Baseball is a summer game that grows important in autumn when the final run to the World Series begins. You see a joyful celebration like the White Sox had Thursday and for a moment you can almost forget this is a business.
But it is, and this year it has been a particularly tough business, beset by the cheating scandal involving the illegal use of steroids. Those who run Major League Baseball seem to have recognized that and responded. Those who represent the players–their union–have not.
It’s time for the players to play ball with Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s three-strikes-and-you’re-out policy on steroids.
In March, baseball was under siege, after the release of a tell-all book by former star Jose Canseco and a nationally televised congressional hearing into steroid abuse that left the game’s reputation in tatters. Mark McGwire, whose home-run chase with Sammy Sosa captivated the country in 1998, lamely told the politicians, “I’m not going to discuss the past.” His shrunken physique symbolized baseball’s woes.
In April, Selig introduced his plan to increase penalties for those found to have used steroids: a 50-game suspension for the first violation, 100 games for the second and a lifetime ban for the third.
This week, the players responded with a much weaker proposal: 20 games for a first violation, 75 games for a second and a lifetime ban for a third, but subject to an arbitrator’s review.
That’s too weak, and everyone seems to recognize that except the players union.
The two sides appeared Wednesday before Congress, which is poised to step in if baseball doesn’t solve its steroid mess. Union chief Donald Fehr received a bipartisan deluge of high, hard fastballs.
“Don’t you get it?” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked Fehr. “This is an issue greater than collective bargaining. It’s about young Americans tempted to take these drugs into their system. You should have acted months ago.”
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) told Fehr that his proposal amounted to a policy of “three strikes and you might be safe.”
Baseball great Hank Aaron, the all-time home-run king, backed Selig’s tough stance.
On this issue, Fehr works against the interests–and health–of his rank-and-file union members, the ballplayers.
Steroids turned baseball into a freak show in the late 1990s. Sanity started to return to the game with tougher testing, which this season nabbed several players including a potential Hall of Famer, Rafael Palmeiro of the Baltimore Orioles. But Palmeiro was subjected to a modest 10-game suspension for a first offense. When he returned, fans virtually booed him off the field.
Fehr says he can get a deal done with the owners on a new policy by the end of the World Series. But he’s stalling. Three strikes and you’re out. That’s the rule for playing the game. It must be the rule for abusing the game too.
