By James R. Carroll
jcarroll@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

WASHINGTON - If U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning's proposal had been law this season, nine ballplayers who tested positive for steroids would be staring at two years out of baseball without pay.

Instead, the players, including Baltimore Orioles star Rafael Palmeiro, each were suspended 10 days this season. But Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, a former pitcher for the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Phillies, and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, doesn't think that's enough. Some of his colleagues agree with him.

"Like it or not, these professional athletes serve as role models to our kids and set an example," Bunning said yesterday. Today, he is scheduled to be on a Senate panel that has called top professional sports officials -- from baseball, football, basketball and hockey -- to discuss their drug-screening policies and congressional measures to stiffen them.

Under Bunning's plan and a similar one by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., after two years' suspension for the first failed drug test, a second offense would trigger a lifetime ban from all pro sports.

Three House bills also proposing tougher steroid testing and penalties for pro athletes are pending.

"The performance enhancing drug testing policies of our nation's major professional sports leagues are vital to the leagues' integrity and credibility," McCain said in a statement. "Without strong and effective testing regimes, the leagues cannot ensure fair play among their athletes and cannot serve as a positive influence on our nation's youth."

Bunning told reporters yesterday that steroid legislation could pass by year's end, though he conceded that lawmakers are dealing with many huge issues, including recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita and government spending measures.

Some observers said more pressing matters could cause Congress to put off the steroid issue for this year.

"If you passed a steroids bill now while letting the deficit careen out of control and not doing much to get Iraq on track, they would attract a lot of ridicule for spending their time on it," said Norman Ornstein, senior analyst with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a Washington think tank.

On the other hand, Ornstein said, if lawmakers have trouble agreeing to larger measures like hurricane relief and the budget, they may turn to smaller issues like steroids to show they're accomplishing something.

Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, another Washington think tank, said steroid-testing legislation would face a schedule squeeze.

"The problem will be finding floor time, especially in the Senate, where Supreme Court nominations, appropriations bills, (budget) reconciliation, and post-Katrina/Rita measures leave little time for anything else," Mann said by e-mail. "Steroids are likely to carry over to next year."

Michael McCann, a sports law professor at Mississippi College School of Law in Jackson, said the political moment for action may not be now.

"I don't know if it's in the public consciousness as it was a few months ago," McCann said, saying the hurricanes diverted people's attention. "Steroids are bad, we don't want our athletes to use them and it sets poor examples for our young people, but we've just seen a massive failure of governance on the national and local level."

Bunning said lawmakers don't want to get involved in the drug-testing policies of professional sports.

But in the absence of significant new self-imposed penalties, Congress will move ahead, he said.

McCain said baseball management and the union could make congressional action unnecessary.

"I hope they reach an agreement," he said.

Corey Gensler, 20, of Lexington, Ky., said he didn't view the players on his favorite teams as heroes or role models but would like professional sports "cleaned up." He is a fan of the Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Reds and Orlando Magic.

A two-strikes-and-you're-out penalty seems right, he said.

"If they want to use steroids and they get caught and come back and use it again, it's on them," said Gensler, a University of Kentucky junior majoring in computer science and telecommunications.

Bunning yesterday criticized Donald Fehr, executive director and general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association, for a new drug-penalty plan he proposed Monday.

"It's an embarrassment," Bunning said.

In a letter to Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, Fehr said the players' union would support stricter penalties, starting with a 20-game suspension for a first offense. That is short of Selig's proposed 50-game suspension and far short of what Bunning, McCain and other lawmakers want.