- June 9th, 2006, 10:29 am
#17778
My good buddy, Andy Bitter over at the News & Advance spent this past week with the Hilcats on the road and wrote some great articles... Did anybody get a chance to read the article about the Drug testig...
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - No more than 10 seconds after filing off the team bus and into the clubhouse at Ernie Shore Field, the Hillcats get a heck of a greeting.
Minor League Baseball's traveling band of drug testers lays in wait.
It's not exactly something you want to deal with 3? hours before a game, but it's the new reality of baseball. Everyone gets a turn in the sport's effort to rid itself of performance-enhancing drugs. Saturday, Lynchburg is up.
"You guys are serious about this steroids stuff," utility man Justin Harris says to the testers as he waits in line. "Ol' Bonds has everyone scared."
Truth is, Minor League Baseball has had testing since 2001, three full years before the major leagues had testing of any significance. Minor leaguers may be tested up to four times a year, including the offseason. Penalties are harsh (50 games, then 100, then a permanent suspension), the public backlash harsher.
The Hillcats are a little surprised it took this long for their first random test this season. "They were waiting for us to get over 20 home runs as a team," someone jokes.
The testing is no joke and everyone knows it. Two signs - one in English, the other in Spanish - grace the clubhouse walls of every minor league park in the country. One prohibits drugs. The other, gambling. Baseball's current scourge and baseball's first scourge.
The testing itself is a bit degrading. Players march into the bathroom one by one. A tester has to watch them fill the cup to a line, meaning the players' shirts are up to their chest and their pants are down to their knees.
"You have to do it that way," reliever Steven Duguay says. "People try to cheat."
Then the hardest part.
"I'm no good at peeing on command," one Hillcat says.
Guys use different techniques. One brings a warm glass of water to put his fingers in. Others run the faucet to get the sound of flowing water in the background. Some players will try to drink enough water to force it out, but that has a drawback.
The group collecting the samples isn't actually testing for drugs. It is an independent group contracted by Minor League Baseball to make sure the samples are acceptable.
They test the urine for two things - Special Gravity (SG) and acidity (pH). SG measures hydration. If a sample is too diluted, the player has to give anotherone.
The fear is that someone is trying to flush a substance out of his system. A more reasonable explanation is that a player is simply overhydrated.
During spring training - a time players make certain they are hydrated - Duguay had to give four samples before one was satisfactory.
The procedure is strict. Players pick up a bar code label for their specimen cup and receive a receipt that documents their SG and pH levels once they pass. After putting the label on the cup, the tester reads the identification number aloud, as if confirming a submarine launch code.
"B 0 6 5 3 ? 5 8," he says. After a pause, he glances at the bar code on the player's receipt and repeats, "B 0 6 5 3 ? 5 8."
The player signs a portable electronic device and the test is complete.
The testers overnight the samples to Minor League Baseball. Players won't find out if they've tested positive for anything for a while.
Baseball is not just testing for steroids. There are two groups of prohibited substances - performance-enhancing drugs and drugs of abuse.
Performance-enhancing drugs include steroids, prohormones, amphetamines, Ephedrine, human-growth hormone, EPO and masking agents. Drugs of abuse include marijuana, cocaine, LSD and ecstasy, among others (a first positive test of a drug of abuse mandates a player enter a program, not a suspension).
If a player has something in his system that he shouldn't, knowingly or not, it's his fault. There's no slack.
Sounds simple to avoid, but the team's trip to Peak Fitness, a local gym, for a Saturday morning workout provides a perfect example of a potential pit fall.
As a few players lift weights, a gym attendant circles the room, handing out free Oat-Rageous protein bars. Two pitchers immediately hand the bars over to Lee Rowland, the team's strength coach. "This, I don't like," Rowland says.
He's not a dietician, nor does he claim to be. It might be clean. It might have something that will show up on a test.
That's the problem. He doesn't know.
There is no end-all list of supplements OK'd by Minor League Baseball.
That's why, even though probably every player in Lynchburg's clubhouse doesn't have anything to worry about, it's still an anxious day.
"I knew I didn't do anything," one Hillcats pitcher says after finishing up his test. "But it's like, 'I hope I didn't take anything.'"
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - No more than 10 seconds after filing off the team bus and into the clubhouse at Ernie Shore Field, the Hillcats get a heck of a greeting.
Minor League Baseball's traveling band of drug testers lays in wait.
It's not exactly something you want to deal with 3? hours before a game, but it's the new reality of baseball. Everyone gets a turn in the sport's effort to rid itself of performance-enhancing drugs. Saturday, Lynchburg is up.
"You guys are serious about this steroids stuff," utility man Justin Harris says to the testers as he waits in line. "Ol' Bonds has everyone scared."
Truth is, Minor League Baseball has had testing since 2001, three full years before the major leagues had testing of any significance. Minor leaguers may be tested up to four times a year, including the offseason. Penalties are harsh (50 games, then 100, then a permanent suspension), the public backlash harsher.
The Hillcats are a little surprised it took this long for their first random test this season. "They were waiting for us to get over 20 home runs as a team," someone jokes.
The testing is no joke and everyone knows it. Two signs - one in English, the other in Spanish - grace the clubhouse walls of every minor league park in the country. One prohibits drugs. The other, gambling. Baseball's current scourge and baseball's first scourge.
The testing itself is a bit degrading. Players march into the bathroom one by one. A tester has to watch them fill the cup to a line, meaning the players' shirts are up to their chest and their pants are down to their knees.
"You have to do it that way," reliever Steven Duguay says. "People try to cheat."
Then the hardest part.
"I'm no good at peeing on command," one Hillcat says.
Guys use different techniques. One brings a warm glass of water to put his fingers in. Others run the faucet to get the sound of flowing water in the background. Some players will try to drink enough water to force it out, but that has a drawback.
The group collecting the samples isn't actually testing for drugs. It is an independent group contracted by Minor League Baseball to make sure the samples are acceptable.
They test the urine for two things - Special Gravity (SG) and acidity (pH). SG measures hydration. If a sample is too diluted, the player has to give anotherone.
The fear is that someone is trying to flush a substance out of his system. A more reasonable explanation is that a player is simply overhydrated.
During spring training - a time players make certain they are hydrated - Duguay had to give four samples before one was satisfactory.
The procedure is strict. Players pick up a bar code label for their specimen cup and receive a receipt that documents their SG and pH levels once they pass. After putting the label on the cup, the tester reads the identification number aloud, as if confirming a submarine launch code.
"B 0 6 5 3 ? 5 8," he says. After a pause, he glances at the bar code on the player's receipt and repeats, "B 0 6 5 3 ? 5 8."
The player signs a portable electronic device and the test is complete.
The testers overnight the samples to Minor League Baseball. Players won't find out if they've tested positive for anything for a while.
Baseball is not just testing for steroids. There are two groups of prohibited substances - performance-enhancing drugs and drugs of abuse.
Performance-enhancing drugs include steroids, prohormones, amphetamines, Ephedrine, human-growth hormone, EPO and masking agents. Drugs of abuse include marijuana, cocaine, LSD and ecstasy, among others (a first positive test of a drug of abuse mandates a player enter a program, not a suspension).
If a player has something in his system that he shouldn't, knowingly or not, it's his fault. There's no slack.
Sounds simple to avoid, but the team's trip to Peak Fitness, a local gym, for a Saturday morning workout provides a perfect example of a potential pit fall.
As a few players lift weights, a gym attendant circles the room, handing out free Oat-Rageous protein bars. Two pitchers immediately hand the bars over to Lee Rowland, the team's strength coach. "This, I don't like," Rowland says.
He's not a dietician, nor does he claim to be. It might be clean. It might have something that will show up on a test.
That's the problem. He doesn't know.
There is no end-all list of supplements OK'd by Minor League Baseball.
That's why, even though probably every player in Lynchburg's clubhouse doesn't have anything to worry about, it's still an anxious day.
"I knew I didn't do anything," one Hillcats pitcher says after finishing up his test. "But it's like, 'I hope I didn't take anything.'"
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