Baseball Cannot Tolerate Violence Against Women

Baseball has at least one fewer fan thanks to Alfredo Simon's alleged actions. (via Keith Allison)

Baseball has at least one fewer fan thanks to Alfredo Simon’s alleged actions. (via Keith Allison)

Baseball has a problem, and now that Bud Selig has stepped down, his successor commissioner, Rob Manfred, has a problem. It’s a problem that can be summed up in the following sentence: My wife is no longer a baseball fan.

No, my wife is not someone famous who is now poised to trash MLB all over the media. That’s not it. Rather, she grew up in Baltimore attending games at Camden Yards. We have the ticket stubs from the game when Cal Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record. She speaks with starry eyes about being taken to games as a child. In our seven year relationship, we’ve made a habit of driving from Louisville to Cincinnati for games whenever we can because we love watching baseball together.

But last year, something happened that changed all that. Reds pitcher Alfredo Simon was accused of rape and neither the team nor MLB said a word about it. The prosecutor opted not to bring charges for reasons that are unclear, but there is still a pending civil suit on the case and the reasons for it not being brought to trial are murky, at best. Of course, we were aware that sports teams tended to ignore such things, but it’s different when it hits a team you follow closely. And, for my wife, that was enough. As with many women, she sees this kind of thing all the time. Excuses are made for the accused and then everyone forgets anything was ever said. It leaves a chronic bad taste in your mouth once you start to see it.

I didn’t want to go only off of our feelings though, so in preparation for this article, I spoke with Laurie Jordan, who holds an M.A. in women’s studies and has taught the subject at both Bowling Green State University and the University of Alabama. She’s also a baseball fan. Here’s some of what she had to say about it:

By quietly saying only that they have no comment when their players are accused of domestic violence or rape, teams tell players that they’re happy to look the other way, that they will suffer no consequences at work. They tell women (or men, for that matter) that there’s no point in coming forward because no one will believe them or — even worse — no one will care.

That’s not a flattering portrait. Fans are supposed to be your supporters, but it’s clear that baseball is starting to generate some very negative reactions from parts of its fan base. And it’s not only from women, either. Once news of this broke, I found myself too uncomfortable to watch any games in which Simon took part. This kind of reaction hasn’t become widespread, yet, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t become so in a hurry. Take the NFL, for instance.

This year, the NFL, as you are almost certainly aware, was forced to deal with a very public domestic violence scandal. The league dealt with it… poorly. Major League Baseball needs to be careful. Much of the flak the NFL caught had to do with the tiny punishment given to Ray Rice. The punishment seemed even more inadequate when compared to equally harsh suspensions that had been handed out for much lesser offenses.

MLB has made a show of severely punishing the users of performance-enhancing drugs. New commissioner Rob Manfred has reportedly been at the forefront of these policies. Alex Rodriguez was recently suspended for an entire season because of his actions.

Now, let me ask you a question – which is worse? Taking steroids so you hit more home runs or beating and raping women? I can tell you my answer. While we can, I suppose, argue that one has to do with baseball and another does not, I would much rather cheer for a steroid user than a rapist or abuser. I’d wager that’s true of most of you out there.

I’m too cynical to think that major league owners care much about people. Pretty much everything they’ve ever done shows they care about profits and little else. For the most part, that’s fine. Owners will stop doing something the moment they think it could cost them money. The problem comes when something benefits one team but harms the league.

Imagine this scenario: A star player is accused of rape. The normal he said/she said takes place and despite the high likelihood that the alleged victim is telling the truth, nothing of substance happens. This has been the normal route for things in major league baseball. It’s an outgrowth of victim blaming, which happens because people don’t like being confronted with terrible things. We are attached to the players on our favorite team. We want them to be good. We see evidence that they aren’t good, but our brains can’t handle it, so we decide the accuser is the problem.

But imagine that a video surfaces as it did in the Ray Rice case. Now the odds that a player has done something terrible have increased from 95 percent to 100 percent. How long do you suspend that player for? A-Rod got 162 games for steroids. Do you give less than that and risk the backlash? Do you give more? It’s only a matter of time. Eventually a star – a genuine star – on some team, in some sport, will be caught doing something that the general population simply can’t excuse. And then what do you do?

In a case as unequivocal as that, I’ll tell you what I’d like to see: lifetime ban. That’s it. You’re done. We don’t need that in the game. But would the team agree? What if it could cost a pennant? Major League Baseball needs to be prepared to step in because teams cannot be trusted to police themselves where money might be lost.

But it isn’t even that simple because, of course, there’s the players union to deal with. To address these concerns, I spoke to Dave Cann, a lawyer specializing in union law. “They would want to fight it,” he said, regarding the union. This is obvious, of course, but it gets more complicated in a hurry:

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

As a general principle of employment law, you can discipline an employee for off-the-clock conduct. If you can draw a nexus of employment, an employer can impose discipline. DUIs for a school bus driver, fraud for banker, etc. An argument could be made, maybe has been made, that MLB franchise employees are, first and foremost public figures whose public image is marketable, and that DV charges strike at the heart of that. In the case of MLB, the commissioner can investigate and reprimand players for anything that tarnishes the image of baseball, and teams are similarly empowered. Of course, the grievance and arbitration clauses should provide the player with due process.

