COMMENTARY : A Wrong Kind of Message on Howe

This is an invitation; no make it an advertisement. Put it on the message board the New York Yankees have glaring down on the Major Deegan Expressway across from Yankee Stadium, where every drug dealer in the South Bronx can see it on the way to work.

Steve Howe, an admitted cocaine addict with a medically recognized excuse, no willpower and an income that could exceed $2 million, will be available at this address all summer. Phone (212) CY3-4300.

It’s up to the Yankees to get the wording right in the little light bulbs on the sign. The message is right there.

The Yankees ought to read it. The arbitrator who ruled Thursday that Howe was eligible and able to come back to baseball immediately ought to read it. George Nicolau made a terrible decision. The players union made a terrible decision to grieve Howe’s suspension as it did.

“This will have a terrible ending; the kid is going to kill himself,” said a prominent and pained psychiatrist who treats addicts and can’t be identified. Doctors don’t like to be quoted on somebody else’s patient. The Yankees now have a terrible responsibility they have not been eager to take on.

They signed Pascual Perez with a known drug history. They signed Steve Howe with a known drug history. They did not sign a counselor to work with them, live with them, sit on their shoulders as Jiminy Cricket telling them no.

Of course, they do have a mitigating circumstance. They need a left-handed closer.

The union had a reasonable argument that Fay Vincent should have heard medical testimony before suspending Howe in June, and that it shouldn’t have been a lifetime suspension.

This is wrong. Howe has been suspended seven times, has been to drug treatment nine times, going back to 1983. He snorted cocaine in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ bullpen.

“If he were my patient,” the source-psychiatrist said, “I’d say he’d have to go to residential treatment for two years and be out of baseball. Maybe some time in those two years he’d be able to come back to baseball, but he’d have to return to the residence. A person with his history needs a continuous ongoing relationship with somebody to keep him straight--not testing.”

To keep Pascual Perez straight, the Yankees hired a Hispanic radio broadcaster with work and family responsibilities to watch over the man. They had Lee Guetterman and Matt Nokes watch over Howe and pray for him. This is a man whose wife in one period had to chain him to a fence when she grocery shopped.

Gene Michael and the Yankees were very strong in professing understanding and sympathy for Howe last June; they almost had to say they want him back. They haven’t helped their bullpen since.

The defense the union applied was that Howe had something called “attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.” It says the sufferer has difficulty sitting still, awaiting a turn, following instructions, and is easily distracted; cocaine could have a calming effect. The union also said Howe couldn’t say no to an offer.

“I can’t tell you how absurd this is,” the psychiatrist-source said. “There is such a condition, but it has nothing to do with cocaine. This is unadulterated nonsense.”

It’s our way to give people another chance to straighten out their lives, but welcoming Howe back now tells anybody who cares there is no punishment and no risk. Go ahead and sniff up the foul lines. Over and over. No problem.

Then what does baseball have? At any time a fan can buy a ticket and see a team or two teams so stoned that they’re unable to perform. Send a snow-peddler to any team with addicts and he can control the outcome. If baseball doesn’t have credibility, it has nothing.

Steve Greenberg, whose title is deputy commissioner even though there is no commissioner, likened the defense to that of the enterprising California attorney who introduced the “Twinkie Defense” in a murder trial. He said his client should be excused because he had nothing to eat but Twinkies for lunch and the sugar rush caused him to shoot.

The arbitrator, the union and the Yankees will have to stand up for Steve Howe. It’s a bad decision.