No Suspense Necessary for the A-Rod Suspension Appeal

A decision on Alex Rodriguez’s arbitration hearing to reduce or overturn his suspension is reported to be imminent. There’s no suspense here, however. It’s fait accompli. And he’ll lose.

Do you really and truly believe that MLB is going to undercut itself by reducing Alex Rodriguez’s suspension from 214 games to something less? Anything that will allow him to play this season?

Think again.

In spite of A-Rod’s litany of high-priced, smooth-talking and experienced lawyers, the entire appeal process was a non-starter. Like Captain Kirk standing before the Klingon tribunal trying to convince them of his innocence of the murder of their Chancellor, A-Rod has no chance of winning this appeal; no possible benefit from it other than garnering some sympathy from those who see how unfair it’s been. Forgetting the Trekker fiction, this show trial was only entertained because A-Rod had a right to it and is pursuing every avenue to try and reduce his penalty and get paid for at least a portion of the next season-and-a-half. In reality, it’s like a trial in North Korea. If MLB could put him before a firing squad and purge him from their sight (and the Yankees’ payroll), they would do that. That’s the equivalent of this supposed arbitration hearing meant to give A-Rod his say.

Because A-Rod has become the poster child for the flouting of the flexible and self-serving rules baseball has enacted regarding performance-enhancing drugs, they have to keep using him to validate their new tough stance on the behavior of players who ignore and try to circumvent the testing process.

This is not a defense of A-Rod.

He repeatedly lied and formulated different methods to use the drugs that he clearly doesn’t believe he can perform without. From the lies to the feigned contrition to the Biogenesis revelations to his public displays regarding the suspension and pleas for widespread sympathy to his plight, A-Rod is not worthy of mercy for what he did. But in the context of MLB and its own complicity in PED use, A-Rod should not be punished like this unless Bud Selig and his minions are taken to task as well.

The 214 game suspension is exemplar of MLB’s “get tough” tack to warn the players not to do it again; that their punishments have teeth and there won’t be the wink-and-nod at PED use there was post-1994 to the flashpoint hearing before congress in which Rafael Palmeiro‘s finger-wagging did more to antagonize the public than any anti-social Barry Bonds gesture of self-entitled arrogance ever could. There won’t be the “yeah whatever” suspensions that are so impotent that it’s worth it for an average player to use the drugs to make himself an All-Star and get an All-Star contract even if he gets caught. A-Rod is the key to send that message. It’s not the fact that A-Rod was getting busted again and again that spurred this massive and unprecedented suspension. It’s that he was the sexiest name they could have ever asked for as evidence that they were serious about putting forth the perception of cleaning up the game.

No matter your position on A-Rod and whether or not he’s deserving of what amounts to a death penalty for his career, it’s impossible to claim that this arbitration process is a fair one. It’s being heard by Fredric Horowitz, the hand-picked arbitrator employed by MLB. He is not finding in favor of A-Rod under any circumstances. Horowitz is relatively new on the job after replacing Shyam Das when Das was fired after—to MLB’s shock—finding in favor of Ryan Braun when Braun appealed his failed drug test after the 2011 season.

The other members of the three-person panel are MLB COO Rob Manfred and legal counsel to the MLBPA David Prouty. Prouty will obviously find in favor of A-Rod. Manfred is even more in MLB’s corner than Horowitz and testified for MLB. How can he be viewed as a fair judge?

A-Rod’s histrionics, desk-kicking, hand-slamming, storming out of the hearing and running right into Mike Francesa’s warm studio embrace aside, this is not an evenhanded hearing with an independent judiciary making the decision based on facts. From the beginning, the process was weighted to convict. Talking out of both sides of their mouths regarding legality and fairness, the head of Biogenesis, Anthony Bosch, was paid for his testimony. MLB purports itself to be as reasonable and objective as a court of law simultaneously using tactics that would immediately call the testimony of the star witness into question. They have Manfred testifying against A-Rod in a case in which Manfred will have a substantial say in the decision. If it sounds like North Korea, it may be because these are the methods used in North Korea.

The problem with MLB choosing not to come to a closed-door agreement with A-Rod regarding a suspension that both they and he could live with is that there’s always the potential of a federal lawsuit turning baseball’s heavy-handedness and dictatorial edicts back on itself as happened with collusion and the reserve clause. Both times baseball thought they’d win easily. Both times they lost badly. Both times it cost them an exponentially greater amount of money than if they’d just decided to treat the players as partners rather than a beaten down society of hindrances to furthering their own ends.

MLB has been notoriously clumsy in using its corporate connections and power in high places to its best advantage as the NFL does. What are they going to do when A-Rod—with nothing left to lose and seeing no logic in backing down now—chooses to toss it to the courts for an injunction allowing him to play in 2014 while the case winds its way through the legal process? Wouldn’t it have been easier to shun the attempts to use A-Rod as the conduit to wash away all baseball’s collective sins? To quash it for the good of everyone who looked the other way while the public was oohing and aahing at the record-breaking power numbers and other byproducts of the drug use? Would A-Rod have taken a 100 game suspension just to get it over with? They’ll never know. From the beginning, they were hell-bent on getting the conviction because they hate A-Rod and want to use him as their fulcrum to leverage the rest of baseball to fall in line; as the case study of what can happen if they take the same road he did.

The A-Rod decision is imminent and we know the result. But this case is far from over. And it’s MLB’s own fault if they lose again.

