Congress forced it down their throats
Thirty-four years after retirement, Jim Bunning has fired his most significant knockdown pitch.
Oh, sure, the major league owners and the Players Association have come up with a new, and far tougher, anti-drug agreement, but it's one they never would have come up with had they not been scared into doing so by the Republican Senator from Kentucky and his ally, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona). And give an assist to Rep. Tom Davis (R-Virginia).
Watching Baseball Inc. go from its toothless so-called policy on drug usage to the imposing agreement they announced yesterday has been laughable. Steve Howe was, what, a seven-time loser? Those days are gone. The penalty for a first-time violator has been bumped up from a 10-game suspension to 50. A second positive test will now result in a 100-game suspension (up from 30). A third positive test will result in a date with Ol' Sparky -- no, just kidding. A third positive test will
result in a lifetime ban, with the player having the right to apply for reinstatement after two years, with an arbitrator able to review the reinstatement decision. The prior policy called for someone to test positive five times before a lifetime ban was imposed.
But the new agreement doesn't stop with the search for anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancers. For the first time, there will be testing for amphetamines. Now that's hitting much closer to home. If such a system had been in place during the '70s and '80s, it's possible there would have been hundreds of forfeits. Gulping greenies was considered by many baseball players to be a birthright.
Need I add that all this testing will be administered by an independent agency not beholden to either Major League Baseball or the Players Association?
On paper, this represents a triumph for commissioner Bud Selig, who came away from the March hearings chaired by Davis (surely you remember the pathetic sight and sound of Mark McGwire becoming the first American to plead the Fourth and A Half Amendment, as well as the legendary Rafael Palmeiro finger-wag) asking for a vast upgrade in punishment for a first-time offender from 10 games to 50, even as union chief Donald Fehr was countering with 25.
But let's get serious here. The only reason Mr. Fehr is going along with the program is the enormous pressure being put on all the parties on both sides of the baseball aisle by the aforementioned folks from Capitol Hill. Nor is there any doubt that the primary bulldog, the man who had the strongest proprietary interest in the matter, the man who was not going to take no for an answer, was Senator Jim Bunning, who just happens to be the first member of baseball's Hall of Fame to have a second career as both a congressman and a senator. (Can't forget Congressman Vinegar Bend Mizell.) The elected officials made it clear that if baseball wasn't going to take steps to clean up its game, they would be quite willing to do it.
''We're at the end here, and I don't want to do it," McCain said back in March. ''But we need an agreement soon. It's not complicated. All sports fans understand it. I suggest you act -- and act soon."
Selig has always been solicitous of public approval. He is a genial man who wants to be liked on a personal basis and he certainly wants his sport to be viewed in a positive light by the general public. You knew he would try to make the pols happy. But Donald Fehr is a dedicated union official equipped with a lawyer's tunnel vision on behalf of his clients. In general terms, he and his clients never have worried much about justifying their philosophical positions to anyone, whether it's the owners, the media, or the fans. The Association has always framed its opposition to drug testing on the basis of privacy issues. The punch line has always come down to something or other concerning the indignity of asking these players to, ahem, ''urinate in a cup." With the threat of Congressional intervention, the Players Association suddenly views this act as far less of a humiliation. Fascinating.
What's most interesting about all this is that we still don't know just how big a deal any of this is to the baseball public. We are still early in the acknowledgement stage of the issue, and I don't know that anyone has accurately gauged the extent of public interest and outcry over the staining of the game by drug usage. Palmeiro is the biggest name to take any kind of a fall since the spotlight has been placed on the matter, and mostly what people have done by way of reaction is laugh at him because of that wagging left index finger, and because he now claims he received a vial of vitamin B-12 from teammate Miguel Tejada. He may have his 3,000-plus hits and his 500-plus home runs, but not many people really care one way or the other about Rafael Palmeiro. He was never a star; he was merely an anonymous stat-gatherer.
People do care about Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds, however, and we still don't have the smoking gun on either. McGwire kinda/sorta admitted everything by refusing to ''talk about the past" at the hearing in March, but the only other evidence we have is the testimony of the cartoonish Jose Canseco. Tony La Russa, whose own legacy is at stake, predictably pooh-poohs the charges. Jason Giambi apologized, even though he never said what for ''wink, wink." Bonds, meanwhile, continues to stonewall, even as BALCO, Victor Conte, and others around him go down. If the people who attend Giants games are put off by Barry Bonds, they have a funny way of expressing it. What would be the reaction if we knew for sure? I'd love to know.
It's pretty evident that something was going on in baseball for a few record-breaking years. Bodies changed. A lot of guys were hitting baseballs long distances and a lot of other guys were throwing 95, 96, and 97 m.p.h. This year the crackdown began, and many of the former now have warning track power and many of the latter are throwing 85, 86, and 87. Writers took note. What about fans?
I can tell you one group that cares, and cares deeply. The Hall of Famers care. I was in Cooperstown this past July and the talk from these greats of the game was their universal concern about the integrity of their sport. They are not looking forward to welcoming suspected cheats into the club. And it just so happens that one member was in a position to attack the problem.
Why should anyone be surprised? As former players in both leagues know, Jim Bunning was never afraid to throw a brushback pitch.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com. 
