Tony La Russa’s comments ignore his own role in PED scandal
http://tinyurl.com/kmven24
简单说 老拉在运动家(Jose Canseco)跟红雀(Mark McGwire)担任教练时都没管到PED
所以老拉也有罪!!!
(那伟大的圣教主勒......)
By David Brown
New Hall of Famer Tony La Russa appeared on MLB Network's "Hot Stove" on
Monday morning and addressed issues from the new sliding rules, to testing
for performance-enhancing drugs, to a hypothetical future as president of the
Seattle Mariners. All are hot (or least warm) topics, but the PED stuff has
been on the front burner with the Alex Rodriguez suspension news.
Here's part of what La Russa told hosts Matt Vasgersian and Harold Reynolds
about why PED testing in the majors has come so far in the past 10 years —
because the players' union wants it:
They know their priorities but, for a long time, protecting their players'
right of privacy in collective bargaining issues, you know, they were an
obstacle to getting this thing in the right direction when it first started.
Now it looks like everything's coming together.
La Russa isn't wrong about the MLBPA. Former executive director Marvin Miller
would have bristled, and subsequent leader Don Fehr had a history of
bristling, at the suggestion MLB should test for PEDs. The union has since
acquiesced, seen the light, changed its mind. Enough players want PED testing
that the league does it.
It's just a strange thing for La Russa say while omitting another part of
history: La Russa has managed (at least) two of the most notorious PED users
of the past 30 years.
As manager of the Oakland Athletics in the 1980s, and the St. Louis Cardinals
in the 1990s, it was La Russa's fault, partially, that Jose Canseco and Mark
McGwire took PEDs with impunity. La Russa made the problem worse by not
cooperating with reporters investigating (using the word loosely) PEDs at the
time. Why? To protect the privacy of his own players. To protect his own
clubhouse from bad attention. To make his own life easier.
A manager of any team bears some responsibility for his players actions. It
would be one thing for La Russa to say that about the union and add something
like, "A lot of us looked the other way." He didn't do that, and he hasn't
done that, possibly because he thinks he did nothing wrong. But if MLB really
has had a PED problem like La Russa says, he shouldn't act like he wasn't
there, too. He ignored it. Or covered it up. Implicitly encouraged it. Let it
happen.
Even in 2005, when Canseco's book came out, La Russa defended McGwire. His
defense rang hollow then, but now that McGwire has admitted he used, La Russa
looks even shadier on the PED subject.
Of course, he's trying to become a team's president right now. Maybe the
Mariners president. He deserves a shot, and it's not a great time to be
taking metaphorical bullets in a PED scandal.
La Russa retired from managing after the 2011 season and has been a special
assistant for Major League Baseball since 2012. As his selection for the Hall
of Fame shows, La Russa was a special manager — obviously one of the best.
But if the likes of Canseco, McGwire, Barry Bonds and Rodriguez are made to
wear a scarlet PED, then others who aided them should also.