
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: I‘ll let you address it. But I appreciate you doing that.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: Well, let me ask you, Mr. Manfred, while you‘re here, again, let‘s turn to the—let‘s turn to the agreement, page 11.
MANFRED: Yes.
DAVIS: Player tested positive for a steroid, where it says first positive test results, a 10-day suspension or up to a $10,000 fine. Are you telling me this was just carried-over language from a previous agreement and really a drafting error?
MANFRED: Yes. That is exactly what I testified to.
DAVIS: And let me ask Mr. Fehr.
Mr. Fehr, your understand is, you‘ve communicated this to the players, that you didn‘t even talk about the fine. Is that correct?
DONALD FEHR, HEAD OF PLAYERS ASSOCIATION: That‘s correct. We have not.
DAVIS: Since this is a draft agreement, we have no problem taking this out here, do we, ratifying this and just taking this out?
BUD SELIG, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL COMMISSIONER: Do I have a problem taking this out?
DAVIS: Does anybody? Do Mr. Fehr or Mr. Manfred? Can we just take...
(CROSSTALK)
SELIG: I do not have a problem...
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: Can we execute an agreement that would take that out?
(CROSSTALK)
FEHR: As I indicated, I will certainly go back to the players with it. I will throw one note of caution out there.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: But, Don, the players don‘t know what is in there, right?
FEHR: That‘s correct.
DAVIS: You didn‘t communicate this. So, you don‘t have to go back to the players on this.
FEHR: Mr. Chairman...
DAVIS: Yes, sir.
FEHR: As we heard from one of the individuals on the doctor‘s panel, and I apologize that I do not remember who it was.
DAVIS: It was Major League Baseball‘s witness, who was at the end.
FEHR: No, but there may be individuals for whom it is clear that a positive result was either inadvertent or nonknowing and all the rest...
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: OK. That‘s why you have the appeal.
FEHR: I‘m sorry.
DAVIS: That‘s why you have the appeal, because—I just—I‘m not a big lawyer, like you. I‘m a recovering lawyer.
(CROSSTALK)
FEHR: But that‘s why you have the appeal procedure under there, that
· where they can could come back.
Let me just say, we‘ll look at this. Taking this out, I think, would be a major advance for baseball‘s—both—everybody‘s credibility on this, since this was understood.
(CROSSTALK)
SELIG: Mr. Chairman, I just want to add quickly, when we presented it to the owners in January, January 13 and 14 in Phoenix, we presented it as just suspension. There was not a mention of fines. So, it was passed, ratified 30-0, with the understanding that any violation would be a suspension.
DAVIS: Well, let me just say, you‘re people of goodwill. Mr. Fehr is a careful attorney. I understand how he wants to go back and check it. But it wasn‘t communicated with the players, according to your testimony.
So, I wouldn‘t think you would have to go back to the players.
It seems to me there‘s an appeal period here for players who have a test result otherwise that they can take advantage of and take care of there.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: Mr. Chairman, if I might just on this one point.
DAVIS: Sure.
WAXMAN: Yesterday, Mr. Manfred was on the radio and he said that this was not just simply carried over, but it was intentionally done so, to give as much power to the commissioner as possible. Do you deny saying that on a radio interview yesterday? Turn on your mike.
MANFRED: What I said on the radio was that the language was originally put in the agreement to deal with an extraordinary circumstance, such as Mr. Fehr just described. That‘s what I said on the radio, when I was talking about originally going into the agreement.
DAVIS: But wouldn‘t the appeal period allow for that?
MANFRED: You‘re correct about that. Your analysis of that issue is correct.
DAVIS: OK. Let‘s watch that. Please, we would like to you report back to us back on that.
MANFRED: We will.
DAVIS: That would be I think a major—we‘ve made a major issue out of it. And you‘ve responded. And if we can respond accordingly, I think that will be very, very helpful.
SELIG: We will do it.
DAVIS: Secondly, if I could just then turn back to page eight on the disclosures, where it says that disciplinary fines imposed upon a player by the commission would remain strictly confidential, since we‘re not going to be doing fines, is this another drafting error or how did this get in?
MANFRED: There‘s language—I‘m sorry. You said what page, Mr.
Chairman?
DAVIS: Page 10. Page 10. Disclosure of player information, A-2.
MANFRED: Yes, but there‘s language further down which deals with suspension.
DAVIS: Correct.
MANFRED: The suspension shall be entered in the baseball information system.
DAVIS: No. No. I understand that. But under the language on the—on page 11, where you still have under the written document a fine or suspension option, this refers to the fine would not be disclosed. You tell me that was a drafting error. Then, would this be a drafting error as well?
MANFRED: Well, you still might have fines under the drugs of abuse portion of the program, Mr. Chairman, so not the steroid portion, but the drugs of abuse portion. And there may be some use for that language still, I believe, but not under the steroid piece, because all the suspensions would be disclosed in the transactions.
DAVIS: What about the discipline on—going back to page 11, under the discipline program, where you give options for players who are, at this point, are put into treatment and they fail treatment, failure to comply with the treatment? Again, you have suspensions and you also have a fine option there.
MANFRED: Right.
DAVIS: Was this agreed to? There is an option to fine them vs...
MANFRED: There is an option to fine there. This part of the program would apply to drugs of abuse. Some people who enter these programs are in a more traditional employee assistance mode. They may come forward voluntarily, seek treatment. They‘re put on a treatment program. They may be tested, OK?
And if they have a slip, sometimes, the doctors recommend to us that a fine is appropriate. And we don‘t disclose those fines.
DAVIS: OK. And, in fact, if a player came forward and admitted they have a problem and went into the program, they could still be playing and you would want to protect the fact that they came forward and admitted they had a program.
MANFRED: Exactly. The drugs of abuse portion of the program is different and there still could be some fines there, yes.
DAVIS: Confidentiality.
Turn to page nine in the confidentiality. And this was addressed. Mr. Selig, I think you addressed this. I think you both did in your opening statements on the governmental investigation. This means any subpoena issued, warrant obtained or any investigative effort employed by any governmental body, including a court, with the intention of securing information relating to drug testing of players, that, in my mind, doesn‘t just mean the individual players‘ results.
This could be the composite results which we have subpoenaed in this case, too. Am I misconstruing this or—am I misconstruing this? Or did you really mean to...
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: ... individual players?
MANFRED: All I can tell you is that when we provided you the aggregate information that we provided...
DAVIS: Which is all we asked for, correct?
MANFRED: Correct.
DAVIS: For the record, we didn‘t ask for any individual player results, because some of your representatives were out there saying we asked. We never did ask for that, did we, to your knowledge?
MANFRED: Well, I believe, and I don‘t have the document in front of me. I think the original request for information was broader than the subpoena. I don‘t have it in front of me.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: We certainly—and it‘s not in front of me. That was never our intent.
(CROSSTALK)
MANFRED: I just don‘t remember, Mr. Chairman, honestly.
DAVIS: No problem. No problem.
MANFRED: But, candidly, the best answer I can give you on this is that the type of request you made was such that nobody raised even the possibility that this language was operative. Again, I think the best evidence of what we intended the language to mean was the way that Mr. Fehr and I conducted ourselves, confronted with the type of limited investigation that you wanted to undertake.
DAVIS: Right. So, it would not supply to the investigation of this committee, under your understanding. Is this correct?
MANFRED: That‘s correct.
DAVIS: Mr. Fehr, is that also your understanding?
FEHR: It was not seeking the individual names.
DAVIS: Put your mike on.
FEHR: I‘m sorry, Mr. Chairman. It is not seeking the individual (OFF-MIKE)
DAVIS: You‘ve got to push the button again.
(CROSSTALK)
FEHR: Oh, he turned it off.
My children tell me I can‘t push anything and have it work right. So, maybe they‘re right.
This is designed to give the private individualized, identified results. And it is broad enough to encompass not only steroids testing, drugs of abuse testing, treatment programs, medical records, that kind of stuff.
DAVIS: It‘s also broad enough, I think, to include what we‘re doing.
But you‘re telling me that doesn‘t apply.
FEHR: Well, the fact that it doesn‘t is I think evidenced by the fact that there was no effort made to resist the subpoena once it was clear that no individual names were being sought.
DAVIS: Right.
So, is it both of your interpretation, as long as you stay away from individual information, subpoenas and investigations, it would not halt the program?
MANFRED: I agree with what you just said.
DAVIS: Mr. Fehr, is that your understanding?
FEHR: Yes. Yes, sir.
DAVIS: I think one of our concerns is, when you get into labor negotiations—and, as I said, I‘m a recovering lawyer. I used to do this before I got here.
You get into negotiations and you very ably want to represent your client, whether it is the league owners, whether it is the players or whatever, and you get into this. And you get inside this bubble. And I hope, if nothing else, today‘s hearing has shown you that, inside the bubble and where you‘re dealing with on these issues, from the players‘ perspective and from the managers‘ perspective, is just a solar system away from where the American public is.
The public really, I think, really demands more moral clarity to this, a clearer sign than what we have. NFL? We‘ve talked about other sports. We‘ve talked about amateur sports. This is a start. I don‘t want to sit here and say you haven‘t tried to do something. That would not be fair. And I know that you‘ve worked hard on this. I know, from—Mr. Fehr, from your perspective, this is not an issue you had to address under your collective bargaining contract. You came back and did this out of cycle.
So, I don‘t want to take that away from you. But I want to say that the end result—and you could hear this from the testimony and from liberals and conservatives and Republicans and Democrats here, really fall short of what we think Major League Baseball ought to be doing, because it is not just a business. It has been decreed by the court as the national pastime.
These players, like it or not, are role models and this trickles down into every element of organized sports. And that‘s really the concern here as we look at this, in terms of some of the shortcomings. Again, as Senator Bunning said, you‘re out of the batter‘s box. You‘re on the way to first place. We think it needs, as we‘ve discussed here, some additional work.
So, I‘ll end with that and pass it on to Mr. Waxman.
WAXMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Selig and Mr. Fehr, there are two fundamental questions that I think we need to focus on today. One is, what did baseball know about steroid use in the game and what did baseball do about it? The other of course is whether baseball‘s new policy is adequate, whether it is adequate.
I want to focus my questions on the first issue. What did baseball know and what did baseball do to respond?
Mr. Selig, Jose Canseco told us that it was widely suspected—well, let me—Jose Canseco was widely suspected of using steroids during his career. Yet, he told us that no one in baseball ever asked him about his steroid use. No one told him it was wrong or asked him to submit to a drug test. What did you do as commissioner to investigate whether Jose Canseco was using steroids?
SELIG: Well, some of the things that happened, Congressman Waxman, with Jose Canseco happened before I became commissioner. But let me...
WAXMAN: Well, he was playing after you became commissioner.
SELIG: Yes, he certainly—he certainly was.
WAXMAN: And those stories were out there after you became commissioner.
SELIG: Well, the fact of the matter is that I have said—I can answer your question, having been in this sport for almost 40 years, that, in the ‘90s—and I‘ve gone back over that period—there was some conversation. There was the—in 1988, I think there were a few articles written that people have quoted, but not many.
Nobody ever came to me. No manager...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could you speak closer into the mike please?
(CROSSTALK)
SELIG: No manager, no general manager, nobody ever came to me in the ‘90s. I became concerned myself in July on a Sunday morning when I read about Mark McGwire and andro. And that‘s when all these things started.
(CROSSTALK)
WAXMAN: But, before that, Fay Vincent, who was your predecessor, was concerned enough about steroid use to make it a prohibition on his own. He said it is going to be prohibited in baseball. And then there were news reports about Jose Canseco.
