RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
When pitchers and catchers report for spring training next month, baseball's commissioner wants new procedures in place to keep banned performance-enhancing drugs out of the game. Commissioner Bud Selig was on Capitol Hill yesterday, as was former Senator George Mitchell who has detailed widespread use of drugs in baseball. Mitchell blames players, league officials and the players' union.
Joining us now is the executive director of that union, the Major League Baseball Players Association, Donald Fehr.
Good morning.
Mr. DONALD FEHR (Major League Baseball Players Association): Good morning.
MONTAGNE: I want to play a bit of tape to begin from yesterday's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It's an exchange between Senator Mitchell and Democratic Congressman Edolphus Towns of New York.
Representative EDOLPHUS TOWNS (Democrat, New York): How would you characterize the level of cooperation you receive from the players association while conducting new investigation?
Mr. George Mitchell (Former Senator, Maine): As I said in my report, the players association was largely uncooperative.
MONTAGNE: Mr. Fehr, why such a characterization?
Mr. FEHR: I was a little surprised by that because at Senator Mitchell's press conference when he announced the report, he didn't say the same thing, quite. What he said was that we were largely uncooperative, but that was largely understandable. And the reason he said it was largely understandable is he understands the role in the position we were in.
Whenever management of a company wants to do an investigation of the employees, the union has the legal obligation to represent those employees to give them legal advice, to recommend they get their own lawyers. We're appropriate to advise them of the consequences of what they might say. And in this context, that had its own course, I think.
MONTAGNE: Of course, the matter of drugs in baseball is as much about public perception as it is about legal issues. I realize that's your responsibility as a union, but it - could you have helped bring these things along?
Mr. FEHR: Well, I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Where we could be cooperative we were. What we did was simply exercise our legal responsibilities to represent the members, and I think everybody understands it.
MONTAGNE: Looking ahead, what do you see is the potential sticking points in negotiating changes to baseball's drug testing policy with the league?
Mr. FEHR: I don't really know. I think that when you look at Senator Mitchell's report a little more carefully and with a little less generalized statement, what you see is that he basically said the procedures we put in effect three years ago for steroids have basically worked. There is no detectible steroid-use.
The problem that he pointed to was human growth hormone, which everybody understands is a difficult issue. The problem is you can't test for it. He made a series of suggestions about how administratively we might be able to modify the program in the hopes that it would work better, and we'll sit down and talk to the commissioner about it. Hopefully, there will be players involved in the meetings and we'll see where we go. I can't predict now whether there will be sticking points or if so will there be?
MONTAGNE: Although in the past the union has objected to tests, blood tests, sort of okayed urine tests, would you hold to that?
Mr. FEHR: That depends on what the nature of the test is. Having said that, there is no accepted and scientifically valid blood test for human growth hormone at the moment. And what we've indicated is if one becomes available, if it can be scientifically validated, then we'll take a hard look at it - the circumstances and all the rest of it.
MONTAGNE: We just have a couple of seconds to go here, but again, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig wants changes made by spring training, do you think that's realistic?
Mr. FEHR: I don't really know. And I don't think he quite said spring training. What we hope to do is to be able to talk about it, be in the position to discuss it with the players during spring training.
MONTAGNE: Thank you very much for joining us.
Mr. FEHR: Thank you.
MONTAGNE: Donald Fehr is executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association.