Union officials to brief Orioles
Representatives of the Major League Baseball Players Association will brief the players on union business this afternoon at 1:30. MLBPA officials annually make a tour of major league camps to update and advise membership on the major issues facing the union.
Love to be a fly on the wall during that meeting. I'm pretty sure the union guys will ask the players to refrain from making public comments about the steroid scandal that might affect future collective bargaining negotiations. They couldn't have been happy when Red Sox star David Ortiz said last week that steroid users should be suspended for an entire season for a first positive test.
Under the current plan, first-time offenders get a 50-game ban. The penalty doubles for a second offense and a player can be banned for life for testing positive a third time.
No doubt, commissioner Bud Selig would be happy to increase penalties again, but the union was resistant to the original testing plan (which imposed only a 10-game suspension for a first positive) and had to be leveraged by Congress and public opinion to go along with the increased penalties in place now.
If we can corner one of the union officials before or after the meeting, I'll be curious to hear the union's take on the Stanford Group investment scandal, which has impacted several Orioles players, including top prospect Matt Wieters, and also the union's reaction to this winter's soft free agent market.
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Comments
Where are we in regards to Felix watch?
Posted by: Arley Scott | February 23, 2009 10:56 AM
Getting back to your earlier entry about separated at birth. Can you confirm to me that Michael J. Fox and Bob Costas are really two separate poeple. I swear they are one in the same.
Posted by: OOOOOOOOO | February 23, 2009 11:14 AM
This just in from the New York Post.
When it opened in 1992, Baltimore's Camden Yards quickly became known as one of the most accommodating ballparks in the majors. Now? It's just another MLB-approved clip joint, an extortion pit like the new Yankee Stadium and the Mets' new Bailout Park.
This year's tickets prices to all Orioles home games against the Yanks and Red Sox have been raised above the price of other games. And if one wants to buy, say, two tickets to one of the O's three games against the Yanks to open the season, one can't, even though tickets are available. One can purchase tickets to those games only if he or she buys a "group sales" plan, which means a minimum of 11 tickets plus 11 tickets to another game. In other words, to buy two marked-up tickets to a Yanks-O's game, one must buy 22 tickets. Five months ago, Bud Selig issued a caution, suggesting that during these brutal times teams owners "not get too cocky" with ticket prices. -- NY Post
Thanks for your continued support!
Posted by: Jusbob | February 23, 2009 11:54 AM
There is no doubt that certain players are still cheating with PED's and until the entire process is outsourced the possibility that players are being given advance notice of tests is very real.
Based on prior conduct by the Union and by the players, this controversy is far from over and will dog Major League Baseball for years to come, as new revelations dribble out. Even when the players are caught red handed, such as Alex Rodriguez, they parse the truth and tell half of the story.
The steroid era is far from over, as revelations will prove going forward. The cheating,though, has gotten a whole lot better.
Screw the players, screw the union, screw the commissioner, and screw the owners. They all deserve each other.
Posted by: Gil Jr | February 23, 2009 12:14 PM
..... have no association with A -Rods cousin , or your own cousin for that that matter ....
But seriously ,even though it may sound hypocritical about my thoughts on performance enhancing drugs , ( to which I've discussed with you before Pete ) , until baseball increases the punishment , players will still try their luck . A soon forgotten "public humiliation" and suspension of a few games isn't enough to make one stop. MLB is afraid to try a policy such as the IOC in fear of losing a face of the game.
Posted by: the artist formerly known as jack in hebron | February 23, 2009 2:33 PM