Dear Bud Selig: "At the heart of the issue are local talent brokers... who sign players as young as 10."

Dear Mr. Commissioner,

While pondering how to spend your $18 million salary, how about this: Hire a good lawyer.

Seems that dirty little scandal about Latin America kickbacks and scouts is shinnying up our National Pastime's corporate ladder.

It's the steroid scandal for executives.

We've now seen the defrocking of longtime baseball bigwig Jim Bowden, most recently GM of the Washington Nationals. Talk about insider baseball! How many happy hours has Bowden presided over in the Executive Club? To think one of your contemporaries could be caught up in illegal kickbacks, well, who knew?

Too bad you can't fight this with urine tests.

The New York Times -- thanks to reporters Joshua Robinson and Michael S. Schmidt -- yesterday revealed this:

"At the heart of the issue are local talent brokers known as buscones, who have close ties to government officials and who sign players as young as 10 to contracts in the hopes of later cashing in if they make it professionally. But they are routinely suspected of altering players’ birth certificates to make them seem younger and more attractive to major league clubs, and supplying players with steroids."

Wow.

Mr. Selig, did you read that? They sign kids at age 10. Age ten. Did you know this? Because you oversee the system through which MLB signs 16-year-olds in Latin America. Of course, when they're signing 16 year olds, they start recruiting much earlier.

Hey, Whitey, can we rerun that tape?

"At the heart of the issue are local talent brokers known as buscones... who sign players as young as 10..."

Wow.

If they sign them at 10, then they must recruit them at age... hm-mm. I'm feeling a bit sick here.

Mr. Selig, would you let your 6-year-old grandson in the same room with one of those guys?

"... buscones... who sign players as young as 10..."
Mr. Selig, you are working on a legacy here.

It would be ashamed if a scandal someday keeps you out of the Hall of Fame.

Sir, today, right now, you can do something:

Put an end to MLB's practice of signing Latin America boys at 16. Make it 17. Eighteen is even better. Put stipulations on it. End this crap.

Do the right thing, sir.

Or be remembered as MLB's buscone.