So, as a matter of course, baseball can discipline players for tarnishing the image of the game. This is an established legal fact.

Further, Cann said, “standard of conduct clauses” are widely used in employment contracts. In MLB contracts, section 7(b)(1) gives a team the right to terminate an employee’s contract if the employee fails, refuses or neglects to “conform his response conduct to the standards of good citizenship or good sportsmanship.” In short, he said, “the union would want to fight the right to fire an employee for off-the field conduct, but MLB is allowed to fire them.”

So, union pushback or not, MLB does have the authority to sanction players for acts such as rape and domestic violence. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine the union going to the mat for a particular player over this, as it would be publicly perceived as sticking up for a very bad cause and they’ve already agreed that MLB has that power.

But what about when there’s less than complete certainty. The vast majority of rapes do not end in conviction even though the vast majority of accusers tell the truth. Indeed, a minority of all instances of rapes and domestic violence are even reported because of the perception that it will not do any good. I asked Laurie Jordan how she thinks it should be handled:

I’ve thought a lot about it and I just don’t think there’s a perfect way for MLB to deal with it. What I want is for the league and teams to acknowledge these incidents when they happen, to condemn the alleged acts, and to commit to expecting better of their players. More than that, though, I want a change in the culture. I want the hard work to be done on the front end, not after the fact. I want them to be proactive in working with experts to develop policies and education to prevent domestic violence before it happens. I’m not talking about a one-hour session developed by MLB and endured during spring training each year. I’m talking about partnering with groups that work with domestic violence survivors to develop meaningful programs that actually have a chance of making a difference.

What we see there is a desire for MLB to acknowledge that there is a problem and that it should be addressed. This doesn’t seem too much to ask. I’d like to see it, too. This solution is infinitely better than the blind eye MLB is currently turning. Indeed, given how it’s treated PEDs, MLB can’t afford to merely let the justice system do its job. In the case of a civil suit where the player is found liable, there should certainly be a very substantial suspension, and it is more than possible for there to be other instances which, while not meeting the standard to send someone to jail, would merit suspension. MLB has to do better than pretending it doesn’t have perpetrators of violence against women in its ranks. Josh Lueke, who just signed with a Mexican League team, pitched 30 innings for the Rays last year. People took note of his past, but MLB had nothing to say.

Jordan said one more thing that gets to the very heart of the problem with ignoring domestic abuse: “It can be difficult to reconcile the baseball fan in me with my beliefs in what it means to be a good person. I generally don’t spend my money to support the work of people who assault women. I’m not buying Chris Brown records. I don’t see Mel Gibson movies and I’ve sworn off Alec Baldwin. Baseball is trickier. I’ve been a Reds fan since I was little. I had the 1975 and 1976 autographed pennants hanging on my bedroom wall before I even started kindergarten.”

Baseball, you will note, is holding on for her. For now. But if you are part of an industry that embraces kids and tradition and apple pie and wholesomeness whenever it can, do you really want any portion of your fans thinking about how it can be difficult to reconcile watching your games with what it means to be a good person? Especially by way of defending people and actions which are definitively not good. Indeed, the public reactions to the Ray Rice and Bill Cosby scandals in the past year may tell us that there is a sea-change underway in how these kinds of actions are viewed by the general public. Why choose that hill to die on and risk the damage to your brand that the NFL suffered this year?

So, Rob Manfred, from my heart to your head, I’d ask you to please come up with a sensible and sensitive domestic violence policy for baseball. The current tactic of ignoring the problem has already driven away some fans and is slowly doing the same to others. Watching a baseball game is supposed to be fun. It’s not supposed to make us feel dirty.


Jason teaches high school English, writes fiction, runs a small writing program and writes about education and literature. He also writes for Redleg Nation and both writes and edits for The Hardball Times. Follow him on Twitter @JasonLinden, visit his website or email him here.
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Steven Conley
9 years ago

Agree that more needs to be done about this , bigger punishments etc… I also think that renouncing ones fanhood because the team employed a bad seed at one point or another is completely ridiculous. You can’t have been much of a fan to begin with to just quit the whole thing. Don’t let one bad apple ruin your love for the game, ever. cheers !

Shinriko
9 years ago

And yet no mention of the fact that a player whose actions resulted in the DEATH of his girlfriend is being commemorated by a uniform patch.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/12189628/st-louis-cardinals-wear-jersey-patches-honoring-oscar-taveras

I think MLB’s attitude toward drunk driving is a more serious issue.

David
9 years ago
Reply to  Shinriko

Why do we have to have a pissing match about what is worse? Both are bad and should absolutely be addressed. Stop trying to throw the straw man into the conversation.

Shinriko
9 years ago
Reply to  David

He killed someone. He gets a patch.

That attitude is a lot more of a problem then domestic abuse.

No one is saying domestic abuse isn’t something that should be addressed, but MLB’s attitude toward drunk driving is a lot more problematic.

