Bumbling Bud Selig has stumbled into a conundrum of his own making and may be forced to consider taking away the National League’s “home field advantage” for the 2012 World Series.
Recall that the erstwhile Commissioner for Life rendered his disconnected scheme to link the All-Star game to the World Series; to make it “count,” Bud gives the league that wins the Midsummer Night’s Dream Game the 4-3 game advantage in the Fall Classic.
But, uh, oh…who won the game for the National league last July?
HINT: Game’s MVP with a first inning single, games first R scored and a two-run homer against Matt Harrison in a three-run fourth.
HINT: Player recently suspended for 50 games by Commissar Selig for violating MLB drug policy.
HINT: Weighs less than 265 pounds.
Yes, Melky Cabrera, the player that the Commish punished, is the same player who virtually won the All-Star game to give the NL the advantage in the WS, as per new Selig rule.
In an insensitive publicity campaign that slighted the greats who played in all the previous All-Star games, those games that didn’t “count,” where, following Bud’s logic, the stars had no motivation to beat the other league, the Commissioner touted: “This Time It Counts!”
Did the 2002 All-Star game “count”? Commissioner Selig called an end to the game, result: tie. Good thing Bud had not made it “count” back then.
By mid-summer most players who are chosen for the All-Star game know whether their team has a realistic chance to get to the World Series. Maybe Bud assumed that, AL players on the “also-ran” teams needed the extra incentive to help the Yankees get the WS advantage.
Since Bud is not personally familiar with the concepts of “self-worth,” “self-image,” “pride” or earning respect, he cannot understand why a player from an “also-ran” team, who may never play in a World Series, would want to prove that he belonged in the same clubhouse with the greats of the game.
You would assume that Bud, a local boy who made good; well, he inherited the successful family car business; OK, yes, he was born on Third base and believes he hit a triple. He stole the Pilots from Seattle for peanuts. moved them to Milwaukee and, then, while Commissioner, he made sure they were not shoved into the AL West with the powerful Rangers and Angels.
You would think he would have a sense of civic pride in Milwaukee, so he might understand that a player on an “also-ran” team might want to perform well as a representative of his team’s city.
Sleeping Selig instituted his drug testing policy rather belatedly, 16 years after the Federal government made steroids illegal in the U.S. HGH is microscopic protein substance, and the IGF-1, in a typical dose, will flush out of the blood stream in 3- 8 hours. This season MLB is using a new, sophisticated test called a carbon isotope ratio test (CIR), also known as IRMS, that would identify the presence of synthetic testosterone in urine.
Bonds’ former “private trainer,” Victor Conte told The Daily News [New York] after Cabrera was busted, that he believes the most popular performance enhancers in sports are not necessarily the undetectable designer steroids he provided athletes with more than a decade ago from his BALCO offices near San Francisco, but the kind of simple, fast-acting synthetic testosterone Cabrera is believed to have tested positive for. “I’m told that they rub it on their hands or under their arms,” he said, adding that the “trans-dermal” creams, as they’re known, clear the system in six to eight hours and don’t breach the 4-to-1 testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio that triggers a positive test under most programs.
Will Selig give managers a “challenge” during a game, where they throw a red and yellow rosin bag on the field and a MLB EMT rushes out on the field to take “samples” from a player?
How would Wise King Selig choose between two of his own rules?
Suppose the team that wins the American League Championship files an appeal with the Commissioner to revoke the National League’s “home-field” advantage, [awarded under the Commissioner’s own All-Star “This Time It Counts!” bogus logic], contending that it was, essentially, won by a player who admitted he used an illegal substance under the Commissioner’s drug policies.
If he rules that the National League retains its All-Star “This Time It Counts!” advantage; then Cabrera doesn’t count.
If he rules that Cabrera’s admitted illegal actions “count,” the National League loses its All-Star “This Time It Counts!” advantage and the World Series.
Q: Then what other city gets to be selected to host the World Series as the “neutral” city?
A: The Commissioner makes the call “in the best interests of the game”–Milwaukee.
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