Selig Just Wants Them to Get With the Program

Here’s the story, as the folks at Major League Baseball and the players’ association tell it: There’s one player, with short major league service time, entangled in the grievance process outlined by the collective bargaining agreement’s joint drug program.

Not 50 players. Not 60. And not Roger Clemens.

Here’s the other story: When Congressmen Tom Davis and Henry Waxman open the envelope that arrived Friday from MLB, they’ll find that Rafael Palmeiro was simply a positive test, subject to the same policy that eventually led to the suspensions of seven others like him, without regard to his 3,018 hits, 569 home runs or prior testimony.

It would do baseball no good to lie. It would do Bud Selig no good to withhold the names of dozens of players who tested positive for steroids, not with Congress sniffing around, not with ever-suspicious media dying to out the next Palmeiro.

Since the March 17 congressional hearing, Selig has lobbied for more transparency, not less. He has challenged labor boss Don Fehr to swallow an independent testing and grievance program, and Fehr hasn’t exactly declined.

If Selig and Fehr were smart, they’d grab hands and toddle over to the World Anti-Doping Agency together and end all of this, plug the leaks, initiate testing for human growth hormone and amphetamines, and let the Palmeiros fall where they may.

Not there yet, they’ll settle for answering rumors and defending their program, both, the guess is here, quite aware that it is substandard. They underestimated the problem for more than a decade, and still are underestimating it, but the drug policy is changing for the better, however slowly.

Meantime, reports that suggest favoritism toward Palmeiro or hidden positives have worn on the commissioner, who is at his Milwaukee home for the weekend.

“It’s been a tough two weeks, I don’t mind telling you,” Selig said. “Some people are trying to suggest a Machiavellian plot here that just doesn’t exist. Anybody who understands the process knows that it’s just ridiculous.

“The only thing I know is, there is one young player. Outside of that, there is no one else. Shame on the people who write otherwise. Shame on them.”

On Friday, the House Government Reform Committee received “several hundred pages,” by one staffer’s count, detailing Palmeiro’s case, from the first positive test to arbitrator Shyam Das’ decision, about two months’ worth of paperwork. The committee has not decided whether to publicize its findings, or whether it will hold Palmeiro to his testimony, but Selig predicted it would uncover nothing troublesome in the process.

“No question, there’s not a scintilla of doubt in my mind,” he said. “There is nothing at all out of the ordinary.

“What all these events prove is, there is a deeper issue here. It transcends the program and speaks to integrity. So we have to continue, so there’s no question left.”

Bats and Pieces

Five months ago on Capitol Hill, Mark McGwire left a lot of people hanging -- Congress, baseball fans, the media, those who played with and against him, and the anti-steroid crusaders he vowed to support, not to mention Hall of Fame voters.

He has shown no inclination to repair the damage caused by testimony that was borderline contemptuous, a heavy-handed and ultimately harmful strategy concocted by some big-time D.C. lawyers. McGwire appears content to have those be the final words on his career and the decisions he made during it.

It’s his right. As he himself said many times that day, “I’m retired.”

But the people he promised to help to warn children of the consequences of steroids are wondering when the McGwire foundation is going to show up, and the people who supported him are wondering when he’ll return their friendship.

In those winter days, when the details of Jose Canseco’s book were being leaked, and the first name surfacing was McGwire’s, Tony La Russa threw his off-season into defending his former player.

When McGwire withdrew more, and then refused to cooperate in the congressional hearing, the mob turned on La Russa. He was accused of scheming to protect his own reputation, and that of his former organization. The Oakland A’s were beginning to look like a steroid factory, with La Russa stepping over hypodermic needles to post the lineup.

About that, a clearly disappointed La Russa said Friday night on HBO’s “Costas Now”: “I wish Mark would call me and thank me, because I’ve been told how much credibility I’ve lost because I continue [defending him]. But I told everybody, I honestly believed then and I also believe now, that he did it the legal way.”

It’s probably not too late. But then, maybe it is. Good luck, Mark. Hit ‘em straight.

When you heard somebody had jumped from the top deck at Yankee Stadium, weren’t you at least a little surprised it wasn’t Joe Torre?

With the New York Yankees falling well behind the Boston Red Sox in the American League East and even straining to keep up in the wild-card race -- from Sunday to Thursday they started Al Leiter, Mike Mussina, Shawn Chacon, Aaron Small and Scott Proctor -- the questions for George Steinbrenner are getting more pointed, as are the answers.

Reporters are on Full Boss Alert, which means staking out Steinbrenner’s stadium arrivals and departures, because on some nights he’s just looking for a place to vent.

When left-hander Alan Embree was allowed to pitch to Paul Konerko on Tuesday in the first of back-to-back 2-1 losses to the Chicago White Sox, Steinbrenner delivered a beauty.

“I’m not pleased with the manager,” he said.

It doesn’t matter that Torre is the most capable leader Steinbrenner has ever employed, or that Torre is owed $14 million over the next two seasons, or that Torre helped warm Steinbrenner’s legacy.

Even in the worst times, Torre has deftly managed Steinbrenner’s tantrums, even as the team grew old and bloated and yet not entirely incapable.

After the latest observation, however, Torre hinted at some irritation with Steinbrenner, reinforcing the notion that this, like many Yankee relationships of the past, won’t end well.

Early Wednesday evening, Torre told reporters in New York, “I’ll answer questions about my managing decisions [now], but I’d prefer, because of the distraction it could cause -- and this time of year, we don’t want to cause any distractions -- I’d rather defer until after the season to make any comments about Mr. Steinbrenner.

“When I manage teams, I manage them to try to win, as opposed to worrying about what people are going to say about it. I would rather make reference to anything Mr. Steinbrenner says after the season.

“This time of year, we’re at a point where the last thing you want is for something to take away from you what we’re trying to do.... Keep a list of all the things you want to ask me, and at the end of the year, I’ll come up with answers.”

By the way, the New York Post headline the morning after spectator Scott Harper flung himself to the netting: “Fall Classic.”

A handmade sign in the bleachers at Chicago’s Wrigley Field last week: “Dear Cubs, Please stop losing.”

Why many players skip the home run derby:

Bobby Abreu, pre-All-Star break: 18 home runs in 323 at-bats.

Abreu, during All-Star break: 41 home runs in three at-bats.

Abreu, since All-Star break: three home runs in 96 at-bats before the weekend.

Jason Kendall, a reasonably sized guy who once hit 14 home runs, all in the same season, hasn’t homered in 641 at-bats over 162 games.

As legend has it, Kendall hit a batting-practice home run in Kansas City recently. The pitcher watched the ball hook around the left-field foul pole, turned to Kendall and deadpanned, “You want us to go get that?”

Remember when “Manny being Manny” was a bad thing? Idiots.

Felipe Alou had us with stories of playing through racism as a young Dominican learning the ways, biases and language of a country -- ours -- he didn’t always understand.

They explained his resentment toward San Francisco talk show host Larry Krueger, who had railed about “brain-dead Caribbean[s]” and then deserved the fallout, and his desire to protect his countrymen from similar treatment.

Where Alou lost us was calling Krueger “the messenger of Satan” on ESPN, adding, “And I believe there is no forgiveness for Satan.”

Maybe we should save the Satan references for the evil, not the stupid and uninformed.

There are reports that Jose Guillen has become part of the problem in Washington, and that he has gotten into it with another teammate. It will come as no surprise that the teammate in question is the highly dedicated, highly professional Brad Wilkerson.

Selig, on Kenny Rogers and his two-cameraman lunch: “He said he was not provoked. So if you and I go out to dinner and the waiter or waitress says something you don’t like, you can slug them?”