DETROIT TIGERS EXEMPTED FROM STEROID BAN
Steroids Called 'Mandatory' for Cellar-dwelling Club
Major League Baseball reversed its longstanding anti-steroid policy today, permitting the Detroit Tigers to take the performance-enhancing drugs for the duration of the 2004 baseball season.
?By permitting the Tigers to take steroids, we are taking an important step to level the playing field,? MLB Commissioner Bud Selig told reporters.
Under the new policy, which Mr. Selig called ?a work in progress,? the lowly Tigers will not only be permitted to take steroids, ?they will be forced to do so.?
Major League Baseball will administer mandatory daily drug tests to confirm that the Detroit team is taking its steroids every day as dictated by the new policy.
Mr. Selig hinted that if the steroid exemption results in more wins for the cellar-dwelling Tigers, it could eventually be extended to such other perennial horsehide doormats as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Cleveland Indians.
But in their first day out on the diamond with the formerly taboo drugs coursing through their veins, the Tigers had an inauspicious showing, grinding out a discouraging series of weak grounders and pop-ups in a 7-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.
After the game, a concerned Mr. Selig told reporters, ?If we determine that the Tigers were not taking their steroids as ordered, there will be serious consequences.?