NEW YORK, Oct. 31 (UPI) -- Major League Baseball's drug testing procedures give teams -- and possibly players -- advance notice that tests will be done, The New York Times reports.
Testing companies generally call team officials the day before random tests are planned to make arrangements, the newspaper said. The teams do not get notice on how many players will be tested or who will be required to give a urine sample.
Baseball officials say players are not alerted. But if word does leak out, some steroid users will have time to cheat the tests, the newspaper said.
Don Catlin, founder of the Olympic Testing Laboratory at UCLA and the Anti-Doping Research Laboratory, said players using patches and creams to get testosterone can cheat easily.
"As soon as you know you are going to be tested, you rip off the patch and take a shower and urinate, and in an hour or two you will get numbers down real fast," Catlin said.
The advance notice, while standard, is not written into MLB's testing manual.
