DON FEHR RECEIVES a bit of good news as 2008 draws to a close. Earlier in the year, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco declared the government’s seizure of Major League Baseball’s 2003 drug tests was legal, reversing earlier rulings by three different federal judges. On December 18, the same court decides to vacate the 2–1 decision and start the proceedings from the beginning before the full court.
The list isn’t back in the union’s hands yet, but the ruling still prevents the government from pursuing the players involved.
What the judges can’t prevent are leaks, despite putting all the evidence under seal. And the first name that comes out is a big one: Alex Rodriguez. On February 7, Sports Illustrated cites four anonymous sources who claim the Yankees star failed his 2003 drug test, setting off a firestorm that pits Selig against Fehr once again.
Rodriguez admits his guilt two days later in an interview on ESPN with Peter Gammons, claiming he only used steroids for the three seasons—2001–2003—he played in Texas. “I did take a banned substance, and for that I am very sorry,” says Rodriguez, whose voice wavers often during his 30-minute confession. “I’m guilty for a lot of things. I’m guilty for being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions. And to be quite honest, I don’t know exactly what substance I was guilty of using.”
He’s also guilty of having a poor memory, one that improves slightly eight days later when he makes another confession on the first day of spring training at Yankees camp. Sports Illustrated’s story on February 7 reported that Rodriguez took testosterone and Primobolan, an anabolic steroid. Sitting at a table with manager Joe Girardi and GM Brian Cashman, Rodriguez tells the 200 reporters in attendance that he and an unnamed cousin bought a drug he called “boli” in the Dominican Republic and injected it for an energy boost.
“I was immature, and I was stupid,” he says. “For a week here, I kept looking for people to blame, and I keep looking at myself.”
Soon after the Sports Illustrated story, the New York Times writes that unnamed baseball officials are angry that Gene Orza, the union’s chief operating officer, and the union itself did not destroy the 2003 test results once they had been tabulated. The story is nonsense. Selig and his lieutenants know baseball’s joint drug agreement called for both parties to oversee the destruction of the 2003 tests. They also know the government issued its subpoena just six days after both sides received the results, leaving little time to get the work done.
But Selig is once again forcing Fehr to play defense. Fehr explains to the media that the results were in the process of being destroyed when the government issued its first subpoena. “Once you find out that a subpoena has been issued, you obviously cannot destroy anything that is involved in an active investigation,” Fehr says. “So we didn’t.”
No one is listening to Fehr, who is quickly losing the public relations battle—again. Selig lets Fehr try to explain himself for three days before issuing his first statement. “While Alex deserves credit for publicly confronting the issue, there is no valid excuse for using such substances, and those who use them have shamed the game,” Selig says.
Ten days later, Selig is once again rewriting history. “Starting in 1995, I tried to institute a steroid policy,” Selig tells Newsday, forgetting he’s long been on record saying he never heard a word about steroids until Andro was discovered in Mark McGwire’s locker in 1998. And what stopped Selig in 1995? “We were fought by the union every step of the way,” he says.
Chicago owner Jerry Reinsdorf agrees, telling MLB.com that Fehr is responsible for the entire Steroids Era. Other baseball owners and officials pile on. So does the media, which alternately criticizes Fehr for not destroying the test results that proved players took steroids, and blames him for protecting players who took performance-enhancing drugs. Fehr can only laugh at the hypocrisy. But then again, after all these years, he’s come to expect little else.
Fehr’s real regret, one he’ll never share with the media, is that he was too slow to recognize how steroid use was dividing the players. The strength of the union had always been Fehr’s ability to keep it united, find a consensus, and formulate a winning strategy. That didn’t happen here, leaving the players vulnerable to a Commissioner, a band of federal agents, and a number of congressmen looking to exploit the issue for personal gain.
And so the leaks continue to trickle out. On May 8, Manny Ramirez, who pumped life into a listless Dodgers team when he was traded to LA a year ago, is suspended for 50 games for testing positive in spring training for a banned female fertility drug often taken by steroid users to restore testosterone production. The 36-year-old Ramirez, who is hitting .348 with six home runs and 20 RBI for the first-place Dodgers, will forfeit $7.7 million of his $25 million salary.
