News Tip: No Need Yet for Congress to Intervene in Baseball Steroid Scandal, Says Duke Sports Law Expert

Although Congress may have good intentions for wanting to investigate the steroid scandal in Major League Baseball, it should wait to see if baseball's newly instituted plan to regulate steroid use is a success or failure, says a sports law expert at Duke University.

Duke law professor Paul Haagen, co-director of the Center for Sports Law and Policy at Duke Law School, said he is not disputing that baseball has a problem with steroids. "But it is clear that baseball has taken some significant steps in dealing with this. It isn't at all clear why Congress should not allow these collectively bargained steps to play out and see if they're working.

"It is also not at all clear why there should be such enthusiastic embracing among some Congressional members of a one-size-fits-all plan that is modeled after the world anti-doping approach."

Haagen, who chairs Duke's Student-Athlete Counseling Committee, said there is a significant problem in American society regarding young people being attracted to steroids. "But I think it is highly questionable whether the attraction is coming out of professional sports or whether it has to do with boys trying to be attractive to girls or to improve their own body image.

"So then the question is if professional sports is regulated, does that really get to the central issue and should Congress really be worried about it?"

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