Hall of Famers Add Celebrity to Steroids Hearing
Five baseball legends unexpectedly lobbied lawmakers
for stricter steroid-testing regulations on a
day when Major League Baseball was all but singled
out by the Senate committee investigating steroid
use among professional athletes. Hall-of-Fame
players Hank Aaron, Lou Brock, Phil Niekro, Robin
Roberts and Ryne Sandberg accompanied league commissioner
Allan "Bud" Selig to the hearing Wednesday
before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation
Committee. Although they were not scheduled to
testify, all five made brief comments supporting
Selig's call for harsher penalties after Sen.
John McCain, R-Ariz., who chaired the hearing,
asked the group to weigh in."I just want
to make sure that whatever we do, we clean up
baseball," said Aaron, who holds the major
league record for career home runs at 755.
"I think we need to be concerned with our
young people because they are the ones that are
the future of our country."The baseball commissioner's
office and the player's association have been
clashing for five months, since the last congressional
hearing about steroids, on how to shore up baseball's
testing methods and penalties." We do have
a problem in baseball, and using steroids is not
respecting the game," said Sandberg, the
longtime Chicago Cubs second baseman. "We
here today owe America's pastime a strict policy."Sandberg
added that Selig's most recent proposal a mandatory
50-game suspension on the first offense, 100-game
suspension on the second and lifetime ban on the
third is the type of strict policy that's needed.
A resolution between the commissioner's office
and player's association Executive Director Donald
Fehr has been stalled, in part because of the
proposed suspensions." I had the honor to
play the game of baseball 28 years 23 in the majors
and five in the minor leagues and I guess we didn't
have these problems back then," said Niekro,
knuckleball pitcher for the Atlanta Braves and
others. "I would not be living in a house
and driving the cars if it wasn't for the association
of baseball players. But I do believe they can
step up.
" The former big-leaguers also mentioned
the records broken by suspected steroid users.
The single-season home run record set by Roger
Maris of 61 homers in 1961 was twice surpassed
in the past 10 years, first by Mark McGuire in
1998 and by Barry Bonds in 2001. Both have been
accused of using steroids. Aaron said it should
be up to the commissioner and rules committee
whether to uphold disputed records. Former Philadelphia
Phillies pitcher Roberts added that established
records should stand.The ballplayers' presence
surprised many, including Fehr, who said he had
learned of their attendance less than two days
before the hearing.
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