The Chris Moeller Archives

More on Ryan Braun

It was an oversight yesterday not to mention the players’ role in this entire Ryan Braun fiasco. There has clearly been a groundswell movement of late among the players to increase testing, and the union has inexplicably gone along with it. It all speaks to Marvin Miller’s late-life contention that the dumbest thing the Players Association ever did, incidentally decades after Miller's leadership of the organization ended, was to agree to PED testing at all in their Collective Bargaining Agreement. Unions employ trained, professional leaders that understand the law (privacy and otherwise) better than the workers themselves do, and considering the high-priced legal opposition workers tend to face, the ‘why’ of this should be obvious.

In this instance, the players’ collective belief that random, rampant testing by the league would eliminate the “guilty-until-proven-innocent” media mentality of a decade ago has turned out to be as wrongheaded and foolish as some of us always knew it would be. Now we have a player accepting a punishment of arbitrary length that draws its basis from a murky personal affiliation rather than a positive test result, and is dependent upon the testimony of a shady storefront hustler that couldn’t even be categorized as a doctor.

The players are being shockingly hypocritical also. The rank and file members, many of them speaking out against Braun yesterday, seem to believe that superstars like Braun and Alex Rodriguez have some well-deserved retribution coming, while the rank and file who have been caught trying to extend their middling professional careers by a year or two have always been given a pass by their colleagues. Ironically, it's this mid-level talent skirting the rules that more directly threatens their livelihoods.

Of course, with all voluntary surrender of one's civil liberties, the real danger lies with what comes next. Major League Baseball players can certainly now expect less consistency in punishment, more punitive measures, and greater erosion of their fundamental rights as employees. Braun’s decision to accept a season-ending suspension during a year in which he’s struggled to remain healthy anyway, and in which his team has no chance at all of reaching the postseason, appears to be his most selfish decision to date.

posted by CM @ 10:08 PM