Q&A: Once again Donald Fehr doesn’t care about fixing the steroid problem? I suppose this is the Yankees Fault?->?
Question by scooter_the_squirrel_agent: Once again Donald Fehr doesn’t care about fixing the steroid problem? I suppose this is the Yankees Fault?->?
Read this latest nonsense that Fehr said concerning the Steroid controversy.
Donald Fehr says union won’t reveal names of 103 players who failed drug test in 2003
By TOM D’ANGELO
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 23, 2009
JUPITER — Donald Fehr, the head of the major league baseball players association, said Monday the union will do everything possible to ensure the names of the remaining 103 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 are not revealed.
“By contract all other information except the group results are supposed to remain confidential and we hope and expect that it will remain so,” Fehr said. “We’ll do whatever we reasonably can to make sure of that.”
ehr started his tour of all 30 major league camps Monday by meeting with the Marlins. This year’s discussion included the recent leaking of Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez’s name to Sports Illustrated as one of the 104 players who tested positive in 2003.
Rodriguez later admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs from 2001-03, while he was with the Texas Rangers.
Fehr remains bothered that tests of which the individual results were sealed under court orders were leaked.
“It is troublesome to me that you see reports which suggest that the anonymous source of the report was doing so in violation of a court order and that that was known to the reporter that wrote it,” Fehr said. “That’s a real problem to me. I thought we were all supposed to honor court orders.”
The 2003 drug tests, part of the first drug-testing agreement between MLB and its players, called for a survey test which both sides agreed to keep confidential. If more than 5 percent of the players tested positive, baseball would install a more stringent program.
Between 5 and 6 percent – 104 players – tested positive.
Part of the agreement was that the results of the tests would be destroyed once they were finalized and tabulated. The process of destroying the tests and urine samples had begun when the government issued a subpoena for the tests as part of its investigation into steroid distribution by BALCO, the Bay Area-based supplement company.
“Once that happens you can’t do it,” Fehr said.
The union informed its players that the results could not have been destroyed so quickly without suspicion that the union was hiding something.
Now, many believe everybody who played in 2003 is under suspicion.
“If that’s the judgment, it seems to me that is entirely wrong,” Fehr said. “Slightly over 94 percent were negative. People ought to make mention of that.”
A small number of players, including the Marlins’ Wes Helms, Philadelphia’s Brad Lidge, former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, have called for the remaining 103 names to be revealed.
Fehr said no players have expressed that desire to him.
“The contract provided the information would remain confidential and that’s an obligation that is owed both by the union and by major league baseball to all individual players,” Fehr said.
Baseball commissioner Bud Selig has said he is considering possible discipline against Rodriguez. Fehr said he does not believe discipline is warranted and he has “no reason to think” that there will be any.
“Everybody understands that there were things which happened in the early part of the decade, which we wish hadn’t,” Fehr said. “That’s not the case anymore. We fixed the problem and we need to look forward, as Bud as said many times.”
Other issues Fehr addressed with reporters Monday:
– On a Sports Illustrated report that Gene Orza, MLB’s chief operating officer, said Rodriguez was tipped off to a drug test in September 2004: “It’s an old allegation. There is no evidence for it as far as I can tell. Nobody has ever told us who or when or why or what. And yet it just gets repeated and people don’t seem to feel they have an obligation even to do basic research. That’s troublesome.”
– On the number of unsigned high-profile free agents and the possibility of collusion among owners: “We hope that there isn’t. We hope that the people that have yet to sign will sign. There have been a number of them in recent days. If we conclude that there has been any violation of the contract going on we’ll take action to remedy it. I don’t want to comment on that unless and until we reach that conclusion.”
If you where paying attention yankees2009ny which obviously you weren’t i was beign sarcastic when i asked is this the Yankees fault since so many people want to blame them for everything that is wrong in Baseball. Next time read the whole thing before u start insulting. & whether you like ti or not the steroid issue is a problem that’s not going away & you pretending it’s not happening isn’t going to make it go away.
Best answer:
Answer by bud
You should be ECSTATIC that he doesn’t want to reveal any more names…..This way more Yankees won’t have to be embarrassed by this issue.
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