Steroids in Baseball

Buster Olney (one of the top five baseball writers in the country) has an excellent piece over at ESPN.com. Near the end of the piece - "Player X" mentions a scenario where a few young players basically pee into a cup for reporters to prove that they aren't on the juice. I can foresee this happening and I cannot see anything the players union can really do to stop it. If the union tried to discipline the players - then the union would be opening itself up to some serious lawsuits. Once a couple of players "crossed the line" and subjected themselves to open steroid testing - then the pressure would really be on the Bonds, Giambi's and Sheffields to take tests of their own. (And thus also on the union to do something instead of just hiding behind the existing policy that everyone agrees is a joke.)

This is a very divisive issue and I think the players union is making a mistake by forcing Bud Selig to be the one to deal with it. Selig may use the "best interests of baseball" to retest players named in criminal cases or maybe even go the extra step and require testing of players who have injuries that may be consistent with steroid use.

The union should take this in house and allow the players to vote on a course of action that does not open up a CBA can of worms. The longer they wait - the harder it will become to do something because individual players will eventually take matters into their own hands and take up the reporters challenge to pee into a cup for independent verification.

PS - when you read about Player X talking about "dime sized testicles" - didn't it make you wonder why someone was checking the size of another player's testicles in the first place?