Congress to Take Action on Steroids?: As I have said before, Congress is not happy with the steps (or non-steps) baseball has taken to curtail the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Now, John McCain has said publicly that Congress will act if baseball does not, perhaps even introducing legislation that would require some type of drug testing. I still believe this is more of a bluff, and that Congress really wants baseball to act on its own, but such legislation is still a possibility. It also seems that the legislation would pass constitutional muster: professional baseball is certainly within the realm on interstate commerce. It may not have been in 1922 (see the Supreme Court reference in the Times article), but it certainly is now. More realistic, I believe, is for Congress to revoke the antitrust exemption professional baseball enjoys. The legislators will certainly hold this carrot out to encourage baseball to act, and if nothing is done, Congress will certainly attempt to act in one way or another. And as McCain says, if a bill does get through, it seems likely that Bush will sign it. It should be an interesting few months of negotiations between the league, the union and the federal government.

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