SELIG: With all due respect, I always want to be careful about my predecessors, but baseball had no drug program at all until I took over. None. Zero.
(CROSSTALK)
SELIG: Therefore, whatever you may hear and whatever you read, there was no program. And it was only in the ‘90s, as we developed, that these programs began to develop. There was nothing. And, remember...
WAXMAN: Well, let me interrupt you, because I have limited time.
In 1991, it became baseball‘s drug policy the possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited. So, those were the rules in 1991.
SELIG: Can I—can I...
(CROSSTALK)
WAXMAN: Wait a second. I want to complete it.
SELIG: But they were not the rules, Congressman. They were not enforceable. They were our statement of purpose, but they had to be collectively bargained with the Players Association.
WAXMAN: Well, that was true only if you were going to have random tests of everybody. But if you had an individual for which—for whom you had probable cause to believe that there‘s something that needs to be investigated because they‘re violating the rules, it seems to me that I have in front of me the Major League Constitution.
And it says the functions of the commissioner shall include to investigate, either upon complaint or upon the commissioner‘s own initiative, any act, transaction or practice charged, alleged or suspected to be not in the best interests of the national game of baseball, with authority to subpoena persons and order the production of documents in case of a refusal to do so, and to determine after investigation what actions to take.
So, you had the ability, if you knew that somebody was breaking the rules, to bring them in and ask them, why are you breaking the rules? Are you breaking the rules? Would you submit to a test?
MANFRED: Mr. Waxman, all aspects—and the only reason I‘m answering, because it is a lawyer‘s answer.
All aspects of that commissioner‘s drug policy—and, again, we‘ve had a lot of agreement today—I think Mr. Fehr is going to agree with me about that—were mandatory. The probable cause requirement, the random testing, those are all mandatory subjects of bargaining. That policy...
(CROSSTALK)
WAXMAN: That was a subject—I‘m going to interrupt you, because you‘re giving me a lawyer‘s answer.
But the collective bargaining agreement was for random testing of everyone. But the Constitution of Major League Baseball said, if you had a problem, if there was some suspicion of breaking the rules, the commissioner could do something about it.
Look, I have a picture up there of Giambi. And he went to the Yankees. And the picture on the left showed him with the long hair and the beard. And Steinbrenner said, nobody is going to play here with long hairs and a beard. That‘s what he looked like on the right after he went to the Yankees. If people said, you are not going to disobey the rules of using steroids, we are not going to permit it, and if we suspect it, I think the commissioner had the ability to go in and demand some explanation.
(CROSSTALK)
SELIG: Well, let me just—and I will let him give a more legal answer; 1991 was before I took over, No. 1.
No. 2, Mr. Vincent was the commissioner then. No. 2, the fact of the matter is, he denied it, he being Canseco. And then nobody did come to me. And he denied it emphatically. And that was the end of the discussion.
WAXMAN: Well, then let me ask you another—I‘ll accept that answer.
In July 2000, the police found illegal steroids in the glove compartment of the car of Red Sox shortstop Manny Alexander. At the time, it was a federal crime to possess these steroids. At the time, you were commission.
SELIG: Right.
WAXMAN: The commissioner‘s policy on drug use specifically banned the anabolic steroids in Major League Baseball. What kind of investigation did your office do after this discovery? And was Mr. Alexander ever asked to take a test for illegal steroids use?
SELIG: I‘m going to let the investigator do it. Mr. Manfred conducted the investigation.
MANFRED: The—when we learned about the issue with respect to Mr. Alexander, we worked with the Players Association under a series of kind of ad hoc arrangements that we had developed. We reached an agreement. And there was actually reasonable cause testing imposed in that situation.
WAXMAN: There was testing?
MANFRED: Yes.
WAXMAN: What sanctions did Mr. Alexander receive? Did he get a suspension?
MANFRED: You know, I believe, and...
WAXMAN: The answer is no.
MANFRED: I believe, because his test was actually negative and he denied that those steroids were his, he took the position that they belonged to a young man who was also in the car with him, and after we tested him and he was clean, we really didn‘t have a basis for disciplining the individual.
WAXMAN: Now, we heard from Senator Bunning this morning. And he is a very respected senator and someone who was most valuable player. He is in the Hall of Fame for baseball. And he said your testing program is puny. We heard from the parents.
And the parents said to us, we don‘t think this testing program is adequate. We heard from the players. And over and over again, they were asked, why don‘t you go to something stronger? Why don‘t you go to something like the Olympic standard?
Now, Mr. Selig, you can‘t agree to anything without collective bargaining. But if Mr. Fehr would agree, would you accept the idea that—would you accept the idea that, on a first offense, you‘ve got a two-year suspension and, on a second violation, that you‘re out of the game? That‘s one that has worked in the Olympics and it would be a clear signal.
SELIG: Well, the Olympics are a little different.
But let me answer your question. The fact of the matter is—and I say this and I think everybody in this—I‘m sorry. I think that everybody in the sport understands, yes, I want tougher testing. I think the minor league program, Congressman Waxman, is a manifestation of that. I believe that there should be tougher testing. I believed it in 2002. I believe it now.
But we now have a program...
WAXMAN: Well, let me just ask Mr. Fehr. If you‘re supporting it, maybe we can find out if Mr. Fehr would support it.
Mr. Selig said he would support a tougher testing program. The players said they wanted—the players, they‘re members of your union. They wanted a tougher testing program. And it appears that this program that you‘ve already agreed on is not tough enough in the eyes of so many people. Would you support a tougher testing program?
FEHR: Let me take a minute to explain my response. It is not a simple yes-or-no answer.
First, I believe my obligation with the players is to consult with
everyone, in private, confidentially, in a situation in which they‘re not
under the glare of TV cameras. That‘s first. Secondly, my personal view -
· this is not an institutional view I‘m expressing now. My personal view is that our job with violations of substance abuses is not—of substance abuse—substance use—is not to destroy careers.
Our job is to stop it. And if we can stop it, short of destroying careers, and we can put people on the right track and we can get them back to playing, with the appropriate disclosures that you heard the players talk about and all the rest of it, that is manifestly better. That is the principle behind virtually every employee assistance program in the country.
It worked with drugs of abuse with us. There‘s no question about that.
WAXMAN: My time is...
FEHR: And, therefore, and, therefore, my suggestion is, and I believe this very strongly, we have to find out empirically if it works before you go back and do that.
The evidence we have so far suggests that what we did, which is far short of the program we have now, far short of it, had a—not only a demonstrable, but a dramatic effect. The data is the data.
WAXMAN: I would submit to you that it‘s not just a collective bargaining issue between the two of you. The best law enforcement is the one that is clearly stated and enforced. And if the laws are broken, you enforce them. And that means you prevent people from using steroids or any other illegal drug.
If we have a policy of first offense, light penalty, second offense, not that big a penalty, third offense, maybe a little stronger, if they know they‘re going to be out of the game and lose all that money, those players are not going using steroids. I would submit that to you.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We‘ve gone way over time with the—you can probably work it into—yield to Mr. Shays.
REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS ®, CONNECTICUT: Thank you.
I appreciate you gentlemen being here. Frankly, you‘re the most important panel. I know you‘re people of goodwill, but it is—I feel that you‘re asking to us believe something that just boggles the mind. It boggles the mind for me to think that you would send us a drug policy and then tell us that the document isn‘t accurate and that it is just sloppy.
I mean, you guys are the best lawyers in the business. And I want to know—and I want to know without—under oath, I want to know if you were asked for the drug policy verbally by our staff?
MANFRED: I was here on March 2. And a member of the staff asked me if we could get the drug policy. I told him we were still drafting the policy. The next request that I received was a letter that I received on the 7th of March. It was a two-page, single-spaced request for documents that included items that were...
SHAYS: Mr. Manfred, thank you. You‘ve answered the question. You were asked first by staff. You were asked second by letter on March 7. I want to know why it took a subpoena to get this document.
MANFRED: Because the document was not yet complete.
SHAYS: And what do you mean not yet complete? Because, clearly...
MANFRED: We were drafting the document. That document on March 7 did not exist.
SHAYS: This document didn‘t exist?
MANFRED: Well, not in the form that you have it. We were going back and forth...
(CROSSTALK)
SHAYS: You mean you just wrote it then? This document, you are telling people you had a policy that you‘re now telling us wasn‘t even drafted in March?
MANFRED: We were making changes to the draft still in March, yes.
SHAYS: I think that I need to calm down, because...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gentleman should calm down. I just want to point out, the commissioner announced this policy in January.
MANFRED: We always have announced our collective bargaining agreements without language drafted. We have routinely done that for 30 years.
SHAYS: You know, all you do by your answers is make me want to know more about what the hell you do, do, because when you announce a policy and you tell us you have not been responsive to our staff. And the bottom line is, no, you haven‘t been. And the bottom line is, we had subpoena this information.
Then, when we get this information, you‘re telling us that what we‘re looking at is a drafting error. That to me is just unbelievable. I would like to ask you, why should someone have five strikes before they‘re out? I would like to go right down the list. Why five strikes?
MANFRED: Congressman, let me begin by saying...
SHAYS: I‘m not going to have you begin. I would like the commissioner.
Why five strikes, commissioner?
SELIG: Because that‘s the negotiated policy right now, Congressman. That‘s the best we could do in collective bargaining. This is collective bargaining.
SHAYS: So it is the players‘ fault?
SELIG: I didn‘t say it is the players‘ fault.
SHAYS: No, no, no, no, because I want to know your position. Is your condition one strike and you‘re out?
SELIG: No, it isn‘t, but the penalties would be much tougher, if I had my way, as I did in the minor leagues.
SHAYS: Well, then let‘s not blame the players then a second, collective bargaining.
SELIG: I‘m not blaming the players.
SHAYS: I want to know why—I want to know why you need five strikes and you‘re out.
(CROSSTALK)
SHAYS: I want to know why you can break the law once, break the law twice, break the law three times, break the law four times and then you‘re out.
Could someone else—Mr. Fehr, maybe you could tell me, because you represent the players.
FEHR: Two things.
First of all, the notion of progressive discipline is well-ingrained in collective bargaining agreements in this country and has been for years.
SHAYS: Even when you—even when you break the law?
FEHR: It has been for years, yes. Now, second—I‘m sorry. I lost my train of thought, Congressman.
SHAYS: The question is, why should you have five strikes before you‘re out?
FEHR: Oh, I‘m sorry. Thank you.
And the second reason is, did we believe, did I believe that doing it this way, with the public disclosures, would accomplish the result of getting it stopped? The answer is, yes, I did. And I think the data we have so far supports that.
SHAYS: Well, why would it accomplish it if you have five strikes before—you can break the law five times, four times before you‘re asked to leave baseball?
FEHR: I can‘t say it any more than I have. We believe in the concept of progressive discipline.
It is well-ingrained in labor law and has been for a long time. We believe that, if what do you is, you have a circumstance in which there‘s a positive test, there‘s no treatment program, like there was under the first one. That was the criticism last year, it becomes publicly known. That individual is now subjected, that person, to individualized testing. He is no longer part of the random program. He gets it on an ongoing basis. If he screws it up, he is gone.
(CROSSTALK)
SHAYS: My light is on, but the bottom line is, what you‘re telling the kids is, you can break the law four times before you‘re out of the game. And that to me is amazing.
And I just want to say to you, commissioner, when you say it is collective bargaining, you‘re basically blaming the ball players. And I don‘t know why you don‘t just say what you want, what it should be, and fight like hell to make sure it happens, and publicly expose the players if they‘re taking the position they‘re taking.
SELIG: I have said, Congressman Shays, over and over again publicly that the minor league policy, which is much tougher, is a manifestation of how I feel about the issue and what I want. And I would even tighten that up. And we may in future years. I‘ve said that over and over again.
