It appears the national pastime has higher standards than our local politics.
Like our race for mayor, Major League Baseball has a man named Weiner. This is Michael Weiner, who runs the players union. But unlike our sexting mayoral candidate, this Weiner is about raising standards, not lowering them.
The issue is steroids, which have made a mockery of home-run records and raised an asterisk over the entire sport. This week, the hammer came down on Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun — the 2011 National League Most Valuable Player. And it appears something similar will soon hit New York when we learn the fate of the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez.
Braun’s punishment is telling. He’s been suspended for the remainder of the season — 65 games in total — for his involvement with the Miami Biogenesis lab that’s ground zero of the latest performance-enhancing-drug scandal. After contesting results that showed him testing positive for banned substances last year and accusing others of railroading, it turned out that Braun was indeed guilty.
The tough sentence handed down indicates that even star power will not protect players who use PEDs. But it probably wouldn’t have happened without a change in the attitude of the players union. For years, the union resisted serious testing for its members.
That’s where the honest Weiner comes in. Recently, he said the union has no interest in having players on the field who cheat. It’s a recognition of two things that had been lacking: that players have a vital stake in the integrity of the sport that pays their salaries and that a union for players ought to protect the honest ones over the cheats.
The latter would appear to include A-Rod. Multiple reports suggest that baseball’s investigators have even more evidence against him than they did against Braun. Not only did he use, but he’s also alleged to have encouraged others to cover it up.
It doesn’t look good for A-Rod. Some say he may even be facing a lifetime ban. As we look at the farce two sexcapading candidates have made of this year’s city races, maybe New York’s political leaders could learn a thing or two from baseball.