Bud Selig released an initial statement saying he hadn't bothered to actually read Barry's 10-page indictment, although he does "take the indictment very seriously and will follow its progress closely." The indictment isn't progressing, Bud. You don't have to chase it or catch it. It's posted all over the Internet. Selig went on to pontificate about MLB's strict policy on performance-enhancing drugs, touching on reforms like testing for amphetamines and adding HGH to the banned list while pursuing the development of an efficacious test for HGH.
Selig's response reminds dp of something. Let's see.... Baseball pretends to be ignorant of a patently obvious situation.... Hmmmm... What is this deja vu?
It sounds just like baseball's "reaction" to allegations of steroid use in the 1980's and 90's: Feigned ignorance. Drug problem? What drug problem? Oh, you mean cocaine? We cracked down on that one with a tough testing policy that required Steve Howe to actually apply for reinstatement each of the seven times he returned to the field after testing positive. It's not our fault that Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry were granted multiple chances to resurrect their playing careers but never got the help they needed to kick coke addiction.
Meanwhile, Selig's ploy of pretending to be too busy to read 10-pages while supposedly monitoring Bond's legal situation "closely" reeks of two things:
1) personal contempt for Bonds, similar to Selig "acknowledgement" of Bonds' record-setting home run, when he stood up only to keep his hands in his pockets.
2) official doublespeak that seeks to distance baseball from troubled players and ultimately protect the league against any liability.
