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| The Game: MLB\'s Marketing Quandary; Rbk Scores AHL All-Star Deal |
| 11.23.05 (10:41 am) [edit] |
MAJOR League Baseball's stricter drug policy has put commissioner Bud Selig in perhaps his strongest position ever. But the situation remains problematic for MLB in marketing its rank and file.
Under pressure from Congress, MLB and the MLB Players' Association last week beefed up testing and penalties for steroids and other performance enhancing drugs. A player who tests positive for steroids now gets a 50-game suspension for the first offense (up from a 10-day suspension), a 100-game suspension for the second offense (up from 30 days) and a lifetime ban for a third offense (up from 60 days).
However, even though Rafael Palmeiro received a 10-day ban last May after testing positive for steroids, the public court of opinion imparted the equivalent of a lifetime ban on the man whose lifetime stats read like a Hall of Fame resume: 569 home runs, 1,835 RBIs and 3,020 hits. He won't be back in a Baltimore Orioles' uniform (the team for which he has played in seven of the last 12 seasons), and likely won't be hired by any marketer.
It's also not likely that MLB—which prides itself on its history and constantly celebrates players and their achievements—will put itself in a position where it has to honor Palmeiro for his on-field success, much as it has done, except on rare occasion, with Pete Rose. That may hold true for others who have produced Hall of Fame stats but have also been linked to steroids, including Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire.
To his credit, after entering the 2005 season as a virtual steroids poster boy, Jason Giambi turned around his on-field actions with the Yankees and was named American League Comeback Player of the Year. But do too many questions remain for marketers to risk putting MLB players in campaigns? As U.S. Senator Jim Bunning, R-Ky., a Hall of Fame pitcher and advocate of tough drug-testing policies, said in a statement, "From my days as a baseball player and union representative, I know that sometimes agreements you were told were written in stone can somehow change and become open to interpretation. I and my colleagues will be watching very closely, and if things unravel we still have tough legislation we can move through Congress."
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