Bud Should Shut Up

I know that right about now everyone wants to hear from Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig.

Everyone wants to hear what he has to say for himself following the snowball of bad news that has hit the press over the last week. A-Rod is outed for steroid use. A-Rod apologizes for said steroid use. Miguel Tejada lied to Congress. And as Scott pointed out, what a weird story about Roberto Alomar.

But as far as the A-Roid saga goes, Bud's best move would be not to say a thing.

The Commissioner turned a blind eye to a growing epidemic in baseball over the last ten years. It would be naive to think the commissioner's office had no idea that so many players in their game were taking steroids until the press found out. In fact, it appears that members of his governing body (a.k.a Gene Orza) were complicit in helping players pass drug tests to cover up the mess. And, until Congress became involved, baseball didn't have a drug-testing policy that banned many of the substances these players took until 2005.

So when Selig comes out today to point the finger at A-Rod, maybe Selig should point the finger at himself instead.

“What Alex did was wrong and he will have to live with the damage he has done to his name and reputation,” Selig said Thursday in response to A-Roid's admission. “While Alex deserves credit for publicly confronting the issue, there is no valid excuse for using such substances, and those who use them have shamed the game,” Selig said.

It's not that what Selig actually said isn't something anyone would agree upon. Obviously A-Roid made a bad choice and shamed baseball by cheating it and lying about it. His apology was a necessary move, whether it was completely sincere or not.

But Selig is probably the last person that should be damning anyone right now, considering the crimes of which he's guilty. How can he look at himself in the mirror with all the scandal that has gone on during his reign?

Listen, there are a lot of Selig haters out there, but I have always been one to defend him. He has done a lot of good for the game of baseball, by adding the wild-card (which, might I add, was highly criticized when implemented), globalizing the game with events like the World Baseball Classic, and improving products like the All-Star game. Revenues are up, they're higher than they've ever been, and attendance figures soar in baseball year after year.

But the steroid era was under his watch. So while he has done plenty of good, the bad has been just as plentiful. And for this, there is no defense for Allan.

It's easy for Selig to sit on his commissioner's high horse and condemn A-Roid for screwing up. Sure, A-Rod deserves the criticism he's received and the criticism he's bound to get for the rest of his career. But he's just one of many there is to blame for the mess over the last ten years that has been the steroid era.

Selig is just as guilty, as far as I'm concerned. That's why Bud should just shut up.