"You have rough patches," the executive said, "but you get through them."

This is a rough patch, maybe the roughest since the 2002 labor negotiations, which ended in a new collective-bargaining agreement only hours before the players' August deadline for a strike.

The current CBA does not expire until after the 2011 season, giving the players and owners nearly three years to resolve their differences. The last thing commissioner Bud Selig wants is the first work stoppage since the players' strike in 1994-95.

Still, there is mounting distrust between the two sides over baseball's free-agent market and drug-testing program, issues that were sources of contention in past labor disputes.

Donald Fehr, head of the players' union, recently told FOXSports.com that he had "heightened concern" about the state of the free-agent market, citing the large number of free agents who remain unemployed.

Rob Manfred, MLB's executive vice-president of labor relations, expressed "grave concern" about allegations in a SI.com report that Gene Orza, the union's chief operating officer, had tipped Alex Rodriguez about an upcoming steroid test in Sept. 2004.

Let's start there.

The Mitchell Report in 2007 accused Orza of giving similar notice about a test to an unnamed player, later identified as David Segui in Kirk Radomski's book, "Bases Loaded."

A lengthier story on Rodriguez in this week's Sports Illustrated contains a more specific claim, saying that "one major-league player ... told SI that he was forewarned by Orza in '04 that he would be tested on Sept. 24, 'so make sure there's nothing in your system.'"

Both Orza and the union have strongly denied the allegations, which, if true, would represent a "serious breach" of the union's agreement with MLB, according to Manfred.

Such a breach would compromise the integrity of baseball's steroid-testing program, which Selig often trumpets as the toughest in professional sports. Giving players advance notice of tests might help them avoid positive results.

Union officials, however, say that tipping players is actually not possible; neither the union nor MLB is specifically told the dates and times of the tests.

"So far as I know, we don't have a dispute with MLB over what happened in 2004," Fehr told FOXSports.com on Tuesday. "I have no reason to believe it's an issue with them. We certainly have heard from them about it."

Except in Manfred's statement, that is.

Baseball officials ¹ and players themselves — also could be upset with the union for its failure to destroy the results of the survey testing in 2003, as was as its right.

The "first steps" toward destroying the results were taken, Fehr said in a recent statement, but the records were subpoenaed by a federal grand jury before the process could be completed.

The test results were finalized on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2003. The government took action six days later, on Wed., Nov. 19.

If the records had been destroyed, the news of Rodriguez's positive test likely would have remained confidential.

Barry Bonds' urine samples, which originally came up negative, would not have been available to federal authorities, who re-tested them and received a positive result.

Three different judges have ruled in favor of the union, saying that the government seizures were unconstitutional, ordering the records of all but the 10 players in the BALCO investigation returned. But the case remains under appeal, Rodriguez is forever stained and baseball is again embarrassed.

The sluggish free-agent market appears easier to explain — it's the economy, right? Some player agents, however, say that the owners are working in concert to avoid competitive bidding for free agents — and that the union's outside counsel has begun researching "possible collusion."

New York Yankees News News » Players' union and MLB having trust issues
Players' union and MLB having trust issues
The relationship between Major League Baseball and the players' union, one MLB executive said Tuesday, is "like a marriage." A-Rod steroid shake-up