When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

01.21.2008
Slow Roasted

It seems the Mitchell-reported conduct of our local baseball brass has caught the eye of politicians. When Selig appeared before the House committee last week, he was confronted with Sabean and Magowan’s reported behavior — stonewalling then-trainer Stan Conte’s concerns about Bonds’s BALCO buddies in the clubhouse — and Bud hinted he might take disciplinary action.

Well, now that the owners have granted Bud a new contract extension, he certainly isn’t going to fall on his own sword, which I’ve called for more than once. (Funny — Bud doesn’t seem to be getting the memo. I’ll have to blog louder.) That leaves others to do his dirty work — or, should I say, others to whom he’ll do his dirty work.

I still think the players will bear the brunt of the fallout despite having one of the most powerful unions in the land. But we can only hope that if players and only players take the blame for this mess, Congress and the media won’t be satisfied.

We can imagine, then, that the owners will find it expedient to sacrifice one of their own, or a few front-office underlings, to appease the antitrust Gods, and lo, the vorpal blade will go snicker-snack. But upon whose neck? Selig’s comments have certainly focused the discussion on our local nine. But scapegoating is a tricky business, especially when the potential ‘goatees have been throwing boardroom elbows and practicing lawyer-fu all their professional lives.

I don’t know the relative power of Magowan amongst his tasseled-loafer peers. If he’s got incriminating pictures that involve, say, Drayton McLane, donkeys and Tijuana, or other similar powerful talismans to ward off Bud’s evil eye — you laugh, but remember how Dusty Baker’s IRS violations magically surfaced at the end of his Giant tenure? — then voila, the blame train bypasses Pee-Mag’s owner’s box.

Notice, though, that I didn’t say it would bypass all executive offices of 24 Willie Mays Plaza entirely. It’s possible Magowan in one form or another could throw Sabean to the Waxman wolves. I’m not sure how that would work, and if Sabes is worth his salt-n-pepper mullet, he has placed in the right hands a few sealed envelopes that read “Do Not Open Unless I’m Mysteriously Fired or Run Off the Road by a Safeway.com Delivery Truck.”

Ray Ratto, who has been a constant voice of conscience in this whole matter, suggested yesterday an appropriate punishment of rescinding the Giants’ exclusive rights to the San Jose market.

Great idea, but it would probably lead to the Sabean/Revenge scenario writ larger. The Giants’ clubhouse was one of many in MLB with shady characters hanging about, and don’t think for a moment Magowan will settle for being the only one singled out. Press forward with the Ratto Plan, as savory as it might sound to those who’d love the Giants to get some o’ theirs, and I’ll betcha we’d soon find out how much the Yankees front office knew about Brian MacNamee, or the Mets about Kirk Radomski, or Kevin Towers’ nudge-wink relationship to Ken Caminiti’s ongoing pharmacist correspondence course. Magowan would not go down solo.

In other words, if Bud throws one owner under the bus, we’ll get to sit back and enjoy an acrimonious cycle of mysterious leaks, recrimination and David Boies/James Baker press conferences from now until Super Bowl 75. That’s why, no matter what happens, the first step is the resignation of Bud Selig.

Oops. Guess that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Question: If the Giants deserve punishment, what should it be? 
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[January 21, 2008 8:05 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

Given that it was not against the rules of baseball for ballplayers to use steroids, I'm not sure what Bug Zelig can do against any management type figures. It would be like prosecuting teams when they noticed that their drunk players drove off in their SUVs or was speeding over 100 MPH on the freeway but did nothing about it.

I haven't read the whole Congressional hearing with Waxman waxing Zelig with his holier than thou gaunlet of questions - I would love to see hearings where congressmen get hoisted on their petards when they are reaping the rewards of their position - though I did hear some of that conversation on KNBR at one point, but I don't really understand what Sabean could have done at that point. Was there really some rule that Sabean was suppose to report stuff like this?

I have to assume that management has wanted to do something about it for a long time - that's probably something they have been battling for since cocaine addiction was running rampant in the clubhouses - but they have been powerless to force the MLBPA to accept such terms. Why don't Congress put Don Fehr on the stand and ask him pointed and embarrassing questions on why the MLBPA didn't see fit to include such language in the collective bargaining agreement long ago, that would be interesting conversation.

Better yet, lets put all the congressional representatives on the stand and have them each explain what they did wrong in missing 9/11?

And what would Sabean reporting the incident to baseball have done anyway, other than create a paper trail leading to nowhere? Why play that game? "Uh, Bud, it looks like Greg Anderson might be dealing steroids in our lockerroom." "Impossible, I know nothing, I see nothing, this is the first I've heard about it, see this chart, revenues in the MLB is growing, growing, growing, I'm a good commissioner!" It would have accomplished nothing, and worse, since you know it's happening in other clubhouses but their trainers kept their mouth shut, you would get punished by losing your best player by doing the right thing, while the others get to continue their charade of "I know nothing, I see nothing."

Not that I think Sabean and Magowan shouldn't be punished in some way, it would have been better to do the right thing. Still, punishing them would be like jailing your local Al-Queda militiamen when Osama is still running around, there's nothing to accomplish other than patting one-self on the back for punishing people who didn't really cause the steroid problem, but were bystanders with no power to do anything about it.

Given that Canseco has blabbed big time about his usage and therefore the A's management of back then should get some heat as well, I think Sandy Alderson should get some sort of punishment equal to (and probably greater than) whatever Sabean gets, he was at ground zero for when steroids took off, and the way Canseco made it sound like, it would be hard to miss all that happening unless you are pretty dumb, and Alderson never struck me as the dumb type, he's as sharp as they come.