Thursday, July 22, 2010

Minor leaguers face HGH testing

Minor league players will be subject to blood tests for human growth hormone effective immediately, baseball commissioner Bud Selig announced today.

The same organization that runs the current drug program using urine testing will perform the blood tests, the first in a U.S. professional sports league.

Samples will be taken after a game from the "non-dominant arms" of randomly selected players not on a major league team's 40-man roster.

Why not 40-man players? Because they're members of the Players Association and such testing would be subject to the collective bargaining agreement. Non-40 man guys have no such protections. In other words, all Biscuits not named Jake McGee, Alexander Torres or Leslie Anderson have to provide a vein on demand.

A rugby player in England earlier this year became the first to test positive for HGH. Before that, there was no known HGH test -- and the players union has said it's not convinced how accurate the test is.

No comments: