Sacrifice Play

Imagine a solar energy task force headed by Dick Cheney, or a software regulatory commission run by Bill Gates. Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig aspired to this level of lunacy by tapping former Senate majority leader George Mitchell to head a probe into the influence of steroids on America's Pastime. Mitchell is both a director of the Boston Red Sox and chair of the Walt Disney Company. Disney owns ESPN, the primary national broadcaster of Major League Baseball. Yet Selig and Mitchell insist, over an increasingly loud chorus of critics, that there's no conflict of interest. As Selig responded to the raised eyebrows, "[Mitchell] has complete autonomy. He wouldn't have taken this without complete autonomy. I mean the fact that we're friends had nothing to do with it."

John Dowd, the respected Washington lawyer who headed baseball's vigorous investigation of Pete Rose's gambling in 1989, sees it differently. "Mitchell doesn't have a great track record with me," he said. "It doesn't look like he's independent."

The point is that by selecting his friend, Selig guarantees that the investigation's focus will be on the players and not on the owners, the "guardians of the game." Mitchell's presence all but insures that owners won't be questioned about why they did nothing as players began to show up at training camp looking like Hulk Hogan. They won't be questioned about why steroids were pointedly not even a banned substance until 2003, and why until then the owners winked at their increased use. They certainly won't be questioned about how the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa anabolic home-run race was exploited to bring back fans after the 1994 strike canceled the World Series. This would be in step with last year's Congressional hearings, which dragged prominent players under the hot lights but didn't question one owner, many of whom grease their share of political palms. Seven Major League owners hold the distinction of being Bush Rangers, meaning they raised at least $200,000 each for the President's 2004 election, and six others are Bush Pioneers, signifying $100,000 apiece. And sure enough, one owner never discussed was the man in charge of the Texas Rangers in the early 1990s, when Jose Canseco started a pharmacy in his locker room: George W. Bush. Putting Mitchell in charge also means that the commissioner of the juiced era, Bud Selig, won't have to fall on his sword. As Yahoo! sports columnist Jeff Passan wrote, "If George Mitchell's investigation into steroid use in baseball is as fair, impartial and thorough as Major League Baseball promises, there can be only one result. Bud Selig's resignation. And that's what makes this whole exercise laughable, nothing more than a case of poorly executed crisis P.R."

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.