(Click here for story) Selig would welcome government help in steroid fiasco

Once again, Bud Selig is looking to the U.S. government to help him out. They have an odd relationship, don't they? First, Selig tells a special senate committee that 25 out of 30 teams in Major League Baseball are losing money, and therefore, they still need the collective bargaining agreement. Also, this is why the Expos cannot lose money. Oh, and by the way, when we build these new cathedrals of stadia all across the country, they'd better be subsidized by the local government, or we won't build 'em! The hell if I'm going to take a chunk out of my nine-figure net worth to pay for a stadium that my baseball team is going to play in. That's not my responsibility, that's the taxpayer's responsibility.

And now Commissioner Bud is ready to put another cherry on his sundae of a tenure as Major League Baseball commissioner. To put on the facade that the players have been the bad guys in all of this (and that the owners have not been loving every last dollar-producing second of the Jucing Era), Selig, after helping to implement the biggest joke of a drug testing system that exists today in pro sports, throws up his hands and says: "If we cannot resolve this issue privately, I gladly will accept whatever help is offered by Senator McCain to achieve our ultimate goal."

Great, Selig. Way to pass the buck again. I wish for once that he would just own up to the fact that he and the owners made a huge mistake by not enforcing some kind of steroid testing at the first glimmer of a problem, which was obviously some time in early 90's. Instead, he's supposedly shocked at the fact that some of the biggest stars in the game have been using steroids.

I hope that this tarnishes Selig's legacy. He has not, despite what many sportswriters and broadcasters would have you believe, been a great commissioner. I see Selig as a commissioner who simply tried too hard to appease both the players and the owners. The result is records and seasons tainted by unknown amounts of chemical enhancement (and happiness on both sides as the owners and players lined their pockets with cash), millions of dollars in taxpayer money going to new baseball facilities instead of schools, hospitals, and other more useful social programs, and a franchise rendered completely unable to compete due to the fact that they were sold to nobody (but he had to appease Loria and Henry because they were both whining about their hundred-million-dollar investments). While Selig has done a good job of marketing the game and expanding its audience, he has done an even better job of making sure that his owner buddies make a killing off of their investment.