The 11-judge panel in California is still deliberating whether the government violated Fourth Amendment protections against illegal search and seizure in its CDT raid when the New York Times reports on June 16 that another anonymous source claims Sammy Sosa is also one of the players on the list of 104 who tested positive in 2003. If the court again rules in favor of the government, the union expects it will be open season on another 100 or more players. Meanwhile, they have no idea how to stop the leaks.
The union chief has been thinking seriously of stepping down for more than a year, grooming Michael Weiner to take over in time to lead negotiations when the current labor deal expires in the fall of 2011. He’s told a handful of people close to him that he’s decided to retire at the end of the year, and now word is getting out. Fehr knows many will believe the rash of steroids scandals finally drove him from the game, but he long ago learned there was little he could do about what people say and think about him.
On the morning of June 22, he assembles his staff in the union’s main conference room. Sitting to Fehr’s right at the top of the long table is 92-year-old Marvin Miller, the union’s first executive director and still its godfather. “A lot of people know I’ve been thinking of retiring for some time, and I think that leaving at the end of this year would be the right time,” Fehr says. “I will turn the reins over to Michael at the next Executive Board meeting.”
With that, Michael Weiner takes the seat to Fehr’s left. Dressed in his usual jeans and Chuck Taylor sneakers, Weiner keeps things simple. “I’m honored by the appointment and thrilled at the opportunity,” he says.
There’s a brief silence before Orza speaks up. “As the senior staff member let me simply say on behalf of all of us…” and then he starts to clap. The rest of the staff joins in, and Fehr’s good-bye announcement ends as the applause dies down.
Fehr holds a short conference call with the union reps of the 30 teams, then publicly announces his decision on a conference call with reporters a few hours later. He’ll be 61 next month, and after 26 years as the union’s executive director—32 years at the union in all—it is simply time to go. “After a while, it all wears you down,” Fehr tells his listeners. “I think it will be good for everybody.”
He calls it an honor to follow Miller, expresses complete confidence in Weiner, and says he leaves his post with no regrets. And that includes what he calls “the Barbara Walters question”—how it feels to leave with so many players’ reputations tainted by steroids scandals.
“We made an agreement that the results should be kept confidential, and we think it should have been adhered to,” Fehr says. “Nobody ought to be violating those court orders, and if the reports are true that lawyers are leaking these results, that’s really troublesome.
“We were often criticized because of our attention to privacy and other issues related to this matter. But it was the right thing to do.”
And he also knows it should never have gotten this far.
Bud Selig is upbeat as baseball reaches the All-Star Game in St. Louis. The reports of drug use by Rodriguez, Ramirez, and Sosa were obstacles, but the public now seems immune to the steroid revelations. Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers have replaced baseball players in the media crosshairs, and while the country’s economy crumbles, baseball’s website and TV network are thriving and the game’s attendance is holding firm.
There’s no question Americans are hurting and anxious, and with good reason. On March 6, the Labor Department announced that 651,000 Americans lost their jobs over the preceding month, the first month of President Barack Obama’s term. Another 663,000 jobs were wiped out before Opening Day. On June 1, General Motors, once the nation’s leading company, filed for bankruptcy.
Once again, it appears Selig is right about his sport’s role in America: a nation worried about losing homes, jobs, and health care turns to baseball for comfort. As if to drive the point home, President Obama agrees to come to St. Louis and throw out the first pitch for the All-Star Game, the first President to take the mound at the Midsummer Classic since Gerald Ford in 1976.
The game arrives at the break having delivered another round of milestones and terrific performances to take America’s mind off its troubles. Gary Sheffield, now a Met, hits his 500th home run on April 17 against the Brewers, his first team. Ivan Rodriguez, now with the Astros, surpasses Hall of Famer Carlton Fisk when he catches his record 2,227th game on June 16.
Two certain Hall of Famers have stunning first halves. Albert Pujols became the seventh player to hit 30 home runs before July when he hits a pair of homers on June 30. The Cardinals first baseman reaches the break hitting .332 with 32 home runs and 87 RBI. Twins catcher Joe Mauer, a .317 career hitter in his first five seasons, is hitting a major league leading .373. Both Pujols and Mauer will be named MVP at season’s end.
Derek Jeter gets his 2,600th hit on June 2, pulling within range of Lou Gehrig’s Yankees record 2,721, which Jeter will surpass in mid-September. The new Yankee Stadium, despite early criticisms for high ticket prices and an overabundance of home runs, fills up often to watch a team that starts slow but goes 13–5 to reach the break at 51–37, three games behind Boston in the AL East.
The Red Sox are now second baseman Dustin Pedroia’s team, and the reigning MVP is hitting .303 with 65 runs scored and 40 RBI. The Red Sox play before their 514th straight sellout at Fenway Park in the final game of the first half, and are one of nine teams on pace to draw at least 3 million fans.
Obama pops out of the National League dugout wearing jeans and a black White Sox jacket. He stops to talk to Cardinals Hall of Famers Stan Musial and Bob Gibson, then strolls to the mound to a huge ovation. The left-hander delivers a soft toss to Albert Pujols, who scoops up the pitch before it has a chance to bounce in front of the plate.
The game is a tight affair, with the Tigers’ Curtis Granderson tripling in the 8th inning and scoring on a sac fly to give the AL a 4–3 lead. Mariano Rivera nails down the game in the 9th for a record fourth career All-Star save, giving the AL its 13th straight All-Star Game without a loss and home-field advantage in the World Series.
It’s a delighted Commissioner who proclaims the four-day All-Star celebration an unqualified success. At his annual address to the baseball writers earlier in the day, he boasted of the game’s triumphs despite the country’s economic turmoil.
“Overall, I must tell you, the popularity of this sport comes through in a more meaningful way this year than perhaps any other,” says Selig. Baseball’s attendance is down just 5 percent from midseason a year ago. “If you take the two New York ballparks with less capacity, we’re probably down about 3.8 to 4 percent. To be where we are, given what’s going on in the economy and the world, is absolutely remarkable. This could be our greatest season.”
But priorities are priorities, and before Selig ends his talk, he issues a warning to fans of last year’s surprise team: the defending AL champion Rays may have to leave Tampa, the Commissioner says, if the city doesn’t build them a new stadium, no matter how deep the current recession may be. “They need to change their stadium situation,” Selig says. “I think that is clear.”
At just after 7 p.m. on October 28, a black minivan with tinted windows pulls into the bowels of the new Yankee Stadium. A throng of security guards rushes to the vehicle as George Steinbrenner is helped into a wheelchair. He looks up and sees a familiar face. “Hey, Cash,” he says to general manager Brian Cashman.
The two men move toward an elevator, which takes them upstairs to Steinbrenner’s box. In a few minutes, George’s team will take the field against the defending-champion Phillies. After six years, the Yankees are back in the World Series.
Despite the early season distractions, it’s been a bounce-back year in the Bronx. Rodriguez recovered from hip surgery, ignored the “A-Roid” taunts, and hit 30 homers with 100 RBI in 124 games. Robinson Cano blossomed, hitting .320 with 25 homers and 85 RBI. Jeter hit .334 and stole 30 bases, and ageless Mariano Rivera—a year shy of 40—saved 44 games.
The three big newcomers paid big dividends: Sabathia and Burnett combine for 32 wins while Teixeira wins a Gold Glove at first and hits a league-leading 39 home runs. New York sets a team record with 244 homers—the best in the majors—and leads the game in scoring (915 runs) and wins (103).
It’s been a big season for the bottom line, too. The Yankees drew 3.7 million to their smaller but more luxurious new park, contributing $397 million to revenues that easily clear half a billion dollars. They are once again the only team to pay the luxury tax—the $25 million payment brings their seven-year total to $174 million, 92 percent of what baseball has collected since instituting the tax in 1997. The team kicks in another $70 million in revenue sharing this season. But it’s clear they can afford it.
Steinbrenner is in his box when Bud Selig comes to pay his friend a visit. It’s also been a big year for Bud, who earned $18 million and change. Only 10 players will take home more than the game’s Commissioner in 2009.
Steinbrenner watches his team fall to the Phillies, 6–1, then returns the following night to see the Yankees even the Series, with home runs from Hideki Matsui and Teixeira powering a 3–1 win. The family wants Steinbrenner to be part of all this, but they go to great lengths to shield him from the fans and media. They are worried about putting too much stress on George, who finds traveling difficult and gets disoriented in unfamiliar places like the new Yankee Stadium. This will be the last game he’ll attend.
