Baseball Was Out of Options

There is some guy out there in Reader Land who writes a letter of complaint whenever I write a word about Steve Howe, which naturally makes him something of a regular correspondent.

He always wants to know the same thing: Why am I picking on poor Steve?

He wonders what Steve Howe ever did to me. He believes there must be some form of vendetta. Steve must have refused you an interview, he writes. You must have it in for Steve, he writes.

Then he tells me what a good person Steve really is. And he reminds me that drug addiction is a disease, not a premeditated crime.

By the end of the letter, he will have worked his way down to the usual postscripts: That you are no one to criticize, having made mistakes yourself; that you know nothing about baseball, never having played it, and that you are going to be in hot water with your publisher, Mister, because he is canceling his subscription.

I believe that he has canceled six or seven subscriptions now.

In any case, permit me to get a few disclaimers out of the way before we travel one paragraph farther.

Steve Howe, the newly suspended pitcher of the New York Yankees who is in need of an eighth chance, has a problem. It is not my problem. It is his problem.

It also is baseball’s problem--and baseball, if and when Steve Howe requests permission to return, must just say no.

No anti-drug campaign can benefit from Howe’s reinstatement. Any athlete threatened with suspension or banishment would point to the Howe case as precedent for getting at least six or seven benefits of the doubt.

Pete Rose is banned for life for one huge mistake, but Steve Howe can make seven--what?-- little mistakes and get away with it?

Baseball is one game that must be played fair.

Hey, I don’t wish bad things for Steve Howe. I wish him a lifetime of recovery.

As for disliking Steve, no way. On the contrary, the few times I have been around him, he seemed to be a perfectly pleasant guy.

Many of the Dodgers, Yankees and others who sided with Howe over the years continue to think of him kindly, even those who observed him--or joined him--during a drug binge.

As for holding Howe up to public scorn, it affords no pleasure. Yet at times a public chastening is the best means of embarrassing somebody into not repeating a misdeed, to stop indulging a bad habit.

Yes, I can see the potential contradictions here.

For example, how many speeding tickets must Jose Canseco pile into his glove compartment before baseball itself intervenes, taking away his privileges for a season or two? A case could be argued that Howe principally hurts himself, whereas Canseco presents a public danger that the commissioner’s office should not take lightly.

Were I to, say, plagiarize someone’s work, I would expect to be punished, but I also would anticipate a second chance. That doesn’t mean I would get one.

I can guarantee, however, that around the seventh time that I plagiarized something, nobody in my profession would permit me to ply my trade.

On the other hand, were I an alcoholic, would they continue to take me back, knowing that what I had was an illness? Their hearts might say yes, but their minds would likely consider me unreliable.

Then what would I do?

This is one of the occupational hazards Howe faces, that if baseball refuses to rehire him, why should anyone else offer employment? Major leaguers do not wish to see him jobless any more than they long to see him in jail.

Howe accepted baseball’s terms, however. Their way or no way.

And seven strikes and you’re out.

Lawyers contend that their client’s latest guilty plea, to federal cocaine charges after an arrest in Montana, were made for legal purposes and that perhaps Commissioner Fay Vincent misunderstood the logic behind them.

OK, maybe that is what was necessary to keep Howe from doing time. But it hardly strengthened his position with baseball, which generously might have made an exception for a first-time offender.

I would never jeer Steve Howe if he did make it back to baseball. Charity is a useful tool, because someday someone might have the opportunity to peek inside your own glass house.

But enough is enough. Fool baseball once, shame on Steve. Fool baseball seven times, shame on baseball.