Biz of Sports: Brown: How More Changes to MLB’s Drug Policy are About Keeping it In the Family

I fisked a thousand young punks...the latest from Maury.

The changes about to unfold are less about Bud Selig and more about making changes to the drug policy before Congress does it for them. It’s been like that for the changes made prior, and if there is talk that enough still isn’t enough in the future, it will be Congress standing over baseball with a threatening glare.

History will most assuredly look back at this point in time and say that the union was weak, and Bud Selig and the owners strong-armed the players into the testing policy changes that have been made. Congress is the one that should be viewed as muscling the policy into place, playing a new version of stickball where the players are shoved into their positions. The players, their representatives, and for that matter, the owners, surely know anything that any laws Congress would enact for drug testing in professional sports would be far more rigorous and intrusive. Having that happened would be embarrassing for a $6.1 billion industry called Major League Baseball.

Don and Bud know it’s far better to keep their problems in the family, and the players are bending over backwards to keep it that way. It will be interesting to see how members of Congress reacts after the changes. It will be more interesting to see what happens if/when the next star player tests positive, or is outed in some other investigation. What happens then will be a case of reading the signals, and seeing whether, yet again, the once sacred seal of the CBA is broken and “the family” addresses its inner problems.