MLB is in no hurry to find the cheaters

[Band of Brothers]

Bud Selig can act like he is the savior of the MLB PED era all he wants but the facts say otherwise.

This whole biogenesis scandel was found out by outside sources and MLB was forced to deal with a nasty public relations blow up in their faces. Bud Selig acts like he rode in on a white horse and has saved us all from the cheating going on. He proclaims that stringent testing is going on and the clean up has begun. Maybe a few things have changed but Bud is full of bulls#it as usual.

I heard a interesting nugget from Victor Conte who was the guy from Balco that got busted. He was on CSN talking about how MLB is allowed to test around 30% of the players in the league for PED's but only tested around 5% last year which he said comes to only around 50 players.

50 freaking players tested ! What a freaking joke !

Bud Selig makes me puke and the sooner he leaves office the sooner I can keep myself from barfing my lunch all over the floor when I see his face and hear his voice.

This is what happens when the owners put a freaking used car salesman in office.


BARFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

 

[calsnowskier]

I have said it before, and I will say it again...

If they do not go after the TEAMS, nothing will happen.

 

[sfsportsfan]

the thing is, with Conte, and with the Biogenisis guy, and with Canseco, when they talk, all i hear are drug dealers(or wanna be drug dealers). how much trust do you put in them?

 

[Band of Brothers]

Canseco might be a douche and rat but he turned out to be telling the truth. Conte has also been very truthful with his facts. Conte does seem to know all the s#it going on in the PED world.

 

[msgkings322]

I have said it before, and I will say it again...

If they do not go after the TEAMS, nothing will happen.

Agreed that if teams/owners got penalized it would be all over with right away.

But more than 'nothing' has happened. While we're nowhere near totally cleaned up and probably never will be, we are a long way from the late 90s-early 2000s pharmacy days.

The tide is slowly turning, the players union used to protect these guys, now that there's fewer of them the other players have basically made the union move to a different position. The clean guys are sick of the dirty ones. It's snowballing now.

As I said without penalizing teams we'll never get to total cleanliness, but we're probably getting to where it will be pretty rare, at least I hope so.

 

[calsnowskier]

OK, sure, more than nothing has happened.

But that is like having a school nurse place a few Band-Aids after a nuclear explosion and saying "We had a medical response".

Melky was caught red-handed, and he got a raise AND a multi-year deal. Without the juice, he was out of the game. Look at his numbers this year... He has a .640 OPS.

 

[msgkings322]

OK, sure, more than nothing has happened.

But that is like having a school nurse place a few Band-Aids after a nuclear explosion and saying "We had a medical response".

Melky was caught red-handed, and he got a raise AND a multi-year deal. Without the juice, he was out of the game. Look at his numbers this year... He has a .640 OPS.

We're not disagreeing here I'm just saying the tide is turning a little. Last year was Melky.
This year Braun, A-Rod, Cruz, etc. It's starting to matter more. Gotta start somewhere.

 

[redseat]

Bud Selig can act like he is the savior of the MLB PED era all he wants but the facts say otherwise.

This whole biogenesis scandel was found out by outside sources and MLB was forced to deal with a nasty public relations blow up in their faces. Bud Selig acts like he rode in on a white horse and has saved us all from the cheating going on. He proclaims that stringent testing is going on and the clean up has begun. Maybe a few things have changed but Bud is full of bulls#it as usual.

I heard a interesting nugget from Victor Conte who was the guy from Balco that got busted. He was on CSN talking about how MLB is allowed to test around 30% of the players in the league for PED's but only tested around 5% last year which he said comes to only around 50 players.

50 freaking players tested ! What a freaking joke !

Bud Selig makes me puke and the sooner he leaves office the sooner I can keep myself from barfing my lunch all over the floor when I see his face and hear his voice.

This is what happens when the owners put a freaking used car salesman in office.


BARFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Can't just blame Selig here. The Players Union deserves a lot of the blame as well.

 

[calsnowskier]

Can't just blame Selig here. The Players Union deserves a lot of the blame as well.

It is/was the entire cabal. But Bud is the commish. The buck has to stop somewhere.

 

[msgkings322]

It is/was the entire cabal. But Bud is the commish. The buck has to stop somewhere.

Agreed, and Bud is just the owners' tool, in many senses of that word. He does their bidding, he's not just going with personal preference. He works for them. So we won't ever punish the teams because the owners are the league. But the arc of justice is bending and the owners can read public opinion, so they are cracking down more than they used to. The union is on board now because there are less dirty players and more clean ones.

My guess is the new equilibrium will be a lower level of PED use, mostly among fringe players trying to get to the majors or Melky types trying to get one big deal. The Bonds/Clemens/Braun types I don't think will use.
Although Braun maybe did use to get to his stature, I think most agree Clemens and Bonds were already there.

The hell of it is, you don't know anymore who it will be. Mike Trout is the second coming of Mickey Mantle, but is he clean?

 

[tzill]

I find it interesting that Seldouche claims how clean the sport is, yet only "caught" the 13 players this time around b/c the evidence fell into its lap. WTF is MLB doing about testing that all those players evaded it?

He's an assclown.

 

[redseat]

It is/was the entire cabal. But Bud is the commish. The buck has to stop somewhere.

yes I get his is the commish but everything he will do will most likely get challenged by the union. heck look at this stupid suspension of A-rod... He gets suspended but since he is appealing he can play... That's not Bud. That's the union

 

[Mays-Fan]

yes I get his is the commish but everything he will do will most likely get challenged by the union. heck look at this stupid suspension of A-rod... He gets suspended but since he is appealing he can play... That's not Bud. That's the union

Bingo. Excellent post. Many people are so quick to blame Selig and the owners, like the players and the union are the ones wearing the white hat. What crap.

The league is not perfect, and it never will be. But that's OK. Big picture, it's pretty damn good, or else we wouldn't be on here half our lives blogging about it.

Selig's fault, my ass. All in all, he has done an EXCELLENT job, and if you don't see that, then it's because you have another agenda, and it's not a good one.

 

[tzill]

Bingo. Excellent post. Many people are so quick to blame Selig and the owners, like the players and the union are the ones wearing the white hat. What crap.

The league is not perfect, and it never will be. But that's OK. Big picture, it's pretty damn good, or else we wouldn't be on here half our lives blogging about it.

Selig's fault, my ass. All in all, he has done an EXCELLENT job, and if you don't see that, then it's because you have another agenda, and it's not a good one.

Can't agree there. Again, if MLB's testing is so good and they have such a handle on the PED situation, why were they only able to get the dirty 13 this time b/c someone gave them the evidence? How bad is the testing and how were those guys able to evade it? And why don't they investigate proactively instead of reacting to journalists discovering BALCO or Biogenesis?

From 1985-1987 Bud Selig the owner and other team owners were busted for driving down player salaries. Most notably Milwaukee Brewers great and hall of famer Paul Molitor's. They later had to pay $280 million in damages.

His horrible relationship with Donald Fehr due to the players collusion he was involved in was the main reason for the players strike of 1994.

Not only did he call the 2002 All-Star game a tie (much to the anger and disdain of the Milwaukee fans, a team he once owned), he turned right around and decided, in his infinite wisdom, that starting the next year, the winning league would get home-field advantage in the World Series. None of the other leagues use their all-star game as a way to decide which league gets the home-field advantage. They use a little thing called...what’s the word...a won-loss record! If you win more games than your championship game opponent, you are the home team.

The 1985 World Series, Jeffrey Maier, Matt Holiday's phantom touch of home plate, and Chuck Knoblauch tag of Jose Offerman were some of the most baffling calls in MLB history. All these calls impacted teams during the postseason and were set in stone because there was no replay system for umpires to correct their mistake.

Fast forward to 2010. While other major American sports were wise enough to utilize technology to their favor, Bud Selig continued to strangle the MLB with replay that could only be used for questionable homeruns. Somehow, baseball's integrity was maintained by handicapping itself from preventing and repairing human errors, even during postseason and World Series games.

On the final out of what should have been the 21st perfect game in MLB history record books, Armando Galarraga was deceived from the accolade after Jim Joyce had a mental collapse in calling Jason Donald safe at first. Galarraga had to settle for what MLB record books will consider a 28-out 1-hitter instead of another milestone in one of the rarest accomplishments in all of sports.

Okay, so we know Bud Selig thinks that baseball's integrity is maintained by teams getting screwed in the postseason from bad umpiring. I mean, it's the human element in the 21st century, who actually wants the right calls to be made? But in this instance, all Selig had to do was deny that the 28th batter ever happened and have Lee called out. That's it. It would have made most baseball fans happy. It would serve due respect to Armando Galarraga and the Tigers organization for how well they handled the fiasco. It would turn a negative situation for Jim Joyce into something that he can joke with baseball fans for years.

What does Bud Selig do? Less than 24 hours after the blown call from Joyce, Selig makes it known that the call will stand.


For those reasons, and many, many more, I can safely assert that Bud Selig is the worst commissioner ever to take on the title in sports history. Yes, he might have done some very good things (the imposition of interleague play, for example), but all of the ridiculous decisions he’s made far outweigh the good things he’s done.

Selig should be ashamed of the way he’s run America’s Pastime, and that is why he will go down as the worst commissioner in sports, ever.

 

[calsnowskier]

Wow.

That's publish-worthy, tz.

Unless that is a copy-paste (I would be surprised, because that is not your style), well done!

 

[Band of Brothers]

Can't agree there. Again, if MLB's testing is so good and they have such a handle on the PED situation, why were they only able to get the dirty 13 this time b/c someone gave them the evidence? How bad is the testing and how were those guys able to evade it? And why don't they investigate proactively instead of reacting to journalists discovering BALCO or Biogenesis?

From 1985-1987 Bud Selig the owner and other team owners were busted for driving down player salaries. Most notably Milwaukee Brewers great and hall of famer Paul Molitor's. They later had to pay $280 million in damages.

His horrible relationship with Donald Fehr due to the players collusion he was involved in was the main reason for the players strike of 1994.

Not only did he call the 2002 All-Star game a tie (much to the anger and disdain of the Milwaukee fans, a team he once owned), he turned right around and decided, in his infinite wisdom, that starting the next year, the winning league would get home-field advantage in the World Series. None of the other leagues use their all-star game as a way to decide which league gets the home-field advantage. They use a little thing called...what’s the word...a won-loss record! If you win more games than your championship game opponent, you are the home team.

The 1985 World Series, Jeffrey Maier, Matt Holiday's phantom touch of home plate, and Chuck Knoblauch tag of Jose Offerman were some of the most baffling calls in MLB history. All these calls impacted teams during the postseason and were set in stone because there was no replay system for umpires to correct their mistake.

Fast forward to 2010. While other major American sports were wise enough to utilize technology to their favor, Bud Selig continued to strangle the MLB with replay that could only be used for questionable homeruns. Somehow, baseball's integrity was maintained by handicapping itself from preventing and repairing human errors, even during postseason and World Series games.

On the final out of what should have been the 21st perfect game in MLB history record books, Armando Galarraga was deceived from the accolade after Jim Joyce had a mental collapse in calling Jason Donald safe at first. Galarraga had to settle for what MLB record books will consider a 28-out 1-hitter instead of another milestone in one of the rarest accomplishments in all of sports.

Okay, so we know Bud Selig thinks that baseball's integrity is maintained by teams getting screwed in the postseason from bad umpiring. I mean, it's the human element in the 21st century, who actually wants the right calls to be made? But in this instance, all Selig had to do was deny that the 28th batter ever happened and have Lee called out. That's it. It would have made most baseball fans happy. It would serve due respect to Armando Galarraga and the Tigers organization for how well they handled the fiasco. It would turn a negative situation for Jim Joyce into something that he can joke with baseball fans for years.

What does Bud Selig do? Less than 24 hours after the blown call from Joyce, Selig makes it known that the call will stand.


For those reasons, and many, many more, I can safely assert that Bud Selig is the worst commissioner ever to take on the title in sports history. Yes, he might have done some very good things (the imposition of interleague play, for example), but all of the ridiculous decisions he’s made far outweigh the good things he’s done.

Selig should be ashamed of the way he’s run America’s Pastime, and that is why he will go down as the worst commissioner in sports, ever.

Awesome....Totally awesome

That was about as good of a breakdown of good old Bud as I have ever read. I bow to you're greatness sir.

 

[Mays-Fan]

Can't agree there. Again, if MLB's testing is so good and they have such a handle on the PED situation, why were they only able to get the dirty 13 this time b/c someone gave them the evidence? How bad is the testing and how were those guys able to evade it? And why don't they investigate proactively instead of reacting to journalists discovering BALCO or Biogenesis?

From 1985-1987 Bud Selig the owner and other team owners were busted for driving down player salaries. Most notably Milwaukee Brewers great and hall of famer Paul Molitor's. They later had to pay $280 million in damages.

His horrible relationship with Donald Fehr due to the players collusion he was involved in was the main reason for the players strike of 1994.

Not only did he call the 2002 All-Star game a tie (much to the anger and disdain of the Milwaukee fans, a team he once owned), he turned right around and decided, in his infinite wisdom, that starting the next year, the winning league would get home-field advantage in the World Series. None of the other leagues use their all-star game as a way to decide which league gets the home-field advantage. They use a little thing called...what’s the word...a won-loss record! If you win more games than your championship game opponent, you are the home team.

The 1985 World Series, Jeffrey Maier, Matt Holiday's phantom touch of home plate, and Chuck Knoblauch tag of Jose Offerman were some of the most baffling calls in MLB history. All these calls impacted teams during the postseason and were set in stone because there was no replay system for umpires to correct their mistake.

Fast forward to 2010. While other major American sports were wise enough to utilize technology to their favor, Bud Selig continued to strangle the MLB with replay that could only be used for questionable homeruns. Somehow, baseball's integrity was maintained by handicapping itself from preventing and repairing human errors, even during postseason and World Series games.

On the final out of what should have been the 21st perfect game in MLB history record books, Armando Galarraga was deceived from the accolade after Jim Joyce had a mental collapse in calling Jason Donald safe at first. Galarraga had to settle for what MLB record books will consider a 28-out 1-hitter instead of another milestone in one of the rarest accomplishments in all of sports.

Okay, so we know Bud Selig thinks that baseball's integrity is maintained by teams getting screwed in the postseason from bad umpiring. I mean, it's the human element in the 21st century, who actually wants the right calls to be made? But in this instance, all Selig had to do was deny that the 28th batter ever happened and have Lee called out. That's it. It would have made most baseball fans happy. It would serve due respect to Armando Galarraga and the Tigers organization for how well they handled the fiasco. It would turn a negative situation for Jim Joyce into something that he can joke with baseball fans for years.

What does Bud Selig do? Less than 24 hours after the blown call from Joyce, Selig makes it known that the call will stand.


For those reasons, and many, many more, I can safely assert that Bud Selig is the worst commissioner ever to take on the title in sports history. Yes, he might have done some very good things (the imposition of interleague play, for example), but all of the ridiculous decisions he’s made far outweigh the good things he’s done.

Selig should be ashamed of the way he’s run America’s Pastime, and that is why he will go down as the worst commissioner in sports, ever.

Point by point:

The "excellent job" I was referring to was in re "all in all", not just the PED issue. Look at the big picture, where baseball has come under his tenure. Look at the salaries, the ballparks, the fan bases. Every metric regarding the stature of the sport has increased steadily and significantly. The PED issue is turning around nicely despite resistance from the players union. Resolving issues like this takes time and lots of money largely because of all the lawyers delaying and draining from the system, making everyone prove everything 16 times so they can run up their billable hours just like they do everywhere else. Sorry if the nekkid truth hurts there, Counselor.

Don't know much about the players salaries from almost 30 years ago, but Selig was just one owner among many. Hard to blame him alone.

Relationship with Fehr - oh, like Fehr was St. Donald, and it was ALL Selig's fault. Management-labor relations get contentious sometimes - sorry if that deprives you of your God-given right to entertainment. Union leadership in all industries has an extremely poor track record when it comes to integrity, and I have no reason to suspect that baseball is any different.

Replays - all sports have been rightfully slow and resistant to their use. Sorry if your team didn't win in '85 because you didn't like the call. The games go on long enough. Where do you draw the line? Do you allow for appeals? I know the legal profession would love that.

Galarraga's one-hitter - When TF has an on-field call been reversed by a commissioner? Why is it his fault??? If that were allowed to happen, where would it stop? The outcome of the game was not impacted. You should know better than this, all of you. Yes it was unfortunate, and both Galarraga and Joyce handled it with grace and humility afterward, but for goodness sake. Wow.

As for your conclusion, the facts speak otherwise, loudly and firmly.

 

[Band of Brothers]

Point by point:

The "excellent job" I was referring to was in re "all in all", not just the PED issue. Look at the big picture, where baseball has come under his tenure. Look at the salaries, the ballparks, the fan bases. Every metric regarding the stature of the sport has increased steadily and significantly. The PED issue is turning around nicely despite resistance from the players union. Resolving issues like this takes time and lots of money largely because of all the lawyers delaying and draining from the system, making everyone prove everything 16 times so they can run up their billable hours just like they do everywhere else. Sorry if the nekkid truth hurts there, Counselor.

Don't know much about the players salaries from almost 30 years ago, but Selig was just one owner among many. Hard to blame him alone.

Relationship with Fehr - oh, like Fehr was St. Donald, and it was ALL Selig's fault. Management-labor relations get contentious sometimes - sorry if that deprives you of your God-given right to entertainment. Union leadership in all industries has an extremely poor track record when it comes to integrity, and I have no reason to suspect that baseball is any different.

Replays - all sports have been rightfully slow and resistant to their use. Sorry if your team didn't win in '85 because you didn't like the call. The games go on long enough. Where do you draw the line? Do you allow for appeals? I know the legal profession would love that.

Galarraga's one-hitter - When TF has an on-field call been reversed by a commissioner? Why is it his fault??? If that were allowed to happen, where would it stop? The outcome of the game was not impacted. You should know better than this, all of you. Yes it was unfortunate, and both Galarraga and Joyce handled it with grace and humility afterward, but for goodness sake. Wow.

As for your conclusion, the facts speak otherwise, loudly and firmly.

Dude how much is Bud paying you to defend him. Did he give you a deal on a used car? Wow

 

[SF11704]

I commend you BOTH. You have both put your arguments to the table and they each have merit. As with most situations like this there is rarely a clear cut 'winning or correct' position. Although I do have my personal position it really doesn't matter. For me this is the same type of argument us Giant fans get into as it relates to Bonds. For those of us that support him (and I do) he was the best player I have ever seen play the game. His 'statistics' and personal accomplishments speak for themselves. At least for me they do.

For the Bonds detractors it is quite another story. There is no mention of his accomplioshments but only distain for anything and everything that he brought to the game. Everything that the man accomplished will always remain tainted, questionable and forever tied to the spectre of 'performance enhancers'. I don't believe we will ever see any form of compromise between these two very different perspectives of Mr. Bonds. For many he will always be a 'cheater' and forgiveness, compromise and/or understanding will never be something that they will embrace.

I think that Mr. Bud Selig is in a very similar situation as Mr. Barry Bonds as it relates to his 'support' network. You either see him as the demise of baseball or you see him as a savior. I don't think there is much middle ground here.

 

[tzill]

Point by point:

The "excellent job" I was referring to was in re "all in all", not just the PED issue. Look at the big picture, where baseball has come under his tenure. Look at the salaries, the ballparks, the fan bases. Every metric regarding the stature of the sport has increased steadily and significantly. The PED issue is turning around nicely despite resistance from the players union. Resolving issues like this takes time and lots of money largely because of all the lawyers delaying and draining from the system, making everyone prove everything 16 times so they can run up their billable hours just like they do everywhere else. Sorry if the nekkid truth hurts there, Counselor.

Don't know much about the players salaries from almost 30 years ago, but Selig was just one owner among many. Hard to blame him alone.

Relationship with Fehr - oh, like Fehr was St. Donald, and it was ALL Selig's fault. Management-labor relations get contentious sometimes - sorry if that deprives you of your God-given right to entertainment. Union leadership in all industries has an extremely poor track record when it comes to integrity, and I have no reason to suspect that baseball is any different.

Replays - all sports have been rightfully slow and resistant to their use. Sorry if your team didn't win in '85 because you didn't like the call. The games go on long enough. Where do you draw the line? Do you allow for appeals? I know the legal profession would love that.

Galarraga's one-hitter - When TF has an on-field call been reversed by a commissioner? Why is it his fault??? If that were allowed to happen, where would it stop? The outcome of the game was not impacted. You should know better than this, all of you. Yes it was unfortunate, and both Galarraga and Joyce handled it with grace and humility afterward, but for goodness sake. Wow.

As for your conclusion, the facts speak otherwise, loudly and firmly.

I didn't even get into the marketing aspect, about which he's an abject failure and has pretty much lost the younger generation. Look at how the NBA and the NFL market their stars. Yet the best baseball can come up with is a Pooholes commercial. He had a distinct hand in the strike which drove millions away from the sport and THEN buried his head in the sand wrt PED use when Mac and Sosa were bringing people back.


When I was little, the baseball season began in April, sometime around my birthday, and ended in October, and that was it. Now, it goes into November, when people are done with baseball and are already embroiled in football. The only reason I can see that Selig did this was to increase the ratings, and that just isn’t right. People already don’t care about baseball in November, because most of their favorite football teams are mired in a playoff race.

Houston has been a National League town for 90 years.The latest assault on the Astros is a travesty. It is deliberate, it is overt and it stands to remove any credibility Selig had left. First, he allowed Jim Crane's name to be dragged publicly through the mud by considering a group of charges that included just about everything except child abuse and the Kennedy assassination. Then, he came back and said he would be willing to overlook all of that if Crane will just sign off on a move to the American League. So, Bud seems to think he is a horrible person but that doesn't matter as long as Crane does what Selig wants.

Second, he was willing to overlook that 90 years of history to push a five-team playoff system in each league. His Brewers have less than 20 years in the NL and even if we count the Braves, Milwaukee has been an American League city almost as long. The Diamondbacks have been in the NL all of 13 minutes, but that doesn't matter either. Of course, none of this matters when you have a great playoff system that makes Bud look like a genius. He is such a genius because no other professional, amateur or intramural sport uses it. Everyone over the age of four knows you have to have even numbers to make a playoff system work. Well, everyone except Bud.

Finally, we have the issue of payment. I've seen money from drug dealers that's going to be cleaner than the money he made from moving the Astros to the AL. So, let me get this straight, he is willing to admit that Jim Crane and his ownership team are going to take a hit, but still thinks it is okay to coerce him into making the move. I could just see him in the old days at the car dealership saying, "I know this Ford Pinto is worse than the Mustang you bought, but maybe if I throw in $500 that would be enough to make you forget you are getting an inferior car."

Worst...commissioner...ever.