Now that we have seen the relentless attack pieces on Barry Bonds, the insinuating questions and overall disgracing of Roger Clemens, investigative dirt-digging and complete discrediting of Mark McGwire, and, of course, the latest, A-Rod’s admission of guilt and apology, I’m just wondering…..
When is somebody gonna take Seligula to task? When does somebody do a full court press article –in the mainstream media, not some blog– detailing all of the ways our commissioner did nothing while Rome burned?
…. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said Monday he has never encouraged the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, and added he is perturbed by people who say he hasn’t done enough to get steroids, human growth hormone and other drugs out of the sport.
“I don’t want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn’t care about it,” Selig told Newsday’s Wallace Matthews in a telephone interview. “That annoys the you-know-what out of me.”
Yeah, well, you know what annoys the hell out of me? I mean, besides a grown man who seems to be afraid to say hell? A grown man who was the number one guy in charge of his sport sitting here and trying to explain how, while the inmates apparently were running the asylum, and everything went to hell, and all of his heroes were pushed aside by cheaters; he was, in fact, working diligently to do something about it, but everyone else just wouldn’t let him.
Baseball players have been using PED’s for forty years, and everyone knew it.
BASEBALL PLAYERS HAVE BEEN USING PED’S FOR FORTY YEARS AND EVERYONE KNEW IT.
Selig has been involved in the game for that entire time.
We keep hearing how every time A-Rod talks he makes it worse, how every time Clemens opens his mouth he makes it worse. What about Selig? Why should he get a pass? He didn’t do steroids, obviously, but he and the rest of the owners sure liked all of those crowds who showed up while Bonds and McGwire and Clemens were doing their thing. Just like the editors at Sports Illustrated and ESPN and the NY Daily News and the Chicago Tribune loved loved loved all of those papers pouring out of the newsstands when these guys were breaking records and generally creating ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS PILES OF CASH FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THE SPORT!!!!
When will a team, a GM, or somebody, anybody other than a player get shredded by these so-called watchdogs of morality?
When will Lupica go after Selig the way he’s gone after Bonds, or A-Rod?
…. the next time you feel added pressure to produce on your job, feel like you’re lacking the proper energy, don’t think about vitamins.
Don’t think about a nutritionist or a personal trainer or a new diet or exercise regime.
Don’t even reach for a can of Red Bull.
Call a cousin.
Call a cousin and tell him to find you something that will give you the jolt you think you need.
If he asks what kind of jolt you’re talking about just say, “Whatever you think is best, you’re my cousin, who’d know better than you?”
And once your cousin tells you he’s found exactly the wonder drug you need, practically like baseball Viagra, here’s something important:
Do NOT ask exactly what it is or press him too hard on how he got it.
Just have him start injecting you, whether he knows which end of a syringe to use or not, even if he’s only gotten his medical training watching Dr. House on television.
Now here is an even more important part of this whole process:
Even if you can’t tell whether or not this drug – a drug that may or may not be a steroid and may or may not be illegal – is helping you, continue to use it.
Religiously.
And not just for a few months.
For years.
Have your cousin inject you a couple of times a month, 30 or 40 times and maybe more than that over what you say is a three-year period, even as you continue to wonder whether it’s actually doing any good for you or not.
Then, and only then, have your come-to-Jesus moment about performance-enhancing drugs.
After a neck injury, and after years of taking a drug that may or may not be illegal and may or may not be a steroid and may or may not even be helping you, stop cold turkey.
Here’s how that might sound if he were writing about Bud Selig:
…. the next time you feel added pressure to produce on your job, feel like you’re lacking the proper energy, or just plain presiding over the worst labor stoppage in the history of your sport, and are hearing sportswriters talk about how baseball, America’s Pastime, isn’t exactly America’s pastime anymore, and are wondering where the miracle is gonna come from that’s gonna save your ass, don’t think about vitamins.
Don’t think about a nutritionist or a personal trainer or a new diet or exercise regime.
Don’t even reach for a can of Red Bull.
Just sit around and wait for the stars of your sport fill the stands while being involved something that you may think is wrong. Do nothing while the team that you own pockets millions and millions of dollars in revenue sharing monies, a revenue sharing program that just happened to be one of the very first things you implemented when you became commissioner, by the way. But, most of all, just do nothing.
Call a news conference celebrating the breaking of a 30-year old record by one of the game’s new stars, even though you now say you were wondering, nay, worrying that he may be using PED’s that might be a danger to his health.
If anyone asks what kind of jolt he’s taking just say, “We already have a policy to deal with this, so why dig any deeper?”
And once someone tells you exactly what the wonder drug is that he’s taking, practically like baseball Viagra, here’s something important:
Do NOT ask exactly what it is or press too hard to find out how he got it. Just ask him to stop, and when he tells you OK, go back to doing nothing.
Now here is an even more important part of this whole process:
Even if you can’t tell whether or not this drug – a drug that may or may not be a steroid and may or may not be illegal – is helping him, just talk a lot, act confused, say you can’t be expected to know everything, and make sure you leave it all up to everyone else.
Religiously.
And not just for a few months.
For years.
Sit by idly, while player after player is implicated, rumored or just plain slandered to have somehow cheated, stretched the rules, or was simply led astray over what you say is a 10-year period, even as you continue to wonder whether it’s actually doing any good or not.
Only after a player that everyone can agree is the most disagreeable superstar since Ted WIlliams, a player who is –coincidentally– also widely acknowledged to be the best player of his generation is implicated in what any reasonable person could see was a blatant witch-hunt, and after years of doing nothing, come out with words, strong words condemning all of these horrible cheaters who helped bring the game you say you love back from the brink of bankruptcy, the same game that you tried to contract, that you masterminded a collusion that hurt players and teams and damaged beyond repair any possible collaboration between the players and management, and then, after superstars, Cy Young Award winners, MVP’s and even World Series Champions have been smeared and implicated and after a five year run of almost endless scandals and controversies, after all that…..
Then, and only then, have your come-to-Jesus moment about performance-enhancing drugs.
And in that moment, being the leader that you are, get some flack of a government representative to ask people a bunch of questions, and then put together a report that does two things; implicate even more of the game’s top players –based on the testimony of people who are talking to reduce their possible sentences or their own criminal acts, by the way– and of course, as a leader of men, make sure that everyone knows it’s not your fault.
Here’s what Selig, who is afraid to say bad words, should be saying right now:
EVERYONE IN BASEBALL –INCLUDING ME– NEEDS TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR A CULTURE THAT ACCEPTED THE WIDESPREAD USE OF PED’S FOR DECADES, A TIME IN WHICH WE ALL LOOKED THE OTHER WAY.
OR NOBODY DOES.
Investigate A-Rod? Change his records? Suspend him? Only a commissioner with real integrity, one that is actually in command, could consider suspending the best player in the American League. Selig? He’s a used car salesman. Baseball is in flames right now. This is his problem, and by extension, the owners problem. When they fired Fay Vincent, who said bad words and told the truth –all of his other faults notwithstanding– the owners made sure they got somebody who would do what he was told, and would do anything and everything to win. And for the owners, winning meant making money.
How could baseball players not the exact same thing, how could they not do anything to win, when the top levels of the management of their sport were not only turning a blind eye to their efforts legitimate and otherwise; but more importantly, were doing the exact same thing. Selig’s leadership of baseball was directed not unlike any corporate leader’s; pay attention to the bottom line and little else. And now, not unlike our government –who’s lack of real leadership for the last eight years I could go on about for a year– he is presiding over a train wreck.
The owners got this mess when they appointed someone as far from a real commissioner as they could, a flunky who would do everything he could to make them rich, make himself rich, and bring NO REAL INTEGRITY OR CHARACTER TO THE POSITION WHATSOEVER.
Real leaders take responsibility for the results. These results, the scandals, the controversies, investigations, trials, hearings, all of it, are his. He cannot save his legacy. And make no bones about it, his latest, “woe is me,” quotes are directed at one thing and one thing only; his getting into the Hall of Fame. And here’s the simple truth. He gets in when McGwire, Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, A-Rod, Palmeiro, the whole lot of them get in first.
If you’re gonna keep the best players of a generation out of the Hall of Fame because you think they shit on your beloved, sacred game, then the guy who ran the show while the game got shit on has to buy a ticket, too.
UPDATE: Not that Goodell is some paragon of virtue himself, but he’s about a hundred times the leader Selig is:
…. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has taken a 20 percent pay cut and the league staff has been trimmed by 15 percent because of a reeling economy. The league said Wednesday it has dropped 169 jobs as a result of buyouts, layoffs and other staff reductions. Goodell voluntarily took a cut from the $11 million salary and bonuses he was to receive this past year. He and other league executives are freezing their salaries for 2009.
Symbolic, maybe, but at east he’s demonstrating some semblance of compassion and empathy for the difficulties most of the NFL’s fan base must be going through. something Selig obviously gave no thought to when he allowed information about his record-breaking salary to be released.