MLB’s approach to domestic violence has been in line with the rest of the country. I don’t see drunk drivers being celebrated at my workplace.

Cool Lester Smooth
9 years ago
Reply to  David

Is your point that the rest of the country has deeply fucked up attitudes towards domestic violence, and that the MLB should take a leadership role in changing attitudes?

Because I agree!

hopbitters
9 years ago
Reply to  Shinriko

He was a member of the team. They liked him. It’s nothing more or less than that.

Detroit Michael
9 years ago

Note that Rob Manfred said that he is confident that MLB will have a domestic violence policy before spring training. http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-manfred-transcript-20150204-story.html#page=2

Tim
9 years ago

Every major corporation in this country employs someone you probably would object too you are going to have a lot of boycotting to do, just because its a baseball player does not mean he should not have the right to due process. We quickly forget the Duke Lacrosse team lives were destroyed.

David
9 years ago
Reply to  Tim

What about the rights of the victim? I’m not saying you should eliminate due process, but c’mon, the Duke case is very statistically rare. Don’t be that person. Don’t be dense.

Marc Schneider
9 years ago
Reply to  David

But, by saying that baseball should say something whenever someone is accused of rape, you are, in effect, saying that due process is not important. What if Simon is not guilty? Saying that charges were not brought for “reasons that are murky” is the worst kind of demagoguery. Presumably, they didn’t bring charges because the prosecutors could not build a case that could win in court. The author’s implication is that the prosecutors didn’t care of something

And, really, what is baseball supposed to say? Gee, he’s been accused but not actually charged, so he can’t play anymore.

Domestic violence is awful and should be addressed. But I find the article and comments sanctimonious at best.

Haven Monahan
9 years ago
Reply to  David

“…the Duke case is very statistically rare”

Is it? Seems like a fair number of these high-profile rape accusations end up being completely bogus. Duke Lacrosse. Dominique Strauss-Khan. The recent UVa fiasco.

I don’t think anyone really knows how prevalent false rape accusations are.

Tim
9 years ago
Reply to  Jason Linden

I agree in the sense playing baseball is more of a privilege, I am just afraid of giving too much power to accusers, the recent football player who spent 5 years in prison only to have the woman come forward and say she lied. I know these are rare cases but it is not something as a society we should even allow the chance of happening. Even though it is hard it is something you want every thing to be correct even if it is time consuming. Maybe an exempt list like the NFL came up with could help solve the issue. The Padres did choose to non-tender Cabrera even with out a conviction maybe they can be applauded for that.

Marc Schneider
9 years ago
Reply to  Jason Linden

That is probably true but irrelevant. Are you suggesting that baseball should take action before or outside the judicial system? I think that’s opening up a real can of worms. The union, I assume, would never countenance discipline being doled out to a player who hasn’t even been charged with a crime. Unless MLB is going to set up its own investigatory function and do an independent investigation of any domestic violence accusation, I’m not sure what they are supposed to do. Declare Simon persona non grata? Excommunicate him from baseball?

The fact that the judicial system has a hard time dealing with these crimes does not give baseball-or any sport-carte blanche to simply ignore due process-and, no matter what you say, that is exactly what you are advocating.

Casey Bell
9 years ago
Reply to  Jason Linden

Oh yes you absulutely did suggest that professional players be denied due process. You compared players accused of rape with players accused (and confirmed!) of using steroids. You inferred that if a mere steroids user can be suspended for a year then it is incumbent upon baseball to take action against an accused (but not confirmed) rapist.

You want Baseball to say something about Simon’s case. Well there are 3 possiblities. Baseball could support him, it could criticize him, or it could issue a totally neutral statement.

Obviously you’re not looking for Baseball to defend him and a neutral statement would not satisfy you, so you must be asking that Baseball make a statement critical of Simon. In other words, you want a rush to judgement.
You want them to poison any potential jury pool. Can’t get much more anit-due process than that!!

Chuck2a
9 years ago
Reply to  Jason Linden

No. You actually STRONGLY advocate for no due process. How you you like it if we change “baseball player” with teacher. Just the accusation, regardless of evidence, means you can N NEVER practice your profession? You would not think it is fair, do you?

While I commend you for wanting the right things: no tape and no domestic violence, these irrational propositions make more harm than good to the position you advocate. It strikes fair minded people as , and a witch hunt.

Actually, I think the biggest problem with your article is that you conflate the treatment by the law of rape and of domestic violence. Rape is always taken seriously by law enforcement and the justice system. When they don’t prosecute, it is because there are serious issues with the case, and therefore, the accuser is potentially not guilty. That does not mean he is innocent. We don’t really know – no matter what stone advocacy group wants to say. Unfortunately, that means some really bad people get away with things. But, this is how life goes – you can’t punish a whole load of innocent people to ensure all the guilty are punished.

On the other hand, domestic violence is a lot more prevalent, and unfortunately, is a lot less likely to be prosecuted. A lot of it happens in the heat of the moment, and spouses don’t press charges, and most time they are still involved with each other. It get bargained down, or dropped all together. This is where MLB has a role to play, even when the law does not act. Even if a player is not prosecuted for domestic violence, it does not mean he did not commit the DM. It is often bargained down to no time served in jail, but in this case, they player ought to be suspended anyway.