SHAYS: I think you need to take your case to the public.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
DAVIS: Mr. Cummings.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: Mr. Selig, how many people have you suspended?
MANFRED: I‘m sorry?
CUMMINGS: I asked the commissioner how many people have been suspended.
SELIG: Well, this policy has just kicked in.
CUMMINGS: Yes, that‘s what I thought.
You know, one of the things that you said, Mr. Fehr—and do I appreciate all your testimony. But you talked about, you did not want to destroy the careers of these players, these multimillion-dollar players. Well, Mr. Fehr, let me tell you something. I have got people in my district that don‘t have a job. And if they got caught with a schedule three drug, do you know where they‘re going? To jail.
And nobody cares about their careers. And Mr. Souder will tell you, we travel all over this country and we have people who get convicted of offenses, and they suffer for the rest of their lives. And so we‘ve got criminal—these are criminal laws here. And it seems to me that we would want zero tolerance.
Is that what you all want, Mr. Selig? Zero.
SELIG: Zero tolerance, yes, sir.
CUMMINGS: One-point-seven isn‘t good enough, is it?
SELIG: No. We have made progress, but it isn‘t good enough. I agree with that. That‘s absolutely correct.
CUMMINGS: That‘s interesting.
Let‘s talk to you, Mr. Manfred.
On ESPN Radio, “Mike and Mike Show,” yesterday, you said the way the policy is written is it says that, for a first positive steroid test, the commissioner has the discretion to impose a 10-day suspension or a $10,000 fine. The reason it was written that way and committed to the commissioner‘s discretion is because the bargaining parties‘ understanding, consistent with the descriptions that have been made to the policy publicly and to Congress, is that a positive test will result in the commissioner imposing a 10-day suspension.
The language after the disjunctive was added to give the commissioner discretion to deal with that unusual circumstance where there was an unwitting positive. What does that mean?
MANFRED: Well, what I said was, first of all, I was describing the original reason for including the language in the 2002 agreement, No. 1.
No. 2, what I meant by the phrase the unwitting positive, somebody who demonstrated to us that the only substance they ever took was in this jar. We analyzed it. It contained a contaminant, a steroid that resulted in a positive. And it was nowhere listed on the label. The individual had no way of knowing. He could not have known that it was in there. And that was the kind of circumstance I had in my head when I said that.
CUMMINGS: When are—when do we expect this, whatever the policy is, to be ratified, Mr. Fehr?
FEHR: I‘m sure it will be by the end of the month. I have to still meet with 12 or 13 teams and make sure that I explain and it answer the questions from them.
CUMMINGS: You can understand the frustration of members of Congress, can you not?
FEHR: Of course.
CUMMINGS: And you can understand the frustration of these parents. And I‘m sitting here watching them. And I feel kind of bad about it, because they‘re sitting here. They‘re listening to this. And I wish I had a camera, so you could them while you all are testifying, because I think they‘re getting the impression that we‘re into—there used to be a time when they used to use the phrase rope-a-dope, where I think Muhammad Ali, sometimes, they would rope-a-dope and they would just play out the clock.
And, basically, I want to make sure that, first of all, that we know what the policy is. I‘m going to be very frank with you. I have sat here for about eight or nine hours and I‘m still not clear what the policy is. And we want to know what—and we want to know when is that policy going to take effect?
And is it clear, Mr. Selig, that if someone is found to use steroids, that they will be suspended? Is that what you‘re telling us? That $10,000 thing doesn‘t even apply?
SELIG: Unequivocally, they are gone. And they will be suspended.
CUMMINGS: For how long?
SELIG: For 10 days.
CUMMINGS: For the first offense.
SELIG: First offense.
CUMMINGS: And that‘s without question?
SELIG: Without question.
CUMMINGS: Thank you.
REP. MARK SOUDER ®, INDIANA: I hope that you all realize your position has deteriorated substantially on this panel and that we were progressing along thinking we were all kind of moving to the same page.
In fact, you‘ve upset me and most of the other members. It doesn‘t matter whether you‘re a Republican or a Democrat or a conservative or a liberal here. We‘re upset. Let me suggest that we‘ve been hearing all day about a policy. I think spring training is already under way. I think off-season is already over, that drafting errors where you‘ve even contradicted yourselves whether it‘s a drafting error—we‘ve had testimony here saying there‘s precious little privacy in the locker room.
Yet, Mr. Alderson says, well, he didn‘t know what was going on in the locker room and the owners didn‘t know was—locker room. Is there precious little privacy that we know? Ken Caminiti has already confessed. Jose Canseco has already confessed. What happened to precious little privacy? How come nobody could see it? It isn‘t even plausible. The American people who are watching this right now aren‘t viewing your testimony as plausible.
And it is a huge problem right now for Major League Baseball. And let me tell you another reason why I think you‘re losing ground, that you talk about financial penalties and you have confused matters by saying what is voluntary and involuntary. Quite frankly, that‘s easily fixed in the contract. Those who come forward voluntarily are treated differently than those who get caught in a drug test.
It is that way in every business that has a drug treatment program. Don‘t act like you‘re the only collective bargaining or the only business in the country that has drug testing problems. And then your fines, you‘re dealing with people who are making, in some cases, $10 million a year. Do you know what your fine system is? The equivalent for a truck driver who has to take a test and get suspended. The equivalent is a $25 fine for a major player. And the $10,000 equivalent for a $2 million lower, a lower-level player, is $125.
That‘s a real severe penalty. And then, if you, as Mr. Fehr said, believe someone will be—the first suspension, even though it is only 10 days. Why do we have five? That‘s what Mr. Shays asked. Why five? And you said, well, because it won‘t take five. Then take the five out. If you‘re so confident it won‘t take the five, as Mr. Cummings has pointed out, we don‘t give five strikes and you‘re out to people all over this country. We‘re looking for all kinds of reentry programs and working how to address it. But we don‘t give young kids on the street who we pick up five chances on this type of thing.
Now, let me go through one other category that I‘ve raised several times today, asking now consent to put these materials on the record on ephedra. In 1997, the NCAA banned ephedra. In 2001, the NFL banned ephedra. In 2003, a baseball player of the Baltimore Orioles, Steve Belcher, died of complications of an ephedra-related substance.
Then, shortly thereafter, Mr. Selig, commissioner Selig said, we‘re going to ban ephedra. Then ephedra wasn‘t banned. Then Congress went ahead and we made ephedra illegal. According—this is one of the documents I‘m inserting into the record. It is only in this policy that you have started to even test for ephedra, one year after it is illegal.
And then you expect us to believe here that you shouldn‘t have independent testing? Trust us, when you send us drafting errors, when you brag about the policies the whole hearing and you don‘t even have the policy as we‘re trying to develop the hearing, that you‘ve already started the baseball season and you‘re not doing it? And then one last thing I want to say.
And then I would be interested in some responses, that I heard you say that, even given the holes in the test, which I believe there are substantial, including on steroids, that this applies to steroids only. So, if somebody is on cocaine, or LSD or other hormones, that they can be fined, basically, the equivalent of $25 for a star and—in other words, $10,000 converted is $25 for a star and $125.
I‘m sorry. Are you saying you‘re going to suspend for other drugs as well as steroids?
MANFRED: OK. Let me try to take them one at a time.
First of all, even though we reached this agreement in late January and began redoing what is a long and complicated agreement to get it right, we began operating under this agreement on March 3. We were in the cans taking urine samples. So, if you want—I understand, you would have liked it done faster. That was as fast as we could get it done and, frankly, demonstrated a lot of sort of cooperation in terms of beginning to go out and make collections under the program before the document was finalized.
With respect to the drafting of the agreement, this is a very long and complicated document. You did in fact identify one spot in the language where it could have been drafted better. I will say again what I said at the outset. As drafted, the commissioner had the ability to do what he said he was going to do.
SOUDER: Sir, you‘ve been...
(CROSSTALK)
MANFRED: He had the ability to suspend for 10 days.
SOUDER: You‘ve been saying...
MANFRED: And you‘ve been mischaracterizing the document.
SOUDER: Sir, you‘ve been describing this as one thing we made an error in. It is the pivotal part, which is the penalty. It is the pivotal part. The rest of the document is interesting.
(CROSSTALK)
SOUDER: My time is up. I yield to Kanjorski.
REP. PAUL KANJORSKI (D), PENNSYLVANIA: I can sympathize with some of my fellow committee members on a little bit of the frustration in your responses.
I think people that are watching us ask questions whether there‘s favoritism and special benefits that flow to professional athletes, as opposed to the general population. That‘s a reasonable question. I‘ve always wondered why, for instance, you can go to a hockey game and see an organized riot on the field and nobody ever gets prosecuted for assault and battery.
It is like, if you‘re a hockey player, a professional hockey player, you have the right to take a club and beat the living bejesus out of your opponent, as long as he doesn‘t get brain-dead. And that‘s—now, what we‘re faced with here, it seems to me, is that, as a result of this hearing, we‘re approaching this whole problem like it is a baseball problem. I don‘t happen to think it is.
I think it is a societal problem of great proportions. But what I think our policy as a Congress should be is, what are we going to do to protect average people, average athletes, misguided, but nevertheless, average, many of which will never get there? I‘m not certain it is totally solvable. I proposed some questions earlier today that, what is the motive for doing these things?
And, you know, when you‘re dealing with cocaine or marijuana, I guess the motive is to feel good. I‘m not sure. But when you‘re dealing with these things, it is a profit motive. If you can equip your body in a more special way than your opponent, you will have a chance to succeed and get a greater salary. So, it is sort of free enterprise‘s solution to the challenges of modern science. And regardless of what we do in policy, somebody is going to be out there trying to put another drug together ahead of us, so that we‘re obsolete by the time we pass a law.
I guess the situation that I would like to have baseball look at is, one—and the rest of the committee I think is saying that—back off from this idea of collective bargaining. Quite frankly, if it is illegal, these substances, I‘m not sure how you can participate in not prosecuting. It would seem to me, isn‘t it correct, if in junior high school or high school, we found out that someone was taking one of these class three drugs that are illegal, that they would have to be prosecuted?
Why should baseball be any different? So whether it is, I‘m talking to the players‘ side or whether I‘m talking to the league‘s side, you really have to disengage yourself from the idea that you are some special category in American society that is not subject to criminal law or the same type of punishments, as my friend from Maryland indicated would happened in his congressional district if this happened.
You‘ve got to—and I‘m going to tell you, I‘m a sympathetic member of this Congress, from the standpoint, I‘m not sure that it is our role to get into taking on the regulation of every sport in America and everything else. But it is awfully frustrating when professional athletics generally across the board think they‘re in a special category, that they don‘t quite have to measure up to what other citizens are held for and the criminal law in other respects.
And you have just got to do something about it. You just have to do something about it. What we‘re trying to do is see how can we protect those kids out there? Now, I brought up a proposition I want to ask. Any one of you may know. Look, we use markers. We can trace where a drug comes from, where it was manufactured, whose hands it was in, to its final disposition. Has baseball ever gone to people and say, let‘s get all these steroids with markers in them, so we can determine where they came from?
Has anybody inquired into who is making the money on this? Is this the American pharmaceutical industry or is this some diabolical foreign industry? Or is this a garage operation? I happen to think it is probably more sophisticated than that. But my question to you is, what are you doing about the prevention of this, so it doesn‘t spread to the half million or million athletes out there that are dreaming some day to sign a $10 million contract?
MANFRED: Well, let me—let me take a crack at that.
