Tests and the True Test

The Mets finally emerged from the meeting with Donald Fehr and he then sat down with the media for a brief Q&A, a bit less harrowing for him than the congressional hearings he's found himself subjected to in recent weeks.

Here's a bit of the interview:
How confident are you that the game is clean now?

It’s pretty clear that all of the available evidence we have indicates that the incidents of anabolic steroid use has been drastically reduced. You never eliminate it completely. Nobody ever has. It’s drastically reduced and Senator Mitchell confirmed that in the report. He said the program in fact detects what you can detect. When you come to things that are outside of that you have to rely on other kinds of evidence. I think it’s pretty clean. I’m satisfied that the program we have both works and the penalties are severe enough and you can penalize for a violation even if that violation is not demonstrated by a positive test in a fashion we think should make the program effective even in those circumstances. Nobody is running around saying for certain I know 'X' is going on and you’re not doing anything about it. We just don’t have that.

Do you feel that Roger Clemens has been singled out and targeted?

I think that congressional hearings as we’ve seen are not well suited for trying to decide questions of credibility especially in circumstances like this. that’s best left for private litigation and there is such litigation pending.

Do you feel there will be an Hgh test in the near future?

There has been a lot of media speculation the last several years that there is a test. There isn’t. there is not one yet. What the most current public news, which came out of the afternoon session of the congressional hearing on Wednesday of this week was that some people hope that the test will finally be available on a limited basis at the Beijing Olympics. All I can tell you is that if and when a test is available – and available means commercially available where you can buy it, not that they have enough stuff to use for two people once a year. That’s different. Then we’ll take a look at it and we’ll see. There’s not much you can say about that beforehand other than that. There are a lot of issues you’d have to look at with it, but there’s no point in talking about it until there is something specific you can look at.

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Now, the true test that Mets fans are waiting for is about 2 hours away when Johan Santana takes the mound.

By the way, Andres Galarraga stopped by camp this morning. He wasn't looking for a contract - and that's good because when you see him he looks old enough to make you wonder how he was in camp just a few years ago. That said, he still looks younger than Olmedo Saenz, who is fighting for a roster spot.