Cool Lester Smooth
9 years ago
Reply to  Jason Linden

It’s not about removing due process. It’s about doing stuff like taking advantage of the fact that the MLB isn’t a legal organization to lower the standard of proof from “beyond a reasonable doubt” to “a preponderance of evidence.”

The legal system, quite rightly, can’t do that. A private enterprise can and should do that.

bucdaddy
9 years ago

“come up with a sensible and sensitive domestic violence policy”

Agree this must be done.

Note that, wow, it’s going to be very difficult.

The hardest part might be not turning the accusation into an automatic conviction. Think about anyone publicly accused of child molestation. Once the accusation is out there, right or wrong, true or false, the accused’s life is pretty much over.

For some reason, rape and violence aren’t placed on quite the same level for opprobrium to be directed at the accused. I’m not exactly sure why, they’re all heinous crimes, perpetrated against largely defenseless victims (in the sense that virtually any woman would be no match in a physical confrontation with a 6-foot-2, 230-pound man in pro-athlete condition). But for one crime, the accused becomes a pariah, just on the accusation, while with the other, the perpetrator often gets kind of a public handslap, even if he goes through the court system.

Chuck Finley
9 years ago
Reply to  bucdaddy

…in the sense that virtually any woman would be no match in a physical confrontation with a 6-foot-2, 230-pound man in pro-athlete condition

My ex-wife begs to differ, though, to be fair, I was only 220.

Marc Schneider
9 years ago
Reply to  bucdaddy

It’s not just the Duke case. How about the University of Virginia where Rolling Stone wrote an article about a female student being gang raped and the story has been completely discredited. It is not an isolated incident.

“It is a complicated issue, but for every body who spends time in prison for something like what you describe, there are countless others living in fear because those who raped and abused them are still running around, and in many cases, actively stalking them.”

That’s an absurd statement. First, you have no idea if there are “countless others.” Second, even if it’s true, it hardly justifies condemning Simon just to make yourself feel better.

Cool Lester Smooth
9 years ago
Reply to  Marc Schneider

…what? Read a book. Most rape survivors don’t come forward or press charges. Far, far, far more rapists are never even accused of rape than innocent men are convicted of it.

Casey Bell
9 years ago
Reply to  bucdaddy

I think the reason why alleged rape victims are given less credibility than alleged victims of other violent crimes is because rape is often much harder to prove. There are usually no witnesses and the physical evidence is sometimes inconclusive. A lot
of rape cases are basicly he-said, she-said so it’s not easy to convince a full jury that’
the accused is guity. It’s not that prosecutors and juries are unsympathetic towards alleged rape victims, it’s that they are trying to be open-minded regarding the accused as well.

Cool Lester Smooth
9 years ago
Reply to  Casey Bell

Rape survivors are far more likely to not report it than they are to press charges. If they do, you should believe their account of events, while also recognizing that their experience may not fit the legal standards of rape.

In the case of athletes, cops have been known to cover up evidence (look at the Jameis Winston case), so you really should try to believe them.

james wilson
9 years ago

A high likelihood, you say. A “study” shows false rape accusations run 2-8%. Which is it? A study with a 400% range is no study. That is the kind of propaganda used to gin up cases like the Duke LaCrosse persecution.

It is very likely that most non-stranger rape is not reported. It is also likely that false accusation among reported non-stranger rape is much higher than the 8% feminist propaganda. Add to that the obvious fact that most professional athletes make a great deal of money even at the minimums and have a chumps taste in women, and cha-ching, Kobe.

It is no secret that rapists are prolific. The great majority of rape is committed by a very few men, and that includes non-stranger rape. You shake Simon’s rape tree and plenty of rotten fruit will fall out if he is a date rapists.

Chuck2a
9 years ago
Reply to  Jason Linden

You are letting your advocacy affect your sense of fairness. This 2-8% figure is an advocacy report is no more reliable than the 41% figure in the report they are trying to counter. Even their raw reports of choice span the gamut: 11%? 20? 1.5%? 90? huh? Then they go an play with what that call credibility score to get what they want. This is not how research works. This is getting the numbers to fit your narrative. What did they determine as false? With the lack of an objective determination, there are so many variables they juggle to determine that true/false answer.

Do I believe that 41% his right? No. But, I also have to reason to believe the 2-8% either. The NCPVAW is a credible organization, and they do good work and sorely needed. As a society, we must stay vigilant against violence towards women. One way to do it for them is to continue to press these matters so the incidence of false accusations never bias ANY case against the victim. They are doing their job to ensure every accuser is fairly treated. But, the law and society cannot forgo their responsibility to give everybody (even the accused of the most heinous crimes) their due process.

Now, let’s assume you/they are correct that the 2-8% figure is right. You are so incensed that there are so many guilty are not in prison. But, this is the case for every crime. What you are proposing is to insure that every guilty is punished, but this is not how our system of justice is set up. For every crime, our society err on the side of letting the guilty walk in order not to mistaking end up with the innocent jailed. And I wouldn’t want it any other way. Innocent until proven guilty. And no civilized society have it any other way. Your are advocating guilty until proven innocent, and a negative can never be proven.