What we do know as a result of our own internal activities is that steroids are available a wide variety of places. You heard some testimony earlier today. Different countries, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, have different types and severity of regulation in terms of the availability of these substances.
And not only is the regulation different. The acceptance in society of the use of those substances are different. The Internet is a second huge problem. I mean, if you go on the Internet and look up things like steroids, you can not only figure out how to buy them. There‘s whole Web sites devoted to how you beat steroid tests. I mean, it is just that it‘s like a cottage industry. So, in terms of getting at it from the control end, when you realize you have both foreign sources and the Internet, to us, we don‘t have a good answer as to how you get your arms around that.
It just seems kind of beyond the capacity of a private employer to deal with, you know, the trafficking issues associated with availability in other countries and, you know, the sale of these substances on the Internet.
DAVIS: Thank you very much. Gentleman‘s time has expired.
(CROSSTALK)
ALDERSON: Could I ask—add to that answer?
DAVIS: If you want add anything, Mr. Alderson, go ahead. Sure.
Sure. Of course.
ALDERSON: Recent reports to the contrary notwithstanding, Major League Baseball has had an ongoing and very positive relationship with the FBI. We currently expect to have a meeting with the FBI over the next two or three weeks in order to make sure that, going forward, we work together.
And this is certainly an area where the FBI has been active in the distant past and perhaps may be active again in the future.
DAVIS: Thank you.
Mr. Westmoreland.
REP. LYNN A. WESTMORELAND ®, GEORGIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We—the only document we‘ve got is this drug proposal that we were handed today that talks about Major League Baseball‘s joint drug prevention and treatment program. And I‘m assuming that‘s the most current copy. Is that correct?
MANFRED: Yes, if it‘s—yes, it is the document I produced to the committee, yes.
WESTMORELAND: Yes.
And who negotiated this for Major League Baseball and who negotiated it for the players?
SELIG: Mr. Manfred did it for Major League Baseball.
Mr. Fehr.
FEHR: And it was very probably Michael Weiner for the players.
WESTMORELAND: Well, Mr. Manfred, we got a saying down home for something like this. You got your hat handed to you. And when they handed you their hat—your hat, they handed America their hat, because this thing right here, I want to just read this for the American people.
Hopefully, this will be able to put on the Internet. As Mr. Shays said, if you don‘t comply with the treatment program, you‘ve got five opportunities, that the fifth failure is any subsequent failure—this is after No. 4 -- to comply by a player shall result in the commissioner imposing further discipline on the player. The level of the discipline will be determined consistent with the concept of progressive discipline.
Now, remember, these people are being suspended for 15 days. And I just took my little calculator and I hope I did it right. But if they‘re making $10 million a year, which some of these guys are, they make $61,728 a day. If you‘re going to suspend them for 15 days, maybe they‘re going to play 10 ball games, about $670,000, I think they would probably want to go with the $10,000 fine. And if you negotiate with the players like did you on this, they‘re going to get by with a $10,000 fine.
MANFRED: We already have clarified that the language has come—they‘ve agreed to take that language at the chairman‘s request out of the agreement to clarify...
(CROSSTALK)
WESTMORELAND: Well, but you all—you all both agreed on this at one time, correct? I‘m assuming you did.
MANFRED: We agreed with the chairman that the language was in error.
(CROSSTALK)
WESTMORELAND: If a player tests positive for a steroid, first test, 10-day suspension or up to a $10,000 fine. Is that still correct?
MANFRED: No.
WESTMORELAND: OK.
MANFRED: We agreed with the chairman earlier in this hearing that it was a drafting error that needed to be corrected.
(CROSSTALK)
WESTMORELAND: All right, let me ask you another question. Conviction for the use of a prohibited substance.
MANFRED: I‘m sorry. Can you...
(CROSSTALK)
WESTMORELAND: First offense, a 15-day, but no more than a 30-day suspension or up to a $10,000 fine. Is that correct?
MANFRED: I‘m sorry? Tell me where?
(CROSSTALK)
WESTMORELAND: Page 14.
MANFRED: That‘s correct.
WESTMORELAND: That is correct. These are people being caught with a prohibited substance. Is that correct?
MANFRED: That‘s correct.
WESTMORELAND: Something that is against the law. And it could be against federal law.
MANFRED: Well, prohibitive substances is a defined term in the agreement.
(CROSSTALK)
WESTMORELAND: But it could be against federal law, is that correct?
MANFRED: That‘s correct, yes.
(CROSSTALK)
WESTMORELAND: And so you‘re going to fine them up to $10,000 on their first offense.
MANFRED: That would be correct.
(CROSSTALK)
WESTMORELAND: Or you could suspend them for 15 days, but no more than 30 days.
MANFRED: That would be correct.
WESTMORELAND: OK. Now let‘s go to marijuana.
MANFRED: I would point out that these levels of discipline are consistent with the levels of discipline that arbitrators have upheld in prior decisions under this agreement. Sometimes, the law is not good, but the law is what the law is.
WESTMORELAND: OK.
Well, if it is against federal law, I don‘t know what the arbitration society has got to say. But listen to me, because there are a lot of people in prison that would like this same kind of deal, OK? Number E says participation in the sale or distribution of a prohibited substance, a player who participates in the sale or distribution of a prohibited substance shall be subject to the following discipline, for first offense, at least a 60-day, but no more than a 90-day suspension and up to a fine of $100,000. Is that correct?
MANFRED: That is correct.
WESTMORELAND: And then, the second offense, they get a two-year suspension. Then, the third time, it goes into the progressive discipline thing again, up to the commissioner as to what it would be.
Marijuana, a player on the administrative track for the use or possession of marijuana shall not be subject to suspension. The player will be subject to fines, which shall be progressive and shall not exceed $15,000. And this—notwithstanding the foregoing, a player who participates in the sale or distribution of marijuana would be subject to those same penalties.
DAVIS: Gentlemen‘s time has expired, but let him answer.
WESTMORELAND: But one quick question.
For Mr. Fehr, you talked about the progressive punishment. What kind of progressive punishment did Pete Rose get for gambling? And gambling is legal in some states. What kind of progressive punishment did he get vs. somebody that sells drugs, that‘s against federal law, that gets progressive punishment? Can you tell me the equity in those two things?
FEHR: Congressman, my recollection is that Pete Rose was declared permanently ineligible. He was not a player at the time. I‘m not familiar with the detailed facts of the proceeding. And we didn‘t participate in it or anything like that.
Let me just make one point in response to the questions that you raised with Mr. Manfred. Players are not immune from prosecution. We assume that they will be prosecuted to the same extent that other individuals will be prosecuted in similar circumstances. If they‘re in prison, they‘re not getting paid and they don‘t have to be suspended.
WESTMORELAND: How many of them have gone to prison? Do you know?
Have you identified...
(CROSSTALK)
WESTMORELAND: Mr. Chairman, if I could just ask one more question from Mr. Manfred.
On page two, at the bottom of page, on page two, you put, but as those of you who were around in 1994 will remember, the priority was resolving the economic issues facing the game and getting game back on the field.
So, that was—so those—the economics of it was—more concerned you than the health, safety and welfare of people that were using steroids?
MANFRED: I was reporting—I was not stating our priorities. I was stating the priorities that were expressed repeatedly in various committees on both sides of the House when we were involved in that long labor dispute. It was not our priority.
WESTMORELAND: So it was Congress‘ fault that we did not do anything about steroids then?
(CROSSTALK)
MANFRED: I‘m simply making the point that—as to what happened.
Congress called us down here and that was the point they made.
(CROSSTALK)
SELIG: Congressman, let me also say, in 1994, I heard from nobody. There was no—there was nobody anywhere who was talking to me about steroids. Nor, did I have really any knowledge other than the one player who admitted that—he now admitted that he was using steroids. But he was in tremendous denial at the time.
The fact of the matter is, even though we had a program that we had proposed in collective bargaining, there was no—you—if you go back to ‘94 -- and I‘m an old history major. And I understand that...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please talk into the microphone.
SELIG: There was nobody that was bringing up the steroid issue. Look, I‘ve often said—and I‘ll say it to you here tonight—I wish I knew in 1995, ‘6, ‘7, and ‘8 what I know today. I‘ll acknowledge that.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVIS: Thank you.
WESTMORELAND: I understand. And I‘ll just tell you, this document, for you to send this to us and expect us to use this during this hearing is an embarrassment to me and I would be hope that it would be an embarrassment to Major League Baseball.
DAVIS: The gentleman‘s time has expired.
Let me ask—before I recognize Mr. Sanders, if you were to catch, if a Major League ball player were distributing illegal drugs and you were to discover that, would you turn it over to the authorities?
SELIG: Oh, absolutely.
DAVIS: You would?
SELIG: Oh, there‘s no question about it. Absolutely.
DAVIS: OK. Thank you.
Mr. Sanders.
REP. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me start with the very first line of Mr. Selig‘s statement. And he said, Major League Baseball has made—quote, unquote—“tremendous progress in dealing with the issue of performance-enhancing substances.”
Mr. Selig, I gather that, if you have made tremendous progress, there must have been a tremendous problem. Was Jose Canseco correct when he said that everybody knew what was going on? It sounds to me like you are in agreement. If you‘ve made tremendous progress, then there must have been a very serious problem. Was Canseco correct?
SELIG: No. Jose Canseco, in my judgment was not correct.
SANDERS: Then what tremendous progress did you make, if there wasn‘t a tremendous problem?
SELIG: Well, because, in the year 2000...
SANDERS: Please speak closer to the microphone.
SELIG: I‘m sorry.
In the year 2000 and 2001, we had no programs anywhere. Finally, I was unilaterally able to put one in the minor league program. We then negotiated in 2002. We began an educational program. We began other multifaceted...
(CROSSTALK)
SANDERS: But you‘re not answering my question. You‘re saying to me that you made an effort. And I understand that.
SELIG: Yes.
SANDERS: Whether it was good enough, people here dispute that. Was there a major problem? I‘m gathering, what you are telling us between the lines is that Major League Baseball had a very, very serious problem with steroids. It wasn‘t dealt with, that in a sense, Canseco is correct and that what you are now saying is that you have begun to make some progress.
SELIG: We‘ve made some progress in testing and everything else. Did we have a major problem?
SANDERS: Yes.
SELIG: No. I don‘t believe we ever had what he says is a major problem.
Let me say this to you. There is no concrete evidence of that. There‘s no testing evidence. There‘s no other kinds of evidence. All we have is some anecdotal evidence, mainly articulated by him. And I think the other players dealt with that today. But we needed a testing program.
(CROSSTALK)
SANDERS: There‘s—one of the problems that we‘re having this whole day is trying to get a handle on how serious this problem was. You say nobody came to you.
REP. BERNARD SANDERS (I), VERMONT: One of the problems that we‘re having this whole day, is trying to get a handle on how serious this problem was. You say nobody came to you, and yet there were articles in the newspaper talking about Canseco in particular.
Just because nobody came to you doesn‘t mean there wasn‘t a problem.
Were people turning their backs?
BUD SELIG, BASEBALL COMMISSIONER: I don‘t believe people were turning their backs. No, I certainly do not believe that. There were very few articles, but once the—I said before, and let me try to say it again. I can only tell you from my personal experience.
That when I read about D‘Anjou (ph) in July of 1998, I began to be very concerned. And I would talk to all of our people. And that‘s when all this began. But so from my own thing, and I‘ve been in this sport almost 40 years, sir. And I think I understand it. And every general manager I talk to, all the doctors I‘ve talked to, all the trainers I‘ve talked to know there is no evidence that there was any widespread problem. And nobody has any data to support that.
