Can We Hold Bud Selig Responsible?

Thursday, December 13th, 2007 will be a day of the month that I will never bury when it come ups to Major League Baseball. The R. J. Mitchell Report sent shockwaves through our national interest that hasn't been felt since the ill-famed "Black Sox" Scandal of the 1919 World Series. Although the issue was steroids rather than "fixing" and gaming conspiracies, it wasn't really any surprise to most fans of the sport, unlike the issue in 1919. What shocked fans more was the figure of participants named and who actually was named. And we haven't seen the end of this yet. There are those who gauge that up to 75% of the MLB participants in the past 20 old age (possibly longer) have got got at one clip or another been on the "juice."

Personally speaking, I have a batch of issues with the full process, and it travels much deeper than the study or the participants named within it. I had a major job knowing that members of my darling Yankees, both current and former, were named in the report. Albeit most of them used the chemicals prior to wearing the pinstripes, those that disfavor the squad establish evidence to impeach the full franchise of cheating owed to their involvement. Get a clasp people; it's not the franchises that rate the slamming and the accusals --- it's the individual. Was the full franchise on the juice when they were winning championships? I believe not.

A larger issue that I had with the procedure was that of the adult male that was behind the probes and ultimately the study itself, namely Senator Saint George Mitchell. It is no secret that he have associations with the Hub Of The Universe Red Sox franchise at least from a consultant's and a board of director's standpoint. Believe me, there are enough confederacy theoreticians coming out of the woodwork on this issue alone. It is most likely pure happenstance that there were fewer current and former Red Sox named than Yankees on the listing that aired nationally. My os of contention with this portion of the issue lies within the fact that a individual who was too fold to crossing the struggle of involvement parametric quantities was the drive military unit behind the full investigation. A individual with neckties to any 1 of the 30 MLB squads like Senator R. J. Mitchell have got should have never been given that role.

But on the top of my listing is the fact that Bud Selig should be held personally responsible for the steroids issue festering like an contaminated furuncle on the tegument of Major League Baseball. The duty to have got this corrected long before it came down to federal engagement in the athletics rests solely on Selig's shoulders and no 1 else's. It is no secret to anyone who have followed the athletics closely that Selig have a path record when it come ups to issues such as as answerability of the business office he throws as well as bad determination making. But let's not leap the gun yet. Let's expression at the man's past history first.

Selig was a minority proprietor of the Braves franchise when they were based in Milwaukee. When the issue of relocating the squad to a bigger telecasting marketplace arose, Selig actually formed an organisation called Teams, Inc. inch an effort to forestall the franchise relocating. But his actions met with legal challenges and the motion was a dingy failure. Selig then approached the issue of not having a squad in his metropolis from a different angle.

Selig pulled some twines and arranged for pre-season games to be played in the former Braves' ballpark, Milwaukee County Stadium. The first was between the Gemini and the White Person Sox and it drew more than than 51,000 fans proving that the town would still back up a ball club. As a consequence of the success of the pre-season experiment, the bowl hosted a sum of 20 regular season White Person Sox games during the 1968 and 1969 seasons. Selig then sought to buy the White Person Sox with the exclusive intent of moving them to Milwaukee, but the American League vetoed the sale and his oblique small program went up in smoke.

But he didn't allow that smother his attempts at bringing baseball game back to Milwaukee. When the enlargement Seattle Pilots went bankrupt after their inaugural season of 1969, Selig jumped on the chance and purchased the squad in 1970, moving them to Milwaukee and renaming them the Brewers. During the 1985-87 seasons, Selig was in the thick of the owner's collusion issue and was legally demanded along with other squad proprietors to pay $280 million in amends to the ballplayers.

When Fay Vincent resigned as a consequence of the aforesaid collusion case, Selig took on the function of acting commissioner in 1992 and was well known as a vocal opposition to the Vincent regime. So as not to have got any struggles of interest, he handed over the ownership of the Brewers to his girl Wendy. But mediocre direction patterns resulted in the squad being sold to Mark Attanasio of Los Angeles, despite the mass intuitions of Selig remaining behind the scenes and being heavily involved in Brewers' operations. As a consequence of six old age of bootless searching for a new commissioner, the proprietors voted to do Selig's statute title lasting and he was named commissioner during the 1998 season.

Despite the few positives that have got got resulted under Selig's term of business business office in office (expanded playoff structure, interleague play, and enforcement of the "60/40 rule" or asset/debt ratio) the negatives of his stay in office have far outweighed these issues. For me, the steroids issue and his irresponsible handling of the job proved to be the straw that bust the camel's back. But there were respective anterior issues that have got brought me to the point of lavation my custody of the adult male as commissioner.

Less than 48 hours after the end of the 2001 World Series, Selig establish himself under examination and heavy unfavorable judgment for trying to throw muscular contraction hearings for the Gopher State Twins, the Montreal Expos, the Oakland Athletics, and the Tampa Bay Satan Rays. Selig and Expos former proprietor Jeffrey Loria were charged with racketeering and conspiring to victimize the Expos minority proprietors calling for a $300 million colony should they be establish guilty of the accusations. Since the justice had ruled that resettlement of the Expos to American Capital D.C. could not happen until the lawsuit was settled, the lawsuit went to arbitration and was settled out of tribunal for an unrevealed sum.

