My name is David Fidler, I am a professor of law at Indiana University. Arturo Marcano–who is also here today–and I have been raising concerns since 1999 about how Major League Baseball (MLB) operates in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. We add our voices to those today who find the position of the Commissioner’s Office on the problem of the use of animal drugs by minor league players and prospects in the Dominican Republic unacceptable.

MLB justifies drug-testing programs for major and minor league players in the United States on two bases: preserving the integrity of the game and protecting the health of players. Neither of these policy rationales appears to carry weight with the Commissioner’s Office when children and young men in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela are concerned.

The Commissioner’s Office position represents three strikes against MLB.

Foreign players make up over 25% of major league rosters and nearly 50% of minor league rosters. The vast majority of foreign players come from Latin America, with the Dominican Republic and Venezuela being the most important sources. This situation did not occur by accident. Since the 1970s, MLB has operated an extensive system for recruiting and training Latin prospects and players. This system creates powerful incentives for impoverished children and young men to want to play for a major league team.

But, when this system’s dynamics lead to the abuse of animal drugs, the Commissioner’s Office views the Latin players and prospects exclusively in terms of economic cost, not as people linked to the game’s integrity and who deserve to have their health protected.

The system is designed to produce Latin talent as cheaply as possible, and a drug policy would interfere with treating Latin children and young men as cheap commodities.

The position of the Commissioner’s Office also represents intentional discrimination against Latin players. If a newspaper reported that minor league players and prospects in the United States were using animal drugs to enhance their performance, the Commissioner’s Office would have acted immediately to protect the integrity of the game and the health of the players.

But, because the problem exists in the Dominican Republic, the Commissioner’s Office fixates on the potential cost and inconvenience in order, in the words of Robert Manfred, not to flush a whole lot of money down the toilet. The Commissioner’s Office, thus, intentionally treats Latin players and prospects less favorably than those in the United States. Such discrimination is consistent with how MLB views Latin children and young men as cheap commodities.

When confronted with problems created by MLB teams operating in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, the favorite tactic of the Commissioner’s Office is to blame someone else. In the case of the animal drugs, the Commissioner’s Office blames the Dominican government and buscones, individuals who train and then traffick prospects to MLB teams for a cut of signing bonuses. The buscon system is a significant problem because, as newspaper reports demonstrate, many buscones are only interested in the money they receive for getting players signed.

The Dominican government and MLB must work together to regulate buscones for both the integrity of the game and the health and well-being of players.

But MLB cannot wash its hands of the animal drug problem by blaming buscones. The buscones feed off the system created and operated by MLB that discriminates against Latin children and young men and treats them as cheap commodities. MLB has responsibilities that it must shoulder and not shirk in operating in Latin countries.

The response of the Commissioner’s Office to the use of animal drugs by prospects and players in the Dominican Republic demonstrates that MLB must change not only its position on the drug issue but also its attitude toward its Latin minor league system.

We join the others here today in calling for the Commissioner’s Office to adopt an integrated, comprehensive policy on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Latin minor league system, which should include banning all performance-enhancing drugs, random drug testing, educational outreach, and a strategy to address the problem of the buscones.

Children and young men are injecting chemicals meant for livestock into their bodies, risking disability and even death, in order to play for major league teams. Unlike the Commissioner’s Office, we believe that the integrity of the game and the health of players are very much at stake.

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