Afternoon Baseball

Both commissioners liked to live in their own reality, where the facts didn't matter in suspending players (the found-not-guilty Black Sox, barnstorming players who merely brought the game to rural America) and consolidating power was all that did (protecting Charles Comiskey's complicity in 1919's World Series throw, working till his dying day to keep blacks out, a follow-up to destroying the career of Jack Johnson).

Selig, while not on the same level as Landis, is close to fulfilling the first trait with his quid pro quo threat to Jason Giambi, which is essentially, to quote Dwight from "The Office" -- "If you tell me, you’ll be punished less."
Selig, of course, has already obtained the second by destroying the previous umpires union (although that was much of their own doing), by eliminating league offices and by spending a good decade ignoring anything that didn't have to do with increasing home runs and overall offense. Such as substance abuse.
Now, as the curtains threaten to be lifted, he's doing his best to whitewash history in favor of his executive branch.

You can be assured the union will fight any suspension, especially if it's handed out outside of the fiercely negotiated, well-documented steroid rules and punishments already in place. But it should not even get to that point.

Is Giambi a saint? Did he deserve a suspension? Would I have loved to see his contract voided a couple of years ago? No, yes, and yes.
But this is not the way to go about it. Punish him, if you must, whether Giambi talks or not, or get a governing body with real legal authority to subpoena his answers. Don't add false power to George Mitchell's toothless questionnaire by placing players in a Catch-22 situation.

Worse yet, it's going to tell the players and their union that good-faith negotiations aren't worth it, and hiding drug use and who's doing it IS in their best interests -- and that finding scapegoats is in the interest of Major League Baseball.

Labels: Baseball