Let Paul Volcker Save MLB

Last November, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig invited Paul Volcker to meet with baseball owners and give them a confidential assessment of the souring economy and its impact on their business.

The straight-talking former head of the Federal Reserve, who cured the nation of runaway inflation in the early 1980s by administering unpleasant medicine in the form of high interest rates, needs to be called upon again. This time he should help Selig and the owners solve their steroid problem before it morphs into the baseball equivalent of Bernie Madoff on Wall Street.

Public attention has fastened on Alex Rodriguez and his connection with steroid-tainted trainer Angel Presinal. Even more dismaying for baseball fans than A-Rod’s evasions and associations, though, is the fact that Boston slugger David Ortiz is now under the media microscope because of his connection with Presinal.

Big Papi, who was quoted in the Boston Herald in 2007 as saying he was not 100 percent positive he had never used steroids when he was a young player in the Dominican Republic, has been fulsome in his appraisal of Presinal.  

It is Ortiz’ link to Presinal that threatens to destroy whatever shred of integrity baseball has left. Remember that MLB’s major investigation into steroid use was conducted by a serving director of the Boston Red Sox, Senator George Mitchell, who refused to step down from his position when he undertook the assignment.

The blatant conflict of interest, coupled with the fact that no active Red Sox player was ever implicated, was protested at the time.

Writing in the New York Times, Selena Roberts wryly observed: “Maybe the Red Sox have blood streams as clear as mountain creeks. Maybe their Dixie cups are free of all impurities.” She noted that pre-publication leaks from the Mitchell Report in 2007 seemed calculated to distract Boston’s opponents, including the Indians and Yankees.

Maybe the Mitchell Report was as honest and thorough as the proverbial day is long. We will never know and it no longer matters. With suspicion beginning to engulf Ortiz and perhaps other Red Sox players, what is needed now is a genuinely independent and credible reappraisal of steroid use in baseball coupled with timely action.

There needs to be frequent, random testing of urine for steroids and blood for human growth hormone. Players should be suspended for one year for first offenses and banned for life for their second strike. Guilty players should be subject to criminal proceedings and denied admittance to Cooperstown.

Paul Volcker may be the only figure in America with enough independence and savvy to devise and administer the draconian therapy needed to rescue baseball from what is about to become an epochal scandal.

Of course it is one thing to save the American economy when you enjoy an autocrat’s power as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. It is a much harder job to save baseball because you must win the support of the owners and the players’ union for any course of action.

Fortunately, Congress has all the power it needs to ensure cooperation. It could take away the antitrust exemption that MLB has enjoyed for 80 years if it fails to play ball with Volcker.

Without its exemption, MLB could no longer control competition or restrict the movement of franchises and it is almost certain that player salaries would decline. Congress may be in a mood to take such action soon.

It already is using its power to address complicated problems created by greed and recklessness on Wall Street and in Detroit. Legislators may decide that while they are at it, they should add baseball to the list of important national institutions that need to be repaired using their initiative.