DJP53916
9 years ago

It’s good that Manfred is talking about having a policy. Before we pass judgements on if it goes to far or if it goes far enough, it’s best to see what the proposed policy is.

Ideally, any policy that is proposed and ultimately implemented will allow the accused a chance at proper due process, will allow the accuser an opportunity to present their case free of harassment and intimidation, and makes a statement the league and the 30 franchises take this matter seriously.

Unfortunately, this will always be easier said than done.

I think, going forward, it’s probably not terribly difficult to rid the game of convicted abusers. It’s the cases where a conviction doesn’t occur where things get tricky.

Most (if not all) employers are prohibited by law from discriminating and otherwise denying opportunities to people without a conviction in place, and even that has some grey area as well. I would have to imagine that any policy in place must adhere to Federal, State, and Municipal laws and regulations already on the books.

No matter what the policy ends up being, it’s going to be mostly hated, I’m sure. It will either appear to give the alleged victim either to much leeway (with none for the accused), resulting in swift and severe punishment, with no consideration to false accusations, or it will appear to be too toothless, and the idea of wealthy millionaires buying their way out of trouble, leaving future potential victims feeling like coming forward if/when it happens to them is largely pointless.

And incidents like the Duke lacrosse case don’t make this any easier to balance it all out.

LTP
9 years ago
Reply to  DJP53916

This is my take as well. It’s a tricky issue. Maybe have an independent committee investigate cases that don’t result in conviction and, based on a preponderance of evidence standard (rather than beyond a reasonable doubt like the legal system), dole out more minor punishments, like an 80 game suspension plus a fine, or something.

Marc Schneider
9 years ago

Baseball, like any business, has a right to hold players to higher standards than the legal system. It doesn’t have to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt. On the other hand, it can’t become a parallel judicial system. People want Manfred to create a policy; what would that policy be-“we don’t like rapists and want them out of baseball?”

What people seem to be saying is that the judicial system can’t be trusted to handle domestic violence issues so baseball should handle them in a more pro-victim way. But I don’t know how you do that without in some way undermining the concept of innocent until proven guilty. It’s pretty clear that most people’s attitude here is that Simon is guilty until he proves himself innocent. Whether the false report rate is 2% or 8%, it does not justify baseball becoming a quasi-judicial system itself, which seems to be what people want. I think, at the very least, a person should have to be actually charged before baseball can take action. It’s not baseball’s responsibility and it is not appropriate, in my mind, for baseball to take on a criminal justice function.

Cool Lester Smooth
9 years ago
Reply to  Marc Schneider

But they can (and, I believe, should) base these decisions upon a preponderance of evidence, rather than a reasonable doubt, because they are allowed to do so being outside the criminal justice system.

Everyone throwing around that “2-8%” figure needs to understand that it means that 92-98% of reported rapes were not fabricated, and most rapes go unreported.

We shouldn’t assume guilt, but we also have to assume that the victim is telling the truth.

Frank Jackson
9 years ago

I don’t see why baseball has to do anything. If it’s a working stiff committing the misdeed, his actions don’t make the headlines and there’s no public outrage. Some big corporations may have programs about this sort of thing, but what about a guy who works for a small business that can barely afford to keep its doors open, much less establish a program on domestic violence? Or what about a guy who is self-employed? Then what?

If any individual breaks the law, arrest him, and let due process take its course. Unless he’s acting under the course and scope of his employment, MLB is not involved.

pft
9 years ago
Reply to  Frank Jackson

MLB teams get a lot of tax breaks for new stadiums, so its not just some individual. They also get the privilege of an anti-trust exemption worth billions, and permits them to exploit American born minor league players by paying them less than minimum wage. Their players need to be held to higher standards to maintain those privileges

pft
9 years ago

Why draw the line with woman. Child abuse, elderly abuse, DUI’s, etc are all other crimes that should be grounds for suspension w/o pay.

Perhaps a stronger policy on DUI would have prevented the untimely death of Taveras and his 18 yo GF who was a victim of his reckless driving under the influence.

Its funny, the one crime that hurts nobody but the player is the one penalized the most severely (steroid use)

DJP53916
9 years ago
Reply to  pft

If I had to guess (and I admit this is 100% just guessing), a “Domestic Violence” policy probably would cover anyone who shares a home with a ballplayer, be it a wife, girlfriend, husband, boyfriend, parent, etc.

Rape and sexual assault would also make sense to add on to such a policy.

Guess we will see what ultimately gets proposed.

Bruce Markusen
9 years ago

Part of the problem is not just that the teams pander to their own players, but so do the various player unions. When the NFL or MLB tries to discipline a player for committing a crime (such as spousal abuse), the unions immediately throw up their hands, and say, “No.” and then the union’s defenders in the media say, “Well, the union has to do that. It’s just doing its job.”

