Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association recently announced yet another new agreement on drug policy. It may even be the final agreement of the year. As such, we can now relax and know that drug use in baseball is under total control.

We also know that democracy is spreading across Iraq and throughout the Middle East. And Santa Claus is coming to town.

The policy was revised under pressure from members of Congress who saw their role as moral crusaders protecting the fabric of American life. Despite the fact that a dozen or so major league players and countless minor league players have been caught and punished under the previous policy, grandstanding members of Congress demanded more. John McCain, Jim Bunning and other House and Senate committee members can now go back to their constituents and proclaim their role in saving Western Civilization and sport in America. Judge Landis must be smiling on them.

At each stage in this process, the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig, pronounced his great satisfaction with the agreements he reached with the MLBPA. As soon as significant members of Congressional committees called for a tougher policy, Selig discovered that the agreed upon policy was inadequate. The Commissioner apparently found that of the two groups that have made his life most difficult over the years, Congress was the more formidable foe. So he chose to do its bidding and abandon his agreements with the MLBPA. The fallout from Selig’s unilateral actions could have dire consequences — what looked like labor peace following the last collective bargaining agreement is now clearly in jeopardy.

As for the latest drug policy itself, it is far more sweeping than previous policies. An independent administrator will be responsible for conducting the program, and, in one of those lovely little signs of homage, the agreement “expressly recognizes the parties’ cooperation with congressional investigations.” In addition to increased penalties for steroid use, penalties will also be instituted for steroid possession and distribution.

Even more interesting, in some ways, is the inclusion of testing for amphetamines and penalties for amphetamine use, possession or distribution.

How will all of this affect the game of baseball itself? It is clear that the amphetamine policy will have a greater impact, if the detectors can stay ahead of the drug producers and maskers. “Greenies” have been a staple of the baseball culture for several decades. Jim Bouton discussed their use in Ball Four, and Pete Rose discussed the omnipresence of greenies in baseball clubhouses in a Playboy interview in September of 1979.

If greenies are good enough for Air Force pilots fighting fatigue on bombing runs, why not for Major League Baseball players?

In the age of jet travel across several time zones, when a trip from the West Coast to the East Coast brings a team to its destination at 6 a.m. for a game that same night, greenies approach the level of necessity. For day games after a night game, in the grind of the 162-game season, in the fatigue of day-after-day of play with no days off interspersed with double-headers, greenies become the breakfast of champions.

If the season is not shortened or if more attention is not given to transcontinental travel and scheduling, levels of performance will be affected, and, in some cases, players will find themselves unable to take the field on a given day. This raises the question of whether a performance enabling drug should be placed in the same category as a performance enhancing drug.

It will be interesting to see if the U.S. Congressional drug fighters now turn their attention to the National Football League to see if the shadow of Bill Romanowski is still stalking the football locker rooms. Or has the NFL so effectively lobbied the Congress and bought members off with Super Bowl privileges and well-placed franchises that the NFL is above all criticism?