Message to MLB commissioner Bud Selg:
We are not fooled. Fans are not fooled. In fact, I think the only person that you are fooling, Mr. Selig, is yourself.
As commissioner of Major League Baseball, Selig is currently making a last ditch effort to fix a mess that only he can be held responsible for. And instead of taking responsibility for this so-called “steroids era,” Selig has tried to divert the blame to anyone and everyone but himself.
Many ESPN talking heads and sports writers from newspapers around the country say that baseball’s current state of pill-popping, cream-rubbing, injection-taking, overpaid superstars is beyond repair.
Fortunately, this is not true. There is a very simple and respectful way to end this media drama, and that is by Selig doing two things: Apologizing to baseball fans for the problems that he has let happen to our national pastime and to offer his resignation as commissioner.
With big names such as Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds being in the Mitchell Report, which consisted of over 400 pages of single-source testimony, newspaper clips and pure gossip loosely linking nearly 80 players to using steroids, we now have some reason to believe that the best hitter and the best pitcher of our, and arguably any, generation may have cheated to accomplish what they have.
However, barring any proof of positive drug tests, there will be no actual evidence that will ever be able to prove whether a player actually did or did not use steroids.
This brings us to the problem that baseball is faced with. What to do? The answer is simple: move on without Selig.
Instead of making excuses for why it happened, baseball simply needs to put everything behind, continue to play and continue to find ways to have stricter drug-testing policies.
Rather than doing this, Selig boasted in his press conferences following the release of the Mitchell Report that the people most hurt by these findings are the players who stayed clean over the years and had to “suffer” through an “uneven playing field.”
So, they are saying, as fans, we are supposed to feel bad for this “Mr. Clean,” who never stuck a syringe in his buttocks and hit .276 instead of .285.
We are supposed to pity this poor soul, who got to live out his childhood dream by being paid millions of dollars to play a game for a living.
Sorry, but I’m not buying it.
If Selig or baseball cared about the disadvantaged player or about skewed statistics due to an “uneven playing field,” then why isn’t there an asterisk by all of Babe Ruth’s legendary numbers? After all, he played in an era when no minorities were allowed to play.
If baseball truly cared about players who used illegal drugs holding records in baseball, then why does no one criticize and ridicule Babe Ruth’s accomplishments while he openly admitted to drinking alcohol during prohibition?
If character of a player is so important to baseball, then why does everyone hold Ty Cobb to legendary status when he was openly a racist?
The truth is, Selig does not care about any of these moral issues, and neither have most of the commissioners in the past.
The only thing that does seem to matter to him is money.
This is why he sheepishly turned his head when Mark McGuire harnessed his roid rage to bash 70 homeruns in 1998 and save baseball from the aftermath of the mid-1990s player strike. This is also why he decided to make his “stand” on steroids when fans became discouraged by the findings in the BALCO case.
Through all of this, baseball has gained billions of dollars each year in revenues, owners are making more money and the players’s paychecks have ballooned more than their juiced bodies.
The only people that have been hurt by this, that have been cheated are the fans.
For this, Selig owes an apology..
As commissioner of baseball, Selig’s job is to oversee and run Major League Baseball. So, if he says that he had no knowledge of steroid use before the BALCO case, then he has been an incompetent commissioner. If he says that he did know and chose not to act, then he is once again incompetent.
For this, Selig should resign.
Selig has said for years that the reason why he does what he does is because of his true love of the game. He waxes over stories of watching his hero Hank Aaron play. He talks about baseball as part of the fabric of American life.
If he truly feels this way, then he should do what’s best for the game and walk away.
