As players headed into spring training in 2003, they knew they would be tested for performance-enhancing drugs. They knew how much was at stake for the union and its members. If just 5 percent of the players tested positive for steroids that year, a full-blown testing program with penalties would be triggered automatically.
If just 5 percent of the players tested positive, each player within the union would have to provide repeated urine samples, with administrators observing players as they took tests. For an organization that had made a fight for privacy rights a major part of its philosophy, this would be a dramatic concession.
And yet, despite knowing all this -- despite knowing what was on the line for the players -- almost
nine dozen players tested positive. More than 100 players made the decision to use steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs, even while
pretty much knowing when they would be tested.
Testing positive for steroids in the spring of 2003 required an extraordinarily high level of arrogance and a special act of selfishness.
Every time we get some news of steroids use by some major star, like a
David Ortiz,
Manny Ramirez,
Alex Rodriguez,
Barry Bonds,
Roger Clemens,
Jason Giambi,
Rafael Palmeiro or
Mark McGwire, and the crosshairs of public scrutiny lock in on that one guy, the context of steroids use within baseball is completely lost. Ortiz, Ramirez and others were among literally thousands of players who used performance-enhancing drugs in the sport, in the majors and minors, during the steroids era. That's important to remember. Yet it wasn't just those guys.
It's also important to remember that the guys who tested positive for steroids use in the spring of 2003 decided that their interests outweighed those of the guys with whom they shared clubhouses.
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Buster Olney