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The MLB Hall of Fame Rules Cultivate Randomness

Whenever you get into the vagaries of voting—for anything—the reaction to the result is contingent on the individual. If, for example, you’re a Republican you were no doubt pleased with the Supreme Court deciding that George W. Bush won Florida and the presidency in 2000. Al Gore supporters, on the other hand, were crestfallen. Both sides had a foundation for their position. Both sides could have been judged as “right.” The bitterest blamed Ralph Nader for siphoning votes away from Gore. Others held the state of Florida responsible for their confusing butterfly ballots. Many blamed Gore himself as he wasn’t even able to win his home state of Tennessee.

For whatever reason, Gore lost. There may have been a basis in all claims for why it happened even though he won the popular vote. It could have been a confluence of events that led to Bush’s presidency. At any rate, the rules were in place and up for interpretation to make it possible. No amount of anger and second-guessing will change that.

When members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BBWAA) cast their votes for the Baseball Hall of Fame, they have met the criteria to be eligible to vote. That includes being active baseball writers for ten years. There are no other rules they have to adhere to to be deemed eligible. That means they don’t even have to know much of anything about baseball to cast a ballot.

As for the players they’re allowed to vote for, the rules are the following:

A. A baseball player must have been active as a player in the Major Leagues at some time during a period beginning twenty (20) years before and ending five (5) years prior to election.

B. Player must have played in each of ten (10) Major League championship seasons, some part of which must have been within the period described in 3 (A).

C. Player shall have ceased to be an active player in the Major Leagues at least five (5) calendar years preceding the election but may be otherwise connected with baseball.

D. In case of the death of an active player or a player who has been retired for less than five (5) full years, a candidate who is otherwise eligible shall be eligible in the next regular election held at least six (6) months after the date of death or after the end of the five (5) year period, whichever occurs first.

E. Any player on Baseball’s ineligible list shall not be an eligible candidate.

4. Method of Election:

A. BBWAA Screening Committee—A Screening Committee consisting of baseball writers will be appointed by the BBWAA. This Screening Committee shall consist of six members, with two members to be elected at each Annual Meeting for a three-year term. The duty of the Screening Committee shall be to prepare a ballot listing in alphabetical order eligible candidates who (1) received a vote on a minimum of five percent (5%) of the ballots cast in the preceding election or (2) are eligible for the first time and are nominated by any two of the six members of the BBWAA Screening Committee.

B. Electors may vote for as few as zero (0) and as many as ten (10) eligible candidates deemed worthy of election. Write-in votes are not permitted.

C. Any candidate receiving votes on seventy-five percent (75%) of the ballots cast shall be elected to membership in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

5. Voting: Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

6. Automatic Elections: No automatic elections based on performances such as a batting average of .400 or more for one (1) year, pitching a perfect game or similar outstanding achievement shall be permitted.

7. Time of Election: The duly authorized representatives of the BBWAA shall prepare, date and mail ballots to each elector no later than the 15th day of January in each year in which an election is held. The elector shall sign and return the completed ballot within twenty (20) days. The vote shall then be tabulated by the duly authorized representatives of the BBWAA.

8. Certification of Election Results: The results of the election shall be certified by a representative of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America and an officer of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. The results shall be transmitted to the Commissioner of Baseball. The BBWAA and National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. shall jointly release the results for publication.

9. Amendments: The Board of Directors of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Inc. reserves the right to revoke, alter or amend these rules at any time.

You can read all the rules here.

It seems that every time there’s a vote of some kind in baseball, there’s an visceral reaction from those who don’t get their way; whose judgment of what makes an individual “worthy” isn’t adhered to. As with the MVP, Cy Young Award and Rookie of the Year voting, it turns into a “right” and “wrong” argument based on personal beliefs as to what the winners should have accomplished.

Here’s the problem though: the rules dictate that there is no right and wrong. So if there’s no specific right and wrong and the voters are sticking to the parameters they’re given, how can there be so vast a reaction when preferred candidates of a certain faction lose or are excluded?

The players who “should” be elected is irrelevant once the baseline rules are understood and accepted. The rules are the stop sign. If a voter chooses to place Jack Morris on his or her ballot for any reason—whether you agree with it or not—it is protected by the fact that Morris fulfills all the rules of eligibility.

Every person who responds with a rage bordering on murderous religious fanaticism at the voting decisions of the likes of Murray Chass, Ken Gurnick and anyone else is missing the foundational point that the rules listed above are the rules that the voters go by. So if Chass chooses not to cast his vote for a player who he suspects as being a performance enhancing drug user, he can do that. The context of baseball itself winking and nodding at the PED use and tacitly encouraging it from the commissioner’s office on down has nothing to do with that reality. Chass thinks they cheated and he’s using that as justification not to give his vote. If Gurnick votes for Morris and refuses to place Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and any of the other candidates who are considered no-brainers on his ballot, he can do that as well.

Are they doing it with an agenda? Yes. Are those saying Morris doesn’t belong doing the same thing? Yes. Is it allowed? Going by the rules of the voting, absolutely.

Until those rules are changed—and they won’t be—the Hall of Fame will not have a statistical standard. Nor will it fit into the conceit of those who think they have the key to unlock what makes a Hall of Famer. The Hall of Fame was once a fun debate as to who belonged and who didn’t. Now it’s just a contest as to who can scream the loudest, make the snarkiest insults and indulge in a dazzling array of childish name-calling. “Disagree with me and you must be an idiot. It’s innate.”

