PHOENIX, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- The major league baseball players' union has bowed to pressure from fans, Washington and the baseball commissioner in asking for tougher drug use rules.
The players' current collective bargaining agreement does not expire for another two years, but the outcry over months of disclosures that top Olympic and professional athletes secretly used performance-enhancing drugs has fallen hard on the Major League Baseball Players' Association.
Much of the recently disclosed drug usage involves baseball players, including some of top sluggers.
To forestall Congress from forcing the union to accept tougher drug standards, association officials have acted preemptively.
Donald Fehr, the association's executive director, said the union's executive board "authorized us to attempt to conclude an agreement" with the baseball commissioner's office.
"I don't think they had any choice," said Peter Roby, director of the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University. "With the fans' reaction and the government breathing down their neck ... it was really the only thing they could do. That horse is leaving the barn, and they need to be on it."
