Bud-Bashing - The new national pasttime.

WASHINGTON, DC (Herald de Paris) - Commissioner Bud Selig’s press release on the subject of Alex Rodriguez:  “On behalf of Major League Baseball, I am saddened by the revelations concerning Alex Rodriguez’s use of performance-enhancing substances. While Alex deserves credit for publicly confronting the issue, there is no valid excuse for using such substances and those who use them have shamed the game.

“What Alex did was wrong and he will have to live with the damage he has done to his name and reputation. His actions are also a reminder to everyone in baseball—under our current drug program, if you are caught using steroids and/or amphetamines, you will be punished. Since 2005, every player who has tested positive for steroids has been suspended for as much as 50 games. Eradicating performance-enhancing substances from the game of baseball has been my first priority over the past decade and it is important to remember that these recent revelations relate to pre-program activity.”

Gee, harsh words, Bud.  But, people in glass houses …

So, Alex Rodriguez shamed the game of baseball, huh?  Congratulations, Bud, you raised a whole generation of ballplayers in your image, for it was you, Mister Selig, who shamed the game from 1985-1987 by committing the felonious act of collusion against the signing of free agents at their fair market value.  It was you, Mister Selig, who turned a blind eye to steroids long enough to see the cash-paying fans return after the strike year - a strike that you, Mister Selig, along with Jerry Reisendorf, caused.  And it was you. Mister Selig, not Bonds or Clemens or AROD, who at this time is the only convicted felon of this group.

You are right, Bud - Alex Rodriguez will, indeed, have to live with the consequences of his actions.  Did you?  You were rewarded for taking the lumps for the rest of ownership with the commisionership of baseball, a job with an $18 Million a year key to the executive washroom.  Some consequences.  And still, with a salary that rivals the best players in the game, you could not even find a way to hold a press conference, opting instead to issue a weenie’ish statement?  I guess you will step down in a decade, or so, when the other owners have paid you back for taking the collusion felony on the chin for them.

And what about Mr. Rodriguez’ rights, Bud?  While I in no way admonish AROD of the burden he must carry for what he has done, he and the other 103 players, knowing they were taking illegal performance-enhancing substances, agreed to take that test under the promise of anonymity.  They were promised that as soon as the results arrived, they would be destroyed.  Mmm-hmm.  They were not, and since they were not, and they were the property of Major League baseball, how come your friend, Senator Mitchell, did not uncover those 104 positive tests during his “impartial” investigation?

And while we are on the subject of that 2003 un-test, the one that happened, “Before program activity,” Bud, if you were taking an anonymous survey, why did you collect the players’ names at all?  If you had no intention of sanctioning them and were simply taking a survey as has been indicated, collecting the names of the league’s users would have been irrelevant.

But I guess the bottom line is that you, the owners, the players, and the players’ association executives are all making a lot of money while all this is going on, and in the minds of all parties, that makes everything ok.

The Commissioner’s Office was established in 1920 to preserve the integrity of the game, not to be headed by a profit-driven convicted felon with dollar signs in his eyes.

If Judge Landis were alive, he would smack you hard.

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