Court ruling sends 2003 doping list back to union

Federal agents were wrong to seize Major League Baseball doping test results from an anonymous 2003 program, according to an appeals court ruling that should end leaks that have stained the sport.

New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz were among those who names were revealed as being on the list of 104 players who tested positive in the preliminary steroid test program.

The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 9-2 on Wednesday that investigators had no right to take drug test results in April of 2004 in their search for evidence in the BALCO steroid scandal.

The ruling is a victory for the Major League Baseball Players Union, which has fought for years to keep the results private after agents took both the samples and the linking documentation that put names to results.

"This was an obvious case of deliberate overreaching by the government in an effort to seize data as to which it lacked probable cause," chief judge Alex Kozinski said in the decision.

Results and samples were returned to the union after earlier rulings and can now be destroyed. Prosecutors cannot use any information gleaned from the 2003 tests in any charges.

Unreasonable search and seizure rules protections came too late to stop news reports from unnamed sources from linking Ortiz, Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez of the Los Angeles Dodgers and others to doping.

"Anyone who leaks information purporting to contain those 2003 test results is committing a crime," union leader Don Fehr said in a statement. "We are very gratified by this decision, and hope that this will finally bring this long litigation to a close."

Ten players whose names were on a search warrant can have their names noted by investigators as being on the test list. The names have not been revealed but all had BALCO ties.

An appeal of the ruling to the US Supreme Court is possible.0