Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have reached an agreement to stiffen penalties for testing positive for steroids which includes a suspension for first-time offenders.

Under the new proposal, players who test positive for performance enhancing substances will be suspended for 10 days. A fourth positive test will result in a suspension of one full year according to a source close to the negotiations who requested anonymity.

The new rules come as a shadow hangs over baseball due to the BALCO investigation in which sluggers Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield admitted to a federal grand jury that they had used steroids supplied to them by a San Francisco based 'trainer.' Bonds claimed not to know that the substance supplied to him contained steroids. Members of Congress had threatened to enact new laws if Major League Baseball did not impliment a tough new policy on steroids on its own.

Free agent first baseman Tony Clark, a leader of the Players Union, explained the rationale for the new agreement from the players' perspective. 'The integrity of our game was beginning to come under fire, and there are too many great players, past and present, that deserve to be celebrated for their ability to play this game at a very high level. If a stricter drug policy brings that level of appreciation back, we felt that it was worth pursuing.'

The steroid controversy will continue to be in the news as Barry Bonds gets set to pass Babe Ruth and challenge Hank Aaron as baseball's all-time home run king. Bonds has 703 career round trippers while Ruth has 714 and Aaron 755.

New York Mets pitcher Tom Glavine added, 'Everybody believed that the program we had in place was having an effect and definitely it was doing what it designed to do,' Glavine said, 'but having said that, with the stuff that was going on and whatnot, it forced us to take a look at revising it or making it a little tougher. It was not a question anymore if that agreement was going to be enough. It was a question to address some of the new issues that came to light and get our fans to believe we were doing everything we could to make the problem go away 100 percent.'

Baseball's new guidelines are tougher than anything the sport has ever had in the past although some say they still do not go far enough. For all of baseball's tough talk about steroids in 2004, no player was suspended for steroid use. It is more than likely that some players will continue to use new steroids or new masking agents designed to avoid detection in the near future. At least now, baseball appears to be doing something about it.