Mar 6, 2005 2 min read

MESA, Ariz. (AP) – The number of positive tests for steroids in major league baseball dropped to between 1 to 2 percent last season, commissioner Bud Selig said Saturday, and he predicted the elimination of the drug from the sport this year. The new figures, based on just under 1,200 tests, compare with 5 to 7 percent positive results in 2003, the first season that major league players were tested.

Selig said the test results “startled me and a lot of other people.”

“I am very confident that we will effectively rid our sport of steroids in this coming season,” he said at a news conference.

The tests in 2003-04 were done under the 2002 collective bargaining agreement adhering to a program far less stringent than the one adopted by major league baseball and the players’ union this year. The new program implemented this week includes an unannounced test of every player, other random testing and tests in the offseason.

“I’m comfortable in telling you that we’ve not only dealt with our problem, but we will finish what we started,” Selig said. “There always will be some exceptions, but I’m very comfortable with what we’ve done.”

Selig also said the minor league testing program has dropped from 11 percent positive tests in 2001 to 1.7 percent last season.

The commissioner emphatically refuted the notion that baseball owners looked the other way from the steroid problem because they loved the popularity of the home-run binge of the late 1990s. He said he had never heard an owner, manager, player or anyone else involved in the sport voice that feeling.

“Do I wish that I knew in 1995 or 1996 what I know today about this after all the hours I’ve spent?” Selig said.

“Of course I do. I would be less than honest if I didn’t say that. We’re just learning a lot of things now. But we’ve hired the best people we have, we’ve gone to Olympic labs. And I think our programs are as consistently good as anybody else.

“But the facts speak for themselves.”