Editorial: Monitor drug use of baseball players

Friday, June 21, 2002 | 4:54 a.m.

Two years ago when it began to dawn on people that a growing number of baseball players looked like Paul Bunyan and homers were as common as trees, officials went down the wrong trail in trying to find out what had changed. They commissioned tests on the balls. But the hand-stitched balls coming in from Costa Rica hadn't changed very much over the years, they learned. What they should do now is go down a different path, this one leading to the players, not the balls.

After Sports Illustrated magazine's recent story about the extent of steroid use in baseball, it's time for Major League Baseball to ban steroids and institute random drug testing of its players. What's good for the International Olympic Committee, the National Football League, and the National Basketball Association would be good for baseball too. Commissioner Bud Selig favors it. The players union should also get on board. At stake is the behavior of millions of kids for whom baseball players are role models, not to mention the health of the professional athletes themselves and the integrity of the game.