Tagliabue Shows Why NFL Is Still King of Hill

This time, Congress hauled the NFL up before the committee to grill Paul Tagliabue about Carolina Panthers on steroids, and recent first-round draft choices on steroids, and to interrogate Gene Upshaw about Gary Plummer’s claim that Upshaw once was “vehemently” opposed to testing for steroids in the NFL.

And the biggest loser of the day was?

Major League Baseball.

Just like the other time.

Mark McGwire and his fogged-up reading glasses were nowhere to be found. Bud Selig and his flop sweat had been given the day off. Sammy Sosa was getting rained out in Boston, where, it is hoped, he was using the spare time to brush up on his English.

Wednesday was the NFL’s appointment to squirm under the glare of the bright lights, yet baseball, absent from Capitol Hill but never forgotten, took another beating, unable to doing anything right, even while it was doing nothing at all.

“This hearing today ... is like light-years different from Major League Baseball,” Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) told the panel of NFL Commissioner Tagliabue, NFL Players Assn. President Upshaw and NFL executive vice president for labor relations Harold Henderson.

“I want to thank you for your cooperation. I want to thank you for being here and listening to the first panel. I want to thank you for providing us with the data that we needed. ...

“Commissioner, I want to thank you for knowing what the hell is going on. With all due respect, the commissioner of baseball hadn’t even read the document that he had given us. They didn’t even seem to know that in the document they gave us, it said, ‘A penalty or a fine,’ and then after the hearing, they said they voted to take the fines out, as if they were a part of it.

“So, I mean, I kind of love you guys. But I shouldn’t. Because I still have problems [with the NFL’s drug policy].”

And so it went on NFL inquisition day, which played more like an NFL-approved photo op because Tagliabue and Upshaw had the good fortune of being able to learn from baseball’s mistakes in front of Congress -- which would be every move baseball made in front of Congress -- and take advantage of politicians who saw nothing wrong with grading on a curve.

Because baseball had set the bar so “exceedingly low,” as Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.) put it, all the NFL had to do Wednesday was show up, seem organized and sound concerned and Tagliabue was going to come off as St. Paul, patron saint of anti-steroid awareness.

More than that, the NFL came prepared to pour it on -- handing out glossy educational booklets aimed at high school athletes, hitting Congress in a soft spot, and using the occasion to announce a new, tougher drug policy.

It was another reminder of how and why pro football eclipsed baseball as the national pastime. It all comes back to television. The NFL manipulates the medium as if the league invented it. Selig and his minions still view the thing as a strange alien box that fell to Earth from the heavens.

If Vince Lombardi were around to assess the situation, he’d say, “Image isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.” Train a television camera on the commissioners and everything the public believes about their respective leagues, right or wrong, comes quickly into focus.

Selig is uncomfortable in front of the camera, looking awkward, nervous, disheveled, slightly shifty but not slick in any way, a faux pas waiting to happen. Funny, but that’s the precisely the same scouting report from baseball’s performance in front of Congress in March.

Tagliabue, meanwhile, is lawyerly smooth and erudite, looking cool and in control, ever-ready with the “SportsCenter”-friendly sound bite. His performance Wednesday was made for television, just like everything about his league.

Stylistically, it was a blowout for the NFL. But how about substance? Selig was flanked by some of baseball’s biggest stars, past and present, during his appearance on Capitol Hill. Tagliabue had only Steve Courson, a onetime steroid user who retired from pro football in 1985 and frankly admitted he was out of touch with what was happening inside NFL locker rooms in 2005.

Where were the current NFL players? Or at least someone who played in the league during the last decade? How about some NFL coaches?

Asked about the issue, Upshaw launched the kind of spin that was positively, well, congressional.

“Someone said that we need active players here,” Upshaw said. “Well, I talk to active players. I spend most of my time in locker rooms around the NFL, and I can tell you this: Over the years that I’ve been in this position, in the locker room, and I did include some quotes from active players in my testimony that’s part of this record, but I want to point out one thing that’s very important. We have never had one player in the National Football League ... “

Suddenly, ESPN News interrupted Upshaw by cutting away to Fenway Park, where umpires were deciding whether to call the Boston-Baltimore baseball game because of rain. Upshaw’s audio went out as well. How convenient. How appropriate. Television stepping in again to lend the NFL a hand.

Later, Upshaw was asked about Plummer’s claim on ESPN’s “Outside The Lines” that Upshaw had opposed steroid testing during contract talks with the NFL during the late 1990s.

“I think the record will show that I have supported and continue to support and have been a strong supporter for testing for steroids,” Upshaw replied. “I don’t know what Gary Plummer’s talking about. But knowing that he’s a linebacker, I sort of take that into the balance of this also.”

That drew some laughs from Upshaw’s interrogators. It’s good to be the king. Or, as the position is known in this country, the NFL. And when you’re up before Congress, it’s even better not to be Major League Baseball.