SANDERS: Let me just quote. In 1995, the “L.A. Times” reported that anabolic steroids apparently have become the performance drugs of the 1990‘s in Major League Baseball; 1995 the “L.A. Times” wrote that. You didn‘t know anything about that?
SELIG: No. I don‘t. I...
SANDERS: We‘ve got a problem here. If the “L.A. Times” says something, how come—are they wrong?
SELIG: Well, you‘d have to tell me what their basis in fact was.
Because it was not aware to any of us, Congressman.
SANDERS: I mean, just out of curiosity, if there‘s an article in a major newspaper. It doesn‘t say they‘re right. I‘m not saying that they‘re right. Somebody should say, gee, we may have a problem. We should look at it. Don‘t you think?
SANDY ALDERSON, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: Congressman, if could I answer that question. As a follow-up to that 1995 article in “The L.A. Times,” there was also an article in the Detroit paper in the following year. The general manager quoted in the L.A. article, it is also quoted in the Detroit article, the general manager had gone from San Diego to Detroit.
I only read this to you as a—sort of a sense of what was going on at the time in terms of other factors that may have obscured what was going on. But here‘s the same general manager.
SANDERS: Is this Randy Smith?
ALDERSON: That‘s correct. “The pitching has thinned out. The hitters are stronger and the ball parks are smaller. They‘re always thinking about hitting. I remember once finding Melvin Hereras (ph) working out at a batting cage on Christmas Eve. ‘Baseball could help slow the offensive onslaught by raising the mound to pre-1969 levels,‘ Smith said. They‘re not going to make ball parks any bigger and you can‘t change the physical strength of the hitters. But could you help even out a little by raising the mound.”
Now, I‘m not pointing this out in contrast to the ‘95 article but only to say that those articles were infrequent. And there were other explanations for the kinds of offense that were being generated at the time. I‘m not suggesting there wasn‘t a problem, but I think what it did was obscure the nature of the problem and the extent of the problem.
SANDERS: I don‘t have a lot of time, Mr. Alderson. Let me just say this. I think what people up here, regardless of political persuasion, are getting the impression is you have turned your back on the problem in the past.
And the second issue, Mr. Cummings raised it. Is obviously, we all know that in the real world, people with money are treated differently than low income and moderate income people. There are God knows how many thousands of people rotting in jails, and whether they should or should not is a whole other issue, but they are in jail.
And what people, I think, in America want to know, in this country, people who commit the same crimes are treated the same way. And I think that the impression that we are getting is that is not the case.
Last point that I would make. The players themselves acknowledge what everybody here knows, that they are role models for millions of young people. And I would hope that the union and management would substantially raise the standards. To tell people who are making millions and millions of dollars while opportunities that very few people have, that if they want to do that kind of work and make that kind of money, they‘re going to have to not do drugs at all.
Thank you.
REP. TOM DAVIS (R-VA), CHAIRMAN: Thank you. The gentleman‘s time has expired.
One of the problems you have is not the percentages. It‘s been the very high profile MVP players who have bulked up that have been linked to this. We heard from Mr. Canseco and Mr. McGwire today. Mr. Palmeiri was an MVP, Barry Bonds, a seven-time MVP, Jason Giambi, an MVP, Sheffield. These are the role models.
The percentages are one thing. But it‘s a lot of these stars that appear to be using these drugs. And that‘s where, Mr. Selig, that‘s where it seems to be siphoning down.
SELIG: And I understand. And I accept—No. 1, I accept the social responsibility we have. I‘ve said that everywhere. And we have it. And you are correct. And our players have it and our clubs have it.
The thing that‘s fascinating me, as we go back in the ‘90s, I‘ve spent a lot of time now. I sent Sandy Alderson in ‘98 and ‘99 to Costa Rica. You know why? Because everybody said the ball was all juiced up.
Then they said there was something with the bats. Then we had two expansions in the ‘90s and everybody said the pitching is lousy.
So—Mike Schmidt, the hall of fame third baseman said the other day, he doesn‘t believe it‘s steroids. He said, “I believe it‘s the small parks, juiced up ball, bats.”
I‘m not—I don‘t want to—I guess what I‘m saying, everybody has theories. And as the commissioner, and I think you all understand that, I need to deal with facts as they are. I understand our response and I don‘t disagree with it.
And frankly, the steroid situation has been on my mind now the last six or seven years. And of course, I not only take it seriously. Broke my heart today to listen to the parents. I understand it‘s an enormous health problem. But more important, we do have a responsibility, and we‘d better set and be a good role model.
DAVIS: Right.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: Mr. Chairman?
DAVIS: Mr. Waxman.
WAXMAN: On that point, Mr. Selig, you‘ve said it‘s not a major problem. Yet Barry Bonds, seven time most valuable player. Giambi, most valuable player. Jose Canseco, 1998 most valuable player. Ken Kemenati (ph) was most valuable player, and Mark McGwire was suspected of steroid use.
That‘s half of the last 30 MVP‘s, roughly speaking. And your job is to protect the integrity of the game. It is a major problem, because you don‘t need large numbers to have it filter down to the kids to think it‘s acceptable. Because these are the heroes. So I just want to point that out to you.
SELIG: May I respond to you? Mr. Waxman, I agree with you. You‘re right. It is my responsibility. And I take it very, very seriously. And I have throughout my entire life.
However, having said that, the fact of the matter is that‘s the only way to finally get to the root problem there and solve it is through the toughest kind of testing program, doing all the other things that I‘ve heard here today.
I agree with that. Education, everything else. I‘m not disagreeing with that. But I can‘t just take anecdotal evidence about somebody without having any other evidence that somebody has done something.
For instance today. There are people who came here today, players who have been accused of something and clearly, denied it today. And that‘s the kind of thing that we, that I have to live with. And we have to deal with.
WAXMAN: Thank you.
DAVIS: Mr. Green (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all. I know this has been a long arduous—Commissioner, I‘m really thankful that you mentioned in your statement you‘re going to work with a partnership. And I look forward to working on a program.
Let me just leave you this message. I know each of you pretty well now after these numbers of years. You can tell. Congress—I think you‘ve misread and misinterpreted Congress‘s comments here. And I think you‘ve made some very critical mistakes.
And I would suggest to you, and I know Donald, this is harder for you because you‘ve got to sell this stuff. But I think you—time is of the essence and you need to go back to the membership and let them know that, not only do the American people but Congress has reached a level of intolerance that this game that‘s special to them, but more importantly, its impact in public health policy has really reached an end. You need to do something a little more definitive than what you have done, maybe substantially more definitive.
Along that line, I‘d like to be helpful here. And I want to talk to Mr. Manfred specifically. I‘m former labor commissioner. I called the NLRB. I talked to the Department of Labor. That confidentiality clause is really—is really extraordinary. I‘ve not seen too much of that, and neither have the folks at the NLRB. And I only—this is more commentary than it‘s anything.
But Mr. Alderson mentioned you‘re going to be preaching to the FBI to work with them on steroid issues, related issues. Does that mean that—because, what you‘re essentially saying in both subsection D and E, that both parties agree to resist the government investigation and that the program itself will be suspended. It is overly broad. It‘s incredible language, it seems to me, especially to an entity that has the public relation problem and the perception problems you all have.
And I think you need to relook that as well. And be—at least be more defined. I think—I understand it‘s a privacy issue, Mr. Fehr. But people aren‘t particularly interested in the privacy aspects when their kids are dying because of the influences.
Finally, let me say this. On the testing procedures. Mr. Manfred,
you said two things that have confused me. One is that you said that the -
· and I do think the chain of evidence is real important here. That independent collectors are involved in the collection of specimens. I don‘t see that anywhere in here. If you could point that out to me, I‘d greatly appreciate that.
ROBERT MANFRED, EVP, LABOR AND HUMAN RESOURCES, MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL:
I will find the language for you. But—and it may not be laid out here.
I can tell you how we operate. We use a company called Comprehensive—
Comprehensive Drug Testing Services in California. We‘ve used them for a number of years. We use them to put distance between the health policy advisory committee and the actual operation of the program. They do this random selection that dates on which tests are to take place and actually dispatch the collectors.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My understanding in the collection process, and I‘m looking for the section here myself. It‘s been awhile. In terms of an independent—I forget what the acronym was for the group that you had doing it.
MANFRED: CDT?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: H-pack. It‘s essentially a representative from the players association and a representative from management that collects it. Is there an independent party involved in that?
MANFRED: Yes. H-pack oversees and picks somebody, enters into an arrangement with a company to do. It has been the same for a number of years. And there are two different contracts. One is with this company called CDT. I think it is the largest drug collection company in the United States. All they do is collect...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you find them?
MANFRED: I‘m sorry?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did you find them?
MANFRED: Originally, the woman who ran the company knew Commissioner Ueberoth from the Olympics. She was involved in the Olympics in Los Angeles. And then we have a second contract with...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You‘re saying you have an independent contractor in the game?
MANFRED: We do.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Fehr, your colleague next to you has indicated over the past that you probably would be the problem with bringing U.S. anti-doping in.
DONALD FEHR, PLAYERS UNION: I‘m sorry. What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You would be the problem. You would object to reopening the collective bargaining agreement to bring this out of here. A proven known gold standard collector and standard setter in the area. Is that true?
FEHR: My view is as follows: as Mr. Manfred previously indicated and I agree with, all of these drug testing programs operate under terms of the collective bargaining agreements. We have a legal obligation to negotiate all terms and conditions of the contracts, of the contract and to administer it.
I think that if this committee had had the opportunity—and I knew because of the speed this hearing was put together, that was very difficult to do—to examine who does collections and what the procedures are, to look at the certified lab and so on, you would conclude that it is completely independent and entirely trustworthy.
DAVIS: The gentleman‘s time has expired. Mr. Kucinich?
REP. DENNIS KUCINICH (D), OHIO: Thank you. Commissioner, tell me who
· can you tell the committee who hired you as commissioner?
SELIG: Who hired me?
KUCINICH: Yes. Who hires the commissioner?
SELIG: The owners.
KUCINICH: OK. The owners. Thank you. Commissioner, one month ago, “The New York Daily News” reported that in the mid 1990‘s, FBI agents contacted Major League Baseball to inform them that certain players were using steroids. And according to the story, baseball did nothing to pursue these allegations: no investigations, no testing, no nothing.
Can you describe, Commissioner, the communications with the FBI?
SELIG: I can only tell you what a head of our security department said, Mr. Kevin Halernan (ph), who said that there hadn‘t been a contact and that he denied the existence of the story.
KUCINICH: I‘m sorry. What did you say, Commissioner?
SELIG: He denied that somebody had contacted him.
KUCINICH: You were contacted or you weren‘t?
SELIG: He was not contacted.
KUCINICH: So Major League Baseball was not contacted. “The New York Daily News” story—you are saying that story was wrong?
SELIG: Well, I‘m just telling you, you asked me what...
KUCINICH: You don‘t have any knowledge of any contact?
ALDERSON: Could I attempt to answer that? Could I?
KUCINICH: I‘m asking the commissioner. I mean, does the commissioner have any knowledge of any contacts?
SELIG: I did not. And our head of security said he didn‘t. He works for Mr. Alderson, who can...
KUCINICH: Does the gentleman want to answer yes or no as to whether or not you have knowledge of any contacts? I‘m interested in finding out the substance of “The New York Daily News” article.
ALDERSON: We have no knowledge of the ‘94, ‘95 contact. If it happened, it happened on an informal basis at a seminar in Quantico. The only other contact we had on the subject was in 2002 from the same agent. That was an eight-year gap between what he said was the initial contact and the subsequent follow-up.
KUCINICH: So you‘re saying, you‘re acknowledging that there may have been informal contacts?
ALDERSON: It‘s conceivable. Yes, Congressman.
