MLB commissioner will not stop play for Olympics

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) – Commissioner Bud Selig
has no plans to stop Major League Baseball play so top athletes
can compete in the Olympics.

“That’s just not practical. In the heart of pennant races,
this is just absurd,” Selig told reporters in Detroit Tuesday
in response to IOC President Jacques Rogge’s comments about why
baseball was dropped from the Games program in 2012.

Rogge said concerns over doping and the lack of top players
at past Games were the main reasons International Olympic
Committee (IOC) members voted last week to oust baseball.

“I’m not going to stop the season,” Selig said.

“There is no set of circumstances for me to be able to say
to teams in late August, ‘Well, now, take two weeks off, guys.
We’ll see you all except 20 or 25 people, whatever numbers
there are that are going to play for either the United States
or for the other countries’.”

Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Jason Bay called the IOC
decision a setback for baseball.

“International play is the way to go for baseball, it will
grow the game. With no baseball in the Olympics, that’s a
setback,” the Canadian said at Tuesday’s All-Star Game.

“There’s no doubt that a lot of players in Canada look
forward to the chance of being in an Olympics.”

Selig said he was saddened by the decision but the steroids
issue was not a valid reason for the sport’s ejection.

IMAGE HURT

Baseball’s image in the United States has been tarnished in
the past year after a number of leading players were linked to
the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) steroids scandal.

Selig acknowledged steroids was a concern but he criticized
those who were unhappy with the major leagues’ new drugs
policy.

“Is the current program working? It is,” Selig said. “But I
believe there is a deeper issue. I believe there is an
integrity issue involved.

“We must create everywhere the understanding that we mean
to rid this sport of steroids.”

Six players, none prominent, have been suspended for
testing positive under the new policy, which came into effect
in March.

In the face of U.S. congressional criticism, Selig has
proposed tougher standards, including the suspension of
first-time offenders for 50 games. Under the current policy
first-time offenders are suspended for 10 days.

Even stricter legislation has passed a U.S. House
committee. It would create minimum standards for drug testing
of U.S. professional sports and would provide for a lifetime
suspension for a third offense.

(Additional reporting by Roger Lajoie in Detroit)