So, here’s what’s going on with the MLB network this evening. Instead of hiding this story and saying “innocent until proven guilty” and letting the unofficial outlets like ESPN beat it into the ground, or simply pushing it under the rug with reruns, they brought out Bob Costas (the most respected interviewer on MLBN) to do a live interview (on a Saturday night!) with the SI reporter who broke the story.
Costas tossed softball questions trying to show how everything she did was foolproof, with a particular focus on “subtle” allegations that Gene Orza and the players union was complicit in both the actual cheating and a cover-up of all results. After this, they had everybody (Reynolds, other misc. talking heads, etc) on with Costas in a live roundtable discussion absolutely assassinating the player’s union. During this discussion, they essentially likened it to Nixon/Watergate, all but saying it was a massive coverup and that the union members were brainwashed and radicalized.
So Bud Selig gave marching orders to his shiny new station that they were to destroy the player’s union while more or less ignoring what Alex did or did not do. They attempted to make the union seem like crazed, corrupt radicals, hiding info and fabricating results. The net effect of this, of course, is that:
1). MLB gets the PR boost of being lied to (ostensibly) by the player’s union, and so Selig’s total inaction is forgotten.
2). MLB gets to plead innocent on the entire issue.
3). Selig gets to parlay this propaganda war into the removal of all of the union leaders who could come close to being involved in the steroid years.
4). Selig demands whatever he wants for the next version of the CBA.
It’s brilliant. horrible, evil, and wretched to watch, but brilliant to see done well. The worst thing is the utter destruction of any shred of respectability Bob Costas had yet.
I hope Gammo steers clear of this network as much as possible. I feel dirty just for watching. It’s very clear that Selig is going to have the network by a stranglehold, and the quick-response team already in place to act as 24 hour propaganda arm.
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It’s a messy, messy issue that just won’t die. Fault falls on everyone from Bud, to the Union, to Alex and Bonds and Roger and all the others. Selig is, IMO, the most detestable. And I look forward to the day he is gone. He has seemingly done everything in his power to ignore, avoid, mishandle, and draw out the massive black smear on our sport. But in the end it really doesn’t matter who the blame falls on. It is what it is. A damned mess that’s dragging down an otherwise fantastic sport. Of course I’ll always love this game regardless of what state the Majors fall into. But on days like this it sure is tough to watch.
A pox on everyone. Fans should start boycotting games, hit these greedy bastards in the only place that hurts them.
Sean, I was just getting to like the MLB Network, but you may be right. The good news, these days, is that today’s players haven’t worked in the old medieval system, are not used to being abused by ownership, and have sufficient wealth, confidence, education and organization to guarantee the bad old days don’t return. There is parity between owners and players unheard of just a few years ago. At what point does the union start acting that way?
I helped organize several unions, and my grandfather was a union organizer in Boston’s bad Irish/Italian immigrant days, so I believe in unions. I also believe in unions being responsible to both their members, the industry that provides the jobs, and society at large.
For example, within the Players Union there is NO parity among the players themselves. Teix gets a zillion $$$, Millar signs a minor league deal. You will notice that part of the Costas, Verducci discussions about the union addressed the lack of participation of average Joe players in the process, and their consequent lack of benefiting from the Union. They are 100% correct in this. And if the Union actually did tip off players re: unscheduled drug tests, they crossed over the line big time.
Selig and the Owners will Never, Ever get off the hook for not rendering steroids illegal and irrelevant 20 years ago.
Stop telling me what I should-shouldn’t Watch. If I want to watch the great new MLB Network-I will Damn well watch it. I don’t give a Damn about roids to be honest.
Who said not to watch? I’m watching MLB Network as much as I can this weekend, because it is absolutely enthralling. It is undoubtedly Selig’s newest propaganda arm, but it is fascinating to see how those in power can manipulate new media to their ends.
Thank god this happened now, because February is the most boring month for sports. Now we all have something to focus on until the WBC.
I’m sure that anytime you’re watching any producer-owned media outlet (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL Networks; YES; NESN; etc., etc.) you have to take everything they say with a grain of salt. However, in this particular case, there does seem to be a serious problem with the union’s handling of the 2003 drug testing program.
As I understand it, Gene Orza is accused of giving advance notice of supposedly random, unannounced drug tests. That’s a major breach of the program, and could very well have skewed the results. This aspect of the story has been underreported by most media outlets in their breathless fascination with A-Rod. MLB Network may be overemphasizing it to further the nefarious ends of Bud Selig & Co., but it does deserve a lot of attention.
The rank-and-file elect the representatives. If the representatives fail them, they should elect different ones. Why are the same few guys always in charge? Maybe someone should run against them.I think Costas was making a call to the players to take a look at their leadership and ask the important question. If the players still want to keep the current leaders, they will whether we like it or not. By we I mean the fans.
I can tell you one thing: Nobody cares about the fans in all this. The owners have the money, the players have the union, and when the first commissioner was installed, he was the one who made sure the fans got to see a fair game. Now the commissioner is an owner. Who makes sure the game is not tainted? Who makes sure we are getting a pure game?
So I want a new commissioner. Rudy or Condy or George or some other retired politician who loves the game of baseball. How about Bob Costas? But it’s got to be someone who puts the quality of the game above the owners and the player’s union.
And I wouldn’t mind seeing a changing of the guard for the player’s union, too.