There are still those who believe the Hall of Fame is for the best of the best meaning Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Tom Seaver, Babe Ruth and Ted Williams shouldn’t be sullied by having to share their eternal baseball resting place with the likes of Bill Mazeroski. Others voted players in when they hit the so-called magic numbers of 3,000 hits, 300 wins and 500 home runs. It didn’t matter if they were stat compilers who hung around long enough to accumulate those stats. They hit the number and the doors magically opened. Now it’s gotten more complicated with the alleged PED users like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds being eligible for election and falling short for allegations that have not been proven. Is it wrong to exclude them? Is it right?

Before answering, refer to the rules again. It is up to the voter to decide what’s important. Nothing trumps that. Yankees fans lobbying for the election of Mike Mussina don’t want to hear that Phil Rizzuto was elected in spite of him being a good but not great player who benefited from the support of Williams and Mantle and an extended campaign from Rizzuto himself to be inducted. In his later years, Rizzuto was known as a goofy and affable broadcaster, but his failure to be elected as a player earlier was hallmarked by a self-righteous and apoplectic response from Rizzuto himself. There are many cases like that of Rizzuto with players who were borderline getting in because of likability and a convincing argument lodged by close personal friends.

Other players who were disliked or had off-field controversies found themselves left out. Did Steve Garvey’s hypocrisy and womanizing hurt his candidacy in the immediate aftermath of his career as the life he’d spent being the epitome of the goody-two-shoes, America, mom, apple pie and Dodger Blue was found to be a carefully calculated series of self-promotional lies? As a player, Garvey had credentials for serious consideration, especially back then before the Hall of Fame argument turned into a holy war between stat people and old-schoolers. He hit 272 career homers, had a .294 career batting average, won four Gold Gloves, an MVP, played in 1,207 consecutive games and, in perhaps what would’ve gotten him over the top, had a post-season batting average of .338 with 11 homers and the 1978 and 1984 NLCS MVPs. Yet he fell far short of enshrinement.

Should Rizzuto be in and Garvey not? Rizzuto, who has as one of the players in his Baseball-Reference similarity scores Jose Offerman, is a Hall of Famer. Garvey, who has Orlando Cepeda as one of his “similars” is out. Rizzuto’s supporters will reference that he was the linchpin of the Yankees championship teams from the 1940s and 50s. His detractors will look at his numbers, roll their eyes and wonder why he’s there. That’s the Hall of Fame.

Go through the entire roster of Hall of Famers and with every player not named Ruth, Seaver, Cy Young, Ty Cobb and a few others, they will have a question mark next to them as their frailties are pointed out as reasons not to have them with the best of the best. Then go back to the rules and understand the randomness. Voting is as expansive as staring out into space. You can see anything you want and justify it because there are no fundamental principles other than what the rules entail. Therefore, no one can be called wrong.

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Ryan Braun Has Highly Offended Me

The easiest thing to do with the latest Ryan Braun saga is to go into a logical mode and say he did something that anyone else would’ve done, got very rich and only got caught because baseball has suddenly decided to do something about an issue that they winked and nodded at less than ten years ago. Or you can go to the other side, go into the idyllic world of fantasy where all athletes are clean-living paragons of sportsmanship and act like Braun just kidnapped your children while starving your dog and committed a Bernie Madoff-level fraud.

Did he lie? No more than most any other athletes or even people you’ll run into who, when cornered, will do something similar to what Braun did. Braun passionately proclaimed his innocence and then came up with a tersely and inadequately worded statement acknowledging the all-encompassing “mistakes” that could mean anything from parking in a handicapped spot to biting the heads off live parakeets. Is this something new in sports? In the world?

It can be parsed, dissected, criticized, ridiculed and bashed, but Braun was doing something that many other players were doing or would do if they had the opportunity. He just got caught. He won an MVP while using PEDs, but other players have won awards and made a lot of money doing the exact same thing. Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa put on a show for an entity in Major League Baseball that was still recovering from the 1994 strike and canceled post-season and helped the game grow stronger with the use of steroids just like bodybuilders and athletes do. Roger Clemens “defied” age. Players who couldn’t play and were organizational filler were suddenly All-Stars. Why is it now something over which Braun is being treated about as badly as Aaron Hernandez is? This groundswell and group mentality is idiotic and if you actually believed he was clean, idiotic is the operative word.

Stop listening to what ballplayers say because it’s made for public consumption or done out of blatant self-preservation. Braun tried to save himself, did for a while, then got caught again and has copped a plea. The over-the-top response is pure self-righteous garbage and it should be ignored just as fervently as the statements players like Braun make saying how “innocent” they are. Braun’s morals and life code are not a concern of mine and I’m not sure why they would be a concern of anyone else either. Then again, I don’t speak the language of “ridiculous.”

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John Rocker Tells A Truth No One Wants To Hear (Especially From Him)

There’s no difference between what John Rocker said and what baseball as a whole did regarding performance enhancing drugs. Rocker’s recent comments elicited a rehashing of his behaviors when he was playing the wrestling bad guy. The entire genesis of “Rocker is an idiot” stems from his ill-advised interview in Sports Illustrated. Because Rocker said some offensive things then doesn’t automatically make everything he says meritless. If it were a former baseball owner, a respected player, a broadcaster, an agent, or a writer who came out and said the same things Rocker said, would it be seen as blatant honesty or Ann Coulter-style, absurd over-the-top salesmanship?

Rocker said the following while appearing on Cleveland’s 92.3 The Fan:

Honestly, and this may go against what some people think from an ethical standpoint, I think it was the better game.

