Is Major League Baseball Too Damaged to Relight Romance?

Isn't it laughable how everyone has an opinion now? For years, baseball people were hush about steroids, protecting their dirty little secret as if the masses were morons when, in fact, a lot of these men are the uneducated rockheads. One such creature is Ozzie Guillen, manager of Barack Obama's Chicago White Sox, who went mob boss on us in 2006 when pitcher Jason Grimsley served as a steroids informant in a federal investigation.

"Shoot the (bleep),'' said Guillen, who viewed Grimsley as a snitch. "The only thing I can say is that a former player should shut up and go. Shut up and move on. We don't need these guys. Baseball is better without him.''

Now, of course, the Blizzard of Oz opens wide, oils his vocal cords and offers all the answers about performance-enhancing drugs.

This week, he said Major League Baseball should suspend first-time steroids violators for an entire season, which represents an embarrassing 180-degree turn from the idea that an informant should be shot. "I feel we have to do something very drastic about this situation," said Guillen, whom we'd completely ignore if he wasn't such a cartoon character.

He wasn't alone in advocating a one-season penalty. Joining him was the more thoughtful David Ortiz, a rare slugger from the Steroids Era who hasn't been revealed as dirty or linked to a major investigation. "I would suggest everybody get tested,'' he said. "Not randomly. Everybody. You go team by team, you test everybody. Three, four times a year. I think you clean up the game by the testing. I test you, you test positive, you're gonna be out. Serious. And period. Ban 'em for the whole year.''

Could it be they want Alex Rodriguez suspended a year because, oh, their teams might benefit in the American League pennant race? Just the same, have they thought about how many players from their own franchises, the White Sox and Boston Red Sox, might be among the other 103 names on the dirty list? Hey, at least discussion of reform is in the spring-training air, as it should have been 10 or 12 years ago. The fact baseball only now is getting around to legislation, punishment and daily apologies -- can you believe it took until 2004 to create a serious impetus for change? -- only spells further doom for the damaged legacy of commissioner Bud Selig.

Did you notice, after he was pummeled here and around the country last week in the wake of Rodriguez's confession, that Selig took public offense to the criticism? For once, you'd like to see him call a major news conference, apologize, acknowledge his administrative negligence and wishy-washiness and admit that he turned a blind eye to steroids in the '90s because he and the owners were too busy enjoying home runs and counting the profits. For once, you'd like him not to blame the players' union, which only underscores his soft and ineffective leadership, and blame himself for allowing the cavalcade of syringes and juice to buzz right under his nose throughout his 16-year tenure. For once, you'd like Bud to accept his complicit role and realize his place in history isn't as the man who brought back the fans. No, he'll always be the Mr. Magoo commissioner who let the biggest scandal in American sports happen on his watch.

Oh, if only Selig had fought steroids the way he keeps fighting his critics.

"I don't want to hear that the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn't care about it. That annoys the you-know-what out of me,'' Selig told Newsday this week. "You bet I'm sensitive to the criticism. The reason I'm so frustrated is, if you look at our whole body of work, I think we've come farther than anyone ever dreamed possible.''

It's hard to laud the belated portrait when it has been stained by every imaginable steroid, when Selig knew about the problem as far back as 1994 yet refused, at the very least, to make it a public conversation piece by pounding his fist and shouting it to the fans.

Every time he broached the topic with the union, he was stonewalled, yet he didn't have to shrug and walk away defeated. Last week, I reminded you that Selig said four years ago that "it wasn't until 1998 or '99 that I heard the discussion'' about steroids -- though he was confronted with evidence of a growing steroids problem by the Los Angeles Times in 1995. Yes, Selig knew all about steroids for many years -- and did nothing about it -- which is why it should gall us that he continues to defend his pathetic record.

"I'm not sure I would have done anything differently,'' Selig said. "A lot of people say we should have done this or that, and I understand that. They ask me, `How could you not know?' and I guess in the retrospect of history, that's not an unfair question. But we learned and we've done something about it. When I look back at where we were in '98 and where we are today, I'm proud of the progress we've made.

"Starting in 1995, I tried to institute a steroid policy. Needless to say, it was met with strong resistance. We were fought by the union every step of the way."

Again, how could he have been adamant about instituting a "steroids policy'' in 1995 when he said he didn't hear "the discussion'' about steroids until 1998 or '99? See what I mean about Selig? He uses whatever timeline is convenient to support his argument at the moment, even if we catch him in lies just like Rodriguez and the others. And when you're the commissioner, you don't finally decide to tackle a steroids crisis by merely asking a few confidantes to sniff around. As he told Newsday, those men were Atlanta Braves president John Schuerholz; New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman; current San Diego Padres CEO Sandy Alderson, then with MLB; and current Arizona Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin, then a coach with the Milwaukee Brewers. "They all told me none of them ever saw it in the clubhouses and that their players never spoke about it,'' said Selig, outing them among the clueless, which I'm sure they appreciate. ``Sandy Alderson, as good a baseball man as you'll find, was convinced it was the bat. Others were convinced it was the ball. So a lot of people didn't know.''

Or, a lot of people didn't want to know, with baseball enjoying a power-fueled renaissance at the time. Point is, as commissioner, it was Selig's job to find out. And he never did, until it was much too late.

At 78, Selig should have retired years ago. Instead, the major-league owners -- who love how he produces huge revenues and takes the public-relations hits for them -- extended his contract through 2012. If he can't rewrite his sorry role in the Steroids Era, he still has an opportunity to make amends by separating this era from baseball's clean periods and protecting people like Henry Aaron and Willie Mays from Rodriguez and Barry Bonds. Erasing records still is the best idea, and Selig should apply the whitewash to A-Rod, Bonds, Roger Clemens and other record-holders linked to steroids. It wouldn't be fair to erect a fence between 1990 and 2007 and punish all players in that period. The guilt-by-association conflict is affecting too many innocent people as it is. "The problem with this whole sordid mess is that now everybody is (linked),'' Houston slugger Lance Berkman said.

"All of a sudden, my name gets brought up in an article about steroids, and I've never even been anywhere close to it. What happens is, you get a few guys basically throwing a taint over the game, and the rest of us are suffering for it. Nobody's going to believe anybody. I can sit here and crow and say I've never done steroids or never done anything illegal from a standpoint of performance-enhancing drugs. But who's going to believe me?''

Selig can help the delineation process by preserving the great home-run record. To do so, A-Rod and Bonds must be wiped out so Aaron can have the mark. Humble as always, Aaron says he isn't interested. "In all fairness to everybody, I just don't see how you really can do a thing like that and just say somebody isn't the record holder anymore, and let's go back to the way that it was," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "It's probably the most hallowed record out there, as far as I'm concerned, but it's now in the hands of somebody else. It belongs to Barry. No matter how we look at it, it's his record, and I held it for a long time.''

My guess is, Aaron gladly will accept once Selig returns the record. And it's nice to see the commissioner's office showing interest in asking additional questions to Rodriguez, whose news-conference performance Tuesday was roundly ripped as disgraceful. ESPN reported Wednesday night that MLB investigators want to know how often A-Rod used steroids and whether his mysterious unnamed "cousin'' actually obtained the drugs for him.
It's a start, anyway.

Having completely botched the past, Selig and the lords now must take tender, loving care of the future. He's lucky that baseball is watched by millions who love the convergence of summer, beer, sunshine and hot dogs. But if he's not careful, the lingering stench of a never-ending scandal may ruin whatever romance remains.