Donald Fehr's announcement that he is retiring as head of the Major League Baseball Players Association has brought forth a lot of commentary about his "mixed legacy." On the one hand, baseball players are making a lot more $$ than they were 25 years ago. On the other, Fehr was one of the major voices impeding any sort of steroid testing in baseball and effectively helped cover up the true extent of steroid use in the major leagues.
Truth be told, Fehr's legacy isn't mixed at all: the sizable increase in players' salaries was intimately linked to increased steroid use. As salaries headed for the stratosphere, the incentives to boost your athletic and financial fortunes through juicing grew exponentially, especially when everybody "knew" that some of the top performers are openly using steroids. Not only that, the temptation to use steroids to recover from injuries, as apparently happened with Andy Pettite and Rick Ankiel, is even more overwhelming. A little juice and you can maybe stay in the big leagues just a little longer, living the good life and putting a little more $$ in the bank.
I won't begrudge baseball players their salaries, or Fehr's efforts to secure said salaries. However, the MLBPA's willingness to look the other way on steroids didn't do anyone any good. Ultimately, it has left all of the players in the post-strike era under a cloud of suspicion. That is Fehr's true legacy.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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