December 16, 2007
Say It Ain't So!
A bombshell revelation of widespread use of steroid drugs by major league baseball players has shaken the industry to its foundations. Again.
Yes, professional baseball is a gigantic industry. Big bucks!
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig hired former U. S. Senator George Mitchell to investigate the extent of “performance enhancing drugs” by team stars.
Mitchell is a paid director of the Boston Red Sox. He waived compensation by the club during his investigation. His law firm, DLA Piper is being paid for its work, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Until a year ago, Mitchell was chairman of the Walt Disney Company that owns ESPN. The latter paid $2.4 billion to televise major league baseball games through 2013.
Tom Donaldson, an ethics specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, told National Public Radio: “When a supposedly independent investigator is part of what’s being investigated, it’s Conflict Of Interest 101.”
Un-ring The Bell
After nearly two years of probing – resisted by club owners and the players’ union – Mitchell fingered 85 present and past players.
Topping the list of shame is Barry Bond, left-fielder and home-run king for the San Francisco Giants. Close behind is Roger Clemens an award-winning pitcher for the Boston Red Sox (no favoritism there.)
Bond refuses to comment about the allegations. Clemens hired a lawyer to defend his reputation.
Says the attorney,
“How do you un-ring the bell? Does Mr. Clemens trot around to every media outlet and say, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. And even if he did, is that going to change anything? No.”
Records
Accusations surfaced when Kirk Radomski, a clubhouse attendant for the New York Mets, admitted he furnished drugs to players through out the league. His statements were backed by checks and shipping labels.
Mitchell says he doubts that his report will lead to criminal prosecutions. Nevertheless, more is at stake than possible, criminal prosecutions – records!
Baseball remains the “National Past Time” because of historical statistics. Records to be approached and – halleluiah – broken. Without statistics, professional baseball would be sandlot.
(In the spirit of disclosure: I once was a paid score keeper for the Flint, Michigan, Industrial Baseball League -- $1 per game.)
Without stats, baseball would be sandlot. Therefore, what should we do with the performance records of Bonds, Clemens etc?
How about asterisks “PED assisted”?
Or total banishment from baseball memory -- a la Pete Rose, the Cincinnati Reds player-manager who bet on his own team many times to win in 1989?
Let’s hear it for score keepers!
Early Scandal
One would think that the Chicago White Sox scandal of 1919 would have taught baseball players, club owners and fans the folly of adulation mixed with big bucks.
Back then; the evil was gangster gambling and bribery.
Shoeless Joe Jackson and seven other White Sox players accepted offers of $5,000 to $10,000 each to “throw” the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The bribes were twice the salaries of the players approached.
Their on-field performance was so uncharacteristic, team owners asked U.S. District Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis at Chicago to become the first commissioner of baseball and investigate the 1919 World Series.
Landis accepted the post on condition he keep his job as a judge --and that his $50,000 baseball salary be decreased by the $7,500 he received as a federal judge. He was Commissioner until his death in 1944.
Landis began an investigation and obtained a grand jury in September 1920. Joe Jackson testified that he and others had conspired to “throw” the 1919 World Series.
As he left the courthouse on September 28, newspapers reported:
“A crowd of small boys gathered around their idol and one shouted: ‘It isn’t true, is it Joe?’”
Jackson replied, “I’m afraid so.”
Over the years, the plaintive plea has become streamlined: “Say it ain’t so, Joe.”
Aftermath
The disillusionment of Chicago baseball fans was profound. For several years, they referred bitterly to the team as the “Black Sox.”
Since appointment of a lifetime Commissioner, baseball has grown into the multi-billion-dollar business we know today.
Gate, and broadcast rights, brings in zillions of dollars.
Player salaries and product endorsements of multi-million dollars appear to have persuaded them to seek an “edge” through steroids -- even they know it will shorten their life span.
Many athletes today – baseball to Olympic contestants -- are eager to give up some life-years for recognition and wealth while it lasts.
Roman gladiators of old.
Are we spectators sitting in the coliseum – thumbs at the ready?
PARTING SHOTS
The presidential debates at Des Moines, Iowa, looked like First Graders raising their hands for permission to speak. Fred Thompson – a GOP wannabe – refused to comply. Just as well. A one-finger salute would have been distracting.
If a person does something you don’t like, tell him. If people don’t know what there’re doing is wrong, how can they improve?
What good can come from a day that begins by getting up early in the morning?
By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist
