AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2006 > July > 21
Friday, July 21, 2006
Courts, not Selig, must rule on Bonds
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Here’s a quick lesson in Logic 101: If Barry Bonds told the truth that he didn’t “knowingly” use steroids, then why wouldn’t Greg Anderson, his former trainer and boyhood friend, just appear before a grand jury and verify the claims of the San Francisco Giants slugger?
Well, uh, hmmm. Anderson already has chosen the slammer over testifying, and his attorney, Mark Geragos, told USA Today regarding future requests by the feds to speak to his client, “They obviously need Greg, but he’s not talking.”
They obviously know why Anderson isn’t talking, which is why they obviously will continue to pursue an indictment of Bonds for perjury, tax evasion or both until they get what they want. With or without Anderson, they’ll succeed (see Al Capone and Pete Rose), but here’s a reminder to the overly giddy regarding Bonds’ self-inflicted mess: An indictment isn’t a conviction.
Are you listening, Allan H. “Bud” Selig, baseball’s commissioner?
In other words, Selig would be as wrongheaded to suspend Bonds after an indictment as former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn was 26 years ago when he tried to boot Ferguson Jenkins out of the game after his arrest for possession of cocaine, marijuana and hashish.
An indictment means that a group of jurors believes a person may have committed a crime. An indictment means that a person could be found innocent in a subsequent trial, and that you could look rather silly after, say, suspending that person from baseball early in the process. Mostly, an indictment means that, if you’re Selig, and if you’re wondering what to do with Bonds, you don’t swing for the fences. You bunt, which means you allow the judicial system to drive justice home.
Neither income-tax evasion nor perjury violates baseball’s Basic Agreement. So, if Bonds is indicted, and if Selig suspends him anyway, baseball would do so because Bonds isn’t the most pleasant guy ever to wear a uniform, and because the Commissioner’s Office wants to use any means necessary to keep “755” and “Hank Aaron” linked together as the game’s magic pair for home runs. Barring injury or jail time, Bonds is on a steady pace to surpass Aaron, and Aaron is among Selig’s closest friends. Thus a trio of understandable reasons why Selig would suspend Bonds, but they wouldn’t be advisable ones.
The Players Association would fight such a suspension faster than one of Bonds’ shots to McCovey Cove. Just as Selig said there is a precedent for suspending Bonds (the Jenkins case), there is a precedent for an arbitrator telling the commissioner to stifle (the Jenkins case). Two weeks after Kuhn issued his punishment to Jenkins, a future Hall of Fame pitcher, an arbitrator overturned the suspension.
Kuhn blew it. Well, that time. Contrary to popular belief, he was one of the two most underrated commissioners in sports history. During his tenure from 1969 through 1984, attendance tripled. He presided over the game’s first massive television contracts. He also showed the guts of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis to ban the likes of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle for casino involvement and to issue the unprecedented suspensions of drug abusers. Through it all, Kuhn kept mentioning the “best interest of baseball” clause that has existed for all of the game’s commissioners. He just went too far with Jenkins.
Now Selig could become Kuhn in a couple of ways. As for the good, Selig is the other most underrated commissioner in sports history. Under his watch, baseball has smashed all-time attendance records. He was proved correct after forcing the game’s traditionalists to institute interleague play, wild cards for the playoffs, realignment and home-field advantage at the World Series for the winning league of the All-Star Game. As for the bad, Selig could become Kuhn by going beyond his authority to make a point.
If Selig does suspend Bonds after an indictment, for instance, the big picture of his point would be this: Baseball wants to flaunt the fact that it really cares about its image. Plus, since Bonds is about as popular outside of Northern California as a bowl of resin bags for breakfast, baseball is going to play to the crowd by telling Bonds to get lost, even though baseball knows an arbitrator will rule otherwise.
The thing is, Selig still has time to get this Bonds situation right. All the commissioner has to do is nothing while the courts do everything.
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Braves / MLB, Terence Moore
Services »
