Close the Retirement Loophole

I just read a pretty compelling article on the Daily News website, an interview featuring that alleged hamstring specialist, Marty Miller, from last year's Yankees who was fired after the team's fourth hammy injury. At any rate, he certainly didn't even begin to refute what's been said about Pettitte and Clemens, but more notably, mentioned players who "just suddenly retire, and then come back", pointing out that these players are technically not MLB players while "retired", and therefore are not subject to testing. The most notable baseball player I can think of that really fits this mold is ol' Rocket (but don't forget Sammy Sosa, among others...), and that's obviously who he was referring to in this instance, but beyond that there has been a lot of talk in recent years of other aging players beginning to follow suit with Clemens, exploiting the extra months of rest and the elevated, rental-type paychecks. The point raised about the potential to bypass testing, however, is really a valid one, no matter what Miller's intent was. Any old player could just say "hey, I think I'll just 'retire', get all jacked up on juice until around June, and then sign up somewhere for a bunch of loot and play like a 20 year old for 4 months!" In my eyes, the seesaw retirement thing has got to go; some sort of league policy needs to be concocted, one that would still allow for sincere players to come out of retirement under a set of guidelines, i.e. testing prior to reinstatement.

Just a thought...