Minor league baseball: RockHounds players don't anticpate problems with new drug policy

MIDLAND RockHounds outfielder Corey Brown only has one problem with the new blood testing protocol that Major League Baseball announced earlier this week.

That long, thin needle pricking his arm.

“I’m not a fan of needles,” Brown said. “If I get tested, I don’t have anything to worry about until they actually stick me, and then I hope somebody’s there to catch me if I faint.”

On Thursday, MLB commissioner Bud Selig announced that random blood testing for human growth hormone will be implemented in the minor leagues.

For the RockHounds, the announcement meant little more than a slip of paper in their lockers in Corpus Christi and the promise of a slightly unpleasant postgame ritual in the future.

“When you come off the field, the last thing you want to do is give a blood sample,” Rockhounds second baseman J.C. Holt said. “But that’s just part of baseball trying to rid the sport of human growth hormone.”

Human growth hormone, more commonly known as HGH, is undetectable by the drug tests used by most major professional sports organizations.

Blood testing has the ability to detect HGH, a hormone that has been rumored to be used in lieu of common steroids.

“There’s going to be probably some guys out there in the minors who might get caught,” Brown said. “You see it every year. I guess we just have to wait and see what happens.”

RockHounds manager Darren Bush doesn’t expect to see a rash of minor leaguers suddenly facing the prospect of a 50-game suspension for the use of HGH.

Citing his own roster, Bush said that most minor leaguers aren’t willing to take the risk of using performance-enhancing drugs.

Not since MLB implemented the harsh penalties it hands down. On first offense, a player automatically loses 50 games, which is almost half the season for most minor league teams.

“You can almost have a surgery and not miss 50 games,” Holt said. “It’s a lot of time to miss, and it’s not worth it.”

Guys trying to make an impression on the big club can’t afford to lose half a season to a failed test.

“There are so many drug tests, and the consequences for failing are stiff,” Bush said. “These guys, their career is their priority, they’re not going to subject themselves to anything that’s going to limit their ability to get on the field.”

Keeping their blood clean, Bush said, is up to the players themselves. With that policy in place, a minor leaguer can’t afford to give the organization any reason to put him in the doghouse.

For that reason, most minor leaguers stay away from anything that could remotely land them on the suspension list.

“They’re making such a big deal over amphetamines now that I’m scared to drink anything more than two Red Bulls,” Holt said. “They’ve got you so paranoid about stuff that it makes it hard to pick anything else up.”

Especially if a guy can’t stand the sight of a needle.