Bud Selig, McGruff the Crime Dog would be very, very disappointed in you.
Thanks to Shin-Soo Choo’s drunken misadventures early Monday morning, the 2011 DUI count for Major League Baseball is already up to a whopping six arrests (one more and they get a free sandwich at Quizno’s!). Choo joins Austin Kearns, Miguel Cabrera, Adam Kennedy, Coco Crisp and Derek Lowe as this season’s offenders, but this six-pack of six-pack guzzlers has one more thing in common: none of them will face league discipline for their transgressions.
Now, I’m all for letting the legal system run its course, but Major League Baseball’s soft stance on crime is on the precipice of putting the league in the same negative light that other pro sports have recently fought so hard to escape.
The irony of the situation is that Bud Selig is so eager to combat any negative press stemming from on-field instances that he immediately jumps into action like Batman seeing the BatSignal when Ozzie Guillen posts some negative tweets about umpiring. BAM! Two game suspension. Roger McDowell lobs some homophobic slurs at some fans. BIFF! Suspended for two weeks. Aneury Rodriguez drills Gaby Sanchez on purpose (allegedly). POW! Rodriguez gets suspended for three games and his manager gets suspended for one. Message received, Bud. If you make MLB look bad on the field, you shall be smited!
Off the field? Eh, not so much.
Whether we all want to admit it or not, when the league office hands down a suspension, they do so not just to punish the offending party, but also to signal to the general public that MLB won’t tolerate such behavior. Players and coaches are thus held to a certain standard of conduct when they are “on the clock” so that they don’t make the league look bad. I don’t think anyone would argue with that policy.
What is arguable though is the notion that the players are no longer obligated to properly represent the league when they take off their uniforms and leave the stadium. The funny thing about that is while the players might like to believe that is the case, we have all seen how very, very misguided that premise is. Who amongst us didn’t have a hearty chuckle when they read the police report about how stupid and drunk Choo appeared to be when he actually got out of his car to ask the arresting police officer for directions? And I think we all know how embarrassing Mike Leake’s misadventures in T-shirt shopping turned out to be for both him and baseball.
For now, these off-field offenses have done nothing more than make Major League Baseball look a little red-faced and foolish, but what happens when something more dire occurs off the field due to the irresponsible actions of a baseball player? What if one of the many DUI offenders had actually hurt or killed someone? Not only would the fans not be laughing, they’d be calling for action. The precedent the commissioner has set though is that he will simply announce that the league will “let the legal system run its course and make a decision after the case is resolved.” The funny thing about that plan is that it is based on a lie.
The league office has already made their decision. They are definitely going to let the courts do their business, and they are going to hope it takes a very long time to do so, that way the story is long since forgotten about and they never have to address the situation again, much less levy a punishment. If they try to pull that act after an innocent victim gets hurt or killed, Selig and his cohorts will find out awfully fast how that course of action will blow up in their face.
Really, MLB should know this better than anyone. After all, they were the most recent pro sports league to lose a player’s life due to someone else’s reckless and illegal behavior. It was only a little over two years ago that LA Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed when a drunk driver struck his car. After that incident, the league went on and on about what a tragedy that was and how they felt for the player and his loved ones. It is too bad the league seems to stop caring so much when it is the players that are potentially behind the wheel.
The real issue at hand is that, as of right now, the commissioner’s office lacks the authority to impose punishment for off-field behavior. Such power can only be given to the league by way of collective bargaining with the players’ union and it is a power they should be sure to secure in the next round of talks if they want to prevent this recent epidemic from becoming a PR disaster. That’s what the NFL did when their league started getting a bad rap for having so many thugs and alleged felons polluting their rosters. Now commissioner Roger Goodell wields that authority like a battle axe and strikes down any player that even gets involved in a bad legal situation and he does so before the incident in question even gets put on a court’s schedule, much less goes to trial.
For those of you who like your discipline to be a little less totalitarian, the NBA’s model might be more palatable. David Stern used his authority to curb a rash of drug-related arrests that were giving the league a serious black eye. In most cases, the NBA doesn’t hand down punishment until after the legal case is resolved, but at least there is an actual punishment being doled out. That would be a big step forward for MLB.
Selig could even take a page out his own discipline book and remember what happened the last time he let a rise in inappropriate behavior begin under his watch. Because of the CBA rules, Selig was left without the ability to test his players for the use of performance-enhancing drugs. By the time he acquired that power, the damage was already done. Records were sullied. Legacies were tarnished and a generation of baseball fans will be intimately familiar with the term “the Steroid Era.” What Bud has now is a very similar situation brewing and an opportunity to be proactive for a change. All he has to do is talk with the union and try and work out a plan that is fair to everyone. That may not be easy to do, but it sure beats the league having to walk around with its tail between its legs when one of his players ends up breaking the law in a big, bad way.
Or he could just let it run unchecked until it gets so bad that he gets hauled up in front of Congress to explain himself again. That was a great PR move for the league, right?
