The Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have agreed to test players for human growth hormone throughout the regular season.
During the last year, such tests were limited to spring training sessions only.
Now, the baseball players will be strictly monitored for abnormal increase levels of testosterone throughout the season. They will continue to have urine tests for other performance-enhancing drugs.
As per the new system in MLB, the World Anti-Doping Agency laboratory will prepare separate files for each player to record his baseline ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone and will conduct Carbon Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) tests of any urine specimens.
"This is a proud and a great day for baseball," the Associated Press quoted commissioner Bud Selig as saying. "We'll continue to be a leader in this field and do what we have to do."
The drug testing in baseball started in 2003. Till then it used to be performed randomly. In 2004, testing with penalties began and 2005 saw suspensions for first offenders.
MLB executive vice president for economics and league affairs Rob Manfred said each player would be tested at least once.
"Players want a program that is tough, scientifically accurate, backed by the latest proven scientific methods, and fair," union head Michael Weiner said in a statement. "I believe these changes firmly support the players' desires while protecting their legal rights."
Selig appreciated the players for accepting the agreement as the players' association was against drug testing, but they agreed to expand the scope of such tests.
"Michael Weiner and the union deserve credit," Selig said. "Way back when they were having a lot of problems I didn't give them credit, but they do.
"This is remarkable when you think of where we were 10, 12, 15 years ago and where we are today. Nobody could have dreamed it."
Baseball is among very few sports, in which players would be tested on such a large scale and it would definitely keep players away from using drugs to enhance performance at the cost of their health. In the NFL HGH testing is a debated issue.
"Other professional sports leagues, including the National Football League, must also implement their own robust testing regimes," Cummings and committee chairman Darrel Issa said in a statement Thursday.
"Major League Baseball's announcement increases the pressure on the NFL and its players to deliver on pledges to conduct HGH testing made in their collective bargaining agreement that was signed two years ago."
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