No, the union does not have to step in. Since when does a union have to defend one of its members for ANY and EVERY infraction, especially when the evidence is overwhelming that the member has done something wrong?

A few years ago, Shawn Chacon physically attacked someone, not his wife or girlfriend, but his general manager, Ed Wade. The incident happened in full view of other players and coaches. So the Astros justifiably terminated his contract. It was obvious Chacon was in the wrong.

So what did the union do? Predictably, it filed a grievance. It pandered to the player. The arbitrator rejected the union appeal, saying the Astros were within their rights to terminate Chacon’s contract.

The old saying is, “You reap what you sow.” The attitude of the player unions today is part of the problem.

bucdaddy
9 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Markusen

There’s a slippery slope argument there, somewhat similar to the ACLU defending neo-Nazis’ right to parade in Skokie, Ill. If the union says, we’ll defend our players … up to an unspecified point, then what are the players who have legitimate grievances to believe?

Alex
9 years ago
Reply to  Bruce Markusen

If you’re a player paying the union for representation you would be pretty upset if they decided not to represent you for PR reasons. Not to say that it never happens, but it should be extremely rare.

Brandon
9 years ago

This take is a little too hot for me

james wilson
9 years ago

Civil suit. Five to ten million. Reading the link to the accusations, it immediately becomes clear why mlb is doing nothing to railroad Simon. “He introduced the woman to Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto and Simon, who bought her drinks and then said, “We are getting out of here,” before hailing a taxi to take them to the Mayflower Renaissance Hotel. According to the complaint, the woman was “visibly intoxicated” and unable to consent.” At 2:30 am. Did your wife read this far? This is the standard in Feminist Utopia, we get that, but mlb?

Since you are apparently quoting from Wiki, let us quote some more from the same article.

“In 1994, Eugene J. Kanin of Purdue University investigated the incidences of false rape allegations made to the police in one small urban community between 1978 and 1987. He states that unlike those in many larger jurisdictions, this police department had the resources to “seriously record and pursue to closure all rape complaints, regardless of their merits.” He further states each investigation “always involves a serious offer to polygraph the complainants and the suspects” and “the complainant must admit that no rape had occurred. She is the sole agent who can say that the rape charge is false.”
The number of false rape allegations in the studied period was 45; this was 41% of the 109 total complaints filed in this period.[16] The researchers verified, whenever possible, for all of the complainants who recanted their allegations, that their new account of the events matched the accused’s version of events.” Of course this study was “debunked”, contradicting the standard of feminist propaganda.

More Wiki “According to a survey of 20 American law enforcement officers done in 2004, officers believe that the typical person making a false accusation is “female (100%), Caucasian (100%), 15–20 years of age (10%), 31–45 years of age (25%), or 21–30 years of age (65%)”.[2] A false accusation may be perpetrated out of a desire for attention or sympathy, anger or revenge, or to cover up behavior deemed “inappropriate” by their condemning surrounding culture.[2]”

Bingo. “”The public may know me as Jane Doe, but I have a name, a face, and a family,” she said. “I am as human as the next person. When I moved to DC for my job I really wanted to help people. I always felt so fortunate to have the family I did and especially my education. I wanted to make a difference. Being a counselor for at-risk youth was hard but there was nothing more fulfilling than helping someone to become the person they were mean to be.”

Third world Dominican jock hits the mlb lotto and meets “educated” white girl. The NBA has an informal program to educate it’s innumerable jocks who’s brainpower does not match up with their paychecks. MLB can just post Simon’s picture around clubhouses.

James Wilson's Mother
9 years ago
Reply to  james wilson

Shame on you, James. For every second you’re wasting your selfish and slutshaming breath rushing to the defense of accused rapists. Where in the hell are your priorities?

james wilson
9 years ago

Yes, mother, where were you when those Duke players were hounded by the state and their own school? Oh, that’s right, you were on the faculty signing the petition to expel them before the trial. Grow a set, sissy, and sign your own name. There’s no crying in baseball.

Casey Bell
9 years ago

Here we go again!

First there was the Duke Lacrosse players who were accused
of sexual crimes by a stripper at a party. In a rush to judgement
people were outraged and the reputations of the players and the
school were trashed.

Later it came out that the accuser had lied
and the prosecutor had his law license taken away for unethical
practices. The boys were cleared and
the accuser was later charged with murder in an unrelated case.

More recently we had the Rolling Stone article about a gang rape
that allegedly took place at a fraternity at the University of
Virginia. Once again there was outrage and a rush to judgement.
The fraternity house was vandalized and the university’s knee-jerk
reaction was to put restrictions on fraternity activities.

A couple weeks later, however, gigantic holes in the accuser’s story
were revealed, the author of the story went into hiding, and Rolling
Stone Magazine retracted the story. The police said there was not enough
evidence to file any charges.

So when I read that your wife is no longer a fan because major league
baseball hasn’t spoken out about Simon’s alleged crime I’m a little
disgusted. You yourself point out that you DO NO KNOW the reasons
why the prosecutor opted not to bring charges. Did it ever occur to
you or your wife that maybe the reason no charges were brought was
that no actual rape took place? That just maybe Simon is innocent?

