He was able to kind of have it both ways late in his time as commissioner when the witch hunt against steroids took root. Suddenly there was this passion to as Bill James puts it 'Piss on Mark McGwire's shoes to protect the honor of Roger Maris.'
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2010/09/life_liberty_and_breaking_the_rules.2.html
As James says, often we get a moral panic over some small fry issue-much ado about nothing-while big, glaring problems or scandals are ignored and not dealt with.
"Think about all the indignation over Hillary Clinton's emails and the scandal that should could have a server!! For some reason Jeb Bush's server during his time as Governor of Florida is just totally different."
"In his time, nobody wanted to send Babe Ruth to jail, but now we do want to send Barry Bonds to jail, and we want to send Roger Clemens to jail, and we (for reasons that I don't understand) find it necessary to piss on Mark McGwire's shoes in order to defend the honor of Roger Maris. I am not happy about this. There is no real difference between sending Babe Ruth to jail and sending Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens to jail. The only relevant difference is the difference between America in 2010 and America in 1940."
"The people who sent Martha Stewart to jail were the people who were supposed to be watching Wall Street. They went after Martha Stewart because she was an easy target. Also, they didn't understand financial derivatives. Nobody did; as it turned out, the people who were trading in them didn't understand them, either. That's why Lehman Bros. went bankrupt; they were trading in something they didn't understand."
I think the steroid issue is precisely the kind of Martha Stewart issue that allowed Congress to look like it was doing something back in 2006 and 2007 when it was really doing nothing-important at least.
I think the whole steroid scandal-the way its use has been so demonized is totally wrongheaded. One of the many unfortunate effects of it has to be a kind of elevation of the status of Bud Selig; yeah, it's admitted that for years he turned a blind eye to the use of steroids but he made up for it at the end of his tenure with a Damascus like conversion to raging steroid scold.
What must be understood about Selig first and foremost. is that he was a political appointment: in theory at least the Baseball Commissioner is supposed to in some way be a transcendent figure in baseball-who can preside over both the players and the owners as his interest should be the whole-he is not meant to represent just one side's issue mainly against the other.
However, that's exactly why the owners made him commissioner: to represent their interests mainly, over and above that of the players. His elevation as commissioner was to put in one of the inmates to supervise the asylum:
"Beginning In 1985, as owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, Bud Selig and numerous other owners colluded to undermine free agency by agreeing not to sign other teams’ free agents. The owners were taken to court and eventually ended up paying 280 million in damages to the players. It was with this failed attempt at collusion that the seeds of the 1994 work stoppage were sewn. In 1992, Fay Vincent, then Commissioner of Baseball, openly criticized the actions of this group of owners by saying:
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2010/09/life_liberty_and_breaking_the_rules.2.html
As James says, often we get a moral panic over some small fry issue-much ado about nothing-while big, glaring problems or scandals are ignored and not dealt with.
"Think about all the indignation over Hillary Clinton's emails and the scandal that should could have a server!! For some reason Jeb Bush's server during his time as Governor of Florida is just totally different."
"In his time, nobody wanted to send Babe Ruth to jail, but now we do want to send Barry Bonds to jail, and we want to send Roger Clemens to jail, and we (for reasons that I don't understand) find it necessary to piss on Mark McGwire's shoes in order to defend the honor of Roger Maris. I am not happy about this. There is no real difference between sending Babe Ruth to jail and sending Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens to jail. The only relevant difference is the difference between America in 2010 and America in 1940."
"The people who sent Martha Stewart to jail were the people who were supposed to be watching Wall Street. They went after Martha Stewart because she was an easy target. Also, they didn't understand financial derivatives. Nobody did; as it turned out, the people who were trading in them didn't understand them, either. That's why Lehman Bros. went bankrupt; they were trading in something they didn't understand."
I think the steroid issue is precisely the kind of Martha Stewart issue that allowed Congress to look like it was doing something back in 2006 and 2007 when it was really doing nothing-important at least.
I think the whole steroid scandal-the way its use has been so demonized is totally wrongheaded. One of the many unfortunate effects of it has to be a kind of elevation of the status of Bud Selig; yeah, it's admitted that for years he turned a blind eye to the use of steroids but he made up for it at the end of his tenure with a Damascus like conversion to raging steroid scold.
What must be understood about Selig first and foremost. is that he was a political appointment: in theory at least the Baseball Commissioner is supposed to in some way be a transcendent figure in baseball-who can preside over both the players and the owners as his interest should be the whole-he is not meant to represent just one side's issue mainly against the other.
