Over the summer I was lucky enough to have worked as a counselor the Play-By-Play Sports Broadcasting Camps, where we teach kids aged eight through 18 how to go about pursuing a career in sports broadcasting.
It is the greatest collection of what Tampa Bay Rays pitcher David Price would call “sports nerds” of all time, and I loved every minute of it.
As part of the camp, the bosses bring in high-profile speakers to share their stories and experiences with the campers, and in Philadelphia, one of the guests was Major League Baseball insider Seth Everett.
“There’s a special place in hell for three people,” Everett said to me and the other counselors before speaking to the campers. “Tommy Lasorda, Bobby Valentine, and Alex Rodriguez.”
Rodriguez is a jerk, we all know it.
But his most recent move – suing the MLB for damages related to the Biogenesis scandal – is a genius move that could actually get people on his side.
I know that I am.
Right from the very beginning, I have been a critic of how the Biogenesis scandal was handled by Major League Baseball.
When the names were first released and it was announced that the Commissioner’s Office was pursuing suspensions earlier this year, my first reaction was that there was no way that these suspensions would be able to hold up because the players had never actually failed a drug test.
The MLB Players’ Association, I thought, would surely try to defend the accused players, since they are after all, the most effective union that has ever existed.
But instead of fight, the MLBPA inexplicably lay down like dogs and allowed Commissioner Bud Selig to carry out his agenda.
As the process manifested itself in July, it became clear that Commissioner Selig’s true intentions were to carry out personal vendettas against Ryan Braun and Rodriguez, two players who he felt cheated the system and got away with it. There is no other explanation for the lengths of their suspensions being longer than every other player involved.
Unequal treatment for the exact same offense is not only unfair, but it’s just plain un-American.
Yet it’s something that we’ve all found ourselves on the short end of.
While Braun opted to do what most of us do and roll over and take it, Rodriguez is doing what we only dream of doing: Standing up to the man and fighting what he sees as an injustice.
Casting all personal feelings about Rodriguez the man, or the ballplayer, aside, it’s hard not to empathize with him.
He has become a tragic hero.
Rodriguez was the best ballplayer at his position for the better part of 13 years, yet he was hated by his home fans. He is mocked by independent baseball teams who hold promotional nights celebrating his suspension. His own team seemed to conspire to keep him off the field by having their doctor either exaggerate the severity of an injury or outright fabricate it, then slandering an independent doctor who dared to contradict what the biased team doctor said.
When all he wants to do is get back on the field, the league and his team, he alleges, conspired to keep him from playing and collecting his large salary, his union failed to stand up for him and protect him. When it was announced that Commissioner Selig was considering banning Rodriguez for life, the same fans who cheered him when he won World Series in 2009, cheered the end of his career.
Pick anything you like, but something acted as the straw that broke the camel’s back, causing Rodriguez to finally stand up, go over to the window, open it, and shout, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
Good for him.
He decided that if he was going down, he might as well raise some hell and throw some egg in the face of Commissioner Selig.
That egg was served in the form of the lawsuit filed recently, which assuming that the allegations are true, will further tarnish the already murky legacy of Commissioner Selig’s 21-year reign of terror over the MLB.
That should be enough to make us Mets fans root for Rodriguez.
Commissioner Selig and the Mets
Commissioner Selig’s long-standing friendship with Mets owner Fred Wilpon – which has bordered on corrupt for quite some time – is part of the reason the Mets are in the situation they find themselves in today.
When Wilpon – who originally supported Fay Vincent as commissioner – flip-flopped his position to support Selig’s commissionership, the rift between himself and partner Nelson Doubleday Jr. stemming from Wilpon’s hostile takeover in 1986 deepened.
The two would feud until 2002 with Wilpon buying Doubleday out of his 50 percent share of the team, with a John Stockton-like assist from Commissioner Selig.
Doubleday, whose hands-off approach helped General Manager Frank Cashen build a championship team in 1986, alleged that Commissioner Selig and the MLB was manipulating the value of the franchises, screwing him out of money that was rightfully his.
Flash forward eight years and the Wilpons, financially ruined by their association with sleaze-ball criminal Bernard Madoff, are given lifeline after lifeline by Commissioner Selig.
