MLB Begins Testing For HGH In Minor Leagues

By Justin Worsley

Major League Baseball has always carried a tarnished reputation of not doing enough to prevent human growth hormone usage in the league, making way for several stars to use steroids and speculate others into also using them.

Now they are attempting to fix this problem before it starts.

The MLB has announced that they will begin random blood testing for HGH in minor league players. Why the minor leagues and not the majors? Because, if a player has signed a minor league contract, he is not part of the players union, who have in their Collective Bargaining Agreement that a player can not take a blood test.

MLB players must currently submit to random urine tests. If a player tests positive for HGH, the player will face a 50-game suspension, for a second offense, a 100-game suspension. A third offense will get a player banned for life.

One star player who has tested positive is Los Angeles slugger Manny Ramirez. Ramirez missed 50 games last season after a positive test for an unspecified durg believed to be human chorionic gonadotropin. New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez also confessed last year that he used steroids during his tenure with the Texas Rangers.

The announcement of blood testing in the MLB has also caught the eyes of the NFL, who have been interested in doing blood tests, but could not do so because of their CBA. The agreement, however, expires next March and blood testing is a hot topic for the new deal.