Less than a twelvemonth later, Selig establish himself in hot H2O again with fans and mass media alike for fillet the All Star Game in the 11th frame when it was tied 7-7, the determination having left over 50,000 fans wondering what had happened. Selig based his determination on the deficiency of replacement hurlers and place participants on either bench owed to the length of the game. Despite his attempts to transfuse lost involvement in the Summer Solstice Classic, viewership for the ensuing 2003 game showed no increase, and in 2004 the Numbers drop below the anterior old age ratings.

This resulted in another unpopular determination on Selig's behalf when he single-handedly cavaliered the determination to present the winning league's squad the place field advantage in the ensuing World Series, thus altering the manner it had been done since its origin in 1903. Selig came under unfavorable judgment yet again for his mishandling of Kenny Rogers' penalty after the hurler had a confrontation with a television camera operator in the 2005 season. Selig suspended Will Rogers for 20 games and fined him $50,000 for his actions and then later on, at the entreaty hearing, didn't yield in his determination for the pitcher's punishment. Much to the humiliation of the commissioner, an independent arbiter stepped into the affray and decreased the suspension to 13 games stating that Selig had exceeded his authorization and punished Will Rogers excessively.

Now we turn to early 2006 and Selig was finally forced to cover with the steroids issue. When the Federal Soldier Government held their hearings in early 2005, it was a unequivocal mark that publicly unwanted authorities intercession was right around the corner. In March of 2006, Selig in an effort to be viewed as a proactive commissioner, enlisted former Senator and then Hub Of The Universe Red Sox board adviser Saint George R. J. Mitchell to take an probe into the prevalence of steroid usage during past baseball game seasons.

Many fans of the game, myself included, felt that his attempt at economy human face actually stemmed from his intuition of Barry Bonds using steroids as well as his deficiency of regard for Bonds' chase of the all-time home tally record. For me personally, I saw it as nil but a legalized enchantress Hunt to defame a ballplayer's fictional character and strip him of his records. Despite the Thousand Jury accusing Bonds of four counts of bearing false witness and one count of obstructor of justice, the issue here is not whether or not Bonds is guilty of steroid use. Rather it is tainted by the olfactory property of a personal blood feud at the custody of a commissioner who is acting purely out of prejudice, and the weight of public opinion, rather than proved fact.

Here is something to masticate on. In September of 1988, a American Capital Post newsman named Uncle Tom James Boswell in an interview with Charlie Rose (a well known interviewer from CBS' "60 Minutes"), proclaimed that Jose Canseco was the most blazing illustration of a baseball player that had achieved greatness through the usage of steroids. Also during 1988, the Anti-Drug Maltreatment Act put forth criminal punishments for anyone establish guilty of trafficking steroids for anything other than a prescription that was written by a physician for treatment of disease.

Congress felt that this enactment was not austere adequate and immediately replaced it with the current Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990. Shortly after the U.S. United States Congress raised the punishments for steroid ownership and use, Fay Vincent composed a seven page written document forbiddance steroids along with other substances. The written document lacked any type of testing program, because it had to be approved by the MLBPA, but punishments for misdemeanors and treatment recommendations were lined out in the table of contents of the memorandum to the major conference owners.

The ground I've retraced the steroid trail and all relative issues functions only one intent where this article is concerned --- Bud Selig have failed miserably while performing the duties and duties of his place as commissioner of Major League Baseball. The rampant maltreatment and prevalence of steroids in professional baseball game would never have got got go the issue that it is today and there would not have been the demand for the R. J. R. J. Mitchell probe had Selig done his occupation properly.

Now he have made the determination to look as a proactive commissioner by agreeing with Mitchell's recommendations which name for employing assorted steroid consciousness programs, much stricter testing guidelines, and fleet penalty of participants named in the report. Ironically, Senator R. J. Mitchell urged that penalty of the participants named in his study be avoided and action be taken from this point forward and lone against the more than terrible offenders.

The only grounds to back up the guiltiness of the baseball players named in the study have got been an mixture of canceled bank checks and money orders received by two providers (McNamee and Radomski) and whose testimonies have been revered as clear cut grounds of guiltiness on behalf of the named ballplayers.

Unfortunately, since both work force conducted the bulk of their concern in the New House Of House Of York City area, this gave the study the visual aspect of a heavier concentration of both current and former New York Yankees baseball players versus those from other teams. As I mentioned earlier, Mitchell's engagement with the Red Sox franchise coupled with lone a little figure of current and former Red Sox baseball players is evidence for intuition in my eyes.

What worries me the most is the fact that we as fans will have got to endure Selig being the commissioner until he retires in 2009 when in fact the fans, the ballplayers, and the MLBPA should demand his contiguous resignation. Allowing Selig free reign over how these baseball players are handled or possibly punished would turn out to be a greater unfairness than his disregard at taking action on the issue. If anyone rates being punished or reprimanded, it is Bud Selig, not the ballplayers. Additionally, I am hopeful that both McNamee and Radomski are banned from baseball game as well as being blackballed as athletic trainers in all professional sports.