Barely a week after he sent a television camera to would-be destruction with force enough to send a cameraman to a hospital for treatment, Kenny Rogers was picked for the American League all-star team. Does it mean that assault and battery are now accorded an honorarium?
Two days before the pick, Rogers was suspended for 20 games and fined precisely the amount his contract calls for paying him if he should have been picked to the all-star roster. His having asked the Major League Baseball Players' Association to appeal the penalties allows him to participate in the July 12 game.
And Terry Francona, who manages this year's American League all-stars for having managed the Boston Red Sox to last year's World Series, and who is among the most thoughtful of men ordinarily, exhibited anything but such a virtue in his comment regarding the Rogers selection.
"He was voted in by the players," said Francona upon learning of the pick. "He appealed his suspension and the league will not hear it until after the All-Star Game. I abided by the process.''
Perhaps "the league" will find a spot of iron in its spine and demand the hearing prior to the All-Star Game, on the grounds that there is something inherently grotesque in a player behaving as did Rogers receiving what amounts to a kind of reward for his malfeasance.
Rogers had waged his own boycott of the working press up until his explosion upon the cameraman whose sole crime was to be capturing pre-game footage of the Texas Rangers hitting the field for their workouts and warmups. With one flap of fustian, Rogers graduated boycott to bullyism for little enough apparent reason.
The Rogers boycott began during the offseason, when a report appeared that he had threatened retirement unless he received a contract extension post haste. Such threats are as familiar to sports observers and participants alike as are the possibilities that some such reports may be grounded in little further than rumor. If the reporter or organ which emitted that report had been wrong, particularly if they had asked Rogers himself and heard his demurral and confirmed his demurral to be sincere, they were at least as irresponsible as was Rogers justified in his outrage.
But merely to boycott the working press is one thing. To assault a worker among that press who had invaded nothing that could be construed Rogers's personal space — unless one holds to the view that the ballpark field is private territory beyond such minutiae as no fans running afield and the like — is something else entirely.
By most reputable accounts, Rogers had behaved entirely out of character in his bullyism moment. But lesser beings than major league pitchers have behaved out of character but once and to similar grotesque extent, and they have paid far more exacting a penalty than Rogers stands poised to pay. They have lost jobs, if not careers, for their isolated out-of-character moments. Rogers at this writing will lose 20 games, soon enough, and — considering his incumbent contract's all-star bonus — not one penny in spite of the MLB fine imposed upon him.
That the Players' Association had audacity enough to accept Rogers's request for appeal shocked in its own right. That Terry Francona could possibly believe what he said is something else entirely. Adhering to "the process" is one thing, but should abiding by "the process" incur our unquestioned praise when "the process" deploys to damage?
By "the process" did Congress deign to pass and President Bush deign to sign a package of legislation — it is known, disingenuously, as campaign finance reform — that abrogated a stern prohibition upon it by the Constitution's leadoff amendment: "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging freedom of speech, or of the press." The federal government "the process" includes an executive bound by the Supreme Law of the Land to an oath that implies rejecting such abrogation; and, a judiciary whose mission includes thwarting the mischief when the legislative and executive elements of "the process" abrogate the Constitution, never mind that the Supreme Court failed its mission regarding that instance.
Baseball government, representing something more stirring to the soul, should have something in its "process" by which acts or decisions standing athwart its very essence will be thwarted in turn. Where a President and a Supreme Court failed miserably enough regarding the abrogation of political speech, baseball government has a splendid opportunity to succeed with incontrovertible strength.
Rogers at this writing has not said whether he would participate in the All-Star doings. Baseball government should find some place in its "process" to advise him, no questions asked, and Players Association invited to butt the hell out. And, that the only decision he should make is where to spend a pleasant three days worth of All-Star Break otherwise, pondering how an all-star worthy season of pitching to date can be nullified by how not to express outrage toward the working press.
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