What can fix baseball's mess

“WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey is urging Major League Baseball to adopt Olympic standards for drug testing and punishment. ‘You cannot have the chickens guarding the coop. Baseball always has and still does,’ McCaffrey said Monday. ‘Baseball and all professional sports need to adopt the same anti-drug principles we pressed for in the Olympics -- outside year-round random testing with accountability, openness and independence.’”

Ain’t it a shame that the government has to get involved with baseball?

You have to admit, though, McCaffrey has a point. If Barry Bonds had been submitted to random drug tests over the last five years, there would be no doubt as to the legitimacy of his home run records. Instead, we have an arrogant athlete spouting nonsense at press conferences who, when and if he breaks gentlemanly Henry Aaron’s career record, will have an asterisk (whether figurative or literal) permanently etched by his name.

Baseball’s popularity has been on the downslide for many years. The drug use rumors certainly aren’t helping its case.

Here are three steps that will help bring baseball back to its former popularity:

(1) Random year-round drug tests, as per Mr. McCaffrey’s suggestion. These would take place on ALL professional players, from the Rookie League to the Majors.

(2) A revenue-sharing plan akin to that of the NFL. There are twenty or more serious contenders to win the Super Bowl each year. Baseball has perhaps ten with a shot at winning the World Series. Spreading the wealth around would force the Yankees to EARN their crowns, not BUY them. Small-market teams would be contenders, not extended minor league franchises for the Big Boys.

(3) Baseball is a traditional sport. Ditch the DH and interleague play. Let pitchers show what athletes they truly are, and let the World Series have an air of mystery about it, as fans watch teams compete who have not faced each other in regulation.

Will this happen? Probably not. Baseball’s clueless management have long thought that they had to jazz up the game with goofy innovations, whether 60 + home runs from the sluggers in microscopic parks, or Astroturf, or polyester glo-color uniforms.

It’s a great game. Just let it be so.