Baseball is ripe for a 12-step program

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms attending Major League Baseball games this afternoon.

If the players can get sloshed, why can’t you?

“Major League Baseball tolerates drunk driving,” said Chuck Hurley, chief executive of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms who want their boys to become baseball players.

Start substituting six-packs for juice boxes.

“From what we’ve seen, Major League Baseball thinks drunk driving is no big deal,” Hurley said.

Major League Baseball is admittedly, at times, an institution only a mother could love.

Now, after the drunk-driving death of St. Louis Cardinals reliever Josh Hancock, the sport has lost even that constituency.

“Major League Baseball is well short of the American public in its behavior toward alcohol,” Hurley said last week in a phone interview from MADD’s Dallas office. “If it’s going to be America’s pastime, then it should get more in line with the American public.”

Yeah, MADD is mad, and I don’t blame it.

Baseball struts around the national stage fighting steroids, then slips into the shadowy wings to embrace alcohol.

Baseball will suspend a player for 50 games if he plays while juiced, yet zero games if he drives while drunk.

Baseball has rid the clubhouse of all performance-enhancing drugs, yet continues to serve its players beer.

“The last I looked, there were a lot more people killed by drunk drivers than by steroids,” Hurley said.

At last count, the annual ratio was about 12,000 to 1.

This is not about Josh Hancock, although it could be.

Hancock died after driving his car into a stationary tow truck several hours after drinking in the Cardinals’ clubhouse and in a nearby bar.

He died a few days after being involved in another late-night traffic incident.

He died shortly after arriving late for a day game because he was sleeping.

But this is not about Josh Hancock, because his death was only the tip of a gin-soaked iceberg.

The Cardinals’ manager, Tony La Russa, scolded the media for asking invasive questions about the cause of death.

Yet, a couple of months ago in spring training, this same La Russa was accused of being drunk and asleep at the wheel of his car at a Jupiter, Fla., intersection.

La Russa’s Cardinals punishment? Nothing.

La Russa’s public perception? The day after the incident, fans gave him a standing ovation.

“In baseball, you can drink and drive and no serious action is taken by your employer,” Hurley said. “Where else does that happen?”

In baseball, Esteban Loaiza can be accused of being drunk and driving nearly 120 mph on a Bay Area freeway ... and one day later, he is the starting pitcher for the Oakland Athletics.

In baseball, Rafael Furcal can be awaiting a jail sentence for two drunk-driving offenses ... while competing in the playoffs for the Atlanta Braves.

And today, beer is still available in both the clubhouse of his former Braves team, and his current Dodgers team.

“It’s an interesting dilemma,” acknowledged Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti.

Remember when John Candelaria was so drunk while leaving the Angels clubhouse that teammate Don Sutton called the cops?

That was 20 years ago, yet, after a brief dry spell, the Angels are again providing beer in their clubhouse and, more dangerously, on charter flights back to Anaheim.

Last week, General Manager Bill Stoneman said he saw no compelling reason to change the policy, and spokesman Tim Mead elaborated.

“We have a system of checks and balances internally,” Mead said. “Any concerns are addressed.”

But baseball’s larger concern remains untouched.

What other non-alcohol-related employer not only refused to punish its employees for alcohol abuse, but actually encouraged it?

And when is baseball going to realize it’s not worth the liability?

After the Hancock tragedy, several teams have banned alcohol from their clubhouses, joining a list of clubs that were already dry.

But 17 teams still serve beer after work.

And many teams still allow players to drink on flights home from trips, therefore potentially allowing players to drive home drunk.

It’s the sporting thing, you say?

Then how come the NFL outlaws alcohol in all of its locker rooms, including the one housing the celebrating Super Bowl champions?

And how come many NBA teams also do not provide alcohol, including the Lakers and Clippers?

Are you saying a point guard on the most stress-filled team in the NBA is in less need of “unwinding” than a shortstop on a team that hasn’t won a playoff series in 18 years?

If abstinence is good enough for the Lakers, shouldn’t it be good enough for everyone else around here?

Others would argue that alcohol is actually a baseball thing.

That indeed used to be the case. For many years, longtime teammates devoid of distractions would sit around their lockers and bond over beers for a couple of hours a night.

“I remember my first years in Houston, I’d have to hang out until 2 a.m. just serving the veterans,” the Dodgers’ Luis Gonzalez said.

But in today’s rock-star era everything is different. Today’s players, who change teams as often as the Angels change cleanup hitters, scurry quickly from unfamiliar clubhouses to meet friends and close business deals.

Nobody knows anybody else well enough to want to hang out with them after the game. Everybody has some place better to be.

“You walk into the clubhouse after a game now, and everybody’s gone,” Gonzalez said.

When I first began covering baseball 24 years ago, seemingly everyone conducted postgame interviews holding a beer. Today, I can go days without seeing a cold one.

So if only a few guys are drinking, why serve it at all?

Through various charity and outreach programs, baseball teams make daily efforts to show they are trying to be a community’s leading citizen. Why not clear beer out of the clubhouse and prove it?

What better message to send to Los Angeles than, we will not serve our employees alcohol before putting them on your roads.

“But, c’mon, I’m gonna be 40 years old, and if I want to have a beer, I should be able to have one,” Gonzalez said. “It’s a nice luxury to have in here. We don’t let anyone abuse it, so why not keep doing it?”

The MADD man Hurley said he is trying to arrange a meeting next week with Commissioner Bud Selig to better understand the issue, yet he has not received a return phone call. Baseball officials say they never heard from him.

Hurley also said that while he is not pushing for beer to be prohibited in clubhouses, he wants baseball to adopt a stricter attitude toward drunk-driving offenses. Baseball officials say that the player’s union limits their control.

Which brings us to Dodgers union representative Mark Hendrickson. Asked about beer in the clubhouse, he shrugged.

“Honestly, as far as I’m concerned, it could go either way,” he said.

This street goes only one way. And baseball should be driving it sober.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.