Indict Bud Selig

[Fricke-on-Fox]

Indict Bud Selig.

Steroids are more than a pain in the butt for Major League Baseball, they are a criminal concern on multiple fronts. The perjery trial of Barry Bonds will likely not be the last criminal complaint tied, at least in some way, to the steroid scandal that has plagued the game.

Should, for example, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig be indicted as the ring leader in the whole mess. For one I say, yes he should be. Now Jesse Ventura (of all people) makes a lame arguement for that... here...

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“In the early ’90s, the federal government came into pro wrestling and tried to put Vince McMahon in prison for steroid use of wrestlers,” Jesse Ventura, former Minnesota governor and pro wrestler told the online news program, Your Turn. “My question is: They’ve now determined 104 baseball players failed their steroid test in 2003 – 104! They indicted Vince McMahon, why aren’t they indicting Bud Selig?”
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_yl...yhoo&type=lgns

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And veteran comlumnist Terrance Moore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution argues against indicting Bud here...

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Bud Selig is right. Alex Rodriguez is wrong.... For one, Selig just told Newsweek what he has told me before. That is, baseball’s notoriously strong players’ union wouldn’t allow him to enact testing for performance-enhancing drugs during the 1990s. More specifically, Selig pushed for testing in 1995. That was three years before the sham that was artificially enhanced players Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chased Roger Maris’ season-season home run record of 61.

So blame the union, blame the players and blame the culture. But when it comes to why baseball’s steroid era lasted so long, don’t blame Selig, who only could do what he could do, which wasn’t much. He had that union, those players and that culture emphatically and consistently saying, “No,” to his requests for testing.

The union didn’t agree to testing until 2004, when Rodriguez claimed on Tuesday during his insufferable news conference that he stopped a three-year cycle of taking steroids injected by his cousin....

...As for Selig, you can believe it, because he’s telling the truth.

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/sha...r_steroid.html

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Let's assume Moore is close to being on the right track. I would agree with him that the Players Union needs to be held accountable, but, accountable as well. Which is to say both Bud Selig and Players Union boss Donald Fehr need to be indicted.

What Moore is missing is that Selig willfully went along with the ruse that his hands were tied. Selig wanted the pumped up fake stars to do the "chicks dig the long ball" (no overt sexual references in those commercials, huh) public relations campaign that literally brought his game out of the ashes in the last 90's.

It was the steroid-fueled home run fest of Mark "you can't prove it because I retired right before mandatory testing" McGwire and Sammy "I sometimes forget when testifying how to speak English" Sosa.

Selig's top goal as a former owner and owner-flunky commish was to generate revenue. Selig has done that. Despite all the woes casued by all this scandal baseball has never made more money or been on better economic footing (whether that will be true going forward in this new economy is another story).

Selig knew what was going on. He chose not to do anything about it. That his hands were tied by the union is a bald-faced lie. He could have held a news conference and stated publicly that there was a scandal in baseball and that steroids were a major issue and that they union was not allowing him to deal with it. Of course he didn't do that.. He would have been a rally killer if he did and that is the most unacceptable thing you can be in baseball. Indict Bud Selig.

[jawhite]

rat on...brother

[Fricke-on-Fox]

Originally Posted by jawhite

rat on...brother

I get disagreement on this.

I also think Selig should not be in the HOF - that he should be lumped with Mac, Bonds, Arod, Sosa, Clemens, Palmeiro, etc etc... one goes in, all go in - one is left out, all are left out. But it's their HOF and they can do what they want.

Selig is not clear on this - though he wants to think he is.

[weisguy08]

Selig should be indicted for many reasons...let me count them

1) The steroid mess, and then saying in an interview "don't blame me" really Bud, are you not the ring leader of this circus. If we are not to blame you, then who, would you feel better if we blamed Donald Fehr, or Pete Rose??

2) Pete Rose not being reinstated so that he can get his rightful place in the HOF. If people think this joke of a commissioner (who makes Gary Bettman look good) then the Hit King belongs in the HOF.

Pete Rose's crime is far less worse then anything that any player in the 'roids era has pulled off, under the watch of Bud Selig.

3) The fact that he spent hour after hour, day after day, week after week, season after season going after Barry Bonds and only Barry Bonds.....HEY DUMMY HOW BOUT THE OTHER 103 NAMES ON THE A-ROID LIST!!!!!!! How are these jokers getting a pass. Bill Fat-schke on the 4-letter said yesterday, when someone said what about the other 103, why are we just jumping on A-Rod, he said "I don't care about them" this seems to be how Bud feels as well.

It is enough already, get Bud out, and get the one person in there who can save this sport once and for all.....BOB COSTAS......and BILLY CRYSTAL as his second in command