Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig needs to discipline the players named in the Mitchell Report on steroid use that's set to be released today. It's not only the right thing to do for the game's future but it's the best way to safeguard the game's bottom line.Some players named by former Sen. George Mitchell reportedly include some of the most popular players in the game including future Hall of Fame pitcher Roger Clemens, Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Nomar Garciaparra, Texas Rangers star Milton Bradley and Detroit Tigers catcher Pudge Rodriguez. All of these players need to explain what they did and when they did it, or face immediate suspensions or fines. Click here for a list of the players as reported by WNBC TV.
Baseball survived the Black Sox scandal, free agency and those godawful uniforms from the 1970s. It will survive steroids as well but it needs to rip off the scab immediately. For too long, the game took a speak no evil, hear no evil approach to the performance-enhancing drugs. Doing nothing, though, isn't an option for Selig any longer because too much money is at stake.Companies such as News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), whose Fox netwos rk broadcasts many games including the World Series, and athletic shoe maker Nike Inc. (NYSE: NKE), won't invest tens of millions of dollars in a sport that people don't think is honest. Companies are leaving the drug-addled sport of professional bicycle racing where doping scandals are so common that people don't pay attention to them anymore.
Hopefully, baseball will come up with a fair way to punish the players involved. Barry Bonds would still have been an incredible player even if he never touched steroids which makes his story even tragic. Sometimes, the performance enhancers don't do much good.
For instance, Abraham Nunez of my hometown Philadelphia Phillies was among those players named by WNBC. Update: This report was erroneous. Nunez's name didn't appear in the report though former Phillies such as Lenny Dykstra did.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-13-2007 @ 3:26PM
The_Village_Idiot said...
"The Phillies wisely declined the option on his (Nunez) contract."
Come on now....that decision had nothing to do with Nunez's possible steroid use. The Phillies opted out of his contract ext. with the idea they'd re-sign him later (as a defensive specialist) much cheaper. There's no market for a guy who hits .220.
If MLB wanted to improve their image than they'd address the excessive importation of Hispanic players. What's the ratio now? Near 40%? I read it's much higher in the minor league system. So in the next 10 years they'll be one or two token "Americans" per team. Thanks MLB for outsourcing this once great American game.
12-14-2007 @ 9:01AM
ironmike said...
Mr.Barr, your comments are immature and uninformed. Punish the players based on what? Pieces of paper with their signature on them (checks)? On the say so of some trainer who got his tender parts caught in a vise by the feds, and is scared of spending time in a cell? Oh yeah, that'll go over real well in front of a jury. The fact is, baseball knew well in advance that drugs were in the sport; some of the money boys that Pete Rose hung with while he was gambling were juice traffickers: they don't hang out with people they don't trust to keep quiet. I heard from bodybuilders and weightlifters I know, well before the baseball strike, that ballplayers (and others) were sniffing around, trying to find out about juice. So do you think the league and union didn't know about it? Please. For them to go after these guys would be so hypocritical, even THEY wouldn't do it. You think some smart lawyer isn't going to ask the league and owners, 'what did you know, and when did you know it?' I sure as hell would, and I'd be a damn nuisance about it too!
12-14-2007 @ 9:01AM
carrie said...
funny it seems that everything i ever read on steriods indicated that they had no inhansment on one ability to perform better or to build better muscles for sports. everything i ever read on them said that they were useless. funny it seems like the ones you demoted the steriods knew all along that they actually inhanced one abilty to perform better then normal and could help one become a super star. why doesnt our goverment use these for our soldiers to make a better fighting machine, one which would over power any normal confortation with one who wasnt on steriods.
12-14-2007 @ 9:02AM
Anthony to the S. said...
Or, y'know, the American players could just step it up a bit.
http://paidandpopular.blogspot.com
12-14-2007 @ 9:02AM
John said...
Or, the fans could just admit they loved the age of 'roids.
If anybody should be punished, it should be the owners. They all knew about it. You walked around spring training and there were all these huge bodies running around. The billionaires would have had to be dumber than rocks to have not known, and they're not dumber than rocks.
12-14-2007 @ 9:13AM
Max Hamner said...
Bull @#@# it was no hard evidence if Mitchell doesn't get lawsuits up the wazoo I'll be amazed.
12-14-2007 @ 9:47AM
iypgary said...
I'm not much of a baseball fan, so I might be a touch uninformed, but here's what I have heard over many years and what I think. MLB has simply not placed the same level of prohibition, tests, or sanctions that other sports have on some of these things. I remember reading that McGuire had stuff openly displayed on his locker shelf. Why was it out in the open? Because it wasn't against MLB rules. So I think it's the league, not the players who have created this situation. I think every player, and every record has to be given some form of amnesty. Just accepted, and now move on. I know that won't be a popular attitude but there are too many players, too many records, too many games under the cloud.