Loophole in MLB drug testing?

BY KEN DAVIDOFF | ken.davidoff@newsday.com

January 16, 2008

WASHINGTON - Have baseball players discovered a loophole to the drug-testing program? Congressman John Tierney (D-Mass.) raised the question yesterday. Baseball will likely look into it.

According to statistics provided to Tierney by Major League Baseball, 111 players received "therapeutic-use exemptions" in 2007, and 103 of those were for attention deficit disorder. That number came from a pool of 1,354 players who were subject to testing.

The count surged from 2006, when, out of 1,356 subjected players, only 35 players received such exemptions - 28 of those for ADD.

ADD drugs such as Ritalin and Adderall could be used by players as a stimulant, as the drugs are designed to improve focus.

According to Tierney, the percentage of players with ADD is eight times that of the normal male adult population.

Commissioner Bud Selig and Players Association head Donald Fehr said they had not been alerted by their drug-testing administrator of any abuses of the therapeutic-use exemption.

"It has to go through two levels of doctors," Selig said, referring to the initial physician writing a prescription and baseball's administrator then approving it. "But you would hope that a doctor in Kansas City, or Philadelphia, or anywhere else, is only prescribing it if he feels it to be medically necessary."

Notes & quotes: Yankees president Randy Levine attended the hearing and sat with baseball's high powers, as did Orioles owner Peter Angelos and Washington Nationals president Stan Kasten.

Congressman Mark Souder (R-Ind.) asked if a player's surge in statistics could constitute suspicion of illegal PED use. Selig said it was a possibility. Fehr, faced with a slew of questions from Souder, never addressed that specific issue.

Selig wrote in his opening statement that he wanted to institute drug testing for amateur players prior to each year's free-agent draft. However, the commissioner didn't actually state that goal in his initial remarks.