POSTED: February 8th 2009
NewsUpdate
Baseball puts record straight
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT / Sports Features Communications
TAMPA/LONDON: Major League Baseball has moved quickly to try to contain the fall-out from allegations of a dope-test failure six years ago by New York Yankees’ star Alex Rodriguez.
The sport is particularly sensitive to the drugs issue as the International Baseball Federation (IBAF) is campaigning for the restoration of the sport to the Olympic programme at the 2016 Games. Baseball and six other sports – golf, karate, roller sports, softball and squash – will put their competing cases to the International Olympic Committee in Copenhagen in October.
The magazine Sports Illustrated has claimed that Rodriguez tested positive for steroid abuse in 2003 in a series of tests whose results were kept secret. It reported Rodriguez as responding to the allegations with the comment: “I'm not saying anything."
A detailed clarification has been issued, however, by Rob Manfred, executive vice-president of labor relations, on behalf of MLB. He expressed MLB’s concern over the allegations “because the survey testing that took place in 2003 was intended to be non-disciplinary and anonymous.”
Confidentiality issues
This meant, he added, that no comment could be made on the identity of any and all players involved.
Manfred said that the testing process and the confidential results had prompted MLB, the following year, into instituting a formalised, mandatory random-testing program to combat the illegal use of stimulants such as amphetamines as well as steroids.
He added: “Major League Baseball remains fully committed to the elimination of the use of performance-enhancing substances. We will continue to do everything within our power to eliminate the use of such drugs and protect the integrity of the program.”
Rodriguez’s superstar status has earned him descriptions – beyond North America – as “the David Beckham of baseball.”
The issue, for US sport, comes in the embarrassed wake of an apology by swimming’s Olympic gold-medal hero Michael Phelps for pictures depicting him smoking a bong, which resulted in the cancellation of several of his lucrative advertising endorsements.
Keywords · baseball · MLB · IBAF · Rodriguez · Phelps · Manfred
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