19 Backtalkers
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Dead Nuts Right On! This is exactly what a real press would be saying if we had one.
As you pointed out, Selig’s goal is one thing: to maximize the owners revenues/profits. In pursuit of this goal, I think Selig SHOULD have taken full responsibility for the entire era himself about 4-5 years ago. If, instead of passing blame to the players (he obviously would never pass blame to the owners), he took it fully on himself, he may have helped baseball ultimately move beyond the steroids issue years ago, helping to accomplish his ultimate goal – make as much money for the owners as possible. Though it’s hard to argue with baseball’s success over this time…
That said, Selig is still a spineless piece of shit. Your used car salesman analogy fits the asshole perfectly. That actual evidence exists to show he’s known about PED’s the whole time (as you’ve pointed out recently), yet this evidence is ignored by the MSM, is ridiculous. I just don’t know how he gets a pass to spew the bullshit that he does while MSM tries to take down the players we, as fans, actually enjoy rooting for.
It’s not an analogy. He is a car salesman.
Oh….wow. I didn’t know that. And now I don’t even know what to say.
Here’s a link to an interesting piece:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/follow-thebuddy/
Doesn’t anybody here understand that Selig’s hands are tied by the Players Association? Don Fehr has fought tooth and nail against sanctions for drug use, ignoring the long-term harm it does to the people he is supposed to be representing. Fehr should check out former heavyweight boxer Bob Hazelton, who lost his legs to steroid use.
First off, nobody is trying to absolve Fehr of anything, he obviously had a part in it, too. He isn’t spewing the bullshit that Selig is, though. ““I don’t want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn’t care about it,” Selig told Newsday’s Wallace Matthews in a telephone interview. “That annoys the you-know-what out of me.” Really, Bud? Courtesy of +mia’s backtalk from a previous post, though, we have this information from former Red’s and Marlins trainer Larry Starr: ““I have notes from the Winter Meetings where the owners group and the players’ association sat in meetings with the team physicians and team trainers. I was there. And team physicians stood up and said, ‘Look, we need to do something about this. We’ve got a problem here if we don’t do something about it.’ That was in 1988.””
So while Bud Selig blatantly lies about his knowledge of steroids, while contemplating putting asterisks in the record book while whining about how it isn’t his fault, we know the truth. The truth is, yes, Fehr was against drug testing, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a possibility. The owners would have had to make concessions to put it into place – concessions they do not want to make to the players, and instead the owners (and Selig) benefited from the increased revenues, public funding for stadiums without saying a word about the steroids issue. Until now, when the only thing you hear out of Selig is why it isn’t his fault.
Jerry:
Please. When you echo a msm talking point. It is not going to be well received here by many.
John has written extensively on this. Check the archives to the right. Also, not to belabor the point, but your citation of Mr. Hazelton’s malady fosters the argument that steroids are just part of the much larger overall remedy and that is to classify all of these things under the heading of sports medicine and health issues. Not jocks pissing in cups while some stooge from the commissioner’s office ensures that it is really the jock’s dick being drained, and that he is not being handed a fake speciman.
If thats not a problem for you, please provide your address so we can arrange for an apprentice piss tester to come by your house on a random basis to hone his talents.
Selig’s hands are tied? Give me a break. Our commissioner –with the virtually unanimous support of the owners– were perfectly willing to SHUT THE FUCKNG GAME DOWN FOR MONEY!!! Why would anyone believe that they can’t do anything they want, regardless of the MLBPA? Because the idiots who write about this stuff act like experts, and they’re not.
They sit there and try and pin everything on Fehr and Orza, and act like somehow or another, poor poor Selig is getting the raw deal.
But he can ban Pete Rose, he can collude, he can force a labor stoppage, but he can’t do anything to “protect the integrity of the game?” He’s a liar. He’s no more of a liar than A-Rod is, or Clemens, or Bonds, but he’s still a liar.
Alan Hubert Selig is a weasel. He has no self-respect. Otherwise how to explain hands shoved in pockets, in the grandstand, pretending to be disninterested as Bonds circles the bases after tying Aaron’s homerun record off a Cla Hensley pitch in San Diego, while everyone around him is jumping up and down cheering and clapping.
I think nothing portrays that pathetic man more than that scene. It shows him for the utter faker, phony and used car salesman that he really is. Since he weaseled the Seattle Pilots out of Washington state and slimed his way into control of the buyers group after a banruptcy court awarded him and his cronies the franchise. For a little under $11 million. Not a bad days work for a guy who pulls down $18 million in annual salary.