At the end of the day when people are paying their $80, $120, whatever it may be, to buy their ticket and come watch that game, it’s almost like the circus is in town.

They are paid to be entertained. They wanna see some clown throw a fastball 101 mph and some other guy hit it 500 feet. That’s entertainment. You’re paying to be entertained.

Was there anything more entertaining than 1998—I don’t care how each man (Sosa and McGwire) got there—was there anything more entertaining than 1998?

Nowadays Rocker’s a guest on radio shows only because they realize that whatever he says will be twisted out of proportion because of the new politically correct sensibility against PEDs. Never mind that the owners, the players, the media and the fans were all holding hands denying the reality that the home run records set by Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa and the resurgences from pitchers long past their sell-by date like Roger Clemens came about due to drug use. Since Rocker said it, it has to be treated with revulsion. The only problem is that he’s right.

After the 1994 strike that wiped out the playoffs and World Series, blew away Tony Gwynn’s last chance at hitting .400, ruined Matt Williams’s run at the home run record and essentially demolished baseball in Montreal, the sport went into overdrive to replenish fan interest. Whether or not there was a tacit decision to ignore PED use or a whisper campaign to encourage it probably depends on whom you’re talking to or about. Commissioner Bud Selig acts as if he had no clue what was going on; the players were looking to get paid; the front office people had to sign players they knew were using to keep their jobs; the owners couldn’t care less; the media turned their heads; and the fans came back to the ballpark to watch the players hit dingers and shatter records. If no one’s innocent, everyone’s guilty.

It was only when the moral outrage started based on the self-aggrandizing investigation of Jeff Novitzky that got the ball rolling on exposure of PED use in sports. By then baseball had no choice but to put up a front of ignorance and take steps to “clean up” the game. It’s still ongoing with the current Biogenesis investigation threatening to be the newest in a string of baseball’s attempts to be dictatorial against one of the most powerful and committed unions on the planet. To meet their current ends they’re willing to run the risk of another collusion verdict in the inevitable lawsuits to be filed by Ryan Braun, Alex Rodriguez and all the other players named in the records.

To imply that Rocker is wrong in his assertion that it was a show MLB was putting on to entertain the fans and make a lot of money is contrary to the facts. His statements were not based on wringing the last vestiges of attention from his infamy.  He was telling a truth that no one wants to hear or admit.

It’s simple to dismiss Rocker as a bitter fool by pointing to an entirely separate incident that happened over thirteen years ago. What happens when someone who’s not perceived as a bitter fool says the exact same thing? Then will it be seen as someone bringing forth contentions that all of baseball, the media and the fans loathe to admit: they got a thrill out of seeing all the records falling and balls flying out of stadiums. In their statements, baseball acts indignant at the PED use. In their actions/inactions, they were in on it and, in fact, encouraged it.

Say what you want about Rocker as a person, but his statements are dead-on. Because no one wants to hear them, especially from him, doesn’t alter their accuracy.

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Yaisel Puig and the All-Star Game

Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game has forever suffered from a lack of definition. With mixed signals coming from teams, players, fans and baseball’s front office, the failure to come to a clear-cut determination as to the game’s import or lack thereof has fostered a sense of stuffing everything into one package.

Is it a competitive game? If so, then why have rules that every team is represented?

Do players want to play in it? Some do, some don’t. Many would like the honor of being named without having to actually go. Even players with All-Star bonuses in their contracts aren’t bothered one way or the other. $50,000 might seem like a lot to you and me, but if a player such as Josh Hamilton doesn’t make it the loss of a $50,000 bonus isn’t much when he’s making $15 million this season.

There have been All-Star moments of competitiveness that made it seem like a real game. Pete Rose running over Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star game has been brandished as evidence for Rose’s never-ending competitiveness. It has also been a question as to whether Rose did it not just to try and score the run but, in the same vein as his occasionally unnecessary headfirst slides, to get his name and face in the newspapers to make more money for himself. Fosse’s career was severely damaged by the separated shoulder he sustained on the play.

There have also been instances that were entertaining and light-hearted. Barry Bonds lifting Torii Hunter on his shoulder after Hunter robbed Bonds of a homer; John Kruk feigning heart palpitations when Randy Johnson threw a ball over his head; lefty-swinging Larry Walker batting right-handed mid at-bat against the same Johnson; Cal Ripken being pushed to shortstop from third base by Alex Rodriguez at the behest of American League manager Joe Torre in Ripken’s last All-Star Game—we see clips of these moments all the time along with a clip of Rose running into Fosse. The ambiguity lays the foundation for it not being a game-game, but a game that is sort of a game simultaneous to being an exhibition.

If MLB decided to make the contest a true barometer over which league is supposedly “better,” they’d have more than one game, build teams that are constructed to compete with the other league, and play the starters for nine innings. The pitchers would be used for more than a limited number of innings and pitches. Strategy would be seriously employed rather than ensuring that as many players get into the game as possible.

With inter-league play, the frequency of movement of players from team-to-team, and the fans’ ability to watch games from other cities that they didn’t have access to in years past, there’s no novelty in seeing Miguel Cabrera, Bryce Harper and Mike Trout. The decision to make the game “count” by awarding home field advantage in the World Series to the winning league was a slapdash, knee-jerk reaction to the criticism of MLB after the tie game in 2002. It was a silly idea, but this decision was no more silly than MLB’s former method of alternating the AL and NL home field advantage on a yearly basis. This isn’t football and home field doesn’t matter all that much. In addition, many players on the All-Star rosters know their clubs have a slim-to-none chance of playing in the World Series anyway, so what do they care?

This is why the debate over Yasiel Puig’s candidacy to be an All-Star is relatively meaningless. There are factional disputes as to its rightness or wrongness, but if the game is of fluctuating rules and viability, then how can there be a series of ironclad mandates as to who’s allowed to participate?

Until MLB decides to make the All-Star Game into either a full-blown exhibition with no pretense of competitiveness or an all-out battle for supremacy there will be these debates that, in the cosmic scheme of things, don’t make a difference one way or the other.

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The Other Shoe Finally Drops On Ike Davis

Amid the disappointment and embarrassment Ike Davis presumably feels following yesterday’s demotion from the Mets to Triple A Las Vegas is probably an unadmitted sense of relief that the Mets finally pulled the trigger and made good on the threats that have been issued multiple times for a year. Now there is no longer the looming prospect of it happening—it happened—and Davis can go to Triple A, clear his head and get himself straight.

It’s the epitome of arrogance for outsiders in the media, on social media and for laypeople of every ilk to diagnose what’s “wrong” with Davis. He’s changing his swing, stance and everything else based on the last bit of advice he received, the last time he hit the ball hard and felt comfortable at the plate. It’s made him into a toxic mess and a lefty bat who was once a feared power hitter has been regularly pinch hit for in key situations by journeymen like Justin Turner. Going to Triple A is the best thing for him and the club.

This is clearly a short-term move and Davis will be back as soon as he has a sustained run of success. By success I don’t necessarily mean a load of hits and home runs, but success can mean looking as if he has a clue at the plate, commanding the strike zone, playing defense as if he’s not thinking about his last at bat, and hitting the ball hard. If the Mets had any intention of leaving Davis in the minors longer than a few weeks, they wouldn’t have immediately put the kibosh on the most obvious personnel move in shifting Lucas Duda to first base. As it is, they’re apparently going to recall Josh Satin and give him a chance.

Satin, 28, has been a productive hitter in the minor leagues since being drafted by the Mets’ prior front office regime in the sixth round of the 2008 draft. He has a career minor league slash line of .303/.398/.465 and 10-15 home run pop. But is he a big league prospect or a 4-A player who’s interchangeable with the last guy on the roster? There are two ways to look at Satin: 1) he’s a borderline big leaguer who can hit Triple A pitching and be an extra bat off the bench; or 2) he’s a player who is in the Scott Hatteberg/Moneyball tradition of someone who has a good eye, some power and needs little more than a chance to play to prove himself.

Put it this way: if it were the latter, some other club would’ve picked him up or the Mets would’ve given him a shot to get some at bats as a utility player. He’s a stopgap whereas moving Duda to first and playing Jordany Valdespin/Kirk Nieuwenhuis/Juan Lagares in left and center field would imply permanence to the Davis demotion.

Davis’s popularity in the Mets clubhouse will certainly inspire sadness that he was demoted, but even the most ardent Davis supporter and friend can’t defend a .161 batting average, a .500 OPS and 5 homers with 1 since April. He’s been equally bad against righties and lefties and there’s no justification for keeping him in the majors if this is what he’s giving them.

Being well-liked is fine, but it must be remembered that this isn’t a popularity contest. The Giants players hated Barry Bonds with a passion…until he stepped into the batters box where, even in the days before he evidently touched a PED, he boasted an OPS of 1.000 and above on an annual basis. Keeping Davis in the big leagues through this struggle was no longer serving any purpose other than making it appear as if the inmates were running the asylum and with a team that’s playing as poorly as the Mets, that can’t continue. The first step toward real accountability is the long-overdue decision to demote Davis. If you don’t hit, you don’t play. Davis didn’t hit and he won’t play in the big leagues for awhile. It’s that simple.

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The Invisible Rose

As ridiculous as it sounds for Pete Rose’s name to have been expunged from mere mention on Topps Baseball Cards as baseball’s career hits leader, what were they supposed to do and why is it even a story?

All the context provided makes perfect sense. PED users such as Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro haven’t been banished as Rose has. Accused, suspected and prosecuted for perjury, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds are still listed on all records. No one has ever sought to remove O.J. Simpson from any of the NFL record books. Did Rose, as a player, do worse things that these people?

For all his activities and selfishness, Rose always played the game on the up-and-up. Charlie Hustle was a hustler and a self-promoter. His headfirst slides were done to garner attention to himself even when they were totally unnecessary. The running to first base on a walk was a trademark to stand out from the crowd. He accumulated praise for maximizing limited abilities as if he couldn’t play at all and clawed his way to the top of the record books, but it’s ignored that amid all the salable perception of “Rose made it with a lack of ability,” it’s not true. He was a great player and would have been a great player even if he’d behaved as lackadaisically as Robinson Cano does.

It’s a matter floating morals. Compartmentalized into legality, illegality and semantics, Rose is off the MLB officially licensed products while players who have done far worse to the game itself are still there. MLB was complicit in the use of performance enhancers and has put up a front of trying to eradicate the sport of this type of drug use, but that front is somewhat laissez faire, knowing that for as many suspensions, tests and investigations they perform, players will still go to the Biogenesis Clinics around the world and seek a method to dance through the raindrops and beat the tests. By all reasonable accounts, Ryan Braun got away with likely PED use to win the MVP in 2011 and avoided a suspension on a technicality. Then his name was discovered in the records of Biogenesis.

