I noted yesterday in the catch-all that MLB and the MLBPA were close to a new agreement on an outside administrator for their steroid testing program. There's a new development in the agreement reached. Everyone in the Mitchell Report is to be given an amnesty. Good ol' MLBPA, always looking out more for the part of its membership that cheats than for the clean part.

Baseball players and owners agreed Friday to more frequent drug testing and increased -- but not total -- authority for the program's outside administrator.

 

All players implicated in December's Mitchell report on peformance-enhancing drugs were given amnesty as part of the agreement, which toughens baseball's drug rules for the third time since the program began in 2002.

 

Thus, the deal eliminated 15-day suspensions assessed against Jose Guillen and Jay Gibbons.

 

The independent administrator, a position created in November 2005, will be given an initial three-year term and can be removed only if an arbitrator finds cause. Until now, he could be fired at any time by either side.

 

But baseball did not heed advice from the World Anti-Doping Agency and turn drug testing over to an outside agency.

 

In addition, the decision over whether a player can be subjected to reasonable-cause testing will remain with management and the union, with any disagreement decided by the sport's regular arbitrator. Also, a joint management-union body called the Treatment Board will supervise the part of the program relating to drugs of abuse, such as cocaine.

 

As part of the agreement, players will join Major League Baseball's efforts to educate youth about performance-enhancing drugs, and their union will contribute $200,000 to an anti-drug organization.

 

In exchange for those two provisions, baseball commissioner Bud Selig agreed not to discipline players implicated by Mitchell during his 1½-year investigation.

It's also worth noting that this article so far says nothing about what happens if a player doesn't test positive but is implicated through other means, i.e. having his name turn up on checks for shipments, HGH caught at his door, etc.

Terrible. I hope that organization is a worthwhile and relevant one or else I be even more ticked off.

I think MLB realized the lawsuits to be associated with this stuff would have been really difficult to win.