Baseball Players’ Union Denies That Drug-Testing Agreement Is Near

Don Fehr of the Major League Baseball Players Assn. and Lee MacPhail of the owners’ Players Relations Committee have denied an NBC-TV report by Larry King that a drug-testing agreement between the union and the owners was imminent.

King, reporting on NBC’s pregame show “NFL 85” Sunday, said: “We have learned exclusively that major league baseball will soon sign an historic agreement with the Players Assn. regarding testing for drugs. We checked it out with two sources and it is a firm story.”

Fehr said the first meeting with owners’ representatives on their proposal was held Friday.

“There have been discussions to try and formulate how we would examine the various questions involved,” Fehr said. “That is all that has happened. To suggest that there has been an agreement is absolutely untrue. It strikes me as more of the kind of public pressure tactic that we’ve seen lately, and has very little to do with substance.”

MacPhail said, “We have a ways to go before an agreement is reached.”