I have had a love/hate relationship with Major League Baseball for my entire life.
I first fell in love with the game in 1968, while listening to my first World Series. The Tigers got my Redbirds that year, and revenge is sweet ;-).
A couple of years later, my love turned to bewilderment. Steve Carlton, after having the season of his life, asked his team to consider renegotiating his contract and give him $100,000 for the next year to reward his performance.
Gussie Busch, in a fit of rage, traded him to Philadelphia for someone named Rick Wise.
St. Louis could have gone to at least two World Series in the 70′s with Lefty. Instead, he helped turned one of the worst teams in the NL into WS champions.
The reserve clause kept player’s wages abysmally low. Teams owned players for life. Gussie made legal history when he tried to trade Curt Flood. Curt said no, and eventually got rid of the slavish law with his courageous (and despised, at the time) legal fight against it.
Unfortunately, the game is being hurt just as badly, if not worse, by the Player’s Union.
This abominable organization, while purporting to be protecting players’ rights, in fact is actively involved in protecting steroid cheaters.
In a year when Barry Bonds may well break baseball’s holiest record currently held by a true gentleman (unless every pitcher that faces him gives him an intentional walk, which I would LOVE), there is compelling evidence that federal agents recently won the right to possess. The evidence consists of 300 tests for steroids given in 2003, along with the names of the players tested.
The union is arguing doctor/patient privilege. Hogwash. This is evidence of DELIBERATE CHEATING, not addiction or disease.
The evidence could get Bonds convicted of perjury (“I never knowingly took steroids. I didn’t know Balco was involved with them.”). However, the union is also protecting who might well turn out to be a lawbreaker heading for prison.
To read Sports Illustrated’s take on the mess, click on today’s FamilyFirst pick.
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