Let us not forget the whole steroids explosion began with Vincent in charge, and with Vincent in charge Howe was allowed to continue to perform despite being a seven-time substance abuse loser.

Vincent was, is, and always shalll be a man who is weak, bitter, and prone to sniping from the sidelines. The Steroid Era began on his watch, not Selig's.

I think he's an a*hole, and I think he's a very big a*hole for pronouncing sentence on Howe's death without any proof.
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If</u> the man died clean, his family didn't need those comments.

He flipped his truck, I believe. I woldn't be at all surprised it was drug/alcohol related.

But there's really no point in speculation, since the facts will probably be forthcoming shortly.

I think the union has done a great service to its members over the years by at least attempting to get baseball to treat substance abuse as a health problem instead of a moral failing. It takes a peculiar medieval ignorance to believe that you can use punishment to cure people of a dependence on highly addictive substances like alcohol, cocaine, or amphetamines.

Sports culture in general is the great enabler, with its party hearty attitude toward recreational drugs, starting with alcohol. And baseball culture in particular, with its daily schedule of pre-game binges of speed to get you fired up, and post-game binges starting with the beer in the clubhouse to bring you back down, has got to be the worst environment possible for someone with the addiction gene as part of their makeup. That's what destroys someone like Steve Howe, and it starts while he's still a kid.

It takes a peculiar medieval ignorance to believe that you can use punishment to cure people of a dependence on highly addictive substances like alcohol, cocaine, or amphetamines.

That's an overblown description. Well, maybe. "of a dependence" saves you there. Because there are millions of people cured through punishment of the use - so your circular argument is thus they weren't dependent.

And they are doing a pretty good job with tobacco ( addictive with dependence) through "punishment".

And they are doing a pretty good job with tobacco ( addictive with dependence) through "punishment".

Change the word "through" to "without" and I would agree with you. The battle against tobacco is succeding on some level, but not because of punishment, unless you consider higher taxes and not being allowed to smoke indoors in public a punishment.

The reasons smoking is down include better education (public health campaigns), changing social attitudes, easily accessible aids for quitting smoking, and the disincentive of increased cost through taxes. Punishments, such as incarceration, fines, asset seizures from dealers, etc. have been noticeably absent from the fight against tobacco. The only group that faces punishment for using tobacco is minors and smoking is not down among teens.

I wonder if Mr. Howe's life and career would have been different had MLB used the same tactics on him as society has used against smokers rather than the seemingly counterproductive method of repeated suspensions. Of course, we'll never know.

Charles,
I was speaking wrt pro baseball, and that tobacco (mostly smokeless) isn't allowed in minor league dugouts.

unless you consider higher taxes and not being allowed to smoke indoors in public a punishment.

But, yes, both of those things are punishment. That not smoking indoors is a graeter factor than education.

Sorry, Dial. I guess I wasted a perfectly good rant by completely missing your point. I still feel that help rather than punishment is the way to go regarding (physically and emotionally) addictive substances.

I recapped all of Howe’s Complicated Life and Tragic End yesterday with short comments from Vincent and Claire. Vincent wasn't much better in his comment to me than he is here... should let the dead rest, in my opinion.

I was slated to interview Dick Moss -- the legendary #2 man at the MLBPA during Miller's tenure and the man that argued Howe's case before the arbitrator that he had ADD, and got Howe reinstated -- this week, but he put it off till after Howe's funeral. I'm sure that we'll be discussing Howe's tragic life during the interview process.

No prob, Charles.

But, "help" in your definition is "making it difficult for you to do it, under penalty of law".

THat's punishment.

Dial's right. Ask your favourite local minor leaguer about the Dip Nazis. It's a fine for you and your manager. If you think that the kids making $900 a month don't mind shelling out 50 beans per time they get caught dipping, what do you think about them paying 100 (managers aren't going to pay their own fines, you know).

MLB has done a pretty good job with this. If you can discourage tobacco at the earliest stages of the minors, you can hopefully weed out the pool of big league dippers, without having to go through the arduous bargaining with the MLBPA.

NCAA has a no-dip policy as well, however I don't think that it works too well, based on what I've seen.

I don't remember from back when it was enacted, but I assume the fines only apply if the player is in uniform and/or on the field?

I don't remember from back when it was enacted, but I assume the fines only apply if the player is in uniform and/or on the field?

Gosh I sure hope so. I can't imagine it would be legal to fine them for dipping in the privacy of their home.

No, just in uniform or on the field.

I can't imagine it would be legal to fine them for dipping in the privacy of their home.

