King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Kenny Rogers an All-Star? Whatever. Baseball must fix its joke of a justice system -- puny fines, optional suspensions. Plus: Baseball can teach the NBA about caring for its elders.
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July 5, 2005 | Kenny Rogers was named to the American League All-Star team over the weekend, and he was also booed lustily by fans in Seattle, where he and the Texas Rangers lost a 2-1 game to the Mariners Sunday.
Rogers is being booed by the typing classes as well, the idea being that he doesn't deserve to go to the Midsummer Classic next Tuesday in Detroit in the wake of his attack on a cameraman in Arlington, Texas, last week.
Baseball suspended Rogers for 20 games and fined him $50,000, but those punishments are on hold pending his appeal, which will be heard during the All-Star break next week.
That last sentence shows how baseball's system of punishment is totally whacked, but we'll get back to that in a second. First, the Rogers-as-All-Star question.
"The inclusion of Rogers on the American League All-Star team is an insult to civility," wrote Mike Lopresti in USA Today. "His numbers make an All-Star case, his behavior does not. Is common courtesy from a professional athlete now too much to ask?"
Nick Canepa of the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote, "I don't care what kind of year he's had on the mound, which has been very good. Boston manager Terry Francona shouldn't have named Rogers to the squad, and Commissioner Bud Selig should have stepped in and ordered Francona not to do so."
Rogers, who doesn't speak to the media except with his hands, hasn't decided whether he'll go to the game.
I can't get too excited one way or the other. Even if Rogers weren't out on appeal, regular-season suspensions don't carry into the postseason, as we learned when Robbie Alomar spit on an ump a few years ago, and shouldn't carry over to midseason exhibitions either.
If Rogers, who is deserving as a pitcher, wants to go, he should go. A few media types have suggested he should do the classy thing and excuse himself, but you can wait a long time for Kenny Rogers to do a classy thing.
He hasn't even apologized to the cameraman he sent to the hospital, except through his lawyers, via fax, which is exactly the same as not apologizing at all. Might as well save the fees and paper.
And besides, what could be better punishment for the media-hating Rogers than to go to Detroit and spend three days in the center of a media storm? I would work the three days for no pay if I could have a TV camera that I could stick in Rogers' face every single minute he was in public.
It wouldn't even have to be a working camera. Papier-mâché would be fine. Call me old-fashioned but I think moron-baiting is fun.