Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig yesterday
announced sanctions against 13 more players in the Biogenesis Lab scandal. Ryan Braun, the Milwaukee Brewers outfielder
and 2011 league MVP, was the first player to agree to a deal with the
commissioner’s office from the scandal; he accepted a 65-game suspension in
late July. Braun failed a test last year
but the results were overturned on a technicality. Throughout the ordeal he repeatedly denied
using banned substances.
The players’ names and accounts with the lab, which
manufactured and sold a variety of performance enhancing drugs banned by MLB,
were leaked by an employee. Later, the
lab’s founder, Anthony Bosch, cut a deal with MLB and provided information that
incriminated the lab’s customers.
For me, a passionate baseball fan, the scandal represents
all that is wrong with the game. The league’s
response, rather than being a triumph for those who want to clean up the game, is
a sorry embarrassment that further tarnishes the game. I understand the temptation by players to
dope—big contracts, lucrative endorsements, the rush of winning—but it’s simply
stealing. Stealing from other players
who are playing clean, stealing from the owners, stealing from the fans and
stealing from the legacy of past players whose records were earned honestly.
Twelve players received 50-game suspensions yesterday. What is noteworthy is that none has ever
failed a drug test.
The length of the suspensions means that Jhonny Peralta,
of the Detroit Tigers, and Nelson Cruz, of the Texas Rangers, will be available
if their teams, which are in the playoff hunt, advance to the postseason.
All but one of the 13 have agreed to not challenge the findings.
Alex Rodriguez, the 38-year-old New York Yankees third
baseman, received a 211-game suspension.
His penalty was so long because, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig noted, A-Rod
has already admitted taking human growth hormone and other performance
enhancing drugs, though before they were banned by Major League Baseball. A-Rod has been adamant in denying using PEDs
while they were prohibited in baseball.
Reports indicate Selig believed A-Rod obstructed MLB’s investigation and
was not truthful in his denials.
A-Rod is appealing the decision and will be allowed to
play until a hearing is held, sometime after the season. If the suspension, and its length, are
upheld, A-Rod would be banned from baseball into the 2015 season.
A-Rod’s situation is complicated by a number of
issues. His performance has declined, as
usually happens with players his age, and last season in the first-round playoff
series with Detroit, which the Yankees lost, he was benched for poor play.
The Yankees would seemingly love to get out from under
the record-setting $275 million contract they gave A-Rod before the 2008 season. He
still has $114 million remaining on his contract, which runs through 2017, and
he stands to collect $25 million a year for the next four years, until he is 42
years old, when most players are well past their peak. Thanks to that contract and others, such as
for first baseman Mark Teixiera, the team is well over the league salary cap
and paying a so-called luxury tax.
A-Rod has been on the disabled list all season after having
hip surgery in the offseason but was recalled yesterday and played his first
game of the season against the White Sox in Chicago. The Yankees are in third place in the American
League East division, 9.5 games out of first place, and would have to leapfrog
four teams to claim a Wild Card berth.
Buck Showalter, the Orioles manager, said in an interview
before the penalties were announced that if the Yankees are allowed to void their
contract with A-Rod, they would be free to once again spend freely for free
agents and likely would target the Orioles’ All-Star catcher Matt Wieters when
he becomes a free agent after the 2014 season.
(Showalter believed his comments were off the record.)
At the same time, The Yankees have gotten little
production from their third basemen this year and if A-Rod can still hit, he
could help them in their playoff drive.
Bud Selig wants his legacy to be the commissioner who
cleaned up baseball. That’s a delusion. Players who cheat and their personal trainers
have learned how to mask the indications of human growth hormone and other PEDs
in the random urine samples the players union reluctantly agreed to in the last
Collective Bargaining Agreement.
Clearly, the drug testing program instituted under Selig
isn’t working. Cheaters know how to beat
it.
The MLB Players Union has long objected to testing, in an
ill-advised attempt to protect its players.
The strategy has backfired. Today
all players—especially those having good seasons—are under a cloud of
suspicion. And why not? If cheaters can’t be caught through testing,
why shouldn’t they use PEDs?
The players themselves, who have backed the aggressive
stand of their union, are as much to blame as anyone. Some players now are recognizing the
short-sightedness of the union’s long-standing position. Two Baltimore Orioles players, Chris Davis
and Nick Markakis, have voiced frustration over the state of the game, from
different perspectives.
Davis, who has hit 40 home runs this year and driven in
more than 100 runs, has heard the speculation—more like the assumption—that he
is doping. He claims never to have
cheated but acknowledges that in today’s environment, with cheating so rampant,
his accomplishments appear to be tainted.
He’s presumed to be guilty.
Markakis, who has never put up flashy numbers but is a
career .287 hitter and gold-glove right fielder, gave an interview that was
published in today’s Baltimore Sun saying that the punishments meted out don’t
go far enough. He thinks players who
test positive should be banned for at least five years and that afterword
should not be allowed to sign contracts for more than one year. His reasoning is that players who cheated
benefited from long-term contracts and should not be able to profit from them
in the future. By the way, Markakis was
edged out of the last outfield position in All-Star voting this year by the
now-suspended Nelson Cruz.
The other issue for players such as A-Rod and other
cheats is their Hall of Fame eligibility.
Baseball is a statistics-driven sport.
Induction into the Hall and the record books is all about the number of home
runs hit, earned runs allowed, games played and all the rest. But there are no rules about who gets in;
sports writers vote for who they believe deserve it. So far, no known cheats, including Barry
Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmiero, Roger Clemens and others, have been voted
in. But there’s nothing to say that
A-Rod, with his 647 career home runs (fifth on the all-time list and only 13
shy of Willie Mays’ total), won’t get in when he is eligible to be on the
ballot.
MLB, the players and their union all have been too slow
to implement rigorous testing and severe punishments for cheaters. If baseball really wants to clean up the
game, a new Collective Bargaining Agreement needs to be ratified that:
· Mandates rigorous, frequent blood-sample testing
of players on a par with the International Olympic Committee’s program;
· Stipulates more severe penalties for first-time and
subsequent offenders;
· Strikes from the record books offenders’ records
for the entire season in which they were found out of compliance;
· Permanently bans offenders from Hall of Fame
consideration.
Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved.
Nice work, Dave. Maybe you'll be another Grantland Rice one day.
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