Baseball Doping Tests Find no Cheaters
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Drawing a sigh of relief from the league office, Korean baseball's first ever tests for performance-enhancing drugs found no cheaters among current players.
It's debatable how much can be read from the urine tests of 24 randomly selected players, although the league office is considering expanding the tests to all players for next season.
The Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) last month launched an anti-doping committee led by Lee Jong-ha, professor of rehabilitation at Kyung Hee University's medical school, and had three players from the league's eight teams present their urine samples to league officials after games.
The first tests were conducted in a Sept. 15 match between the Doosan Bears and Hanwha Eagles at Seoul's Jamsil Stadium. Three pitchers and a foreign player were included among the 24 players tested for substance abuse.
All of the 24 samples examined by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) tested negative, the KBO said Wednesday. If cheaters had been found, their names would have been made public, although they would not have been punished with fines or suspensions.
It's hard to say that the drug test, the first ever in Korean professional sports, is worth more than sentimental value as it covered only a small fraction of players, who had a good idea of when they would be urinating in the cups.
The test also eluded farm teams, where under relative obscurity, players are probably more desperate to gain an illegal edge over their competitors in fighting for a big league call-up.
And although the league was apparently targeting steroids or stimulants such as amphetamines, another problem is that some of the widely used substances among today's players, such as human growth hormone, aren't detectable by a urine test or other current test methods.
Although there isn't much evidence to believe that substance abuse is rampant in Korean baseball, there have been increasing rumors about steroids, amphetamines and other drugs since teams began signing foreign players in the 1998 season.
The biggest circumstantial evidence was provided by former New York Yankees flameout and Lotte Giants slugger Felix Jose.
Considered among the most feared hitters in his heyday with the Giants, Jose received a 50-game ban from the Mexican baseball league in July after testing positive for illegal substance.
No Korean players have been linked to a drug scandal as of yet, but baseball insiders suggest that if the foreign players have been using performance-enhancing drugs in the past, it's likely their Korean colleagues have been doing the same in the competition for playing time.
A local sports magazine quoted an unidentified former trainer who claimed that 20 to 30 percent of the league's players would be tested positive should the test be expanded to all players.
Although baseball officials consider that number to be exaggerated, nobody is ready to declare that the league has been completely drug free.
The anti-doping committee has not set the guidelines for the drug tests for next season, but could consider pushing the tests to cover all players and possibly farm teams as well.
From next season, a first-time offender will be suspended for 10 games, and the length of suspension increases to 30 games for those who test positive for a second time. A third positive test will mean a lifetime ban from baseball.