June 11, 2000

Julio Machado is a footnote in the ledger of baseball history. His last appearance in the pros was in 1991, when he was a relief pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers. He wasn't anything special — relief pitchers rarely are — but he was certainly good enough to pitch for a few more years. But Machado had other plans. Spending the 1991 off-season in his home country of Venezuela, Machado became pitcher cum murderer, killing 23-year-old Edicta Vasquez that December. He was neither suspended from baseball nor fined. On April 1, 1992, the transaction wire merely read: "Milwaukee Brewers: Placed Julio Machado, pitcher, on the restricted list."

From that point on, Major League Baseball should have known that Bud Selig — then owner and president of the Brewers, now MLB Commissioner — was not going to take steps to curb off-field violence. The Brewers could have chosen to give Machado his unconditional release. They didn't. The inaction on behalf of Selig causes the recent John Rocker suspension and fine (although not the demotion to the minors, which only makes sense given Rocker's poor pitching) to near tacit approval of off-field crimes.

We should be surprised to hear that incidents off-field violence is still glanced over by Baseball, but that is precisely the case. Pedro Astacio, the ace of the Colorado Rockies pitching staff, was arrested last August on charges of spousal abuse. He pled guilty to third-degree assault. The punishment? A slap-on-the-wrist two years of probation, with all record of the incident erased from his record if he could play nice. From both the Rockies and Selig's office, this abuse charge — and admission — received a collective yawn.

But Astacio's story doesn't end there. He's not a citizen of the United States, so, while he may have avoided jail time, his green card should have been revoked. But the INS is apparently busy fighting other battles — Astacio is still pitching for the Rockies. In fact, he and his lawyers figured out a way to change his guilty plea to "not guilty."

While a confessed wife beater gets paid over $6 million to toss fastballs, John Rocker finds himself suspended, fined, and the subject of a CNN Online poll in which 20% of respondents called for his lifetime ban from the sport. Baseball is trying to send the message that racism won't be tolerated, but in reality, another message is loud and clear. Racism, correctly, is absolutely, positively inexcusable — but beat your wife and shoot to kill all you want.

When Charles Barkley appeared in a TV ad claiming to not be a role model, Sports Illustrated spent their back page on a rebuttal from Karl Malone. Malone pointed out that even if Sir Charles was not willing to accept such responsibility, it's too late. Children, adults, maybe even pets look up to sports icons. Heck, that's why they are icons.

When Baseball opts to not suspend admitted abusers, they take the Barkley cop-out to the nth degree. They compound the error when they punish the Marge Schotts and John Rockers (but not the anti-Polish, anti-Catholic Ted Turners — but that's another column) without handing down fines and censures to actual criminals. Players like Machado and Astacio are allowed to go about their business like nothing ever happened. And it seems like Baseball prefers it that way.

Dan

Dan Lewis is a webmaster of WhatTheHeck and a big Mets fan. Email him by clicking here.