His team takes two of three in Philadelphia, and George is home in Tampa in front of the TV with his wife and a few friends when the Yankees return to the Bronx, one victory away from their 27th title. The grounds crew is wearing T-shirts with WIN IT FOR THE BOSS printed across the front as the fans fill the Stadium. The drama ends early when Matsui drives in six runs in the first five innings. Not long after that, Rivera records the final out of a 7–3 victory, and his teammates pour out onto the field in celebration for the first time in nine years.
An image of the championship trophy glistens on the massive scoreboard in center field along with the words BOSS, THIS IS FOR YOU. As always, Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” blares over the sound system as the fans celebrate. The Commissioner is soon standing on a makeshift stage in the middle of the infield along with the Steinbrenner family and Yankees team officials and players.
“I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the World Champion New York Yankees,” Selig says to raucous applause. Standing opposite Selig is Hal Steinbrenner, who can’t help but think that this moment—standing on this stage, about to say hi to his father back in Tampa—completes the transition that began almost three years ago.
“I want to congratulate the Steinbrenner family for a job really well done,” Selig says. “And to my friend George—I wish you were here. This one’s for you.”
Selig hands Hal the gold and silver World Series trophy, Steinbrenner raises it over his head, and the cheers from the crowd swell again. Hal thanks the fans for their support, then turns his attention to Tampa. “Dad, I know you are at home watching with Mom,” he says. “This one is for you.”
Girardi, Matsui, and Pettitte all answer a few questions from the Fox announcer. And when the last interview ends, Hal and Hank Steinbrenner, Randy Levine, Lonn Trost, and Brian Cashman crowd into Girardi’s office to call George. Hal is holding the phone, congratulating his father and trying hard to hear George’s reply over the noise. He thinks he hears his father say he’s proud of him, but George’s voice is shaking and it’s clear he’s crying. This time, though, the tears are from happiness.
Emotions are bubbling over in the Yankees locker room, too. Rodriguez is the center of attention, and he is clearly enjoying his moment of redemption. His botched confessions in February and his history of miserable postseason play have been washed away by four weeks of sterling performances. He singled and scored two runs tonight to finish the postseason hitting .365 with six home runs and 18 RBI. He scored 15 runs in 15 games and had a .500 on-base percentage. “This feels even better than you can imagine,” he’s telling everyone who comes his way.
The team’s general manager is both satisfied and relieved. He worked hard to persuade CC Sabathia to come to New York and even harder to convince Hal Steinbrenner to stretch the team’s budget to sign Teixeira when the first baseman’s deal with the Red Sox fell through. He feels vindicated for standing firmly behind Girardi after his team missed the playoffs last season.
And maybe, just maybe, this will help him get over the bitterness he felt after Joe Torre wrote that Cashman betrayed him in the manager’s failed contract talks with the Yankees in 2007. “Don’t ever fucking talk to me again,” Cashman texted his former friend and ally in January after reading the book Torre coauthored.
Matsui is surrounded by reporters from Japan and America, all wanting to know if he thinks he’s just played his last game as a Yankee. (He did.) But right now he is enjoying being named the World Series MVP. There was little doubt who the hottest hitter was in this Series. Matsui had six hits in his final nine at bats, finishing the six games hitting .615 with three home runs and eight RBI.
Taking in the Champagne-soaked celebrations from his corner of the locker room is Mariano Rivera. He was disappointed earlier in the day when Hal Steinbrenner told him that George was not at the game. Now he’s quietly sharing his feelings with a handful of reporters. “I wish Mr. Steinbrenner was here so I could give him a big hug,” Rivera says. “He’s the driving force behind all of this. And he’s definitely a part of me.”
Rivera was a 26-year-old set-up man when he won his first World Series ring in 1996, three years after the end of Steinbrenner’s now-forgotten second suspension. He looks around and sees Jeter, who hit .407 in this Series, then Pettitte, who won the clinching game all three times this postseason. These two veterans are the only other players who were on the field that October night 13 years ago.