I’m so sick and tired of the tendency to rush to judgement. I’m not
saying I believe Simon is innocent. I have no way of knowing that.
I’m just saying that it is wrong
to automaticly assume that everytime an athlete is accused of rape he must
be guilty. Professional sports organizations are not part of the judicial
system. It is perfectly sound for them to reserve comment in cases like
these and wait for the case to be investigated and if necessary tried by
the courts.

The really sad thing is, every time a rape accusation turns out to be false
it hurts the credibility of legitimate victims of rape because it increases the
public’s skepticism about rape accusations.

Vince
9 years ago
Reply to  Casey Bell

Please explain how convicting people who may not have committed sexual assault helps fight the epidemic. I’m so eager to hear your insights.

Casey Bell
9 years ago
Reply to  Casey Bell

Well, well, well! When the very first sentence of your response to my comment includes a slur (“prick”) it is clear that you are about to make a brilliant and well-reasoned input to the converstation (<>).

FYI, there is no epidemic of sexual assaults in this country, but even if there were, it would not justify rushing to judgement every time some is accused of committing a rape or assault. Do you really want to discard the concept of presumed innocent until proven guilty? You’ll be singing a different tune when you’re the one being charged with something you didn’t do.

Vince
9 years ago

It is sad how eager people are to infringe upon the rights of others to make themselves feel superior.

I’ll make you and your wife a deal – Alfredo Simon gets suspended without pay for nothing more than an accusation, you get to congratulate yourself for how sensitive and progressive you are, but then you have to stop writing the moment you are accused of a crime. No trial, no lawyer, no hearing. Automatically guilty and immediately thrown out on your ass. Deal?

You seem to think that a 2-8% false complaint rate (that seems not to be universally accepted) is negligible, but I’m gonna go ahead and guess that you wouldn’t be so happy-go-lucky about just how small that number is or isn’t if the shoe was on the other foot. Would you still spout that due process is for suckers – Or are YOUR rights different?

I do agree that baseball has some out-of-proportion penalties in place for different offenses, but I can never support people (and there are a lot of you) that want to treat a situation that greatly affects at least 2 people – not 1 – as if it is a message board and you get some sense of accomplishment for declaring him a villain FIRST! I don’t know how anyone could seriously propose giving MLB extra-judicial powers to pseudo-convict its own players independently. Did you notice how MLB conducted itself in the A-Rod mess? Neither Bud Selig nor Rob Manfred should have the power to take away anything from anyone, ever – much less his livelihood. Now, if he (or anyone else) is convicted – lower the boom.

Vince
9 years ago
Reply to  Vince

You’ve totally lost it.

Paul G.
9 years ago
Reply to  Vince

Forget it, he’s trolling.

Casey Bell's Mother
9 years ago

You can scream due process until you’re blue in the face, and you’re just as loudly communicating to everybody that is forced to hear you that your priorities are in defending the status quo more than in helping the rest of us solve a completely obvious sexual assault problem. How can you hate women to such a degree that you won’t even trust them to let you know that so many of them are being sexually abused and assaulted. Your only priority is defending the status quo, which is doing absolutely nothing to stop this horrible trend. How can you not see that this is what you are communicating to everyone when YOU CHOOSE to involve yourself in the issue only insofar as you think it’s your duty to CALM DOWN THE NAZIS WHO WANT TO PREVENT SEXUAL ASSAULT.

Vince
9 years ago

What the hell are you talking about? You cannot promote some kind of greater justice through individual instances of injustice. It’s just not possible.

Casey Bell's Mother
9 years ago
Reply to  Vince

What should we do to curb sexual assault? Nothing? We would all make the world a better place by accepting that the principle of due process prevents us from doing anything?

Vince
9 years ago
Reply to  Vince

I can’t believe that this has to explained to someone that evidently has the capacity to type, but what we should do is FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED! You don’t know – I don’t know – Rob Manfred doesn’t know.

Casey Bell's Mother
9 years ago

OHHHHHHHH RIGHT, LET’S JUST FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED!!! THAT’LL ALWAYS WORK!!! IDIOT!

Casey Bell's Mother
9 years ago

EVERYONE PLEASE RESUME YOUR NORMAL AND WHOLLY IMPORTANT BASEBALL FANDOM, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, NO NEED TO WORRY ABOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT. THEY ARE ALL JUST FEMINAZI CONSPIRACIES.

Casey Bell
9 years ago

Along with all your other issues, your Caps Lock key appears to be stuck.
You really ought to get your keyboard fixed or get a new keyboard. Just sayin….

Vince
9 years ago

So in your world, the Duke guys did it?

What color is the sky?

Casey Bell's Mother
9 years ago

It’s clear to me that I have greatly erred, oh rational one. For now I see the real problem is false accusations. WHEN WILL COMMISIONER MANFRED STOP AIDING ALL OF THESE FALE ACCUSERS!! HE NEEDS TO PUBLICLY COME OUT AND MAKE BASEBALL’S STANCE CLEAR THAT IT WILL NOT TOLERATE FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT! MEN—THE TRUE VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT IN THIS COUNTRY!

james wilson
9 years ago

Just so you understand, Linden, this feminist manboob troll totally owns to the package of bullshit you tried to peddle.

