But even if that training toughened the players, it could not prepare them for what happened last month.
Walters rejects any argument that this was a professional approach aimed at toughening up players or was "old school", the accepted culture of the time.
He'll enter it with other players toughened by games in the Champions League, even if that experience came with Anderlecht and Nordsjaelland, not Arsenal and Milan.
International master B. Bednarski of Poland is an experienced player and theoretician, toughened by countless battles with the best players on both sides of the iron curtain.
Four months later, the commissioner's office and players union toughened their program in response to the recommendations.
Street said the players have toughened the testing program repeatedly, and without insisting owners wait for the collective bargaining agreement to expire.
Under the testing program, negotiated by the players union and Major League Baseball, which has been toughened twice in recent years, a player has leeway when he is being tested.
The MLB commissioner, Bud Selig, said in March he wants even stiffer drug penalties, and union head Michael Weiner said players will consider toughened rules for 2014.
The Jack Nicourse-designed course, which opened in 1986, has been lengthened and toughened since 1996, and most players who practiced today said the changes were for the better.
Meanwhile, the small number of positive tests in the major leagues comes even as Major League Baseball and the players union have toughened the testing program for the third time in four years.
He's seen here trying to "toughen up" his players – he's accusing them not of being gay, but being soft.
