The Fix Is In

Bud Selig runs a confidence game. It’s also known as a con, a scam, a swindle, a grift, a bunko, a flim flam or the old double switch. Those who do it right – or is that wrong? – are masters of muddying the waters and dealing from the bottom of the deck.

Selig’s three-card-monte game runs over on Park Avenue. They play a more genteel style in that neighborhood, but the stakes are higher.

You don’t find the lady or follow the bee for a sawbuck around there. Selig deals United States Senators. In a 164 word, 3 paragraph statement issued yesterday, he referred to George Mitchell as “Senator Mitchell” four times.

George Mitchell is not a Untied States Senator. He has not been a Senator for more than 10 years. This probe into performance enhancing drugs in baseball is not a United States Senate Investigation. Despite his threats, Mitchell does not have the power to seek Congressional intervention any more than you or I.

Mitchell, like Selig, is just another bully on the block with a card up his sleeve.

They bullied Jason Giambi into talking and they think they can bully everyone into believing he is just “one of the bad apples.” They want you to believe that about Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa and Gary Sheffield, too.

They used threats to make Giambi issue a statement that said in part: “I alone am responsible for my actions and I apologize to the Commissioner, the owners and the players for any suggestion that they were responsible for my behavior.”

That’s the Commissioner and the owners covering their backs and protecting their bank accounts, which is all Mitchell’s dog-and-pony show has ever been about.

Selig, Mitchell and the owners and going to walk off with all the money on the table at the end of the day and Giambi probably won’t be able to walk without pain when he’s 50.

Regardless of his salary, Giambi is the brick layer in this little drama. On his way home from work he was drawn into a game he can’t win.

Find the lady, follow the bee, watch the former Senator.

The fix is in.