Let’s chase Barry Bonds around the country and torture him. Let’s boo him at every twist and turn and make this ugly situation even uglier.

That’s what Bud Selig is promulgating in his way-too-little, way-too-late press conference today.

Let’s face it, Bud. Caving into the ‘right’ on this issue is not the way to go. Especially since it will become a witch hunt that can do no one any good.  Everyone knows Bonds and others used perfomance enhancing substances. The ones that could have stopped them from using them did nothing at the time. In fact, no official MLB rules have been broken here. So why put us through this Speilberg revisionist history exercise by suggesting ex-post-facto rules be put in place to punish – or condemn – players for deeds the owners once found acceptable.

Just put in a ‘drop-dead’ date for everyone to get clean and enforce it stringently going foward.

First of all, steroids are getting way too much credit for the home run craze of the late ’90′s, early ’00′s.  They naturally played a hand in this, but they had plenty of help. Has anyone investigated the allegation that the baseballs were wound tighter for those years, enabling them to travel further? Has anyone taken into account the fact that every new ballpark is contructed to favor hitters and is conducive to the long ball? Has anyone analyzed the flatter mounds and the recent trend of ‘throwers’ over pitchers? And that only the good hitters benefited from the perfomance enhancers?

Of course not. No one ever wants to admit to being part of a conspiracy. In this event, the conspiracy was to create a more entertaining product by giving the overwhelming advantage to hitters.

And don’t forget the real reason why owners looked the other way. Money. Yes, that green stuff is addictive. Add that to the fact the owners did not want to usurp the labor peace by imposing more random drug tests. They feared Fehr.

So, Bud, you’re only opening up a carton of spoiled milk with this thing.  If you want to make good use of George Mitchell, send him to Darfur, ot Baghdad.  Don’t have him humiliate you, him, players, owners, coaches, 300 million Americans and countless others with this sudden urge that came over you to do the right thing. The time has passed. Impose new rules and move on.

Whenever you have an open competition among able participants, the dynamics cannot be controlled and just about anything is possible. As is the case of the inaugural World Baseball Classic. 

Bud Selig, in the interest in promoting professional baseball across the globe, created this competiton and the world came. The Cubans had to overcome politcal hurdles to solidify their invite. The Japanese are not well respected in the global game. Sure they have placed a number of players in American basesball, but over all they are not considered a collective force. That these two teams find themselves playing for the WBC title tonight is a shock to everyone but themselves.

The Dominicans have a roster full of All-Stars – Cy Young and MVP winners – and along with the Americans were favored to be in San Diego tonight for this game. But baseball isn’t won on paper. The DR, although still stacked, were left to play without Pedro Martinez, Manny Ramirez and for a time -Vladimir Guerrero. The U.S. seemed to be missing just about everyone. It didn’t appear to be the best 9 America could field. 

Japan is a team of virtual unknowns with one exception – Ichiro Suzuki. As any baseball follower will tell you he is one of a kind. They also have been hiding some pitchers away as they have not allowed many runs and even shut out Korea in the semifinal to get here. The Cuban team – as always – is shrouded in mystery. Who are these guys?  Will we ever see them after tonight?  That is up to Fidel Castro. I certainly hope we get the chance.

There are some takeaways for America here. There are more important things than money, but trying to convince anyone in this country of this is a hard sell. Hard work and teamwork are what still wins….so why are we so surprised the two most regimented squads are playing for the title? 

Well, it’s official. America is no longer the world’s foremost baseball superpower. The USA bunch looked listless and disjointed in dropping a 2-1 decision to the game Mexicans last night in Anaheim, which ousted them from the WBC. Even a valiant pitching performance by the great Roger Clemens could not inspire Buck Martinez’ rag-tag combination of millionaires and has-beens.

How can this happen?!?!?!

Very easily. Just like it happened in basketball

• The US did not take this competition seriously from the outset.
• The powers that be could not sell the upside of this competition to some of its finest players.
• Most American players do not participate in off-season baseball and claimed this tournament was too early in the season for many of them to compete.  It wasn’t too early for guys like Derek Jeter, one of the few Americans to play well. It certainly wasn’t too early for the other 15 countries.
• Many players sat out because they did not want to risk injury. Also, the position their MLB team held on the overall exhibition had an effect if players tried out or not.
• Many up and coming studs were held out in favor of ‘name’ players.
• And finally, like everything else in this country, money became an issue for some. They would not be compensated for appearing, so they chose not to go…

All of this and more robbed the American public of seeing how we really stack up to the rest of the world in Baseball.  Selfishness and poor management. Sounds like every other sad story these days coming out of corporate America.

If you are a Mets or Red Sox blogger you were most likely contacted by someone at Takeout Marketing about pumping this film. I received an email from them asking me to provide coverage on my site, which I did. The initial email also listed contact data should you want to attend the premiere or interview anyone involved in the film. Naturally I sent a request for tickets to the premiere. I did not receive a response to that request. The only thing I got back was another email asking me if I mentioned the film was opening on my website. Needless to say I immediately took down the ‘Game 6′ info that I listed. As a legitimate businessman, I feel that Takeout Marketing used unethical tactics in promoting this film. Their feeble attempt to manipulate the blog world backfired. Bloggers are not all hackers and misfits. Many are intellectuals, journalists and entrepreneurs. I’m sure many of them are hammering away at this marketing company right now. Perhaps they can seek solace in the fact that the film opened to unfavorable reviews and will probably fare poorly at the box office…..