The Ineptitude of Bud: Like the Tao of Pooh, but with PEDs

Is Bud Selig fooling anyone?

We live in odd times.  Eighty years ago—as the story goes—Babe Ruth ran through a car on the New York Yankees train butt naked.  A woman with a knife chased him down a corridor.  Two beat writers traveling with the team witnessed everything.  They looked at each other and then one finally broke the silence.  He chuckled, “It’s too bad we can’t write about this.”

These days, anything and everything goes.  When Ugly Betty couldn’t get along with Lindsay Lohan, Perez Hilton had told the story in under two hours.  When Christian Bale lost his mind and berated his family, how long did it take before the general public knew what had happened?  Seven minutes?  Twelve?  Never seen Dead Poets’ Society?  Watch it in ten minute clips on YouTube.  Have a question regarding the episode of Lost you just finished watching?  One of 8,002 blogs will probably have the answer.  When Alex Rodriguez told the story of his fictional cousin that both supplied and injected him with Primabolin (which he claimed could be bought over the counter in the Dominican Republic), was anyone surprised that within 24 hours, ESPN had attained a no comment from the wife of said imaginary cousin and a doctor’s note saying that Primabolin was actually illegal in the Dominican Republic?  That being said, how feeble does Bud Selig look when he stands on his high horse, shakes his accusatory finger, and tells the media that players like Bonds, Rodriguez, and Clemens have brought shame to his game?

In a time where my fiancée can find out if Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson have broken up within seconds of it occurring, do we really believe that Selig is a modern day Rip Van Winkle?  If we believe Bud, in May of 1997, he issued a memo reinforcing the mandate of Fay Vincent, his predecessor, that “any players violating the [drug policy],” which applied “to all illegal drugs…including steroids…risk permanent expulsion from the game” (Epstein. Sports Illustrated.  Feb 16, 2009. Inset on page 30).  Then he went to sleep for seven years, woke up, gave himself an enormous raise, and found the game over which he presided littered with steroids.  Please.

Professional sports leagues have developed into their very own pseudo-nations, complete with their own governments, judicial processes, and local authorities.  In fact, at times these leagues operate outside of the laws of the country in which they conduct business.  If I were to walk down Madison Avenue, line up 60 feet away from a passing businessman, and throw a fastball that passed between his chin and the Windsor knot in his tie; I would be arrested, put on trial, and immediately thrown in jail.  If I did so in the first inning of a baseball game, the umpire might give me a warning.  The same holds true for all sports.  Drop your gloves on a cold day, grab the nearest passerby by the shirt collar, and start throwing haymakers; you go to jail.  Do it in a hockey rink?  Five minutes misconduct.

Therefore, the controlling bodies of these burgeoning nations must strictly govern their constituents.  According to the February 16 issue of Sports Illustrated, performance enhancing drugs have been explicitly banned from baseball since 1991.  However, under the governance of Bud Selig, who was seemingly blinded by the cash flowing in from Nike’s “Chicks Dig the Long Ball” ad campaign, that law was never enforced.

In 1653, Britain passed the Navigation Acts in the American colonies.  These acts boiled down to the fact that colonies were only supposed to engage in trade with England, their mother country.  However, the enterprising colonists smuggled goods from all over the world.  For 100 years, the British did nothing, and why should they?  They were the strongest country in the world, their borders spanned the globe.  As long as the colonists kept paying their taxes, why should the British care how those backwater conservatives in America made their money?  Then in 1763, the French and Indian and Seven Years Wars ended and England found herself in debt.  Parliament, hoping to squeeze every last penny from the colonies, began to enforce the Navigation Acts for the first time in 100 years.  Look how well that situation ultimately turned out for England: in 1776, America declared its independence.  A little less than fifty years later, America had effectively kicked England out of the Western Hemisphere.

The lesson from the above story is that governments have to be consistent in enforcing their laws.  Just like the British, baseball has only enforced the steroid legislation because congress and outside forces intervened.  Selig and company were happy to let players contaminate their systems and the record books as long as revenue remained high.  Selig only took action when he read the writing on the PR wall that the public had finally responded and threatened his cash flow.

Ultimately, the dog and pony show of shame and contempt that Bud has put on in the face of the A-Roid scandal is in itself shameless.  He says he wants to adjust the record books, maybe even discipline Alex Rodriguez for his indiscretions of six years ago.  But how can Selig impart blame and consequences on people whose livelihood and job descriptions read only: Be the best ever by any means necessary?  For years he provided no consequences for breaking the bylaws of baseball, and as a result, the inmates (or in this case the players’ union) ran the asylum.  Selig’s negligent regime deserves as much, if not more, of the blame for the steroid era as the players that used.  If the commissioner wants to placate the public and the media by adjusting the record books and holding people accountable, he should start with the man in the mirror.