On the same day that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were tied to that infamous 2003 MLB drug test, Oakland A’s infielder Nomar Garciaparra said that several players declined to participate and asked that they be put down as testing positive.

He claims to know players who took this route because they wanted steroids testing—including several members of the White Sox. Garciaparra admits that he doesn’t know if players were forced to take the test or not.

Link - Video

I know that the Sox had 16 players make that request. The request was denied and all 16 were tested. As far as I know, that held true for all the protesters.

My understanding was that multiple members of the White Sox were going to refuse the test in hopes of causing the trigger percentage to hit, thus requiring testing.  A rep of the players union came down and talked them out of it.  That’s my recollection, but it could be wrong - haven’t found articles to that effect.

Scratch that - just found this article from the Trib, but not the whole article

==

Testing stand ignites battle; White Sox’ ploy pits baseball vs. union.
Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL) | March 13, 2003

Byline: Phil Rogers and Fred Mitchell

TUCSON, Ariz. _ The short-lived rebellion of players in the White Sox camp Tuesday sparked angry words between the union and representatives of the commissioner’s office.

According to sources, Major League Baseball’s labor official, Rob Manfred, confronted MLB Players Association associate general counsel Gene Orza after Orza apparently persuaded 16 White Sox players to take a required drug screen for steroids.

The players initially had refused to be tested because they wanted to be counted as positive results, ...