THIS is the Players Association’s time, its moment to do right by its members and the people who keep those members housed in gated communities, cloaked in designer suits. This one time, the PA can play the part of hero.
This one time, with Major League Baseball’s reputation on trial for its life, the PA needs to declare once and forever it truly is a partner in the game’s future, that it understands the actions inside a Northern California courtroom could have permanent ramifications on its constituency if it isn’t willing to bend. Just a little bit. Just this once.
Four men – including Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds’ personal trainer – pleaded not guilty in San Francisco yesterday to charges they distributed steroids to a number of prominent athletes. Never has baseball’s longtime refusal to properly address its steroid dilemma put the sport’s good name in greater peril.
The Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative may be the company standing trial on the court docket, but make no mistake: Baseball is an unindicted co-conspirator here. Bonds and Jason Giambi, among others, testified before the BALCO grand jury in recent weeks. There is growing concern that the identities of the 5 percent to 7 percent of baseball players who flunked last spring’s steroid test may end up outed during the course of trial.
More troubling, the absolute possibility the Players Association’s response to that will be to drive steroid testing completely out of the next collective bargaining agreement, due to be negotiated in 2006.
If you’ve ever paid the slightest attention to the PA, you know that will be their first reaction. The union never wanted steroid testing in the first place, and agreed only to a toothless policy in the last CBA. The union has never minded taking on unpopular causes before, has never once cared what the public response to its ruthless approach might be. The difference was, it was always anchored on the moral high ground.
Not this time. Ignoring the growing swirl of public outrage not only shows contempt for baseball fans, but also for the 93 percent to 95 percent of its own union that chooses to play within the rules – or, at least, showed enough respect for the rules to stay clean during testing. It can’t ignore such an overwhelming majority.
It’s picking the wrong place to draw its line in the sand. This is the first fight the PA can’t win. As unpopular as past work stoppages were, as aggravating as past skirmishes – such as fighting to ensure Alex Rodriguez receives every penny of his contract – may have seemed, the union always was right to do it. Even working-class baseball fans, in their hearts, could identify a union doing right by its members.
Not this time. Not with steroids. In the same way cocaine threatened to alienate an entire generation of fans in the 1980s, so, too, have steroids begun to erode the game’s integrity. Fans aren’t blind. They see what they see. And what they see – a sport overrun with Popeye arms – is starting to disgust them.
The PA has to recognize this. They can throw their arms around the sport and make sure it walks down a clean path. This may not be located anywhere in its mission statement, but it’s the right thing to do now.
Marvin Miller belongs in the Hall of Fame for liberating players from 100 years of indentured servitude. His descendants, Donald Fehr and Gene Orza, can stamp their own legacies in gold if they surprise us and take a pro-active stance in ridding the sport of the needles, pills and powders that litter locker rooms and pollute record books.
No one is asking the PA to hand over the farm right now. Just give the crops a chance to grow. The PA has always done right by its players. Now, it needs to do right by the game. Just a little bit. Just this once.