November 17, 2005
Holding All Sides Responsible
I like this idea:
While everyone in Congress and the commissioner's office fought the union over tougher penalties, no one thought of looking at the top of the sport's food chain and sanctioning the people who collect gate receipts for juiced performances. The union wouldn't have blocked a proposal to fine an owner for every positive drug test in his organization, say $500,000 for the first, $2 million for the second, $5 million for the third.
If 50 games' unpaid leave is supposed to deter players from using, imagine the effect of having some of the boss' money at risk.
The money could go into a pool and be divided by the clean clubs that year. With this kind of penalty, you could be sure the teams would get the entourages out of the club house.
Posted by David Pinto at
05:20 PM
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Cheating
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Interesting,
It kind of has the right idea, but really only punishes those who are doing things that are testable for. So, I would imagine that the Brewers or some other low budget team getting punished as they have a journeyman outfielder who is injecting steroids he bought at gold's gym desperate for a power boost so he can stick around for two more years and pay off his, uh, gambling debts, or some such (be eligible for a pension?). Meanwhile some slugger who makes 15 million a year spends 200,000 for his own special brew of HGH that is undetectable. Again, untestable doping, wave of the future man, wave of the future.
To use my favorite example, they keep mentioning this in regards to the cycling doping problems where either team doctors will get fired, teams banned from the pro tour (kind of like manchester united getting kicked out of the first division, or, say the brewers being dumped into AAA) or the like. Certain scandal plagued teams have basically fired the manager, doctors and support staffs to make sure that they are not viewed as a top down cheating team. They are reluctant to go after the owners as the whole sport is supported by advertisers looking to use the jerseys as billboards. Fining the sponsors would kill the sport.
Just for fun, check out this article explaining the controversy as Amgen is sponsoring a huge bike race in california next year. Amgen makes EPO which is by far the most abused drug in endurance sports. Interesting in the education aspect as well as the apperance of impropriety. Kind of like the NLCS being sponsored by BALCO.
http://mountainbike.com/community/article/1,4823,13941_621,00.html
Woo hoo. More cycling and baseball. They are the same. Really. .
Have them forfeit draft choices, or add a supplemental draft before the first round for the clean teams. That will get their attention.
Time to wake up from our dreaming, folks. It won't happen.
I think they should throw the CEO of GM in jail if one of his employees commits a crime.
Which of course, is the same thing. Talk about an idea that hasn't been thought out at all.
Al, I think you miss the point. If a baseball player robs a bank, that has nothing to do with the team. But if a player is using PEDs to help the team win, the owner is more likely to turn a blind eye to that sort of thing. Using PEDs are more like the crimes of misreporting earnings. And for that, upper management is held responsible. A way of making the team suffer for players cheating is a good incentive to make owners and management more vigilant, for example, in who they allow in the club house, or who they allow to work for the team.
Al, 30,000 Arthur Anderson employees got their walking papers from the Feds on account of a handful of criminals in one office. Insane? Sure; but your GM analogy is not the stretch you make it out to be.
Congress should be held accountable too, so why not randomly drug test them. How about drug and alcohol testing before every vote in Congress? They are role models for our children too.