Assuming you don't live under a rock in the middle of the Mojave Desert, I'm sure you've heard about the recent advances in the Miami PED scandal involving Dr. Anthony Bosch with Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun at the forefront of it all facing the possibility of a 100-game suspension for doping. Because of the recent events I'll be giving you my two cents in this column about how I think MLB should change their drug testing policy.
In case you don't know how the drug testing policy works in the MLB, I'll explain how it works. Upon reporting to Spring Training all players are tested for PEDs. In addition to the initial testing at Spring Training, every player is tested once at an unannounced, completely random date. And for the most part, that is all of the testing that goes on.
Even though there aren't tons and tons of tests for each player, it would SEEM as though this testing procedure would still be effective because it is completely random and unannounced so players will never know when it is coming. However, there is one glaring problem to this drug testing procedure. Let's use Ryan Braun as an example since he is at the forefront of this whole scandal. Let's say that Braun passes his drug test at Spring Training and then his random drug test is on May 23, which he also passes. That's great. Braun passed his test, he's clean. The problem is that his random drug test was conducted so early on in the season that he now has May-October to juice the crap out of himself without fear of another drug test.
Another big problem with the MLB drug policy is that the penalty is hardly strict. First time juicers receive a 50-game suspension without pay, second time juicers receive a 100-game suspension without pay, third time juicers receive a lifetime ban from MLB. If I'm a baseball player, the reward from juicing and getting away with it far outweighs a measly 50-game suspension in which I can still return to play in the same season.
How can MLB fix this problem and come up with a better drug policy? My idea is that Major League Baseball adopts the Olympic drug testing policies. The Olympic committee is widely regarded as being the toughest on all competitors and time and time again catches those who are wrongly trying to advance themselves in their respective sport.
What two things does the Olympic committee do that MLB doesn't that would greatly help prevent steroid use in baseball? The first thing is that the Olympic committee is CONSTANTLY testing athletes. They don't simply test each athlete twice a season and then move on. They test the top-5 finishing athletes immediately after each event to ensure that they won in "clean" fashion. This ensures that all athletes are clean, and if they aren't, it ensures that they won't be awarded a medal. The second thing the Olympic committee does to ensure fair competition is that their penalties are FAR more sever than those of the MLB. A first time offender of the Olympic drug policy receives a 2 year ban from all Olympic competition. A second time offender receives a lifetime ban from the game. This is a HUGE deterrent from using drugs, and it is why the Olympic committee is being praised for cracking down on doping.
So how can Major League Baseball use the Olympic drug testing policy as a model and tighten up their drug testing? First of all, MLB needs to adopt mandatory MONTHLY drug testing along with 3 completely random drug tests throughout the season. It might cost MLB some extra money, but they will lose much more money if these drug problems continue and people lose all credibility in the game. Secondly, MLB needs to use the exact same penalties as the Olympic committee uses. There is no reason to have such skimpy suspensions for steroid users. Crack down on them, and create a suspension that will actually ruin their careers and create an actual deterrent.
These are my thoughts on what Major League Baseball needs to do to improve their drug testing policy, and if implemented, will greatly reduce the number of steroid users and restore credibility in the league.
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