The rules for inclusion are what they are and because of Rose’s lifetime banishment, he’s not permitted to be mentioned. Of course it’s silly and selective, but Rose isn’t being singled out any more than the PED users are receiving a pass. It’s just the way it is.

The only reason this is a story is because it’s made into a story and Rose has pleaded that he wants his name reinstated—probably because it can make him more money. Perhaps Topps is trying to drum up interest in the cards in the event that collectors will see the omission of Rose as a future novelty if he’s ever reinstated, posthumously or not. Who’s going to Topps for recordkeeping anyway? And who’s going to MLB for propriety and logic?

No one.

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Rules Of Denial For PED Suspects

For athletes accused of using performance enhancing drugs, we’ve seen the list of don’ts in action. They’re repeated over and over again with denials, accusations, shifting of the blame, finger pointing (literally and figuratively), shouting and adamant insistence of innocence that, by and large, turn out to be lies.

Maybe it’s time for some new tactics and advice that, naturally, no one will listen to.

Short and sweet

Did your English teacher ever use this phrase when teaching writing? Did you listen? Probably not. There’s a perception that the longer the response, the more complete it is and with that, the believability rises.

It doesn’t. The more you say, the more traps you set for yourself and the larger number of statements can be fact-checked.

Ryan Braun is the latest example of an accused PED user who’s either the unluckiest guy in baseball or is consorting with the wrong people who keep getting him into trouble. When his name came up in connection with Anthony Bosch’s Miami clinic, he released a written statement that was quoted by the New York Times in this piece. A clip relevant to Braun is below:

Braun issued his own denial on Tuesday night, saying in a written statement that during the course of preparing for the appeal of his positive test last year, “my attorneys, who were previously familiar with Tony Bosch, used him as a consultant.” He said Bosch answered questions for his lawyers about testosterone levels and the possibilities of tampering with urine samples.

“There was a dispute over compensation for Bosch’s work, which is why my lawyer and I are listed under ‘moneys owed’ and not on any other list,” Braun said. “I have nothing to hide and have never had any other relationship with Bosch. I will fully cooperate with any inquiry into this matter.”

Braun has a lot to say when he’s accused. When he tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone in 2011, Braun wasn’t proven “innocent.” He got off on technicality due to the supposedly fractured chain of custody for his urine sample and because the since-fired MLB arbitrator ruled in his favor. Then he held a press conference doubling down on the outrage.

Now his name came up again.

I don’t know what he did or didn’t do, but I do know he needs to refer to his attorneys when something like this crops up and stop yapping so much. The longer the explanation; the more extensive the litany of excuses; the greater number of people you reference as having done X, Y, and Z, the guiltier you probably are.

The more you whine the worse you sound

See Lance Armstrong’s decades of denial and how ridiculous his head shaking, shrugging, feigned disbelief that anyone dare mention him as a PED case and how foolish he looks now to understand why moaning and groaning at the injustice is a waste of time and energy—especially if you’re guilty.

Armstrong, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez have all provided flimsy excuses of one degree or another. All got caught. All continued to lie. Palmeiro was the previously alluded to finger-pointer. It still stuns me that people believed that these individuals were clean. Looking at the bulked up bodies and numbers and realizing that there are certain things that the human body simply cannot do naturally is the first signal that something was amiss. But when a person has been catered to for his entire life because of his athletic prowess, his “heroism,” his skills, and winked and nodded at by his bosses, what’s he supposed to do? He’ll lie, make a mess and wait for someone else to clean it up because that’s what’s gone on from the day they were discovered as “different” than the other kids.

If there’s a quirk of statistical performance, you’re going to get accused

The case study of a player whose recent performance was called into question not as an accusation but as a legitimate curiosity as to how it was happening was Raul Ibanez in 2009 during his MVP-caliber first half with the Phillies. Ibanez was enraged that he was mentioned as a possible PED user, but he wasn’t accused. It was reasonable to wonder to how Ibanez could suddenly develop into an upper echelon star at age 37. He never tested positive and his performance took a nosedive after the first half with the Phillies.

Did the National League spent the first four months of the season figuring out his weaknesses and challenging him? Did they latch onto his holes until he became the same good but not great player he always was? Or did he stop using something for fear of getting busted? He never got caught so his record is clean, but given the era and the numbers, was it a wrong to ask? Fellow players think the same things if another player who’d never exhibited certain attributes for his entire career is suddenly hitting 400 ft. home runs with an alarming and unbelievable frequency. Many times they’re right.

Lawyering up doesn’t make one guilty

There’s a common belief that asking for an attorney or referring all questions to legal representation and refusing to comment is a tacit admission of guilt. That’s a myth. If an individual is innocent, there’s no reason to talk and say things that might be perceived as incriminating. If an individual is guilty, the worst thing he can do is what Braun did and yap, yap, yap as if he’s trying to convince everyone that in spite of the frosting dripping down his shirt, he didn’t eat the cake.

Perhaps it quiets the storm down to a certain extent when publicly pronouncing oneself innocent and playing stupid, but if there’s proof of guilt, it’s going to come out eventually and not only will the player be branded a cheat, but he’ll be a liar as well.

“Not me” didn’t work for Jeffy and it won’t work for you

This speaks for itself.

Two words are the simplest and “not me” ain’t them. They’re easy to remember but difficult to follow. Even so, players would be wise to heed them:

SHUT……UP!!!!!!!!

It’s for your own good.

