From Dave Zirin at The Nation.
What actions
would the late Marvin Miller, the man who built the MLBPA as a combative
fighting union, undertake? Miller's starting point would be, I believe,
to mercilessly call out the hypocrisy of Bud Selig’s case against
A-Rod. He would say, as Dan Dickey (@hoopsnerd) pointed out on twitter,
that there is something bizarre about a situation where “MLB paid a
drug dealer for his info [and] then considered a lifetime ban for ARod
for trying to pay a drug dealer for his info.” He would also remark upon
how utterly rich it is for Bud Selig to be lecturing anyone about “the
best interests of the game” when it comes to performance enhancing
drugs. He would wonder why the commissioner who was in charge as
fully-loaded syringes were passed around like party favors in locker
rooms in the 1990s, is now trusted to “clean up the game”. He would ask
why there are no team penalties for steroid use. He would acidly
question why owners aren’t fined or sanctioned if their clubhouses
become PED clinics. He would wonder why the profits from baseball’s
steroid era flow to ownership but the penalties fall upon the players.
By the way, think Billy Madden or Mike Lupica would ever ask such questions?
Another voice of sanity crying out in the wilderness. Who the heck IS the head of the players' union these days? Do they even have one? Is it Bud Selig?
ReplyDeleteIf there is one, they shouldn't be paying him.
Nobody is asking these questions in the yahoo media. It's like the press after 9/11. They just printed whatever story the government fed them. Worse, they got used to it and made it standard operating procedure.
I would think that A-Rod has some legal stand for suing MLB just for the information they've been spoon-feeding the hard-hitting lapdogs at ESPN. The sanctimonious BS that these clowns are so happily regurgitating with all the seriousness of Les Nessman is obviously one-sided and self-serving for MLB in the court of public opinion. It makes me sick that they bring in as the expert voice of purity-in competition Redsock shill Curt Shilling, who won championships on the back of roids with Luis Gonzalez and the Diamondbacks and Manny being Manny and Big Pap Smear in Boston.
ReplyDeleteThe deck is so obviously stacked against A-Rod that as Wm Rhoden said in the NYT this weekend he's going to get a few people to come out of the woodwork to support him. Unfortunately, the players union does not appear to be willing to take much of a stand. I've been denying and railing against those who say unions deserve to die, but if this is how the strongest union anywhere responds, maybe they are right.
A-Rod is getting a raw deal. If they knock out a dozen players today, and not one plays for Boston, we know the fix is in. When the team with the most money can't win, then somebody is cheating. The pink elephant will come out in the wash... because it was washed with a Red Sock.
ReplyDelete