Just so we get one thing straight. Selig, nor any other commissioner represts the best interests of baseball. Selig represents “owners”. Selig does not represent the interests of the players or the fans for that matter. He represents the interests of the owners. Period. It is the owners who pay his $18 million salary. Not the fans. Not the players. Only the owners can get rid of him. Not us. Not the players. Not the fans. Not government.
He has essentially tried to pattern his career after Pete Rozelle (without the personal charm) …by selling the game out to television and mainstream media. Where both games at the highest levels are now run in the best interests of television. Period.
And that probably tells you more about the state of MLB than you probably wanted to know.
Selig’s hands are not “tied” by the players. There is a NEGOTIATION process in the MLB, as in any union shop. Selig and the owners have considerable resources and political clout. If PEDs were indeed an issue and indeed a problem, they would have swung their considerable hammers and put pressure on the PA to move faster on changes to the contract. But NO ONE wanted to deal with PEDs. Baseball was making far, far too much money off McGwire and Palmeiro and Petite and Tejada and Bonds and Clemens and A-Rod and the rest. It only became an issue when Aaron’s “sacred” record fell–a personal problem with “Seligula,” not a issue in any substantive sense. Then Congress stuck their dirty hands into the mess, and the owners had to act (their first act, of course, being to blame Fehr and the PA). I’m not defending Fehr. He failed in his job, which is to protect the players’ interests. And, to the extent that PEDs are a “problem,” Fehr is part of that problem. But don’t let Selig off the hook. He’s a clown. He rode the PED pony to the tune of millions for his fellow owners, and now wants to discredit the players who created those millions in order to protect his reputation.
This seems as good a time as any to bring up a point that I’ve been chewing on for quite a while. Mia’s mention of Selig’s hands-in-pockets moment – one of the most disgusting I’ve witness – seals it.
As far as I know, the only person who’s been covering the MLBPA’s filing of a collusion suit re Bonds not getting an MLB gig last year is John Brattain
(http://baseballdigestdaily.com/blogs/category/john-brattain/) (who doesn’t even like Barry, by the way). This is due to come up shortly after the Bonds perjury trial, I believe. I’d like nothing better than to see Bands walk away from the perjury case vindicated, and then win the collusion suit. THAT would finally put Selig in the spotlight in a way he deserves.
As for the collusion case (with steroid implications), the one thing no one’s mentioned is that the Giants are the one team that’s built a privately funded baseball stadium in the last 50 years (Dodger Stadium was the last before that, in 1962). I’m convinced that Selig and the other owners saw that as a breach of the code. The entire modus operandi of big-league sports is to force taxpayers to finance their development schemes, and for the Magowan group to break from that threatened to expose their scam and make it harder to pull off in the future. That jeopardized a whole lot of potential profits – as John and other here have repeated, the only thing that Selig and the owners really care about.
My read on the situation – and this is pure speculation, I leave it to others to dig for evidence if so moved – is that Selig was leaning on Magowan, but despite what he wanted, couldn’t force him to dump Bonds before he got a shot at the HR record (profits, remember?). That would account for at least part of the glowering hands-in-pockets moment. At the end of the season, though, the Giants finally had to succumb to the pressure and leave Bonds off the roster. Not much later, Magowan announced his retirement, to “spend more time with his family.” I suspect that both of those moves were part of a deal that would let Giants management off the hook for “allowing PEDs in the clubhouse.” The next step for the Budster, of course, would be to subtly (or not) get the message to the rest of the owners that signing Bonds would put them in jeopardy of getting pressure from the commish and/or the government if the steroids issue ever was aimed in their direction, as well as serving as a warning to anyone who might consider privately financing a new stadium.
If this was in fact the case, it looks to me like Magowan managed to handle the situation fairly gracefully, but I don’t think he had much choice. For me, this scenario makes a lot of loose ends and scattered pieces come together and fall into place and make sense. That includes Brattain’s main point about collusion – never in the history of the sport has any player been so evil that NO ONE would hire him. Under any other circumstances, even with the ongoing character assassination and accusations of criminality, at least one owner would think Barry was worth the risk. See what you think.
I realize it is simply speculation, but damn Hal…. it certainly explains a lot of the apparent contradictory and evasive stances that Magowan took over the prior few years.
A lot of folks cite the Zito signing as the cause of his moving out. That never made sense. Can anybody picture any owner/partner falling on their sword over a player acquisition and not take the GM with him? Your scenario and sequence of possible events seems to be the most reasonable explanation by far, given Selig’s penchant for palace intrigue and backstabbing.