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A-Rod Upstages the Super Bowl

Jim Harbaugh. John Harbaugh. Ray Lewis. Colin Kaepernick. Randy Moss. Joe Flacco. And…Alex Rodriguez?

The easiest thing to do in this latest media firestorm surrounding A-Rod would be to set up a table in New Orleans at or around Super Bowl XLVII and let him join in with the frenzy to save time and airfare for everyone. A-Rod has a talent for jumping to the forefront of big events in which he is not participating. In 2007, during the Red Sox-Rockies World Series, it was announced that A-Rod was opting out of his Yankees contract. Blame for the “mistake” in timing was doled on agent Scott Boras. Because Boras is seen as the epitome of evil and a Svengali who latched his claws into the fatherless A-Rod at a young age and unduly influenced him to make decisions he wouldn’t have made if left to his own devices, it’s easy to turn him into the fall guy whether it’s true or not.

Boras no longer represents A-Rod and his problems have gotten worse, not better.

The latest is A-Rod’s name popping up in the notes of a shady anti-aging clinic in Miami—NY Times Story.

I suppose it’s possible that he’s innocent. We can ask the simplest questions: Why would anyone be stupid enough to write the actual name of the client instead of using a code? Why don’t these players just get up and go to Mexico, Switzerland, Iceland, Japan, Mars, Jupiter or anywhere they can simply do what they need to do using a false name, pay in cash and come back with no paper trail and no one the wiser? Why would A-Rod continue to poke the eyes of anyone and everyone for (considering his plummet in the past several years) what amounted to zero return?

A-Rod will be referred to as arrogant, but that may not be the case. It may be insecurity and, in a weird way, a certain nobility of trying to live up to the money the Yankees are paying him by taking PEDs to be able to perform. There will be comparisons to Lance Armstrong, but as far as we know, A-Rod has never wantonly destroyed the lives of those who tried to expose him in an effort to prop up a front of philanthropy and honor. The only person he’s succeeded in destroying is himself. He’s not as arrogant or stupid as he is oblivious.

That obliviousness hasn’t extended to ignorance of reality. He’s still cognizant of plausible deniability and legal ramifications. You won’t see A-Rod sitting in front of Congress denying PED use and wagging his finger in their faces a la Rafael Palmeiro; you won’t see him on 60 Minutes like Roger Clemens. You might see him pleading his case to the media as Barry Bonds did once a sufficient amount of time has passed and he thinks it might be safe to argue his Hall of Fame worthiness. For right now, A-Rod is smart enough to keep quiet and lawyer up.

Major League Baseball itself is again left running into one another like some slapstick comedy worthy of Benny Hill, trying to spin their inability to get in front of these stories and cleaning up the mess after the fact. They knew about this Miami clinic and were investigating it in the hopes that a bolt of lightning out of the sky would provide them with cause to suspend the players who used its services. They were unsuccessful.

A-Rod is the glossiest name on the list, but it’s no shock for him to wind up in the middle of incidents such as these. Gio Gonzalez, whose career has taken a wondrous jump to “ace” is on the list. Nelson Cruz was a journeyman until age 28 when he hit 33 homers is on the list. Melky Cabrera we already know about. Yasmani Grandal is a yet-to-be-established kid and is on the list. Bartolo Colon was trying to hang on and is on the list.

The fine line between developing and using outlawed “helpers” to improve is no longer blurred. It’s gone. Every player is under scrutiny. Which is the real Gonzalez? Did he naturally evolve from his initial opportunities in the big leagues in 2008-2009 when he showed flashes of great talent with terrible results to the rising star in 2010-2011 and then third in the NL Cy Young Award voting in 2012? Or was it in 2009-2010 when someone whispered in his ear that if he went to this Miami clinic, they’d provide him with potions to send his career into the stratosphere?

Any statistical evidence is presented with the benefit of hindsight and all players are suspect.

For A-Rod, we’ll never know if everything was a creation of PEDs or if he was using them at age 25? 28? 30? 35? to perform and make a ton of money; to maintain; to return from injury and live up to his contract. The one thing he has in common with Armstrong is that he’s not credible in anything he says even if, at some point, he decides to “confess.”

A-Rod’s career with the Yankees is over. The Yankees are said to be poring over his contract to try and find a way to keep from paying him. As much as A-Rod is reviled by contemporaries, the MLB Players Association will fight for him to get every single penny on that contract from now until the Rapture and even then, they’ll have to stand in front of Jesus and find a reason not to give A-Rod his money. And they’ll lose. (When I say Jesus, I mean Christ. Not a distant A-Rod relative who did his bidding as a human shield.)

What will happen is this:

MLB will try and find a way to suspend A-Rod and these other players and fail.

The Yankees will try and get out of paying him and fail.

A-Rod won’t agree to the floated insurance scheme that a doctor says he can’t play again.

A-Rod won’t play again for the Yankees; they’ll come to an agreement to pay him off, perhaps deferring some of it so they have cash on hand and it’s not a lump sum payment.

A team like the Marlins, A’s or Rays will sign him against the wishes of MLB. A-Rod will repeat the 2011-2012 performances of Manny Ramirez and provide nothing other than aggravation and a media circus.

Some other embarrassment will occur with A-Rod because that’s like the sun coming up—once you see it happen every day of your life, you just sort of expect it.