KUCINICH: OK. Commissioner, let me ask you something. You—after listening to the Congress today, you feel very strongly that you‘re willing to cooperate to make sure that baseball has strict standards with respect to steroid testing. Is that correct?
SELIG: Absolutely.
KUCINICH: And is this the first time that you‘ve heard from Congress on this matter?
SELIG: No. We were here last year before Senator McCain and his committee.
KUCINICH: And was that the first time you heard from Congress on that matter?
SELIG: On that matter—I heard from him on most other matters. I believe that‘s the first time on that.
KUCINICH: Let me submit for the record, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman? I ask unanimous consent to submit for the record H-Res. 496 from the 107th Congress titled “Expressing the sense of the House of Representative that Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball Players Association should implement a mandatory steroid testing program.” And this is dated July 22, 2002.
Are you familiar with this, by the way, Mr. Selig?
SELIG: We weren‘t here. I mean, there may have been a resolution but it was certainly not in one of my many trips here.
KUCINICH: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Commissioner.
I‘d like to ask Mr. Towers a question. Is it true that under current law, baseball franchise owners are able to write off half the cost of the purchase price of a team by capitalizing and depreciating players‘ contracts?
KEVIN TOWERS, SAN DIEGO PADRES GENERAL MANAGER: I would not have the answer to that, Mr. Kucinich.
KUCINICH: Does anyone on the panel know the answer to that question? That baseball franchise owners are able to write off half the cost of the purchase price of a team by capitalizing and decreasing players‘ contracts?
FEHR: Mr. Kucinich, my basic understanding is as follows. I haven‘t looked at this in a long time. That the IRS had a rule in effect which allowed substantial write-offs. I believe that this Congress within the last 120 days modified that. But the write-offs still continue. I don‘t remember precisely what they did.
SELIG: I believe that is correct, Congressman.
KUCINICH: OK. Then let me just ask one quick follow-up. May I?
DAVIS: One follow-up.
KUCINICH: Let me ask one follow-up question now. If—if you see baseball players‘ contracts as being that valuable, why in the world wouldn‘t you want to know what the health of a player was with respect to what they were putting in their body, since it could undermine the value of your investment, if you don‘t look at it any other way? Mr. Towers?
TOWERS: Well, we do. And because of the current basic agreement, we were not able to test and find out what some of these players were putting in their body.
I will say that our organization, the San Diego Padres, in 1997 was one of the first in baseball to add not only over-the-counter muscle enhancers, as well as steroids and test our minor leaguers. So at least I knew, within my own organization, players that I would want to commit to or not commit to because of that knowledge of use.
KUCINICH: Thank you.
REP. MARK SOUDER ®, INDIANA: Mr. Alderson, we‘ve been going back and forth on a couple questions about whether the FBI contacted baseball. Why weren‘t you contacting the FBI if these things were circulating, to do an investigation?
SELIG: I‘m sorry, I didn‘t hear your question.
SOUDER: In other words, the questions, mostly, that have come at you are is because of—whether it‘s at Quantico or others, FBI contacts to baseball. The question is why, if these things were swirling around, weren‘t you going to the FBI?
SELIG: Since the story in the “Daily News,” we have been in touch with the FBI quite frequently. And in an attempt to understand exactly what did take place in 1994 or 1995. And what we hope to do is—is meet shortly in order to resolve that, as well as reestablish a very positive relationship, which has existed for quite a long time.
SOUDER: I think of the fundamental concern is why the FBI would have to be initiating something and they could figure it out when those of you in the locker rooms and the owners couldn‘t and were not going to the FBI first. I think that‘s the fundamental question.
I yield to Mr. Dent.
REP. CHARLES W. DENT ®, PENNSYLVANIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Selig, I have a question of you. Back in 1919, the so-called Black Sox scandal really created the commissioner‘s office as it now is. Major League Baseball, as you know, deals very swiftly and aggressively with a player betting or gambling. And of course it was mentioned about Pete Rose.
Do you believe that this issue of steroid use by ballplayers is as serious as involvement in betting in baseball?
SELIG: Well, I don‘t know that—that I could draw that analogy. But let me suggest to you, Pete Rose was suspended by Commissioner Giamatti, voluntarily accepted a lifetime suspension. There have been rules for—since 1920 about gambling.
Pete Rose was a manager of the Cincinnati Reds. And so what he did was a violation of our rules. At that time, we didn‘t have any rules on steroids.
Do I think steroid use is very serious? Congressman, I think it‘s very serious. And as we test now, we‘ll be able to—to discipline players or people that violate that under the terms of our collective bargaining agreement. It‘s a little different in terms of the Pete Rose situation.
DENT: My only point is this: I don‘t know if what Pete Rose was legal or illegal. But he was dealt with swiftly. He was out of the game.
This issue—and by the way, I just spoke to, a couple hours ago I spoke to Curt Schilling. He said in every locker room—I don‘t know what the article number is about baseball betting but every play was well aware of that policy. They knew what the consequences would be if they were involved in betting and baseball.
SELIG: That‘s correct.
DENT: They‘d be gone.
SELIG: That is correct.
DENT: And all I‘m asking is that this issue be given the same level of attention and interest by Major League Baseball that the gambling issue is. Based on what I‘ve seen, we‘ve heard about the four or five strikes and you‘re out. This seems that the policy to many of us is unacceptable.
And again, I asked the ball players that same question. But again, we‘ve been talking about the kids. We‘ve been talking about our committee‘s oversight on drug policy.
And in my state, I‘ll say it again. That my taxpayers in Pennsylvania subsidize Major League Baseball in a big way. Hundreds of millions of dollars just for two baseball stadiums, not even counting the football. And they were able to do that because of the fact that you have this anti-trust exemption.
At the time, the Pittsburgh Pirates said they were going to—we were told they were going to Northern Virginia, Chairman, if they didn‘t get their stadium. And a lot of people didn‘t want to pay for that. They have a stake in this game.
And I believe we have an obligation to the taxpayers. And I have to ask the question, is Major League Baseball worthy of that anti-trust exemption granted at the federal level, in light of all this issue with steroids?
SELIG: Well, I‘m obviously very sensitive about it. I think that we‘ve dealt with the issue as—as aggressively as we could. But there‘s clearly work to be done. I don‘t deny that. There‘s clearly work to be done in the future. But I can assure you that we‘re not taking it lightly in any way, shape, form or manner. Nor should we.
DENT: And I guess the same question to the players representative
here, too. I mean, we‘ve heard from Mr. Selig that he would like to do a -
· he‘d like to have a more stringent policy but can‘t because of the collective bargaining, and apparently the players association is—is the impediment, if I heard him correctly, to a more stringent policy on—on steroid use.
FEHR: I‘ll repeat what I said in my introductory remarks. At least I hope I did.
We took the unprecedented step of opening the contract in the middle over this last year. We believe we have made very substantial improvements. We believe that the data we have so far—and I‘m confident, but if I‘m wrong, it‘s going to be shown—is going to make everybody extraordinarily pleased.
I will, if you‘ll permit me, make the same commitment that I did before the Senate Commerce Committee a year ago, which is that my obligation is, as you might expect, to relay the sentiments of this committee to my constituents.
DENT: We do not as a Congress—I believe I agree with the chairman. We do not want to have to get into the issue of passing a law at this level to deal with steroids in baseball. And the only thing we have to hold over your heads is that anti-trust exemption to make you do something about it. So we hope you take this seriously. I believe you are now.
Mr. Towers—OK, well I had a question for Mr. Towers. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We haven‘t had a question for Mr. Towers. Why don‘t you go ahead?
DENT: Mr. Towers, I‘d first like to thank you for speaking—for speaking today on such an emotional issue for you. I applaud the candor of your public statements.
Sylvester Roman (ph) in “ESPN,” the magazine, quotes you stating that you have to imagine that all G.M.‘s at one point or another had reason to think that a player on their ball club was probably using.
Could you please speak to what you believe general managers could do to curb the use of steroids in Major League Baseball?
TOWERS: In the mid ‘90s, we have our annual general managers meetings, and several topics come up during those discussions. I would say probably the mid to late ‘90s, probably the most major topic was over the counter muscle enhancers. Something that we talked about.
We certainly knew that there was whispers of steroids at the time. There were discussions. Because of the current basic agreement, there was no way of really knowing.
I can say that, as general managers, we saw with our own eyes Andro (ph) and muscle enhancers in our club houses, in our locker rooms. And what we did is acted when we knew. And we banned those from the clubhouse. And now that we have more information, it‘s coming up evolutionarily, but we‘re learning more and more about steroids. And now today we do have a program where I think as long as there‘s public disclosure, I think we‘ll be very effective.
DENT: And a quick follow-up. Do you think that the league ought to impose an obligation on team management to report such illegal drug use?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Dent? Others will have to do this follow-up.
Mr. Davis?
REP. DANNY DAVIS (D), ILLINOIS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Manford, in your testimony, you talked about the health policy advisory committee. And Mr. Fehr, you also mentioned that in your statement.
A few years ago, the Olympics were in a similar position to Major League Baseball. There were allegations of drug use, and the Olympic organizations had no credibility within really to fix the problem.
In response, the Olympics decided to rely on an independent body to oversee the integrity of sports. This removed any shadow of a doubt that decisions would be made on the best possible science and not as part of a collective bargaining agreement.
This is the same decision that other major sports have made, including tennis, international soccer, and cycling.
By contrast, baseball‘s policy is overseen by a health policy advisory committee. This sounds good, but when you read the details, you learn that the health policy advisory committee is a four-member panel with two members appointed by management and two by the players association.
Of course, one of the members is you, Mr. Robert Manfred, who handles labor negotiations for the owners. And the other is Gene Orsef (ph), who handles negotiations for the players.
Now when I look at this provision, I really don‘t see an independent health advisory committee. I see an extension of the labor management negotiations.
And so I have to ask the question, how can the public have confidence that this is a credible policy when the member of the health advisory committee are management and labor negotiators?
The health policy advisory committee has key responsibilities. For example, it has to agree unanimously before any new substances are added to the drug testing regime. Also, it decides how players will be tested during off season, when steroid use is reported to be common.
These are decisions that should be made by independent experts. That‘s what is done in the Olympics. And it is what needs to be done to restore credibility to baseball. My question is...
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: You‘re been watching baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and other commissioners from Major League Baseball and its players association in what has been clearly a feisty testimony on Capitol Hill.
I‘m joined right now by my colleague, Keith Olbermann, from COUNTDOWN here on MSNBC. He‘s coming to us during his week off just because of this.
Keith, you‘ve covered sports for years. What do you make of tonight‘s events?
KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST, “COUNTDOWN”: Well, Chris, I think what you‘ve seen is the first bipartisanship of the new Congress. That‘s the first thing. They were all ganging up on baseball owners and players.
But also, bipartisanship among the baseball players and the owners. They have stone walled collectively. They have agreed on something for the first time, perhaps, in the history of the game, dating professionally back to 1871 in this country.
Namely, they don‘t want this subject and have not wanted this subject fully explored. So you have gotten the stone wall versus people whose—whose goal, obviously, today was to knock down the stone wall as best they could.
I think the headline still dates from—from this afternoon. And the comments of Mark McGwire, who broke the baseball home run record in 1998 and was given an opportunity to deny that he had ever used steroids and chose not to. I think that‘s—that‘s, above all else, what will come out of this hearing, was that much like, I think you heard Congressman Dent say that he was invoking the memory of the 1919 Chicago White Sox, who supposedly, or presumably, threw the World Series that year. He brought them up.
And it was an apocryphal story about that team. When Joe Jackson, Shoeless Joe Jackson walked down the courthouse steps after supposedly admitting to everything that had been done, a little boy was supposed to have come up to him and said, “Say it ain‘t so, Joe. Say it ain‘t so.” It never really happened but it made a great story.
And Joe turned to the kid and said, “I‘m afraid it is, son. I‘m afraid it is.”
Well, today we had Mark McGwire being essentially asked that same question. He said, “On the advice of my counsel, no comment.”
MATTHEWS: But Jose said it was so. Let‘s listen to—Jose Canseco that is.
Let‘s listen right now to Mark McGwire and his testimony which you were talking about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK MCGWIRE, FRM. MLB PLAYER: My name is Mark McGwire. I‘ve played the game of baseball since I was nine-years-old. I was privileged to be able to play 15 years in the major leagues. I love and respect our national past time. I will do everything in my power to help the game, its players and fans.
First and foremost, my heart goes out to every parent whose son or daughter were victims of steroid use. I hope that these hearings can prevent other families from suffering. I admire the parents who had the courage to appear before the committee and warn the dangers of steroid use. My heart goes out to them. I applaud the work of the committee in exposing this problem so that the dangers are clearly understood.
There‘s been a problem with steroid use in baseball. Like any sport where there is pressure to perform at the highest level and there has been no testing to control performance enhancing drugs, problems develop. It is a problem. And that needs to be addressed.
Most importantly, every little leaguer, pony league, high school, college player, needs to understand that performance enhancing drugs of any kind can be dangerous. I will use whatever influence and popularity that I have to discourage young athletes from taking any drug that is not recommended by a doctor.
What I will not do, however, is participate in naming names and implicating my friends and teammates. I‘ve always been a team player. I have never been a person who spread rumors or said things about teammates that could hurt them.
I do not sit in judgment of other players, whether it deals with their sexual preference, their marital problems or other personal habits including whether or not they use chemical substances. That has never been my style, and I do not intend to change just because the cameras are turned on.
Nor do I intend to dignify Mr. Canseco‘s book. It should be enough that you consider the source of the statements in the book. And that many inconsistencies and contradictions have already been raised.
I‘ve been advised that my testimony here could be used to harm friends and respected teammates, or that some ambitious prosecutor can use convicted criminals who would do and say anything to solve their own problems. Asking me or any other player to answer questions about who took steroids in front of television cameras will not solve the problem. If a player answers no, he simply will not be believed. If he answers yes, he risks public scorn and endless government investigations.
My lawyers have advised me that I cannot answer these questions without jeopardizing my friends, my family and myself. I intend to follow their advice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Keith, it is interesting that Mark McGwire sort of gave us a nondenial, denial. He didn‘t answer the question. Whereas the other players denied having used steroids.
OLBERMANN: If you‘re Sammy Sosa or Rafael Palmeiro who had preceded McGwire just as you suggest, Chris, moments before that, and both said, no, I never used steroids. I think Sosa said it in two different languages. And then afterwards Kurt Schilling of the Boston Red Sox and Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox said no, I didn‘t use steroids either, You have to wonder what Mark McGwire is talking about when he said that if you ask a player the question, did you use steroids and he answers no, he will simply not be believed.
What is he saying about those guys sitting next to him? And then he says, if he answers yes, he risks public scorn and endless government investigations. It really is that trying to get out of Dodge without acknowledging that you own a gun. I mean, it is such an extraordinary statement. And I think it got buried to some degree, because the other headlines where he would not name names, well, nobody asked him to name names. When they attempted to bring that up, the questioners were shouted down. Even the follow-up questions from some members of committee, “Mr. McGwire, did you ever use steroids?” It‘s not clear from your statement.
That question was never answered.
It is not a personal witch hunt here. This was not the case of Jason Giambi of the New York Yankees who is involved, as is Barry Bonds of the San Fancisco Giants, in an actual potential prosecution who testified in front of a grand Jury in 2003 in San Francisco about steroid use. Mark McGwire is not facing any charges. And for him to face charges, there would have to be an investigation about steroid use pre-2001 which is when he retired.
So, I think he‘s put himself up to something of a martyr. And I don‘t think he carried it off at all. What I think did he was permanently take that question mark that there has been since a supplement called androstenedione was found unhidden in his locker during his record setting home run season of 1998. He has taken the question mark about whether or not he did that record clean, and made it a permanent thing as surely as if he tattooed it on his own forehead.
MATTHEWS: You know, I think—I want to ask you Keith, because you‘re a student of sports and headlines as well—I want to give you some which I think have been created here. Some new terms of art. Unwitting positive. Where you test positive for a drug, somehow because you accidentally took an illegal drug. Is that to be believed as the new form of innocence?
OLBERAMNN: You know what, it is so remarkable to hear a phrase like that and see it used in a particular area of baseball. You remember, it is 1988 when the huge steroid scandal enveloped the Olympics in Seoul in Korea when Ben Johnson, the sprinter, after winning a couple of gold medals tested positive for steroids and was thrown from the summit of sports and is now racing against horses on race tracks in Canada to try to make $20.
I mean, these were all terms in 1988. We are to believe that the process took 15 years or more to get into baseball. It beggars belief completely. And it underscores that this stonewall has been in place for a long time in baseball. And perhaps it was chipped away.
MATTHEWS: The phrase that comes back to me, Keith, is an old Watergate phrase. And it is McGwire that gave me that memory. Limited modified hangout.
In other words, there is witches here, there are witches are about, people have misused steroids, steroids is a big problem, but I‘m not telling you where or how it happened.
OLBERMANN: Yeah. Because I‘m a good guy. And although I will acknowledge, as he said, there has been a problem of steroid use in baseball, he‘s not equivocal about it. He‘s not saying, well, I heard there was a problem. He says that there was a steroid problem.
And in fact, much of what he testified to in his opening statement—but it was identical about what Jose Canseco said why he used steroids that there was so competitive pressure on him and other players to build their bodies up so they could be competitive with other players were building their bodies up through illegal drugs.
MATTHEWS: Let‘s take a look—let‘s take a listen, I should say, to some of what Jose Canseco said today in the hearing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSE CANSECO, FRM. MLB PLAYER: Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, distinguished guests, my name is Jose Canseco. And for 17 years, I played professional baseball. I am humbled by the opportunity to appear before you today. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that my athletic ability and love for America‘s game would lead me to this place and the subject that has brought me before this committee.
When I decided to write my life story, I was aware that what I revealed about myself and the game I played for a majority of my life would create a stir in the athletic world. I did know that my revelations would reverberate in the halls of this chamber and the hearts of so many.
My heart and condolences go out to those families who lost their children to use of steroids. Today, I commit myself to doing everything possible to assist them in conveying to the youth of America the dangers that using steroids will bring.
After this hearing, I will be happy to work with them in whatever way I can to help convey to the youth of America the message that steroid use is unnecessary to be a great athlete and that they are harmful to use to those who take them.
When first contacted by the committee, I was willing to cooperate with all aspects of the investigation. Unlike others, I have never refused to appear before this committee and assist them in this endeavor. However, due to the fact that I am on probation in Florida for events unrelated to baseball and steroid use, and due to clear evidence of the overzealous efforts of state prosecutors to make an example of me, I request immunity from this committee—I requested immunity from this committee.
With immunity, I will be free to answer all questions posed by me by the committee without fear of—my testimony would affect my probation. Without immunity, I cannot.
DAVIS: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.
CANSECO: It has been represented that this committee has been called to get to the bottom of steroid use in baseball. It has been said that this meeting is not about prosecution or abuse. If that were true, granting immunity to me should not be an issue.
Although I have nothing to hide, and although my answers to your questions will be helpful in resolving uncertainties and issues facing this committee, because of my fear of future prosecution for probation violations or other unrelated charges, I cannot be totally candid with this committee.
When appropriate, I will invoke the protections offered me by the fifth amendment. This is unfortunate that a committee chose to not grant me this request, especially since I am the only player or member of baseball who did not fight the request to appear here today. It is unfortunate the committee has made this decision as it will not be able to fully investigate the steroid issue without all testimony and the issue will continue to plague the sport.
Thank you for asking me to appear. I will try to answer every question that may be posed to me by (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEWS: Keith, is he going to be remembered, Jose Canseco, as the whistle blower here?
OLBERMANN: It‘s conceivable that he will be, which is ironic kind of ironic because he was also the first player ever to be accused of it by Tom Boswell in the “Washington Post” in 1988 when he referred to a mixture of steroids and other drugs called a “Canseco cocktail.” And Canseco, ironically enough, threatened to sue Tom Boswell and the “Washington Post” for reporting that.
But I think what Canseco—the point that people might not be too sympathetic to about Canseco right there is that he said, I can‘t now swear to all that I wrote in my book. But what the committee had done was excuse Jason Giambi of the New York Yankees because of his testimony in that BALCO case in San Francisco and the potential legal jeopardy that saying certain things under oath before Congress might put him in relative to that trial when it gets to that stage, and certainly to what his grand jury testimony‘s already been.
Canseco could conceivably be, as he suggested, in some sort of legal jeopardy in Florida, so that was not as much of an evasion as it sounded like. And, ironically, it sounded like he wanted to tell more than he was able to, and I was surprised that had they did not grant him some sort of limited immunity, or the roof of the baseball dome probably would have blown off today.
MATTHEWS: OK, Keith. Stay with us.
One of the people Mark McGwire was talking about today as to people who were victims of this was Raymond Garibaldi. His son was a ball player who committed suicide after using steroids.
Raymond, do you think if your son had heard this testimony from Canseco, and the implications by the others like McGwire, that steroids are bad, it would have affected him?
RAY GARIBALDI, SON COMMITTED SUICIDE AFTER STEROID USE: I think it would have made a big difference. I think he might be here today.
MATTHEWS: Did he believe that steroids were harmless when he took them?
GARIBALDI: He believed they were another performance enhancing substance, just like creatine and things he was asked to take when he was 15 years old.
MATTHEWS: Nothing that would cause the psychological disorder, would cause him—whatever came to cause his suicide.
GARIBALDI: Well, that was from steroids, not the sports-enhancing supplements. The sports-enhancing supplements that he took, mainly creatine, when he was 15, he took it from 15 until 23 years old, and what‘s proven now is that creatine creates the mindset for future steroid use. It is considered a gateway type supplement.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about his heroes. Just based upon his age and the heroes of the time, were Sosa, Sammy Sosa, were Mark McGwire, the people he looked up to in this sport?
GARIBALDI: Well, he was born and raised in the bay area. So...
MATTHEWS: It was Bonds.
GARIBALDI: Bonds—well, we lived too far away from where Bonds was brought up and where he went to high school, followed his career diligently. Mark McGwire, Canseco in Oakland...
MATTHEWS: Did he go—did he go out to Candlestick in the new field to watch him?
GARIBALDI: Oh, yes. Yes. New field, Candlestick park, the old field. Went to the Oakland Colosseum. We followed him. We were...
MATTHEWS: Did you, father and son, ever chat about the build-up of the muscle in guys like Bonds compared to his old man, compared to him in his younger career? Did you talk about the possible use of drugs as a way this guy got stronger, a better slugger?
GARIBALDI: Well, in February 2001, when the Rob was in his apartment in Southern California, he was playing for U.S.C., Rob was videotaping Barry Bonds, his first game in spring training, and he said, I can‘t believe—look at this, he looks like he‘s 35 pounds heavier, and he pulled out another tape that he had from the last game of the 2000 season in October, and he said, look. He just kept going back and forth.
MATTHEWS: Was your son thinking at the time, hey, this guy is using something. I want to use it so I can catch him?
GARIBALDI: No. He didn‘t say that. He just said, the only he could achieve this is through chemicals.
