The Complicity of Bud Selig

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However you feel about the Alex Rodriguez debacle, you have to agree that it makes for excellent baseball television. Personally, I'm quite enjoying the circus - schadenfreude has always been one of my strong suits.

When A*Rod takes the field in Chicago, he'll doubtless face a loud chorus of boos and jeers. After talking to a few Yankees fans, I don't think his reception would be much better at home in the Bronx; Rodriguez has a seriously dwindling list of supporters.

But to focus on Alex Rodriguez at the expense of all the other storylines surrounding the suspensions would be a mistake. Sure, A*Rod's return is somehow both arrogant and brave, and certainly makes for great drama - but there's so much more to talk about.

In light of Bud Selig's singleminded prosecution of Rodriguez and his fellow PED users (which, of course, is warranted given their alleged indiscretions), we should not lose sight of the fact that it was Selig and his power structure who let the steroid era go unchecked for so long.

Selig took the reins at MLB in 1998, when the game was still trying to recover from the strike and cancelled World Series in 1994. So when the home runs started flying out of (publicly funded) stadiums and fans started flocking back in, he looked the other way.

In his defense, Selig was dealing with an at-times uncooperative Player's Union, but he didn't manage to get steroid testing into the game for six years. Selig ignored the problem for more than half a decade. Six years of rampant PED use across the game created a culture of steroids in cities everywhere - and people like Alex Rodriguez realized that the benefits outweighed the risk.

The wide use of performance enhancing drugs is a black eye to the game of baseball, but the sport will recover - just like it has recovered from scandals in gambling, amphetamines, and greed. The reputations of Alex Rodriguez and Bud Selig, however, may be beyond recovery.

An addendum on Jim Joyce

Last night I wrote a post fueled by emotions (chiefly indignation), that lumped umpire Jim Joyce in with the likes of Angel Hernandez and Joe West. This was a mistake. Joyce made an honest mistake, and he has since apologized to Armando Galarraga:

"It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the [shit] out of it," said a tearful Joyce, "I just cost that kid a perfect game. And there's nobody that feels worse than I do."

Well, perhaps Galarraga does, but it's clear that Joyce is truly remorseful, that he understands the implications of the call he blew last night. Galarraga showed maturity way beyond his 28 years last night when he accepted Joyce's apology.


"Nobody's perfect," opined the young pitcher, without a trace of sarcasm or even a seeming awareness of the ironic nature of his statement.

As I type this, Bud Selig and Major League Baseball are discussing this situation. Technically, Selig has the power to rewrite history and reverse that call, awarding Galarraga the the perfect game he deserves. In this situation, I would support a decision to correct the past, but baseball is aware that such an action might start a tumble down a slippery slope. If this call can be overturned after the fact, what's next? Does Pedro Martinez get his perfect game for 27 consecutive outs, even though he gave up a hit in extra frames?

Hopefully this will jumpstart the discussion of expanded use of replay - with specific and stringent guidelines - so that future Armando Galarragas won't lose out on their place in history, and previously good umpires like Jim Joyce won't be vilified based on an honest mistake.

Interleague Woes

So I know I'm a little late here, but I haven't had reliable internet for the last few days, and I absolutely NEED to chime in on interleague play.

As I'm sure you know, the Red Sox lack a "natural rival." MLB initially tried out Atlanta, but there are so few people who remember the Braves in Boston that it just didn't make sense. This year, it's the Philadelphia Phillies in the "rival" spot - the NL team that the Red Sox will play two series against. Every year, the Yankees get six games against the moribund Mets, and the Rays get six versus the Marlins.


What the hell, Bud Selig?! I know this is about ticket sales, but it's woefully unfair. The Red Sox's interleague opponents are a combined 115-101 (141-118 if you count the Phillies twice, which makes sense since we play them twice as much). The combined record of the Yankees opponents is 108-113 (130-136 when you count the Mets twice), and the record of the Rays opponents is a deplorable 107-115 (130-137 when you count the Marlins twice).

But we should all thank Jason Bay and the Mets for handing the Yankees a series loss...

This is absurd. It's one thing that MLB doesn't have any semblance of a balanced schedule, assuring that the Red Sox, Rays, and Yankees will beat up on each other, and the AL West (home of just four teams) will generally have a clear winner.

I'm by no means a baseball purist. I like the expansion teams (but no more, please!), and I like interleague, but not in its current manifestation. Within the divisions, every team should play the same teams the same number of times. The Rays will probably pick up at least 3 more games on the Red Sox on scheduling alone, and that is more than enough to decide the division.