Drug Tests

There was a lectern set up behind home plate at Dodger Stadium on Thursday, just as it was nine months ago, when Manny Ramirez was ceremoniously introduced to Los Angeles. Only this time, Dodgers Manager Joe Torre was standing there, looking into a wall of television cameras and recalling how Ramirez sounded "devastated" when they spoke earlier in the day. General Manager Ned Colletti said he felt "sick and saddened."

The doping suspension of Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez on Thursday has revived a debate that Major League Baseball undoubtedly hoped it had put behind it: Is the sport's anti-drug program finally harsh enough to deter potential dopers, or is it still too lenient? Baseball "has come a long way in the last seven years," said Dr. Gary I. Wadler, a New York sports medicine expert and a key official of the World Anti-Doping Agency. "But it's still not where it needs to be."

On the eve of testifying before Congress about baseball's steroid era and subsequent reforms, Commissioner Bud Selig said Monday he would not pledge to outsource baseball's drug-testing program to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency or any other third party. "I'm satisfied with the way it is now," Selig said. Selig said he remains committed to implementing all the reforms recommended in last month's report by former Sen.

As Commissioner Bud Selig made it abundantly clear that he has no intention of letting an independent agency run baseball's drug-testing program, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency criticized Selig and players' union chief Donald Fehr on Wednesday for "essentially thumbing their nose at those who care about the integrity of the game."

Dana Stubblefield, a former NFL defensive player of the year, pleaded guilty Friday to lying to a federal investigator about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. He is the first football player to be charged in the long-running BALCO investigation. Stubblefield, 37, played 11 seasons as a defensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins and Oakland Raiders, earning honors as the league's top defender as a 49er in 1997.

Federal investigators can keep using the names and urine samples of about 100 major leaguers who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. After agreeing to reconsider its December 2006 ruling granting access to the evidence, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted, 2-1, to affirm two parts of its decision in three consolidated cases, which overturned rulings by U.S.

Bob Stapleton is investing more than $10 million of his own money to sponsor a cycling team that was kicked out of the Tour de France last summer. He has named it Team High Road. "We want to be transparently drug-free," Stapleton said. "I still believe in this sport even when it's not easy." Team High Road is one of four teams racing in this year's Amgen Tour of California that have committed nearly $500,000 each for doping programs that go beyond those of the International Cycling Union (UCI).

AVONDALE, Ariz. -- The admission by a former second-tier NASCAR driver that he raced after taking heroin last year sparked renewed scrutiny of NASCAR's drug-testing policy Thursday. Hours before qualifying for Saturday night's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway, Cup driver Kevin Harvick complained at length that NASCAR's policy is too lax.

CHICAGO -- U.S. Olympic Committee Chairman Peter Ueberroth said Tuesday he was certain that the U.S. would bring a drug-free team to the 2008 Olympics, which begin in Beijing on Aug. 8. "This will be a clean team," Ueberroth said during a question-and-answer session at the USOC media summit. But officials stopped short of a guarantee.

CHICAGO -- A round of applause, please, for sprinter Allyson Felix of Los Angeles and decathlete Bryan Clay of Glendora. Better still, give these Athens Olympic silver medalists a standing ovation for living their convictions. In the last and most uplifting moment of the U.S. Olympic media summit, Felix and Clay said they have been undergoing an extraordinary number of voluntary drug tests each week as part of Project Believe, a U.S.