Rudy, Condy or George would make me stop following baseball altogether. I’d rather have a corrupt owner than a war criminal.
You make a good point about new leadership without vested interest, but Rudy, Condy and George have consistently shown their inability to separate fact from fiction, truth from lie, good guys from bad guys; and to put sound policy ahead of their own vested interests. Yes we can change, but not from bad to worse. Have we already forgotten what George did to his oil company, his baseball team, the U.S. economy, and America’s standing in the world? Poor baseball if that ever happened.
What intrigues me most about this whole thing are stated implications that agents like Scott Boras have long term intimate knowledge of the training regimens of their clients, so many big $$ players who have been named in this PED debacle. Acquiescence? Collusion? Isn’t it significant that the culture of greed and the culture of cheating in baseball grew hand in hand??????
Did you think I meant the former President? Of course, I meant George F. Will, a real conservative.
OK, back up.
Guys, Bud has done just as much good as he has bad. Interleague is, monetary wise, a boon. I don’t like it as a fan, but hell if I’m not going to an interleague game.
The wild card = genius. End of story.
The All Star tie? What did you want him to do? Say no? He couldn’t do that. Come on now.
Steroids? Do you really think this guy was completely complicit? I’m not saying he wasn’t… I’m not saying he was, either.
Bud is not the problem. If anyone thinks Bud is/was the problem… I’m sorry, he’s not. I know, “the buck stops here” … it’s a lot more complicated than that. As the president/owner of MVN, I can tell you, there is a lot of shit you have to swallow that you shouldn’t have to.
George Will would be brilliant at about anything baseball related.
I understand that being from Taxachusetts you are obliged to slander any Republican but “war criminals”?
You should leave those titles to those more deserving like Hanoi Jane and those of the liberal press that coined “Betrayus”.
Apologies. Politics, IMO, need to be kept out of this site altogether. Please accept my apology for my role in this discussion. It goes without saying that the Red Sox fans live in one of the most intensely politically active regions in America, and that those of Red Sox Nation in diaspora carry the seeds of political debate with them wherever they settle. I can personally vouch that in a world where “race, religion and politics” are taboo topics in polite society, the New England habit of voicing one’s opinion can often get you into trouble.
A wise man once told me that if another American Revolution were needed to re-establish the principles of justice, equality and personal freedom in an acquiescent world, it would again begin in feisty New England. It’s the way we are. But this is a baseball site. Let’s play ball!
At the same time, our forefathers fought for freedom and liberty, and I have no interest in salving the supposed wounds of those who supported some of the worst criminals in our nation’s history.
The last 8 years have proven these monsters don’t deserve to run a convenience store, let alone MLB.
Well, my endorsement of Condi for Commish still stands, even though I’m as blue as you. Sports are apolitical, except, of course, as regards where you stand on unions, and I’m for ‘em. Born in Salem, MA but living on the other coast these days.
Costas, now, I don’t know… I was glad the network got him because that means they intend to stay around for a while. And I see that he is the first person since Boras was on as a guest who can intimidate Reynolds, which takes some doing! But he’s an opinion looking for a place to happen, so I just hope they don’t try to turn him into the anchor. Not sure he’s Selig’s running dog at all. I think he has his own axe to grind.
Seriously, we need a real commissioner. If Congress can do anything for us, it can take the right to name the Commish away from the owners. It’s got to be someone who loves baseball. It’s got to be someone who will storm the HOF when they don’t want Susan Sarandon to be at the Bull Durham anniversary party and tell them that the Constitution protects her freedom and that baseball has fans on both sides of the aisle.
I was just joking about Rudy. He’s not Commish material. Too self-serving.
Is Steven King going to retire from writing? Maybe he could be the guy to fix this sad state of affairs.
Stephen King would ban all teams beginning with Y and ending with S. And I don’t mean Obregon. I think he’d be a perfectly acceptable option to do what Bart Giamatti did, take over the NL where his brutally pro-Boston bias won’t be as obvious, or important.
stephen king??? really??? wow. and that’s coming from me. wow
Back to the topic of propaganda…
Do you see the interview with the owner of the Texas Rangers? What a load! He pretended to be upset, personally offended, cried us a river!
Gee, how many former members of his team have been fingered now? Rafael Palmeiro, DH in 2003. Juan Gonzalez, right field in 2003. Canseco said he was shooting up with these two and Pudge Rodriguez ten years earlier than that when all three were Rangers. He said “I injected them. Absolutely.” Now it’s revealed that when A-Rod got there, he started taking steroids.
There are 103 other names on that list. How much you wanna bet that there are people who played for Oakland in the early 90’s and then after the turn of the century.
And the announcers just let this owner of the Rangers fake his broken up voice. It’s 12 years later. A-Rod left to be a Skankee. The only reason he has to have a broken up voice is the fear that we, the fans, might start to realize that certain owners had a much higher percentage of users on their teams, and that we might notice how these certain owners tend to overreact with excess umbrage at any blot that might appear on their teams.
And so, of course, this owner immediately had to say it was all the union’s fault.
Ismael Valdez was traded to the Mariners from Texas in 2002. But his steroid order had already been placed, so it was shipped to Arlington. It’s in the Mitchell Report. Steve Woodward was a Ranger around that time, too.
Yeah, blame THAT on the unions!