It’s Time for Selig to Show Best Stuff

Kenesaw Mountain Landis would know what to do.

In the summer of 1921, when the eight men in the Black Sox scandal were acquitted of gambling charges and carried triumphantly out of the courtroom on jurors’ shoulders, he knew exactly what to do.

One day later, the first commissioner threw the eight men out of baseball forever.

He defied the courts. He ignored the rules. He saved the sport.

It’s Bud Selig’s turn.

The current commissioner needs to invoke the “best interests of baseball� provision and enforce a tougher drug policy before the game is dragged deeper into a steroid scandal more bloated than Barry Bonds’ neck.

Selig’s own lawyers say the idea makes them nervous. The union lawyers say it makes them laugh.

The game says it doesn’t matter.

With a federal investigation chasing it through spring training, the game gasps for breath.

With players chucking accusations at opponents and checking neck sizes of teammates, the game cramps with discord.

With fans preparing steroid chants and syringe signs for opening day, the game needs a shoulder the size of Kennesaw Mountain itself.

History dictates that Bud Selig is the only one who can provide it.

Here’s what should happen.

Sometime soon, before folks running the BALCO steroid investigation begin leaking more names and everyone begins connecting more dots, Selig should announce he’s going to start treating the major leaguers like the rest of baseball.

He should institute the minor league drug rules for the big leaguers, including constant random testing and at least a 15-day suspension for first-time offenders.

What happens next would be ugly. It would also be worth it.

The new rule would contradict the drug policy that was collectively bargained into the current labor contract.

Even though it’s a policy with as much teeth as Don Zimmer has hair -- no random testing and no first-time suspensions -- it’s part of a legally bargained agreement.

“Selig would have almost no chance of winning,� said Mark Conrad, a law professor at Fordham University. “The union would file an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board. It could really drag on.�

The unilateral imposition of that rule could also violate the basic legal tenants of a management-union relationship.

“In a collective bargaining agreement, an employer gives up lots of authority that they otherwise might have,� said Lon Sobel, law lecturer at California. “What Selig wants to do may be different than what he can do.�

It would be a mess.

But it would also be a statement.

It would be Selig telling the government that he has done his best. It would open the spigot for a flood of pressure on soulless union boss Donald Fehr.

For weeks, we have not known whom to blame. Now we would, the target stopping clearly on the back of the man who is protecting his most prominent 5% at the expense of the other 95%.

It would also be Selig telling the players that he has done his best, squelching the destructive notion that baseball quietly endorses steroids because of the financial boon of home runs.

The idea has been raised in this column and, now, openly by players such as Boston’s Johnny Damon, who this week told the Hartford Courant, “I actually believe the owners want [steroids] in the game. What boosted attendance in baseball more than home runs, guys taking steroids and hitting home runs?�

Damon’s comments so infuriated the commissioner’s office, it addressed them in a conference call Thursday with national writers.

“Not once, not ever, has there ever been a suggestion that we or the institution should be soft on performance-enhancing substances because we like home runs,� said Rob Manfred, baseball’s chief labor executive. “It simply is not an accurate reflection.�

Oh yeah? Well, as virtually every baseball player has felt a need to prove his innocence in this steroid mess, baseball now needs to prove its innocence in contributing to it.

Does Bud Selig really want to rid the game of steroids? Then take a huge swing, perhaps bigger than any swing by any commissioner since Landis.

Even if the results could be a whiff, the intentions would touch all the bases.

And once this issue of saving lives goes before a judge, who knows what could happen?

Nobody thought Maurice Clarett would win, either.

“The commissioner has asked those of us on his staff to explore every possible means by which we can effectuate change,� Manfred said. “One of the possibilities raised and discussed is the utilization of best interest power. What our evaluation of that is, I’m just not prepared to comment on.�

In other words, the folks in the commissioner’s office know this would be a loser.

So why not, for once, try listening to their game’s heart?

Did you hear the latest?

After six weeks of accusations and insinuations and asterisk baiting, outsiders are joining the circus.

Cuban officials have said that they will not participate in a major league-proposed World Cup tournament if the American pros are not subject to the tougher, international drug test.

Yes, the national pastime’s integrity is now being questioned by Cuba, which is sort of like Fidel Castro ordering someone to get a shave.

“Baseball is something more than a game,� Kenesaw Mountain Landis once said. “Destroy ... faith in its squareness and honesty and you have destroyed something more.�

It’s Bud Selig’s turn.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.