MATTHEWS: Get the weight you needed. You told us earlier, that one of the scouts said, you have to put on 45 pounds if you‘re going to make it.
GARIBALDI: It was when was 15 years old. He was playing on a scouting team. He was 130 pounds and he was told, by the time he got out of high school, which would have been two years later, he need to be up to 185 pound.
MATTHEWS: And what was the available weight for him to get up and weigh?
GARIBALDI: They put him on a—they told him to not be a three sport player anymore in high school, to stick strictly with baseball and take sports-enhancing supplements and work—
MATTHEWS: Including steroids?
GARIBALDI: No, no. These are over-the-counter items that you can buy at any—
MATTHEWS: Was he inspired, your son, by the big guys in the major leagues—people like Bonds—using steroids to use them himself?
GARIBALDI: I believe in his mind that he felt he had no choice. To be a baseball prayer, he felt that he had to get caught into the same thing that everybody else was doing, and had to take steroids.
MATTHEWS: The end justifies the means.
GARIBALDI: Yep. It‘s almost like these guys gave him permission.
MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Raymond. Thanks for sticking around.
It must be an amazing day for you sir, and losing a son this way—unimaginable.
GARIBALDI: Thank you.
MATTHEWS: Our coverage of the baseball hearings continues in a moment.
Keith Olbermann is staying with us, and when we come back, we‘ll hear from Tommy Lasorda.
You‘re watching HARDBALL on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to our coverage of the hearings on steroid use in baseball. Keith Olbermann is with me, and earlier, I asked Tommy Lasorda, the great Dodger manager, all those years—what has caused the explosion home runs, since the early 1990s?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOMMY LASORDA, LOS ANGELES DODGERS: They‘re bigger and stronger. And Caminiti won the MVP. He told everybody he took steroids.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
LASORDA: Canseco won the MVP. He told everybody that took steroids.
Now, why...
MATTHEWS: Were you misquoted—were you misquoted when you said that, that the balls usually got caught in the warning tracks are now in the seats? Was that a misquote?
LASORDA: No, I wasn‘t misquoted. I said that. Balls that normally would be caught...
MATTHEWS: What caused that ball to go into the seats?
LASORDA: Huh?
MATTHEWS: What caused the ball to go further?
LASORDA: The guy hit it further.
MATTHEWS: That‘s by definition!
OK, let me ask you...
LASORDA: That‘s by definition. The ball that the guy would hit in front of the wall years ago, that ball is in the stands because the guy hit it further. He‘s got that strength. He‘s got that enhancing drug and it allows him to be stronger.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about...
LASORDA: How do you think the guys hit all those home runs. How do you think Caminiti did well as he said and Canseco.
MATTHEWS: You just told me enhancing drugs. Let me ask you about when I was really a baseball nut as a kid, and you‘ve been around then too, of course, you‘ve been awhile. I remember the players were kind of skinny guys, they weren‘t really big guys. Some of them were wiry. I‘m not just talking about the shortstops. A lot of players weren‘t that big. Seems to me all the sluggers today are mooses compared to Maris and Mantle.
LASORDA: Ha-ha. I‘ll tell you, you know, until it‘s proven that anybody has taken it, two guys admitted that they took it. Until the guys really and truly find out whether you know they‘ve taken it or not, then you can make a comment about it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MATTHEWS: You know, Keith, this is like one of the old Abbot/Costello movies, where Costello sees the monster, and Abbot doesn‘t want to see it. And he goes on “Abbot!” You know, here‘s a guy, Lasorda, who everybody loves, talk about a slow answer. The numbers, you know them better than I. The average baseball player about a decade ago weighed about 185. Now they weigh 220. You can see these arms on these guys. Their elephant time. They look like football players. Is this drug or is this training?
OLBERMANN: That‘s the either or question that is not an either or question. When I got Canseco on “COUNTDOWN,” a couple weeks ago, just as this hearing that we were—we‘ve been covering tonight was announce. And he said, yes, I‘ll be happy to testify in front of them. I made the point to him, which few people seem to have raise, it‘s a combination of the two things. Just because you see somebody working out, doesn‘t mean that they did not use steroids.
Steroids do this. They don‘t suddenly turn your arms into Popeye‘s arms. They do not make Bobby Wine or Ruben Amaro hit 25 home runs in a season.
MATTHEWS: Ruben Amaro, what memory you‘ve got.
OLBERMANN: To give you some Phillies references from the ‘60‘s. The
· what they do is, is they enable you to work out longer and to go back and work out again sooner. Your body is essentially sensing that it is repaired, and you can work out more. You can‘t just take steroids and hit 50 home runs, you have to work out. So the defense against, of all these players, no I saw them working out, doesn‘t mean a thing. It does not mean a thing relative to this.
And I‘m—I‘m—I can‘t tell you what percentage of this is purely the result of the introduction of performance-enhancing drugs over the last 20, maybe longer years in baseball and the general increase in size in the population. More people being attracted to baseball rather than football, hockey or basketball because of the longevity. There all sorts of factors. But Lasorda, when you boil down what he told you, is correct. Balls that were caught at the fence 20-years-ago now go over the fence. That‘s only five or 10 feet in many occasions. And the additional amount of strength can give that you 5 or 10 feet, and the steroids could give you that 5 or 10 feet. And that‘s the difference between hitting 40 homers in a season or 50 or 50 homers in a season or 60 or 60 and 70.
And one other point about this, when you interviewed Mr. Garret Baldi (ph), and he said that his son felt he needed to do this to try compete, to try to get into basebal professionally. There is a quote from a book from 1970 called “Ball Four” written by role model as a kid, a named Jim Bouton. And Jim Bouton said, that at that time that if Major League pitchers could take a pill that would guarantee them 20 victories in a season, but would take five years off their life, he thought that most of them—and the position he was in was a Major league pitcher at the time. He thought that most of the pitchers would make that trade.
That was Major Leaguers 1970 when the most they could hope to make in a season was $100,000. You now have kids who are looking at Alex Rodriguez, now of the Yankees, having signed a $252 million contract. Kids who don‘t have the judgment even of being in the Major Leagues, and seeing what it‘s like or being even in their early 20‘s, kids, 10 and 15-year-old kids who you‘re asking, gee, you want to take this drug and maybe be eligible for the $252 million lottery or do you stay ordinary build?
I think the answer is dangerously obvious. And I think that was underscored today by a lot of the testimony. And I think, that‘s why you saw Mark McGwire in tears in his testimony, because he has a commitment in his charitable efforts have long been about abused kids. Well, here are kids who are being abused, perhaps, by seeing the wrong kind role model.
MATTHEWS: Thank you very much, Keith Olbermann, for joining us tonight. You know your stuff.
Mike Celizic of nbcsports.com and Alan Schwarz is with Baseball America.
Now, let me go to Mike. First of all, I‘m looking at the stats on baseball home runs in the years going back to the early ‘90‘s. In early ‘90‘s, you hit 3,000 home runs a year in both of the leagues combined. Around now, it‘s gone up to about 5,000 home runs a year.
Is that 2,000 run a year differential or premium a result of drugs?
MIKE CELIZIC, NBCSPORTS.COM COLUMNIST: Part of is the result of drugs. Part of it is result of baseballs that were wound tighter. They did crank up the juice in the baseballs the same way as they did in the late 1920‘s and earlier 30‘s when the entire league hit .300. Some of it is smaller ballparks with bandmark (ph) front porches. Some of it is thinner pitcher. And yes, some of it is drugs.
Now, I don‘t think there‘s a way that you can—that you can somehow distill those stats and say what part is drugs and what isn‘t. The only way you can is by taking out the drugs entirely, and then going back five years from now, and seeing what went out.
MATTHEWS: Allan, let‘s try another comparison. That increased level home run hitting from about 3,000 total in both leagues to 5,000 plus in both leagues, what‘s that done to the gate and the amount of money that owners are allowed to pay players.
ALAN SCHWARZ, BASEBALL AMERICA: Oh, there‘s no question it adds to the popularity of the game. When the games are three to two, they don‘t attract as many people, as when they‘re eight to seven. I mean, everyone knows that offense sells in almost any sport.
You saw it happen in basketball too. When the scores started going 100 points, the owners started realizing, this is not good. Hockey has a serious problem with defense.
And so baseball see—that you know it—and one of the things you‘re pointing out, by the way, is from 1988 to 1992, baseball offense was at a relatively historically low. So, comparing it to 1990 to 1992 isn‘t necessarily fair. It would be more akin to say, comparing it to ‘75/‘76 when there were 3,500 home runs. I think that would be a far more fair comparison. But yes, offense sells, we all know that.
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you now—let me go back to Mike, you know, the real purists of baseball say they love those pitchers‘ duels, you know, one to nothing. It goes to the last inning, somebody gets a—squeezes home a run. Perfect baseball. Do people really like perfect baseball anymore?
CELIZIC: The purists like perfect baseball. And if you played baseball for the purists, you‘d have 23 people in the stands. I agree entirely with Alan, people come to see offense. That‘s why the National Hockey League, which used to be a sports league, is right now looking at ways to put more offense into the game, thinking that if they ever play it again, somebody might come to watch it.
MATTHEWS: Yes, that‘s the thought. And I think two to one and three to one don‘t really work.
Let me ask you about the power of the players. I‘m told, that despite all of this sort of limited modified hang out today, all this sort of—what do you call it dissembling that went on among the witnesses, especially the executives and the ballplayer reps—that ballplayers are out there in the field and working out with these guys in batting practice every day, and watching them the from the dugout, know exactly who‘s on drugs. Is that your understanding, Mike?
CELIZIC: I don‘t think they know exactly who‘s on drugs, but I think they have a real good idea. I think that they can name, you know, eight out of 10 of them, surely.
MATTHEWS: That guy, Mike Greenwell today, definitely knew that Canseco is was using.
CELIZIC: Yes, he did.
MATTHEWS: Yes, he‘s not happy about, because he thinks he stole his MVP from him.
CELIZIC: Well, that‘s why I don‘t see—really, we‘re acting as if it‘s going to be a surprise if somebody—if McGwire had said, yes, I was on drugs. I don‘t—there‘s no surprise element here. What we‘re doing now is holding people‘s feet to the fire and trying to get them to say that they did what everybody knows they were doing. And I‘m not saying, you know, Mark McGwire alone, a whole lot of baseball players and more than I want to admit it.
MATTHEWS: Do you believe, Alan, that was the drafting error -- presented by...
SCHWARZ: You want to know something, I really do. I really do.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) was not meant to be there.
SCHWARZ: Absolutely. You can call me naive, OK. But I do believe that that was incredible sloppiness on their part. It was indescribably foolish, but that is something baseball is capable of doing. And it was done in a draft form. Congress said it wanted it. They sent it. They shouldn‘t have done it. It was stupid. But I don‘t believe it was designed to be a fraud on the American public.
MATTHEWS: OK, thank you very much for sticking around tonight, Alan Schwarz and Mike Celizic.
By the way, tonight at 11:00, a full hour of “HARDBALL” on today‘s hearings about steroid use and baseball. A lot more from Lasorda and the other experts. And my interviews with all these guys including outfielder, Mike Greenwell.
Stay tuned now for “MSNBC REPORTS.”
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
Content and programming copyright 2005 MSNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2005 Voxant, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No license is granted to the user of this material other than for research. User may not reproduce or redistribute the material except for user‘s personal or internal use and, in such case, only one copy may be printed, nor shall user use any material for commercial purposes or in any fashion that may infringe upon MSNBC and Voxant, Inc.‘s copyright or other proprietary rights or interests in the material. This is not a legal transcript for purposes of litigation.