Joe Pilla
9 years ago

Jason,
I appreciate your thoughtful piece for something it certainly DID encourage:
MLB should learn from the slow reaction of the NFL and instead show awareness of and sensitivity towards increasing public anathema to players who commit domestic violence, and establish, with the MLBPA, a reasonable protocol for team and league action based on revelation of a domestic violence incident.

Whether that action involves sanction of the player by MLB before the law has taken its course is just one matter that MLB and MLBPA should negotiate.
But NOW is the time to do it, not to wait for an atrocity like the explicit Ray Rice video to surface and understandably outrage not just fans but society at large.
I, too, hope that MLB and the MLBPA proactively deal with this issue, not just for the sake of justice and, yes, decency, but also because another PR disaster on the order of the Game’s unconscionable foot dragging on PED’s would simply do great damage to the Game and break many fan hearts.

Paul G.
9 years ago

I agree that players who are also violent criminals need to be punished by baseball.

However, due process is extremely important. You cannot be banning or even suspending players without pay because of accusations. That way leads to utter madness and injustice. You cannot solve the injustice of rape and of guilty men going free by punishing the innocent and the not guilty. Multiplying negatives does not work in ethics unless your ethics are very skewed.

Rape, and for that matter violent crime in general, is something that really needs to be handled by the courts. MLB is not well qualified to be handling rape cases, nor should it be. There will be the obvious exceptions like when the violence is caught on tape that would require immediate action. There will be times when someone who is obviously guilty escapes by technicality or bribery or some matter like that in which case baseball can act independently. (See Black Sox.) But most of the time the best option is to let the law handle the matter. Trust me, you do not want the commissioner as judge if you can at all help it.

We definitely do not want baseball to go down the path that many colleges have been going down recently with their rape tribunals which often fail to provide even minimal due process to the accused yet can levy life changing punishments. Not only is that an injustice in itself it is a great way to legitimately lose massive lawsuits.

Cool Lester Smooth
9 years ago
Reply to  Paul G.

But they can use a preponderance of evidence rather than reasonable doubt, which is what the colleges who aren’t cocking things up do.

Paul G.
9 years ago

Actually, the colleges that are cocking things up are using preponderance of the evidence as the standard. However, that is typically the least of the problems with these tribunals (or at least the problem ones) as they often include such absurdities as defendants effectively not allowed to defend themselves, the accused not required to testify, and judgments being made by academics and school administrators with no legal expertise whatsoever. It is preponderance of the evidence with the thumb firmly on the scale for conviction.

That said, preponderance of the evidence is a dangerous standard to use when the consequences are severe. You do not want to be banning people from baseball based on a 51% evidence standard, especially in “he said, she said” situations. It may be appropriate for lesser punishments like suspensions with pay, but banishment is the baseball version of the death penalty. You better be damn sure.

Cool Lester Smooth
9 years ago

Oh, a flat ban would have to be for a conviction in court. But they could do smaller bans, like year-long ones, if the guy pretty clearly did it but there’s not scientific certainty.

james wilson
9 years ago

MLB is not a moral organization, and must not pretend to be so any more than they already are, which is far too much.

The Red Sox have a history of dumping players who they know to be bad actors on the wife-gf front. Also of guys who go after other player’s women. Each team has that right and responsibility to exercise, or not, but the Commissioner already demonstrated that he is a moral lightweight.

That guy
9 years ago

How about focuing on punishments for all violent acts instead of just violence against women? I agree violence against women is garbage and should be punished, but it shouldnt be held to any higher standard of scutiny or punishment than violence against a man, drunk driving, drunk driving causing bodily harm or death or whatever.

Violence is violence, no matter the gender.

ParappaTheDapper
9 years ago

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/7/28/5936835/ray-rice-chuck-knoblauch-minnesota-twins-mlb-domestic-abuse-violence

The above is a good article that makes a pretty strong case that MLB’s track record on issues of domestic and sexual violence is utterly vile.

The point that resonates most with me from your article is the disparity between the league’s (eventual) response to performance enhancing drugs and the league’s response to a culture of violence against women. It’s pretty clear that the difference is the former is seen as more likely to erode the fans’ fervor and willingness to spend money and to generate advertising dollars.

The solution, then, is to be as abrasive and strident as necessary in making it clear that violence against women (and violence in general, don’t forget Alfredo Simon was also involved in a fatal shooting) is far more intolerable than the abuse of performance enhancing substances. This has to go right up and down the line, from speaking out against current and recent players to being the guy in the conversation who speaks up and says “Ty Cobb was a violent, racist asshole and I don’t care how good he was at playing a child’s game.”

Sports cultures can change from the bottom up. The kinds of things said in comments sections and in blogs actually trickle up and are recapitulated in bigger blogs and by paid columnists and commentators and that’s the point at which it starts to dawn on people who are in positions to make decisions that they need to either get their shit together or risk seeing their ROI’s shrink.