WASHINGTON, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- The executive director of the Major League Players Association told a U.S. House panel Tuesday action "could have been taken sooner" on player steroid use.
Donald Fehr appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee along with Major League Commissioner Bud Selig and former Sen. George Mitchell, D-Maine, who delivered the report of his investigation into steroid use in baseball last month.
"We cannot change, but we can learn from the past," Fehr acknowledged. "Baseball's problem with performance-enhancing substances was bigger than I realized. We understood that a number of years ago when we began the testing programs.
"In retrospect, action should have been taken and probably could have been taken sooner," he said. "The Players Association accepts its share of responsibility for what happened, and as I indicated at my press conference following the issuance of Senator Mitchell's report, so do I."
