An initial positive test for H.G.H. would result in a 50-game suspension, the same as a first positive urine test for a performance-enhancing substance. “This was very important to me,” said Commissioner Bud Selig, shown here at the news conference. “This really is in everyone’s best interest.” Selig, who is sensitive about his legacy and the longstanding criticism that he was too slow to react to the use of performance-enhancing drugs in his sport, will now be able to cite the H.G.H. testing as proof of how seriously baseball now treats the issue of drug use.

And without mentioning the N.F.L. by name, Selig will be able to take satisfaction in accomplishing what his biggest rival has been unable to do. Last summer, the N.F.L. and its union reached agreement on a new labor contract that included blood testing for human growth hormone, leaving the details of the testing to be worked out after the deal was signed. But the players have since refused to sign off on the testing, citing various reservations.

Random testing for H.G.H. will take place during spring training and the off-season, but there is no agreement yet on random testing in-season. There can be testing at any time for cause.

Union leader Michael Weiner said, “We’ve consulted with a lot of scientists on this, and we know there’s a difference of opinion among scientists we’ve consulted. We are sufficiently comfortable with the science to go ahead with testing, but we have preserved the right if there is a positive test for there to be a challenge – if that’s appropriate – to the science at that point in time.”

The sides will explore in-season testing, but the union wants to make sure it is done in a way that does not interfere with players’ health and safety.

“The players want to get out and be leaders on this issue, and they want there to be a level playing field,” Weiner said. “The realities, though, are that baseball players play virtually every single day from Feb. 20 through October. And that’s unlike any other athlete – professional or amateur – who’s subject to drug testing. We want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can on the H.G.H. issue, but that it is consistent with not interfering with competition and not interfering with players’ health and safety under those circumstances.”

The deal, which still must be ratified by the players and owners, is the first contract since Weiner replaced Donald Fehr as union leader last year.

Although there is not urine test for H.G.H., Olympic athletes have been blood-tested for the substance for nearly a decade. Baseball officials and players had long expressed skepticism about the test, however, pointing to the fact that it was not producing any positives. Meanwhile, evidence mounted that the substance was being used in baseball.

In 2007, an investigation into a ring of pharmacies and doctors in Florida led to disclosures that numerous players were using H.G.H. At the end of 2007, George J. Mitchell, at the behest of Selig, produced a report on drug use in baseball that tied a number of players – including Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens – to the substance.

“Players who use human growth hormone apparently believe that it assists their ability to recover from injuries and fatigue during the long baseball season,” Mitchell said in his report. “This also is a major reason why players used steroids.”

Selig embraced the development and several months later implemented blood testing at the minor league level. This year, first baseman Mike Jacobs, who had played in the major leagues for a number of seasons, became the first minor league player to test positive for the substance. Agreement on H.G.H. testing was not the only issue that the two sides in baseball had to wrestle with as they moved toward completion of a labor deal that would last for five seasons and will guarantee two decades of a peace in a sport that suffered numerous work stoppages before that.

But most significant for Selig and everyone in the sport is that an agreement was reached without public rancor in a year in which the N.F.L. went through a protracted lockout and the N.B.A. had a labor standoff. The agreement will have a drug-testing clause that will put baseball ahead of other sports.

The owners and the players will then decide whether to do in-season testing in 2013, something the owners are clearly hoping will happen. This on-again, off-again schedule for testing in the first year underscores just how daunting it is for the players union to agree to blood testing for the first time, particularly when other professional sports leagues in North America do not do such tests.

Over the past decade, dozens of baseball players, including Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, have been tied to H.G.H, which anti-doping experts claim can help players recover quickly and build muscle mass but which cannot legally be used without a prescription.

It is a substance that has proved extremely difficult to detect, but baseball will now try, moving ahead of other leagues like the N.F.L. There, the players have backed away from the H.G.H. test, raising various reservations. That did not keep baseball’s union from saying yes, but it is a cautious affirmation, one modest step at a time.

“None of us have experience with blood testing as we do with urine,” Michael Weiner, the head of the players union, said in a telephone interview, hours after he and Commissioner Bud Selig ushered in a new five-year labor deal for baseball that is highlighted by the H.G.H. issue.

Indeed, baseball players have been giving urine samples for steroid testing for much of the last decade. But blood testing was forbidden territory, with players giving blood only as part of their physicals during spring training. Now players will have to get used to the idea of Phlebotomists’ entering clubhouses before or after games.

But not any regular-season games in 2012. Weiner said players were different from other athletes because they played every day for nearly seven months. Thus, he said, the union wants to be sure the testing is not interfering with players’ health and safety. So for now, the testing will be limited – February and March and then post-October.

Rob Manfred, the baseball official who negotiated the collective bargaining agreement with Weiner, acknowledged that the union wanted to proceed cautiously. “It is a question of starting where we are with the things we agreed upon and engaging in a process moving forward that we and the union are comfortable with,” he said.

Actually, by taking blood samples from more than 1,200 baseball players next spring, baseball will be doing more comprehensive H.G.H. testing than the World Anti-Doping Agency, which oversees Olympic athletes. In 2010, only 3,425 H.G.H. tests were conducted on the tens of thousands of athletes of athletes subject to WADA testing.

For years, WADA was one of baseball’s biggest critics, accusing it of looking the other way on doping. But on Tuesday, its director general acknowledged that baseball had in some ways jumped ahead of his organization.

“This is very significant,” the director general, David Howman, said of baseball’s commitment to test everyone for H.G.H. “At last we are in a position where we can say that Major League Baseball is taking a leading role. This is something we are concerned about regarding our own testing.”

The H.G.H. regimen for 2012 is similar to how baseball introduced steroid testing. In the first year, 2003, players were subject to anonymous survey testing. Penalty testing did not begin until a year later, and it was only in 2005 that players faced a suspension if they tested positive for the first time.

Under the deal, players who test positive for H.G.H. in spring training or in the off-season will be suspended for 50 games.

Howman said the union’s approach to the issue of doping had changed significantly since Weiner took over in 2009. Under the tenure of Donald Fehr, who led the union from 1983 to 2009, he said, union officials never responded to WADA overtures.

“Now,” he added, “we are exchanging information.”

Nearly four years after congressional hearings were held on the Mitchell Report and baseball’s performance-enhancing drug history, two U.S. Representatives urged baseball commissioner Bud Selig and the union to implement HGH testing on the major league level during the new collective bargaining agreement negotiations.

In a letter to Selig and Players Association executive director Michael Weiner, anti-PED watchdog Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), pictured here, and Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) asked that HGH testing be a staple of MLB’s drug-testing policy. The congressmen also asked baseball to eliminate smokeless tobacco use in the dugout and on the field.

HGH testing has been in the sports forefront throughout the autumn, as the NFL and its union had agreed to test players at the start of the 2011 season after ratifying the new CBA in late July. But the NFLPA later backtracked on its agreement, citing several concerns, including the efficacy of the test.

The issue is still in limbo. Waxman and several congressmen recently wrote a letter to the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Fred Upton (R-Mich.), asking that Upton hold a hearing on the NFL-HGH testing stalemate.

Baseball currently tests its minor league players for HGH. Earlier this year, former Met Mike Jacobs became the first U.S. professional athlete to test positive for the drug. Jacobs was in the Rockies’ minor league system.

“Regarding Human Growth Hormone (HGH), we urge that Major League Baseball improve its current performance enhancing drug policy by instituting random blood tests of players for HGH,” Waxman and Pallone wrote. “In December 2007, Senator George Mitchell, pictured here, released the report of his independent investigation into the use of illegal performance enhancing substances by players in Major League Baseball.

In Senator Mitchell’s report, he found that ‘while detectable steroid use appears to be declining … the use of human growth hormone has risen.’”According to Senator Mitchell, players were turning to HGH ‘because unlike steroids, it is not detectable through urine testing. … (Players switched to human growth hormone precisely because it is not detectable.’

“The time to begin testing for HGH in baseball has arrived. Available tests require only a small, teaspoon-sized blood sample, which is then evaluated through an ‘isoform’ test to determine if the HGH in an athlete’s body is naturally occurring or the result of an injection of the synthetic form of the drug. The test is approved and used by the World Anti-Doping Agency and has been used successfully for the Olympics.” The letter also urged baseball to “address the use of smokeless tobacco” in its CBA Negotiations, and the congressman stated that there is “ample precedent for a ban.”

“The impending collective bargaining agreement gives Major League Baseball and the MLBPA the opportunity to improve the health of its players, improve the integrity of the game, and ensure that big league players continue to be valuable role models for the game’s next generations of fans.”

Waxman, a ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, was on the Committee for Oversight and Government Reform when it held its hearings on baseball and PEDS in 2005 and 2008.

US Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart told The Associated Press the biomarker test for HGH won strong consensus among doping scientists and experts from around the world who attended a London symposium on detecting growth factors. The test, which still needs final validation by the World Anti-Doping Agency, widely extends the detection window from the current isoform test, which can only identify HGH use going back 12 to 72 hours.

The new test, which also uses blood samples, can go back anywhere from 10 days to 21 days and could be a significant deterrent against one of the most potent performance-enhancers in sports, Tygart said.

Test valid for NFL “This is an important step,” said Tygart, shown above testifying at the Senate hearings on steroids on Sept. 28, 2009. “We’re hopeful it’s going to be approved by WADA soon.” In addition to its possible use at the Olympics or in international sports, the test would also be valid for the NFL, whose players’ union has yet to agree to introduction of any HGH testing.

The biomarker test was the main focus of a closed-door conference over the weekend that was jointly organized by USADA and UK Anti-Doping. “The consensus…is that this test is a well-validated, scientifically reliable test which extends the window of detection and would also be important to implement,” Tygart told the AP following a separate anti-doping and ethics symposium in London. Pictured here is a sample collection of the types of tests USADA conducts.

Supported by scientific articles Tygart said the biomarker test has been supported by more than 30 peer-reviewed articles. The isoform test, first used in 2004, is designed to detect the presence of synthetic HGH in the body. By contrast, the biomarker test scans for chemicals produced by the body after HGH use, detecting “the effects of using human growth hormone”, Tygart said.

The biomarker test could be used alone or together with the isoform test. “The two tests are complementary,” Tygart said. WADA has to go through its own scientific validation process before the new test can go into effect.

Athletes want it immediately “I would hope it’s imminent,” Tygart said. “Clean athletes, once they’re satisfied that it’s scientifically validated and should be used, want it out there immediately.”

Olivier Niggli, legal director of WADA, pictured here, said the agency would assess the new test fully before giving it the go-ahead. “Scientists are always very optimistic,” he told the AP. “We’ll see where exactly where we are. We’ll see whether every aspect is covered. Before anything comes into place, we want to make sure we have the answers to the questions we’ll get when we try the test for the first time. It’s very promising. There’s still a bit of work to be done but we’re getting there.”

Niggli was coy about whether the new test would be in place at London’s 2012 Games, which start in July.

Element of surprise “If it would be, I wouldn’t tell you,” Niggli said. “We want to keep the element of surprise.” While HGH testing has taken place at the Olympics since 2004, no positive tests for the hormone have ever been recorded at the games. Outside of the Olympics, there have been eight positive tests for HGH in seven sports detected at seven different labs.

In the most recent case, two-time Olympic cross-country skiing champion Andrus Veerpalu of Estonia was banned for three years by the sport’s governing body. The federation said he tested positive for HGH in Estonia while preparing for the world championships.

Tygart and Niggli both defended the isoform test against questions raised by the NFL Players Association. The NFL would be the first major professional sports league to implement HGH testing.

Unions need more information Blood testing for HGH was part of the collective bargaining deal struck between the league and players this summer – but only if the union agreed to the methods. The union has asked for more information about the process and questioned the safety and reliability of the test.

“There is complete consensus that it’s a good test, is scientifically reliable, has been well validated and should be used by any entity, professional or Olympic, that wants to protect clean athletes,” said Tygart, pictured here.

Niggli added: “This is a test which was done over many, many years. We’ve got a lot of studies behind it. We’re very comfortable to defend it.”

The 30-year-old first baseman, who has played six seasons in the major leagues, received a 50-game suspension after testing positive for HGH – the first such case since MLB instituted blood tests for doping in the minor leagues.

Jacobs, who had played for the New York Mets, Florida Marlins and Kansas City Royals, was leading the Rockies’ Triple-A club in Colorado Springs in home runs (23), doubles (30) and runs batted in (97).

The Rockies announced they were releasing Jacobs. “There is no place in baseball for such substances, and we have and will continue to do what we can to eliminate them from our game,” the National League club said in a statement.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said the finding, which also marks the first time an athlete tested positive for HGH in the United States, is significant and sends a strong message.

“It is yet further indication of the fact that the test works and that it should be used more widely,” WADA chief David Howman said in a statement. “It is clear that HGH is one of the biggest threats to sport right now and has been for many years. Athletes have taken it with impunity because it was not detectable.”

Jacobs, who compiled a .253 batting average with 100 home runs and 310 runs batted in during 556 major league games, said he took HGH to try and recover from injuries and hopes to resume his career following his ban.

“A few weeks ago, in an attempt to overcome knee and back problems, I made the terrible decision to take HGH,” Jacobs said in a statement. “Taking it was one of the worst decisions I could have ever made, one for which I take full responsibility. I apologize to my family, friends, the Colorado Rockies organization, Major League Baseball and to the fans.”

After eight weeks, men and women given HGH injections sprinted faster on a bicycle and had reduced fat mass and more lean body mass. Adding in testosterone boosted those effects – in men also given testosterone, the impact on sprinting ability was nearly doubled. HGH, however, had no effect on jumping ability, aerobic capacity or strength, measured by the ability to dead-lift a weight, nor did HGH increase muscle mass.

“This paper adds to the scientific evidence that HGH can be performance enhancing, and from our perspective at WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency), lends support to bans on HGH,” said Olivier Rabin, WADA’s science director. The study, which was funded in part by WADA, is in the May 4 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Human growth hormone is among the substances banned by the WADA for use by competitive athletes. HGH is also banned by Major League Baseball, though the league doesn’t currently test for it.

Based on anecdotal reports and athlete testimonies, HGH is widely abused in professional sports, said Mark Frankel, director of the scientific freedom, responsibility and law program for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The incredible feats of Barry Bonds, the former all-time home run record holder of the San Francisco Giants pictured above, can be attributed to the use of anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, and various other enhancement drugs.

Prior research has suggested HGH reduces fat mass, said Rabin, shown here, as well as help the body recover more quickly from injury or “microtraumas” – small injuries to the muscles, bones or joints that occur as a result of intense training. That type of a boost could put athletes at a competitive advantage, Rabin said.

But research as to whether HGH is actually performance-enhancing – that is, making athletes stronger or faster – has been limited, according to the research team, led by Dr. Ken Ho, of the Department of endocrinology at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, Australia.

“For athletes, it is sufficient to make a very significant difference in terms of winning or losing a competition,” Rabin said. “It’s the difference being the winner and the last one in the finals.” Sprint capacity returned to normal six weeks after participants stopped receiving injections, according to the study.

Yet the study has limitations, Frankel said. Researchers could not say with certainty whether the athletes improved sprint ability because of HGH or because they trained harder during the 8 weeks of the study. And many athletes take HHG believing it will boost endurance, strength, power and other physical abilities – effects the study did not find.

“Athletes may be taking HGH as a means of trying to improve their performance, even though there is some concern about whether it really does that,” Frankel said. “If it does, and that is a big ‘if,’ it is certainly in the class of enhancement drugs that change the playing field.”

Among the reasons WADA bans HGH are health concerns. In the study, athletes who received HGH were more likely to complain of swelling and joint pain more than those who received the placebo. Side effects could be more severe at the higher doses probably taken illicitly, researchers said.

Currently, blood tests are used to detect excess HGH circulating in the body that can indicate an athlete is taking it, Rabin said.

It was back in March 2005 when Congress gave baseball consumers their most illuminating look at the fraudulent state of affairs in the product they happily and naively supported for years: the infamous hearing on performance-enhancing drugs that rightly led to the ruination of the once-great reputations of Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa.

This time, Congress is following the lead of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, who wants to ban smokeless tobacco in the majors. Chewing tobacco is such a part of the game’s lore and legend that we don’t often think about it, but we should because, among other things, it’s deadly. It can cause various cancers, including oral, stomach, esophageal and pancreatic, as well as gum disease, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. It’s already banned in minor league baseball and the NCAA, although some players are so hooked on doing damage to their bodies that they go ahead and use it anyway. (Pictured here, a tin can of chewing tobacco rests in a glove before a major league game).

It’s no accident that Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., picked the occasion of the World Series to send a strong letter to the MLB Players Association asking that it “agree to a prohibition on the use of all tobacco products at games and on camera at all Major League ballparks.” Wrote Durbin, who was joined by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.: “This would send a strong message to young baseball fans, who look toward the players as role models, that tobacco use is not essential to the sport of baseball.”

The statistics they cited are ominous: There has been a 36% increase in the use of smokeless tobacco by high school bys since 2003, with 15% of all high school boys using it. The major leaguers who use it during games “are providing a celebrity endorsement for these products,” the senators wrote.

But a ban on chewing tobacco doesn’t just happen. It would have to be part of a new collective bargaining agreement between the owners and players after the old contract expires in December. The owners obviously are for it. The players are expected to fight it, as they battled for years to allow some – perhaps many – in their midst to use performance-enhancing drugs without being caught.

If it’s not bad enough that Selig wants them to live longer, healthier lives, a couple of U.S. senators now want them to as well. The rank and file simply can’t stand for that. The players’ position likely will be that using tobacco products is legal in this country, so it should be legal in baseball. That sounds tidy enough, but it completely ignores the lofty role athletes play in our society – whether they should or not – as well as the game’s civic and corporate responsibility to our culture, our children and their health care. What’s more, MLB already bars uniformed club personnel from smoking in view of spectators.

And it’s not just baseball; U.S. companies are becoming more anti-tobacco by the minute. While we’re talking about banning smokeless tobacco on behalf of youngsters as they watch baseball games, is there any way we can enact another ban – toss McGwire out of this World Series?

What a message it sends to children that a man who participated in one of the most ignominious acts of deception in sports history was allowed back in baseball after a pathetic apology and is now sitting in the dugout as the St. Louis Cardinals’ hitting coach, soaking up all the glory of the Fall Classic. What’s next, the Canadian Olympic team bringing Ben Johnson back to coach the sprinters and to march in next year’s opening ceremony?

Clearly, MLB’s concept that appearances matter is a work in progress.

The Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros no longer provide energy drinks in their clubhouses and are encouraging their players to avoid them. The Milwaukee Brewers have taken a similar course of action in their minor league system. “It’s asinine,” Diamondbacks closer J.J. Putz told USA Today. “What are they going to ban next, coffee? Soft drinks? It’s so bizarre.” Pictured here, the Colorado Rockies Ian Stewart sips a can of Red Bull.

The teams can’t ban the beverages because they are not prohibited in the collective bargaining agreement. Spokesman Greg Bouris said the players union is unaware of any restrictions and plans to look into it.

Teams, though, can act in the minor leagues, and many have. Several organizations, including the Brewers, even prohibit minor leaguers from using clubhouse refrigerators to store the drinks. “We ask why a player is using it. Is there something natural he could use to improve his energy levels?” said Ross Atkins, the Cleveland Indians’ player development director.

The Astros took precautions in 2009 when reliever Wesley Wright, shown here, was treated for dehydration at a hospital after drinking several cans of Red Bull before pitching. “It just seemed that we shouldn’t be creating an environment where we’re almost facilitating the effects of dehydration,” Houston Astros general manager Ed Wade said.

“We had a couple of issues regarding dehydration,” said Wade, “and our people think they can be traced to misuses, overuse of energy drinks. It just seemed that we shouldn’t be creating an environment where we’re almost facilitating the effects of dehydration.”

Yet with 162 games and frequent travel, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Jason Grilli says players look for an advantage. “The reason guys take energy drinks is because there’s not anything else (legal) to take,” he said. “The competitive edge is why the whole steroid thing got rampant.”

Energy drinks aren’t a performance enhancer and shouldn’t be prohibited, says Dr.Gary Wadler, doping expert. Tracey Halliday, vice president for the American Beverage Association, says they are often the subject of misinformation. “The caffeine included in there is half the caffeine of a cup of coffee,” she said.