I’m not sure exactly what was going on with the Associate Press but their writer put together quite the tribute article for Donald Fehr, who announced on Monday that he was retiring as head of the MLB Player’s Association. As you’ve come to realize here at LBS, we cut through the ass-slapping, drink-toasting, and glowing remarks to expose the frauds. While many people — enlightened fans and media members included — like to point the finger at Bud Selig, or guys like Jose Canseco, the players at-large, or the owners, when it comes to the steroids problem in baseball, it is the lesser-known Donald Fehr who is the biggest enabler of all.
Yes it’s true that the owners signed the cheats to monstrous contracts and made money when fans turned up to watch home runs hit in record numbers, but that was only after 1994 when Fehr instructed his players to walk out of the 1994 season and skip one of the iconic events in American sports history — the World Series. That was after Fehr bent the owners over and stuck it to them with a labor deal so one-sided the owners had no leverage. While Selig is a total tool and a guy who should be in line for “retirement,” he had no ability to penetrate the strong union walls hoisted by Fehr. Egotistical businessmen will say Fehr did what was best for his constituents and served his union well. That’s not true — Fehr made them tons of money in the short term but cost them their reputations and credibility in the long run. He impeded the normalcy of the game and created the steroids scandal by blocking drug testing for several years when it was clear things were getting absurd. The money the players made was lost in one swift decline on Wall Street; their lasting legacies have been ruined by one word: steroids. And who’s to blame for it all? Donald Fehr.
Feel any sympathy for Raul Ibanez who says a blogger is to blame for diminishing his hot start to 2009 by saying it’s drug induced? Feel bad for Albert Pujols who cried to Sports Illustrated that he’s in the proverbial Catch-22 — the better he does the more suspicious people become, the worse it is for him? Of course not! You can’t feel bad for any of them because they were members of a union that opposed drug testing. Why? Because Donald Fehr wanted his players on the juice so that their salaries would grow along with their statistics so that when he finally stepped down, he’d receive a glowing tribute from the Associate Press that says the players received record salaries under his watch.
Donald Fehr was so misguided and misled during his run as the head of the Union. Instead of viewing his sole purpose as trying to get the players as much money as possible, he should have made concessions for the best interest of the game. Nobody, not even the players, are bigger than the game itself. Unfortunately it’s now 2009 and about 10 years too late for him to finally be giving some ground. Thank goodness the worst figure in baseball is finally gone. I only wish more people knew who it was so that their blame would be properly placed and so that they could prevent history from repeating itself in the future.