Tonight marks the fifth time the three men have celebrated winning a championship together. And it’s the first time without George walking over, extending his hand, and congratulating them.
Somehow it doesn’t feel quite the same.
Don Fehr walks down the palm-tree-lined entrance of the palatial Hyatt Regency at Gainey Ranch, the end of the 10-minute walk from his parents’ home here in Scottsdale, Arizona, and finds his younger brother Steve. It’s November 30, Steve’s 58th birthday. It’s also Don Fehr’s last day as the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, and the two brothers walk into the conference room for what will be the final MLBPA meeting in Don’s long and successful career.
It’s the union’s annual Executive Board meeting, and as he has done every year since taking over as executive director, Fehr kicks off the three-day event with his take on the state of the game. And the news is good: revenues, attendance, and salaries are still rising. The union’s licensing program and pension fund are thriving. As always, the union staff is monitoring the free agent market to make sure the owners play by the rules. Yes, they’ve had labor peace for 14 years, but that doesn’t mean they can let down their guard, he tells the player reps from the game’s 30 teams.
Never let down your guard.
His final address done, Fehr reaches into his pocket, pulls out a gavel, and hands it to Michael Weiner, the man he trained to take his place. Fehr settles into his seat as Weiner takes charge of his first meeting. After 32 years—25 as union chief—Don Fehr’s work in baseball is done.
He returns one night later for a dinner in his honor. His going-away present of sorts was determined a few months ago when Weiner hired a compensation firm to determine what Fehr would have earned had he not capped his salary at $1 million in the contract he signed in 1992. The figure: $11 million.
A cadre of retired players has flown in for Fehr’s farewell dinner. Stars Dave Winfield, Dave Stewart, and Don Baylor. The rank and file: Phil Garner, Brett Butler, B. J. Surhoff, Scott Sanderson, and Buck Martinez. These are many of the men who worked shoulder to shoulder with Fehr through the lockouts and the strikes, who were there when the average player salary was $289,000, who know what it’s taken to push it to the $3.24 million the players enjoy today.
They were delighted to hear him called the game’s most powerful man when he proved the owners guilty of collusion—a $280 million win for the scores of players affected—beat back management’s push for a salary cap, and fought off contraction. They understood what it took to hold together a group of players far more diverse and wealthy than the union led by Marvin Miller, players who never knew life without the Players Association to protect them.
And they’re still wincing about the large share of the blame he’s taking for the game’s struggle with performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe Fehr would have moved faster if he’d had a partner at MLB who wasn’t as consumed with his legacy. Maybe he would have made the same mistakes. Or maybe, as one of their union brothers who couldn’t make it tonight said recently, he was just doing his job.
“I think the players who did it and the players who didn’t say anything share the blame,” said David Cone, who worked closely with Fehr and pitched during the rise of the Steroids Era. “We hired Don to protect our rights. That’s what he did.”
One by one, the players come to the podium to tell their stories about Fehr. Baylor, a member of the committee that chose Fehr to succeed one-year flop Ken Moffett in 1983, talks about how hard Fehr worked to prove himself to a wary group of players. Garner gets everyone laughing about Fehr’s terrible golf game and how many tissues and inhalers the union chief would use the longer their labor wars would last.
But it’s Winfield who gets to everyone—especially Fehr. “I count being in the union as one of the things I cherish most in life,” says the Hall of Famer, who spent 10 long seasons in New York. “I needed it perhaps more than any of my fellow players because of what George Steinbrenner put me through. I don’t know if I could have survived that time without the assistance and support of the union. And Donald was always there for me.”
Winfield looks over at Fehr, who’s waging an unsuccessful battle to hold back tears. Fehr’s guard is finally down, and like everyone there save Fehr’s wife Stephanie and brother Steve, it’s a side of the union chief Winfield has never seen. “I can’t speak to what other unions did, but this union took care of business,” Winfield says. “And Don was a big reason for that.”
It’s finally Fehr’s turn to speak, and it’s not long until his voice catches and his eyes grow moist. Everyone in the room understands the heavy emotional and physical toll 25 years of constant vigilance has taken on him. He’s been a wartime leader—did he really have a choice?—and that meant never, ever being able to let down his guard.
Until now.