TDA Bullpen - Our Writers' Blog

Monday, October 11, 2004

How to Honor Ken Caminiti:

SUSPEND FURCAL

It's extremely sad to see a man with a family die at the age of 41, no matter what the cause, no matter how preventable. Ken Caminiti ultimately had to take the responsibility for his spiral into drug abuse. But baseball gets a little bit of the blame, for not having a steroids-testing program, for not working harder to eliminate the culture of artificial aids, and most of all, for not eliminating the idea that success in the game matters more than anything else.

I am so very sorry to report that MLB continues its wretched ways. Rafael Furcal, following the Braves' elimination tonight, will report for a 49-day jail sentence for his second DUI violation. Why a judge let Furcal continue to defer this sentence so recently after the violation itself took place is something the citizens of Georgia will have to take up. (I don't see Martha Stewart's sentencing judge, for example, giving her another few weeks off before reporting for jail so she can help her company's bottom line during the all-important end of the quarter.)

But MLB has a long history of taking its own action on players' behavior when it chooses to, and it did nothing to prevent Furcal from playing. Mr. Selig's powers are such that he could have simply suspended Furcal until after his sentence was complete. But he chose, through inaction, to send the message that having a competitive Braves' team in the playoffs was more important than Justice.

This is not an idle infraction. Drunk driving is a serious crime, and results in tens of thousands of fatalities every year. You can say "well, he's a young man, he just made a few mistakes," but anytime you make a mistake like that you're taking somebody else's life into your hands. Milton Bradley almost certainly has an anger problem, and his on-field conduct the last week of the season merited a five-game suspension. Jose Guillen's childish antics got him an indefinite suspension from the Angels. Rafael Furcal was on the verge of killing innocent people, and his punishment from baseball is -- nil.

If baseball wants to make something of Caminiti's memory, it's by not tolerating illegal abuse that presents a danger to others. By all means, get the guys who have this problem help. Most employers who have this sort of progran for their employees immediately remove them from the workplace and get them into treatment, or if they're convicted of crimes, they're removed to serve their sentence.

Baseball suspended John Rocker because he shot his mouth off. Maybe that was appropriate. Rafael Furcal, getting behind that wheel and speeding off, was engaged in the moral and actual equivalent of randomly shooting off a loaded, deadly weapon. I, for one, am happy for the people of Atlanta that the Braves lost, because it got one more drunk driver off their roads that much quicker.

Why Mr. Selig could not bring himself to take Furcal off the diamond is a question that must be answered. Until baseball is willing to sacrifice competitive play -- and ratings, and money -- for the sake of doing the right thing, whatever paeans paid by the sport to one of its fallen tragic heroes, Ken Caminiti, will be hypocritical and hollow.

posted by The Crank 8:59 PM