Commissioner Selig’s way of dealing with the Wilpons is markedly different from the way he dealt with Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt during his financial troubles, where a sale was eventually forced.
Why?
Because that’s what Commissioner Selig does. He gives preferential treatment to his cronies, while unfairly punishing those who dare defy his iron-fisted rule.
Now with impotent ownership, the Mets are back to being the laughing stock of the National League after a brief glimmer of hope in the mid-2000s.
Fans have had to suffer through five seasons of crappy baseball because of cronyism and dishonesty that would make a member of congress blush.
Mets fans should want nothing more than for Commissioner Selig to get embarrassed by losing a battle to Rodriguez that he has fought so hard and so publicly to win.
In a way, it would be a victory not only for Mets fans but for fans of baseball, even if it’s only a moral one. Someone has finally stood up to the tyrant and fought the good fight. He is out to prove that the Emperor has no clothes, and that’s a noble cause.
Even if he is kind of a jerk.
Joe Vasile is the play-by-play announcer for Widener Pride football and host of “Ball Four” on WTSR in Trenton. Follow him on Twitter at @JoeVasilePBP.
Why Lasorda and Valentine?
Good question. They were apparently pretty big jerks.
“There is no other explanation for the lengths of their suspensions being longer than every other player involved”
Actually, there is. Why do people get enraged that A-rod is a cheater yet don’t care much if some minor leaguer gets caught? The money. We care about people who profit, the key word, from cheating rather than those who don’t.
If you catch someone before they are able to use their unfair advantage to make extra gains, you are reducing this advantage through 2 steps that hopefully cancel out the unfair advantage they had. The first is a slap in the wrist suspension, the second is the tarnishing of a player’s reputation that will follow them throughout the rest of their life.
If you catch someone after they have used their unfair advantage to make extra gains, there should be, in my opinion, a way to negate the extra gains that they player has accrued over the period of cheating. My personal recommendation is for the player’s contract to be voidable by the team. (The fact that MLB teams can’t void the contract of a cheater is absurd in my opinion)
So, are we as fans allowed to be more enraged and disgusted when a player like Braun or A-roid is caught compared to someone like JV or Puello? Absolutely.
Do players like Braun and A-Roid deserve a bigger punishment than JV or Puello? Absolutely. It’s not unequal treatment. It’s punishing based on the extent of the crime.
You wouldn’t expect someone who runs the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, Bernie Madoff, to receive the same punishment as someone who attempts a local ponzi scheme, would you?
You wouldn’t expect the head of a massive cartel to receive the same punishment as head of a local drug ring, would you?
You wouldn’t expect someone who cheated throughout all of school to land a big fat cushy high paying job to receive the same punishment as a student who cheated on his first test in grade school, would you?
Why do you expect A-roid to receive the same punishment as everyone else then?
Because that was what was agreed to in the collective bargaining agreement. 1st offense- 50 games. It doesn’t matter how much he took or over how long; if it’s the first time you are caught (admitting use doesn’t count as getting caught) that is the suspension that the MLB and the MLBPA agreed upon. A-Rod is a dirty cheater. We all know it. That doesn’t mean we can go outside the CBA to punish him. If they do that, they might as well not follow any portion of the CBA and the whole deal becomes invalid because one party isn’t abiding by it. In the interest of protecting the integrity of the CBA for the sake of avoiding a work stoppage and in the interest of the players it needs to be upheld, even if we want to give A-Rod more of a suspension.
I don’t get the impression your adequately versed in the rules, punishments and the nature of AROD’s violations as charged.
If I am not mistaken, A-ROD is being charged with multiple violations including possession, obstruction, facilitation and is how the tally is 211 games. This is about violations of The Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. Punishment is not just for testing positive, but a range of things including possession, distribution, facilitation. These related punishments carry different penalties, higher penalties than the standard you cite such as 50-games for the first. These range from 80-100 for first offense, permanent suspension for second offense with allowed application for reinstatement but 2 yr. minimum suspension.
The commissioner is also allowed to use his discretion in determining violations including current punishment levels related to past offenses, be it positive drug test or other means.
The official rules.
