Steel Town's Board-To-Board with Mlnsports

Nothing "black helicopter" about how baseball manages its public face. It has lied for years. The Dodgers and Giants were moved to California to squash the post-war Pacific Coast League's ambitions of becoming a third major league. Read up on Clarence "Pants" Rowland's stewardship of the PCL. At the winter meetings of 2007 just before the Mitchell Report was released, those attending the Rule V Draft were treated to the usual reel of great achievements of the year. The single biggest record in the game was broken by Bonds, allegedly. He got less than 7 seconds of the reel, simply doffing his cap with his back to the camera. That was it. At that point, most baseball Kremlinologists took that to mean exactly what it did. MLB took the money from his home run chase, and was going to slowly disavow any knowledge of Bonds, and not provide him a place to play. Come Spring 2008, that bellwether proved to be right on the money.

When fans wake up and realize how badly they are being played for suckers, things might change. Right now, the powers-that-be at MLB call the tunes, and the media and the fans dance along.

The reason that we wrote that piece on Selig shattering the rules was that Manny's playing in the minor leagues made no sense. Major Leaguers in the minors do major league time. Both the rule book and the CBA say so. It is amazing, and sad, that we were the only reporters to go digging into the MLR, the CBA and the drug deal to find out how bald-faced Selig and his people were about cherry-picking the rules and deals to do whatever pleases the players and keeps the owners turnstiles humming.

If there are no rules, then what validity has any record in the sport?

They count on fans being smug and tuning it out.

They should send you a thank you note.