The Politics of Baseball

bonds head
Originally uploaded by dangunderman.

I'm no big fan of Barry Bonds. He's a jerk. He's like most jocks that way. I'm rather hoping that he'll fail in his pursuit of Hank's home run record. That the "steroids scandal" seems to be coming down to Did-Barry-Use, however, is exceptionally unfair.

David Zirin writes about sports for The Nation, and he's writing the words I've been waiting to see. The intersection of baseball and politics? I'm already rivited.

Zirin's most recent discusses that Babe Ruth was an asshole, too. That's a link that doesn't require a subscription, but if you don't feel like clicking, here's a little tossed-off aside that comes prior to his bashing the Babe:

Now that the owners have mined their billions from the 1990s home run binge, and everyone has a Congressional hangover, Bonds is persona non grata.

He goes on to remind us that the Babe never faced a single black pitcher. If he'd been competing against all of the most talented pitchers in America, would he have hit so many dingers? Where's his asterisk for institutionalized racism?

Oh, David Zirin, you know just what to say.

A couple weeks back, Zirin wrote an article about the steroids commission. (This one's subscription only, I'm afraid.) Headed by former Democratic Senator George Mitchell, Zirin likens this commission to a solar energy task force headed by Dick Cheney; a software regulation commission headed by Bill Gates. As a director of the Boston Red Sox and chair of the Walt Disney board of directors, Mitchell is hardly impartial. Disney-owned ESPN is the official national broadcaster of Major League Baseball.

But conflict of interest aside, the real issue of Mitchell's selection is that at no point will baseball owners be under scrutiny. Steroids will stop and end with the players. No one will ask if the owners knew. Did they look the other way? Did they encourage steroid use, and how? When Jose Canseco was jabbing himself full of needles in Arlington, the Texas Rangers' primary owner was George W. Bush. Did he know about it and fail to do anything to stop it? Where was your preemptive strike then, Georgie?

Zirin goes on to remind us that of all those guys dragged in to testify as part of the congressional hearings on steroids, not one was an owner. Seven owners were Bush Rangers, having donated $200,000 to his campaign; six more were Bush Pioneers, donating $100,000. If these douchebags are the guardians of the game, where the fuck have they been?

And even more important: Where the fuck has baseball commissioner Bud Selig been?

Zirin ends his tirade thusly:

The best way [for Bud Selig and George Mitchell] to give their probe a "perception of legitimacy" is to actually be legitimate. That means the owners must be questioned about what they knew, and Selig has to go.

Split infinitive aside, David Zirin, I say, "Sing it to the rafters!"