However, that's exactly why the owners made him commissioner: to represent their interests mainly, over and above that of the players. His elevation as commissioner was to put in one of the inmates to supervise the asylum:
"Beginning In 1985, as owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, Bud Selig and numerous other owners colluded to undermine free agency by agreeing not to sign other teams’ free agents. The owners were taken to court and eventually ended up paying 280 million in damages to the players. It was with this failed attempt at collusion that the seeds of the 1994 work stoppage were sewn. In 1992, Fay Vincent, then Commissioner of Baseball, openly criticized the actions of this group of owners by saying:
“They rigged the signing of free agents. They got caught. They paid $280 million to the players. And I think that’s polluted labor relations in baseball ever since …”
"In spite of Selig’s unscrupulous past he was able to corral enough owners to his side in an 18 to 9 vote of “no confidence” to force Vincent out. Now, you’d think it would be difficult for an owner with a history of impropriety to ascend to a position best suited to someone who might inspire trust from both sides, not so. Selig took the commissioner’s chair in 1992, passing control of the Brewers to his daughter, Wendy Selig-Prieb."
"Selig of course presided over the 1994 player’s strike. The 232-day work stoppage lasted from August 12, 1994, to April 2, 1995. What has since been described as the worst work-stoppage in professional sports history was precipitated by a collective bargaining proposal that included a salary cap. Tensions were exacerbated by the collusion attempts … Ownership dug in and the players didn’t budge. Eventually the 1994 season became a lost cause."
"The strike damaged the game deeply, fans walked away in droves. There was a prevailing perception that the great American pastime had been irrevocably corrupted by greed. It was also during this time that steroids took root in MLB locker rooms. This issue was covered in a previous piece, so I will only note here that while it is true that the players shoulder a preponderance of blame, the owners did little to stop the spread of PED’s while they lined their pockets, and, in the end, the spread of steroids did occur on Selig’s watch."
http://metsmerizedonline.com/2013/05/bud-selig-mlbs-push-for-parity-and-its-impact-on-the-mets.html/
That part about the 'perponderance o the blame' I don't agree with as I don't see the use of PEDs as the evil that most baseball writers like this one see them as. Even if you do buy the case against PEDs there is no logical reason why HGH should be banned much less banning players for 50, 100, or more games for their use.
Basically, though, we see that things have overall worked very conveniently for Selig. He was one of the colluding owners, yet he was made commissioner and in 1994 he sided with his fellow owners with the plan to crush the players and stuff a salary cap down their throat. Ultimately, it failed and this was finally the end of collusion, but in the meantime, we lost the 1994 season and the first 18 games of 1995 and for some reason the baseball writers took the owners side over the players-or at least most of the blame was heaped on the players as being 'greedy'-after all, who wouldn't like to play baseball-'a child's game'-for $1 million dollars?
This attitude was again the Martha Stewart syndrome, of rational ignorance. You absolutely can make a $1 million dollars even to play baseball and still be ripped off and feel that way legitimately-why do the much richer owners get a pass here?
Selig and the owners went into the strike with the expressed purpose of breaking the players-they fully accepted that they'd have to kiss off the 1994 playoffs and World Series-and were fine with that; in their mind it would be worth it to once and or all break the players. Even though it failed miserably and they had to accept that they'd never get their salary cap. Still, for some reason the media wanted to blame the players more than the owners.
What Selig and the owners never anticipated is how angry the fans were, how many would stay home. So the steroid boom helped Selig out of the jam that the greed of he and his fellow owners created.
Then when it was convenient, after baseball returned, he became a steroid scold-rather than earlier when the game needed all those homers. One reason the players' union was so opposed to any kind of steroids testing was they rightfully felt very little trust to the owners who had after all, ripped them off to the tune of at least $280 million and had installed one of their own in So how could they possibly trust Selig?
Another reason, though, is that quite honestly, while Selig and the owners enjoyed the steroid craze at first, by the end, they are concerned about rising salaries. Breaking the back of steroid use was a way to keep salaries down as well.
Then Selig broke any number of laws in a crusade in 2010 and 2011 to destroy Alex Rodriguez. At the end of the day A-Rod never tested positive for steroid use-Selig and friends just decided that they know he did-a lot of it was based on Anthony Bosch's notebooks that Selig broke so many laws in an effort to obtain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis_baseball_scandal
While MIke Lupica and Bill Madden sneer that A-Rod is a cheater, the only thing Bosch's notebooks actually show is that he used HGH-which is not performance enhancing-except to the extent that being able to play healthy rather than not being able to play or playing injured will enhance your performance.
What Selig really represented was the owners cynical desire-even if they failed in 1994to rig the game against the players. Even the finding of arbitration that A-Rod was guilty has taint on it as the arbitrator was in the hock for the owners-just like Selig. After all, when the previous arbitrator had ruled against MLB in a steroid case, Selig removed him.
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