Giambi up, Bonds on deck, By: T.J. Quinn
Some believe Selig juiced for big battle
May 27, 2007
Jason Giambi
If Bud Selig decides to provoke a brawl with the Players Association by suspending or fining Jason Giambi for his past steroid use, consider it a tune-up fight.
The main event will be the battle over Barry Bonds, if a federal grand jury in San Francisco indicts Bonds for perjury or tax evasion.
Selig took the Giambi matter under advisement Thursday, after MLB brass interviewed the struggling Yankee about recent comments to USA Today that were interpreted as a steroid confession. Sources say Selig could take up to two weeks to decide whether to punish Giambi, knowing that any action will be met with a union grievance.
But whatever happens, expect Selig's actions to be a blueprint for how the Bonds case is handled. Baseball sources say that Selig knows he cannot punish one player and not the other. And whatever he does about either could be a sign of what's to come for players whose names emerge in former Sen. George Mitchell's report on baseball's doping history, which is expected to be completed later this year.
Selig, who declined an interview request, has held numerous conversations with his advisers about how to proceed if Bonds is indicted. The plan is fluid at best, sources say, but Selig appears to be in favor of doing "something," rather than to just sit by idly.
The question is what - if anything - he can do. If he were to suspend or fine Giambi or Bonds, he would do it to force the union to defend a player who cheated, even with the realization that the union would almost certainly win before an arbitrator. Union officials have scoffed at the idea of action by Selig, saying that the basic labor agreement clearly spells out the actions MLB can take against a player. Giambi admitted to the BALCO grand jury that he took steroids before 2003. Bonds admitted taking substances that the government showed to be steroids, but claimed he didn't know what he was taking.
Either way, Bonds and Giambi admitted to behavior that took place before baseball had a steroids policy. Once that policy was created, management and labor agreed there would be two circumstances under which a player could be punished: either he could fail a urine test, or it could be proven that the player used, possessed or tried to possess performance-enhancing drugs within the previous year. Even if Giambi's admission to USA Today that he "was wrong for doing that stuff" was proof he doped, he was describing activity that took place years ago, and baseball only read about their grand jury testimony through newspaper leaks, never viewing official transcripts themselves.
Neither player is known to have failed a steroid test, but both failed an amphetamines test last season, which subjected them to evaluation and additional drug testing. Even after the Daily News reported in January that Bonds had failed a test and last week that Giambi had failed one, too, MLB could not further punish either player, or in Giambi's case, even mention it during the interview in the commissioner's office last week because of the confidentiality clauses in the policy. (While players are not prohibited from discussing their own results, MLB and the Players Association are bound by confidentiality).
With Bonds there's the added issue of his contract. When the Giants re-signed him before the season, the deal included a clause that would allow them to void the contract if he is indicted.
Union sources have told The News that the clause is "unenforceable," and there are few in baseball who believe the Giants would actually try to dump the contract.
"They wouldn't have signed it in the first place if they really did" intend to kill the deal, one MLB executive says. "It just gave them cover so they could say they were standing up to him."
But some MLB officials would love to provoke a legal fight with the union over the contract. If they were successful, it would be the first blow ever struck against the players' impenetrable guaranteed contracts.
Marc Ganis, president of the sports industry consulting group SportsCorp, says he can see why baseball would like to undermine those contracts, but says Selig will have to plot his course wisely, especially knowing how unlikely victory will be.
"They have a shot, but it is a possibility, not a probability, so the question they have to ask is, 'Is it worth the effort?'" Ganis says. "Is it worth the potential animosity with a union in a relationship that has been getting more cooperative? Is it worth giving hard-line union members the ammunition to say, 'See? They're coming after us'?"
But, Ganis says, "There's also the principle that says you must take action, and many fans would agree with that principle."
Critics have called for Selig to adopt NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's zero-tolerance stance on player behavior, but the NFLPA has nowhere near the muscle the MLBPA does. Still, Ganis points out what many in baseball have said privately, that Selig feels compelled to act.
"I think the whole Barry Bonds issue pains him to his core," Ganis says. "He knows in his heart that there's something wrong about this."
Selig is said to be resigned to the idea that Bonds will break Hank Aaron's home run record (despite his gargantuan slump), and may sit in the stands for at least two games when Bonds gets to No.754 - two from breaking the mark.
"He can't follow him forever," one source says. "What's he going to do, follow the Giants for three weeks?"
If Bonds catches and passes Aaron during that short visit, Selig probably will not participate in any sort of official ceremony. But if Bonds does not hit one out, then Selig likely will move on and wait to see whether the grand jury indicts Bonds.
