[vincesanity82]

Behold! MLB -- alongside the NFL, the U.S. Olympic Committee, and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency -- are plunging effort into research necessary to keep up with the scientists that create and eventually sell performance enhancing drugs. Say it ain't so:

Priorities for the collaborative will include underwriting research that addresses:

• New methods to more cost-effectively detect and deter the use of banned and illegal substances at every level of sport
• Identification and detection of designer substances the consequences of doping, from both a medical and ethical perspective
• The further development of a widely-available, cost-effective test to detect Human Growth Hormone (HGH) As the initial Founding Partners, the USOC, USADA, MLB and NFL have collectively committed to contribute $10 million to this landmark collaborative. Each Founding Partner will have one representative on the Board of Governors, which will oversee the research collaborative.

Some of the goals are worthy; some are not. Obviously, the main benefit here would be establishing testing procedures that are impossible to escape and keeping research on par with the various masking agents players use to hide their use. Searching for an HGH test? Probably a waste of resources, considering we don't know if it really helps baseball performance. In any case, it's a step in the right direction. Maybe Bud is going to act after all.

Yay Alert: MLB Apparently Going to Do Something About That Whole Steroids Thing - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

[Lefty Noob]

This has long been the problem - trying to keep the testing methods current with the masking methods. Try as they might, they'll never keep up, though. The steroid manufacturers are just too good at what they do. They always are and always will be one step ahead.

[ThePundit]

The question is will the MLBPA get in the way?