With Major League Baseball’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement set to be announced as early as next week, news of what’s included in the new CBA has been emerging. We already knew that baseball is set to see changes to its drafting and compensation systems, and now it appears that the new agreement will include testing for human growth hormone. Michael S. Schmidt of The New York Times reports that two people familiar with the new CBA told him players will begin having their blood tested for HGH this February.
According to Schmidt, players who test positive for HGH will receive a 50-game ban, similar to the penalty currently handed down to those caught using steroids. MLB had already been testing minor league players, but needed the consent of the union to check major leaguers for HGH.
Besides steroids, human growth hormones were the main focus of the Mitchell Investigations. During the time of the hearings, George Mitchell said in his report that “players who use human growth hormone apparently believe that it assists their ability to recover from injuries and fatigue during the long baseball season”. Mitchell also reported that these are the same reasons which players started using steroids.
Major League Baseball implemented blood testing in the minor leagues last year. This summer, Mike Jacobs, a former major leaguer, became the first player to test positive for HGH. Former and current major leaguers that have been tied to HGH use include; Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Kevin Brown, Eric Gagne, Jason Giambi, Jay Gibbons, Jerry Hairston Jr., David Justice, Gary Matthews Jr., Denny Neagle, Miguel Tejada, Mo Vaughn and Matt Williams.