John, cosign that Selig resignation John and please do keep pounding away… I believe this steroid thing is starting to reach a critical tipping point and blogs are playing an important role…
Hal, I didn’t know that the Giants were the only privately funded stadium in the last 50 years. very interesting wrinkle… something that i have to marinate on.
John, cosign that Selig resignation and please do keep pounding away… I believe this steroid thing is starting to reach a critical tipping point and blogs are playing an important role…
Hal, I didn’t know that the Giants were the only privately funded stadium in the last 50 years. very interesting wrinkle… something that i have to marinate on.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/broward/breaking-news/story/920178.html
Don’t little kids want to grow up to be police officers? Where is the outrage?! This stuff gets more and more comical.
the fans booed arod today
wtf is wrong with these people?
Incredibly Shrinking Ball Player
shirley clyde to geovec
Now you want to report the strange transformations of baseball players from season to season?
Where have you been for the past 15 years?
Shame on you.
George Vecsey to me
show details 2:30 PM (21 hours ago)
Reply
oh for goodness sakes…
please go back and read the progression…
oddly enough, they don’;t come up to us and confess.
Lenny Dykstra, mid ’90’s: “Lifted weighth, man.” (Lenny lisps.)
we have standards about proof at the NYT…this aint no blog.
that’s why you read it.
can’t have it both ways.
GV
- Show quoted text -
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shirley clyde to George
show details 5:21 PM (19 hours ago)
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Acne on the back. That’s all you had to say. In print. You had the proof of acne on the back. No more. No less. Then everyone could have investigated. Instead of being silent. And now you judge A-Rod as if you weren’t compliant.
The guys from Watergate didn’t confess either, you cry-baby.
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George Vecsey to me
show details 8:07 AM (4 hours ago)
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You should be reading the NY Post if you want pictures of acne..
we watched, we learned…and now we know more. that’s how life works.
GV
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shirley clyde to George
show details 12:22 PM (3 minutes ago)
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“oddly enough, they don’;t come up to us and confess.” I love this one. You ain’t a priest, George, you’re a journalist. You don’t work for the church, you work for a newspaper. What newspaper sits around and waits for dirty politicians or crooked cops or unscrupulous investment counselors to walk in and confess? Thank God not all writers have this attitude. After Caminiti confessed, and after Canseco confessed, and all the sports writers in America saw all the muscles and acne in America, how many spent the time and energy to track down the story? There were hundreds of players and trainers and dealers involved, so it was not a hard story to break. In sad point of fact, bloggers did a better job than straight newspapers. The sports fraternity missed the biggest story of the decade. And it was right there, staring them in the face.
And don’t tell me how life works, you sanctimonious nitwit
- Show quoted text -
——— Forwarded message ———-
From: shirley clyde
Date: Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: Incredibly Shrinking Ball Player
To: George Vecsey
“oddly enough, they don’;t come up to us and confess.” I love this one. You ain’t a priest, George, you’re a journalist. You don’t work for the church, you work for a newspaper. What newspaper sits around and waits for dirty politicians or crooked cops or unscrupulous investment counselors to walk in and confess? Thank God not all writers have this attitude. After Caminiti confessed, and after Canseco confessed, and all the sports writers in America saw all the muscles and acne in America, how many spent the time and energy to track down the story? There were hundreds of players and trainers and dealers involved, so it was not a hard story to break. In sad point of fact, bloggers did a better job than straight newspapers. The sports fraternity missed the biggest story of the decade. And it was right there, staring them in the face.
And don’t tell me how life works, you sanctimonious nitwit
On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 8:07 AM, George Vecsey wrote:
You should be reading the NY Post if you want pictures of acne..
we watched, we learned…and now we know more. that’s how life works.
GV
At 05:21 PM 2/27/2009, you wrote:
Acne on the back. That’s all you had to say. In print. You had the proof of acne on the back. No more. No less. Then everyone could have investigated. Instead of being silent. And now you judge A-Rod as if you weren’t compliant.
The guys from Watergate didn’t confess either, you cry-baby.
On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 2:30 PM, George Vecsey wrote:
oh for goodness sakes…
please go back and read the progression…
oddly enough, they don’;t come up to us and confess.
Lenny Dykstra, mid ’90’s: “Lifted weighth, man.” (Lenny lisps.)
we have standards about proof at the NYT…this aint no blog.
that’s why you read it.
can’t have it both ways.
GV
At 01:27 PM 2/27/2009, you wrote:
Now you want to report the strange transformations of baseball players from season to season?
Where have you been for the past 15 years?
Shame on you.