http://www.murraychass.com/?p=5710
Nearly two weeks later the debate rages on over the outcome of the Hall of
Fame voting. It has dominated baseball’s off-season. Even the Hall of Famers
themselves, elected by the writers in a less controversial, less contentious,
time, have added their views.
But as the all-steroids, all-the-time discussion has gone on, it has prompted
a long-nagging question in my mind: why steroids and not alcohol?
Asked that question, baseball people usually give the simple answer: alcohol
is legal, steroids are not. Or they might add: alcohol doesn’t enhance
performance; steroids do.
However, to repeat the start of a column I wrote nearly six years ago, “
Alcohol last week killed one more major league baseball player than steroids
ever have.”
I referred to the automobile fatality of Josh Hancock, a St. Louis Cardinals’
pitcher, whom the club knew to be a frequent and a heavy drinker.
Carlton Fisk was a lot luckier than Hancock. The Hall of Fame catcher
recently pleaded guilty to drunk driving two months after police found him
asleep in his pickup truck in a cornfield in a Chicago suburb. The
65-year-old Fisk wasn’t there resting up for a game in the field of dreams.
In probably the most interesting piece of the hundreds of thousands of words
that have been written about the Hall of Fame election and the writers’
rejection of known and suspected steroids users, the Associated Press quoted
several Hall of Fame players as welcoming the writers’ shutout of Barry
Bonds and Roger Clemens, among others.
“I’m kind of glad that nobody got in this year,” Al Kaline said. “I feel
honored to be in the Hall of Fame. And I would’ve felt a little uneasy
sitting up there on the stage, listening to some of these new guys talk about
how great they were.”
Rich (Goose) Gossage had previously been quoted as saying players who used
steroids should not be in the Hall of Fame, and he didn’t alter his position
post-vote.
“I think the steroids guys that are under suspicion got too many votes,” he
said. “I don’t know why they’re making this such a question and why there’
s so much debate. To me, they cheated. Are we going to reward these guys?”
The players the AP talked to didn’t mention Fisk and most likely weren’t
asked about his transgression. But most Hall of Famers have been sitting on
the Cooperstown stage with him since he was elected in 2000 and probably will
again this coming July or in future Julys. Why will Fisk’s DUI not make him
a pariah in their midst?
I can guess the answer they would give if they were asked. Drinking is legal.
It isn’t cheating. It doesn’t enhance performance. It doesn’t create an
unbalanced playing field. And one answer they wouldn’t articulate: There but
for the grace of G-d go I.
On the heels of Fisk’s guilty plea, which got him a year of court
supervision and drug and alcohol evaluation and counseling, another former
all-star player resurfaced in the same arena.
Mark Grace was participating in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ fantasy camp even
though the team had fired him as its television analyst after he was arrested
last August, the second time in 15 months he was arrested for drunk driving.
He pleaded not guilty to four felony counts of aggravated DUI and is
scheduled for trial March 19.
Fisk and Grace, of course, are retired players no longer subject to the
authority of the baseball commissioner. But there are enough DUI subjects
still in baseball to wonder what’s going on: Miguel Cabrera, Coco Crisp,
Derek Lowe, Austin Kearns, Adam Kennedy, Shin-Soo Choo, Michael Pineda, Bobby
Jenks, Joba Chamberlain, Cristhian Martinez, Alex White and assorted minor
leaguers.
“You’re right; we focus on steroids and amphetamines, which have been
around for 100 years,” Commissioner Bud Selig said in a telephone interview
in response to a statement I made about alcohol. “But alcohol is a very
serious situation. I’m very sensitive about that.”
Although appearances might make it seem that baseball has ignored alcohol, it
has not, though results have not been noticeable publicly.
“We negotiated changes in how alcohol is dealt with in the last round of
collective bargaining,” Michael Weiner, the head of the union, said,
referring to the labor contract that took effect 13 months ago. “The doctors
have always dealt with alcohol issues, players who have alcohol issues or
have potential issues with other things.”
One change Weiner cited requires a player who is charged with DUI to meet
with Major League Baseball’s joint treatment board, which consists of one
doctor and one lawyer from each side.
Alcohol matters are covered in Attachment 27, which was added to the basic
agreement between the clubs and the union. It states:
“…the parties have agreed to establish a Joint Treatment Program to deal
with certain alcohol-related conduct and off-field violent conduct by Major
League Players during the term of the 2012-2016 Basic Agreement.”
The last paragraph of the page-and-a-half attachment declares that a player’
s participation in a treatment program is voluntary and that refusal to
participate does not subject the player to discipline. At the same time, it
says, a player’s referral to the treatment board does not preclude the club
from taking disciplinary action.
The treatment board, Weiner explained, determines “whether players can
benefit from a treatment program or not, with the recognition that a lot of
people who are charged with alcohol-related crimes were caught making a
mistake and don’t have alcohol-related problems.”
Cabrera, last season’s American League most valuable player, was not one of
those “caught making a mistake.”
A year and a half apart he had two incidents that brought him in contact with
the police. Hours before the start of the Tigers’ final series of the 2009
season, Cabrera wound up in jail after an alcohol-induced fight with his
wife. The incident very likely cost the Tigers the division title, which they
lost in a playoff game to Minnesota.
Two Februarys later, on the eve of the start of spring training, Cabrera was
pulled over in Florida and charged with DUI.
After the first incident, he underwent outpatient treatment. After the
second, he was assigned a monitor for the entire 2011 season. The Tigers,
though, did not discipline Cabrera.
When I asked a Tigers’ spokesman about the absence of disciplinary action,
he said that was up to the commissioner’s office. When I asked Selig, he
said, “I normally leave these things to the clubs, but you raise a very good
point. If the club isn’t doing enough, then I have to get involved.”
As far as I know, the Cardinals did nothing in 2007 when its manager, Tony La
Russa, was arrested in Florida during spring training for driving under the
influence. Police found him asleep at the wheel at an intersection in Jupiter
near the St. Louis training camp.
After La Russa pleaded guilty in November to drunk driving, the team’s
principal owner, Bill DeWitt Jr. declined to comment, saying, “We addressed
this matter with Tony last season and the nature of those discussions will
remain private.” The matter, he added, was closed.
The Pittsburgh Pirates apparently did nothing after their president, Frank
Coonelly, who previously was a labor lawyer in the commissioner’s office,
was arrested in December 2011. News of the arrest didn’t even surface for
two months.
Coonelly was charged with DUI, careless driving and driving the wrong way. He
subsequently apologized, calling his actions “irresponsible and wrong.” But
he offered no explanation for hiding the arrest for two months.
And then there is Matt Bush, who has surpassed Josh Hamilton in killing his
career. An unemployed pitcher who was a high school shortstop when San Diego
made him the No. 1 pick in the 2004 draft, Bush has hit the jackpot. He has
turned his third DUI conviction in 10 years into a 51-month prison sentence.
Bush, 26, completed his baseball destruction last March when he ran over a
motorcycle – with the 72-year-old motorcyclist on it –and kept going,
telling police after he was arrested that he didn’t remember hitting
anything or anybody.
Hamilton, the 2010 American League most valuable player, squandered four
years as he struggled to overcome alcohol and drug demons. Bush will very
likely spend that much time in prison. Besides their drinking problems, the
two players have one thing in common. Both were in the Rays organization.
Hamilton, however, found life after the Rays. For Bush, life after the Rays,
who released him last October, is prison.