A quick glance at baseball
So baseball really does amuse me. It’s almost comical to watch the commissioner waffle and try to bury the screamingly obvious problem of steroids in baseball. Yeah, A-rod did a bad thing. So did 103 other players. It does kinda make me glad that the NHL’s incompetent commissioner came from the NBA. So now the real question; punish the theoretically anonymous, or give them a free pass? If you punish them, then the players union has a conniption because the results were supposed to be anonymous. If you don’t punish them, then the fans get all honked off.
And of course, at the heart of the matter is money. The bare minimum salary for someone in major league baseball was $390,000 last season. That’s as low as it gets. Which can quickly become millions and even tens of millions. Seriously, the financial incentive of an 18-million dollar salary jump? Who has morals that are that rigid? When the punishment is enough to remove the financial incentive to the players and the owners, then we’ll see some change.
Brief proposal. Joe Ballplayer gets busted for steroids. His contract is immediately invalidated and reverted to a minimum salary. The team owners get fined an amount equal to the contract, payable to a local charity or a fund for retired ballplayers. Probably never fly, but hey. A guy can dream.