A-Rod will epitomize the ending in the novel version of The Natural in which Roy Hobbs doesn’t redeem himself and lives his life wondering what might have been. This isn’t Hollywood, but the ending is just as predictable. Unlike Hobbs, A-Rod will be very wealthy when he fades into oblivion with a career blotted out by a giant asterisk of his own making. There are no excuses and no one left to blame anymore.

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Lance Armstrong’s Half-Hearted Allocution

Lance Armstrong, as was shown during his cancer diagnosis and treatment, is capable of nobility. It also showed him to be defiant, determined and unwilling to concede any point that conflicted with his controlling nature. Somewhere the lines got crossed and by some arrogant osmosis, Armstrong’s work with his cancer charity and dogged single-minded intensity to confront any challenge with full force morphed into one another and blurred the concept of propriety. He never learned to place those character traits into a positive direction. Like his cancer, it’s a metastasizing entity. Only this one grew so large and extensive that no treatment could control it until it’s eating him alive. The bullheaded “get in my way and I’ll run over you,” is extending to his initial attempt to show contrition for the damage he’s done and it’s a first-ditch/last-ditch effort to salvage whatever he can of his name and reputation.

He doesn’t know that yet. He still thinks he can beat “it.” Whatever “it” is.

Armstrong’s interview with Oprah Winfrey was meant to be a mea culpa. Through his years and years of denials that he used performance enhancing drugs, Armstrong held to the story to a remarkable degree. The avalanche of evidence buried him and he’s no longer holding to the story, but the personality is the same. And that’s the problem. The altered perception has gone from one of admiration for his achievements to bewilderment that he’s not even trying to put forth the pretense of truly being sorry.

Armchair psychologists, attorneys, body language experts, judges, juries, and executioners sat and watched the interview with a ready-made analysis to explain what Armstrong was really saying. Behind the words and faux tears (of which there were fewer than any of us could have expected), there was still the calculating and devious mind as to how he was going to get out of this and the egomania to think he still can.

The remorse the interview was clearly intended to convey conflicted with his beady eyes darted back and forth, the look of smug condescension and remaining sediment-filled puddle of, “I’m Lance Armstrong, I’ll figure a way out of this,” that has served him so well over the years and maintained the veneer of innocence that so many believed because they wanted to believe it. Knowing what truly occurs in the world of cycling—that it’s impossible in this day and age to win the Tour de France without using PEDs—interfered with the myth, so it was ignored out of convenience and, in the case of his advertisers and those benefiting from him, money.

The strangest part of the Oprah interview was that Armstrong didn’t even bother to try and alter his tone to suit those on the fence of how to proceed in their view of him. The people who don’t care about cycling; who understand why he did what he did; who may have made similar decisions and are willing to give him the opportunity to redeem himself; who never truly believed him in his declarations of innocence but were willing to forgive what he did in the interests of the good he spread with his charity work.

Serial killer Ted Bundy looked more sorry during his pre-execution apology for the victims he murdered than Armstrong did in that interview.

The fundamental problem isn’t any psychological block or personal failing. It’s that Armstrong’s brain doesn’t work that way. Amid all the excuses, fake humility, admissions and self-deprecating humor, it’s not registering that he’s shifted from one set of intractable principles in overcoming obstacles to another. First it was battling cancer; then it was making his comeback and winning; then it was charity work; then it was lying about his drug use; now it’s telling the truth about his drug use. There’s no comprehension or categorizing of right or wrong anywhere in that list because Armstrong is only able to conceive the right and wrong as it suits him. Right is what benefits Lance; wrong is what hurts Lance.

Lance, Lance, Lance.

He would’ve been better off having had a mirror across from him instead of Oprah. Not to denigrate the job she did because she did ask all the right questions, but she didn’t ask about inside information that a Steve Kroft-type journalist, cycling expert, doctor or attorney would. It was too comfortable a forum to get any legitimate emotion and possibly dig underneath to find out exactly what Armstrong was actually thinking. The interview was so gentle that Oprah was trying to romance the answers out of him rather than dissect him, trap him, and force him to come clean.

I was waiting for Armstrong to reference his “cousin in the D.R.” as Alex Rodriguez did. Or to come up with absurd ridiculousness as Roger Clemens did in his ill-advised publicity blitz on 60 Minutes and in front of the government panel. Maybe he should have just clammed up as Barry Bonds did or acted as if he didn’t speak English like Sammy Sosa.

Armstrong used the word “sick” when describing some of his actions and behaviors during the years of lies. It’s certainly sick. It’s sick that people can relate more to what someone like O.J. Simpson did in a fit of rage and jealousy than what Armstrong did in systematically demolishing people who simply told the truth and dared to cross him by not sticking to the rules of his world.

His world.

That’s the key to Armstrong. It’s all about him. Still clinging to that idea that everything, everywhere is linked to how it affects Lance, he sees it as unfair that he’s banned for life from competing in marathons and triathlons because it’s being done to him. “Why won’t you let me race?” This while ignoring the scores of people he maligned publicly and dragged into court for telling the truth about his drug use.

Like any dictator or self-anointed monarch, if he’d chosen to let one small incursion into his territory go by unpunished, there would be anarchy. So, as a message to those who would try and try again to bring down his empire, he destroyed them. Now he’s “apologizing,” but is not sorry and maintains the stiff-arm against the world thinking he’ll somehow win.

He won’t.

Armstrong showed nobility in his cancer fight. There’s also a nobility in unrepentance. If he’s not sorry, he shouldn’t say he’s sorry. But he did. If he was trying to alter the public perception of him with his half-hearted allocution, he succeeded. He made it worse.

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