01:00 AM EST on Wednesday, November 16, 2005

BY JANIE McCAULEY
Associated Press

While Omar Vizquel supports a strict steroids policy in baseball, the agreement reached by owners and players yesterday caught San Francisco's shortstop by surprise because of the severity of the penalty for a first-time offense.

The sides agreed to a deal that calls for a 50-game suspension for a first failed test, 100 games for a second and a lifetime ban for a third. The agreement also includes testing for amphetamines for the first time.

"I never thought they were serious about that: 50, 100 and lifetime," Vizquel said in a phone interview from his Seattle-area home. "Wow, that's just really crazy. I agree they should raise the number of games, but that's a lot of games right there."

Some players considered the penalty for first-time offenders to be harsh, but understood commissioner Bud Selig's need to do something amid the rising pressure from Congress for a tougher policy.

"Obviously with Congress kind of stepping up their intensity in terms of legislation, that pushed both sides to get it done a little quicker," said Padres second baseman Mark Loretta, San Diego's player representative. "I don't know whether this will stop legislation. It remains to be seen if this is sufficient enough. It was our view that whatever we could negotiate together would be better than having the government legislate over us."

The current punishments are a 10-day suspension for a first offense, 30 days for a second offense and 60 days for a third. The earliest a player could be banned for life is a fifth offense.

"If you get caught the third time you definitely need to be thrown out of baseball," said St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols, who answered questions on the topic after receiving the NL MVP award yesterday. "If you get caught the third time, it means you're not learning the lesson. . . . You shouldn't be able to be caught the third time because after the first time, if you don't learn from that, from 50 games that you sit down without getting paid, that's pretty bad."

The 38-year-old Vizquel just completed his 17th major league season and first with the Giants following 11 years with Cleveland. At 5-foot-9 and 165 pounds, he has always prided himself in taking care of his body and being able to remain one of baseball's best defensive shortstops even late in his career.

Vizquel, who earned his 10th Gold Glove award this year, understands that young players want to do everything possible to gain an edge, but knows the latest attempts to curb steroid use will change that.

"I think those are pretty severe regulations," he said. "If they have been testing for this year (2005) and a few players tested positive, this next year is really serious. It really sends a message to the kids out there trying to improve their performances and telling them not to use steroids. I think players are really going to think twice if they're going to take something to improve and get bigger.

"That's two months out of the season. You need a whole spring training to come back from 50 games. If you don't practice for a week, you lose your timing and everything. I can't imagine 50 games."

Loretta is optimistic this policy will work, and that maybe the focus on illegal performance-enhancing drugs will die down for now.

"I think it's positive," Loretta said. "All along, the players have been open to a policy and wanted to have a responsible one and address the issues and rid the game of steroids. My hope is that this finally puts it behind us. If we hadn't already, this will basically rid the game of steroids. Obviously you can't control the THG's of the world, or whatever the scientists can cook up to be ahead of the testing."

Baseball Steroids Agreement

A glance at yesterday's drug-testing agreement between baseball players and owners, described to The Associated Press by two congressional aides:

STEROID PENALTIES

FIRST POSITIVE TEST: 50-game suspension, up from 10 days.

SECOND POSITIVE TEST: 100-game suspension, up from 30 days.

THIRD POSITIVE TEST: Lifetime ban, with player having right to apply for reinstatement after two years and an arbitrator being able to review reinstatement decision. Under the previous agreement, the earliest a player could be suspended for life was for a fifth positive test.

AMPHETAMINE PENALTIES

There was no testing for amphetamines in previous agreement:

FIRST POSITIVE TEST: Mandatory additional testing.

SECOND POSITIVE: 25-game suspension.

THIRD POSITIVE: 80-game suspension.

FOURTH POSITIVE: Commissioner's discretion, with an arbitrator being able to review.

TESTING FREQUENCY

A player will be tested during spring training physicals and at least once during the regular season, with additional random testing. Under the previous agreement, each player was tested once from the start of spring training through the end of the regular season, with additional random testing. Both the new agreement and the previous deal provided for offseason testing.

INDEPENDENT ADMINISTRATOR

A person not connected to management or the union will schedule and supervise the tests, which currently are administered by a joint management-union committee.