Well, of course not. I was more asking about in the locker room before a game, etc. Is that fineable?

I think he's an a*hole, and I think he's a very big a*hole for pronouncing sentence on Howe's death without any proof.

I think he's an a*hole anyway. I mentioned this in another thread briefly: when Howe was a Yankee, he appealed Vincent's final suspension of him to an arbitrator. Some Yankee officials -- I want to say Gene Michael and Buck Showalter, but I could be misremembering -- testified in Howe's favor. Vincent tried to punish them for doing so, not on the grounds that their testimony was false or anything, but simply arguing that as employees of baseball they had to support Vincent regardless of their views.

I can't imagine it would be legal to fine them for dipping in the privacy of their home.

It's probably a bad idea to fine them for dipping in their own homes, but I doubt it's illegal. They can fine or suspend a player for using banned substances in their own homes. As long as it's kosher within the CBA or whatever contractual arrangement governs the Minors, the law would not come into play.

Some Yankee officials -- I want to say Gene Michael and Buck Showalter, but I could be misremembering -- testified in Howe's favor. Vincent tried to punish them for doing so, not on the grounds that their testimony was false or anything, but simply arguing that as employees of baseball they had to support Vincent regardless of their views.

That is what it says in the post-94 LotR edition. ANd those are hte right guys, I'm pretty sure.

"The public will know," Vincent said, "when Mitchell is finished, I assume, what the story was, how many people cheated, how many pitchers, how many hitters, what Bonds was doing."

Either Fay Vincent or I misunderstood what the George Mitchell investigation is about, but it is my understanding that Mitchell is limiting himself to studying the players involved with Balco. Vincent's quote above implies that he thinks Mitchell will try to expose everything about the entire PED era.

"Let us not forget the whole steroids explosion began with Vincent in charge..."

It's unfair to blame the steroids explosion on Fay Vincent. Beyond the fact that there was no way he could have known what was happening in that regard, there was nothing he could have done to have stopped it. The largest share of the blame goes to the players themselves, those who chose to take illegal substances. And years later, when it became widely known, or at least widely rumored, what was going on, the blame for not stopping deserves to be shared by a wider group, including the commissioner, the owners, and mostly the MLBPA.

The ban on dipping extends to in uniform and on the field.

On the NCAA ban - this caused a friend to chew gum and dip at the same time - he was able to cover the tobacco in a pink bubble which if challenged by the umpire could be shown as strictly gum. I tried it and it was one of the most disgusting things I have ever tasted (and I used to chew/dip a fair share in college).

Beyond the fact that there was no way he could have known what was happening in that regard, there was nothing he could have done to have stopped it.

I don't buy either part of this. Why did Vincent include steroids in his famous letter if "there was no way he could have know what was happening"? And there was plenty he could have done, not least being to put George Mitchell in charge of an investigation.

The ban on dipping extends to in uniform and on the field.

It certainly could extend to locker rooms.

And there was plenty he could have done, not least being to put George Mitchell in charge of an investigation.

Or tried to negotiate something with the union. The simple fact is that the owners didn't care about keeping steroids out of the hands of players until the media started caring. Before that, they were only interested in keeping money out of the hands of players. And their negotiating plans were geared accordingly.

Well, isn't the converse true as well? That the union din't care about keeping steroids out of the hands of players either, even after the media started caring.

1) That's not the converse.
2) That may or may not be true, but isn't the point I was addressing. I wasn't assigning blame between players and owners (mostly because, as is well known by now, I don't think that this is anything "blameworthy"). I was merely pointing out that the owners' failure to at least attempt to act against steroids was not one of ignorance, but of apathy.

David, I agree that apathy was probably the major reason MLB did nothing in the early 90s.

However it's easy to document that at least a fair percentage of people in baseball simply didn't believe that stronger equals a better baseball player.

See Russ Nixon's rant about Ron Gant or Sparky Anderson on Lance Parrish for instance. Or even earlier Hank Aaron (when he was active he was firmly of the belief that upper body strength had nothing to do with power -- that power really came from the wrists)

Given the poisonous relations between MLB and the PA (particularly on the issue of drugs) I can see why steroids would have been low on MLB's list of things to deal with.

Had they succeeded in breaking the union in 1994 MLB would have almost certainly imposed a drug policy which would have covered steroids (though the focus would have been on recreational drugs, I can't see them skipping anything else that could be tested for), but they showed no inclination to negotiate a policy.

Or to go back to the 1984 agreement -- best I can tell the PA was open to this.