Click to access jda.pdf
In addition to what LongTimeFan, I think someone needs to remind you that 2 Wrongs DO NOT make a Right.
It’s fine that you don’t agree with Selig on his policies and his former actions. However, what Selig has done in the past should have no bearing on the punishment for A-Roid and who you are rooting to “win” (in my opinion there aren’t any). They are 2 separate cases and should be treated individually.
The question is not: Selig or A-Roid?, but rather, A-Roid: Guilty or Not Guilty.
Exactly. Braun rolled over the same way a criminal does when they are caught on camera. He’s a cheating idiot. And he destroyed the lives of two people along the way. A-Roid almost certainly has done illegal things and appears to have conspired to expand an illicit operation. I hope he gets double the suspension and trashed for filing a frivolous lawsuit, then counter sued, with the final glory being the Feds popping in and bringing a criminal suit.
I forgot to mention, this isn’t Robin Hood. He violated the rules of the CBA and likely laws. This is not about Selig. This is about stealing from clean players.
Joe I agree with just about everything you wrote except that Braun DID lie and publicly admitted to his part in the scandal which gave Selig’s argument ammunition that these players were dirty. I find the whole affair distasteful and an embarrassment to all involved. Braun’s accusations and aquital led to the firing of the innocent handler of his specimen. It takes a lot of cojones to stand on a podium look everyone in the eye and say I was clean knowing you’re lying through your teeth. Selig is a hypocrite. If you know Rodriguez is dirty you invoke “the best interest in baseball”” clause and move on. His favoritism and inconsistency will come back to haunt him. It is already has haunted us for the past four years.
This article boils down to the author’s underlying vendetta against the Wilpons, blames Selig as enabler, and is now misusing the A-ROD situation in hopes of embarrassing and destroying Selig. Seems to me he could care less about A-Rod’s steroid use, this article is essentially about its author’s personal agenda, preaching high and mighty at same time he stands by admitted cheaters. Talk about hypocrisy…this article oozes it.
Perfect understanding of this article. Since I’m a blogger I’m allowed to have my personal agenda shine through, because I’m not writing news, I’m writing a blog post. A blog post without opinions is useless. I do have a vendetta against the Wilpons and Selig is most certainly their enabler. I’m not standing by admitted cheaters, I’m asking for equal treatment, something which Selig has a history of not giving.
I make it no secret that I dislike Selig because of his buddy-buddy relationship with the Wilpons, who I resent for being bad owners. Selig’s enabling has allowed the Wilpons to retain their grip on the team, and I want him to be embarrassed by A-Rod on the way out so he gets part of what he deserves.
What I think I failed to do well enough was explain that I’m not in any way condoning A-Rod, Braun, or anyone else’s PED use, but I am condemning the actions of Bud Selig over his 21-year reign as commissioner. This A-Rod lawsuit is just one way that I see for Selig’s hubris to catch up to him.
There no good guys in this scenario.
Braun is an admitted cheater and liar.
A-Rod is an alleged cheater and liar.
Selig ignored the use of PEDs for far too long and thus was an enabler.
The players union turned its back on the situation until its own members were in revolt.
The incompetence of the Wilpons and the support they got from Selig is really not related to the PED issue. The previous Dodger ownership was raping the team to support their personal lavish lifestyle. As much as I don’t care for the Wilpons operation of the Mets, I don’t see them in the same light as the McCourts.
I do find it rather odd or is it just a coincidence that so many players involved have a New York or Latino connection (A-Rod),If he did actually recruit players then he should be treated differently. My inner voice tells me he’s guilty but I do agree about the commissioner being over zealous and inconsistent handing out punishments. About Selig. After the Mets received their 25 million dollar loan from MLB, Bud seems to have forgotten that it was a loan not a gift. His indiscretion in allowing to the Mets to be handicapped by incompetent ownership hurts the integrity of the game let alone his reputation. Blaming Madoff for the Mets woes is incorrect. The Wilpons were greedy and paid a steep price for their turning a blind eye. The problem is we as fans have to suffer as well because of this nonsense. Had Fay Vincent been the commissioner he would of forced the Wilpons to sell the team. I don’t care about either ones legacy or reputation. They will both be remembered for the same reason. Which ironically has nothing to do with the actual game.