Selig gutless on MLB steroid use

Bud Selig is a weenie. People call him that all the time — weenie. If he weren’t a weenie, baseball would have a meaningful policy when it comes to performance-enhancing drugs, but Selig has presided over a drug emporium in the major leagues and accomplished little.

This charge against Selig is true and in this sense he is a weenie, even though he has to deal with a recalcitrant, obstructionist union that shields its millionaire members from serious sanctions for cheating.

So, let’s play a game, the un-weenie game. We’ll pretend old Uncle Bud isn’t a weenie. We’ll pretend he’s a tough commissioner. How can he protect the virtue of our national pastime?

We ask this question in the context of Alex Rodriguez, A-Rod, the guy the New York Post calls A-Roid. Rodriguez admitted cheating, almost certainly lied when he claimed not to know what his cousin was injecting into his butt, almost certainly lied when he said he stopped using after 2003. This one is a whopper.

He used in Texas, he said, because of all the pressure playing for the Rangers. After that he went to the Yankees but didn’t take illicit drugs because, face it, there’s absolutely no pressure playing in New York.

A-Rod has paid no penalty for his wrongdoing, and what may be his continuing wrongdoing. He got away with it.

There should be penalties for A-Rod-like cheaters.

Here are my ideas, some suggested by Santa Rosa doctor Gary Furness, who also is a physician for the California State Athletic Commission.

If a player tests positive even once during the season, his team automatically gets docked two wins.

I absolutely love this idea. It introduces the concept of peer pressure. If you screw up, you’re not merely screwing up for yourself. You’re injuring the whole team. Other players will come down on you because you’re compromising the team’s record and potentially keeping the team out of the postseason, and that could translate to less money per player.

A little peer pressure can go a long way. Teammates no longer would coddle frauds — as the Yankees, including fraud Andy Pettitte, are coddling A-Rod. Players would shun the cheater.

If a player tests positive, even retrospectively, his numbers for that season get thrown out. I admit this is tricky. But, say a guy is batting champ and it turns out he was juiced. Well, Major League Baseball says he’s no longer batting champ and they give the honor to the next guy on the list. This might mean the cheater loses performance bonuses.

Does all this sound harsh? Too bad. The same would go for home-run and RBI champs.

These penalties would not apply to awards like MVP and Cy Young because the baseball writers, not Major League Baseball, control them.

This idea of throwing out records is similar to what they do in track and field, where they’re serious about drug enforcement. In track and field, if you test positive, even on an old sample, your records get wiped off the books. Take a hike.

There’s more. They make you forfeit your medals and if you ran for a winning relay team, the other three runners — your teammates — also lose their medals. Talk about peer pressure.

All this bad stuff happened to cheater and big-time phony Marion Jones, who had to give back her five medals from the Sydney Olympics. As far as history is concerned, her results in Sydney don’t exist. Her relay mates in Sydney also lost their medals.

Selig could petition the Hall of Fame to refuse entry for anyone who twice tested positive. This is touchy because the Hall of Fame is a private enterprise, not controlled by Major League Baseball. But Selig at least could try.

Selig, admittedly, is working with an obstinate players union that doesn’t much care about the integrity of the game. The union prohibits tests for human growth hormone because it doesn’t permit blood tests. Lots of players, I believe, use HGH because it makes them strong and it can only be detected through a blood test. Until recently, I opposed blood tests but Furness and Healdsburg doctor Paul Miller make a good case that these tests are not violations of personal privacy. Blood tests are clearly something Selig could look into.

The point is he can do a lot. That’s if he’s not a weenie. Are you a weenie, Bud?

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular go to the Cohn Zohn at blog.pressdemocrat.com/cohn. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at 521-5486 or lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.