Donald Fehr Should Not Have Done What He Was Paid To Do

At least thats what Phil Sheridan is telling me.

I can understand why fans of baseball have a lot of animosity towards Donald Fehr, although I dont agree with it. But I cant believe the amount of articles I've read since he retired about how he was bad for baseball. They all seem to echo the same setiments "Sure he did his job, but he should've known better". How contradictory is that? So he did his job, but at the same time he shouldnt have? Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Shouldnt the mainstream media know better that he, you know, worked for the player and not the other way around? His job was to represent their interests, not the fans, not the media, and certainly not his. Also, what about the good stuff he did? Two years into his tenure as Union rep, the owners decided to collude to drive down players salaries that lasted for three years. So Fehr did what he was supposed to do and fought it. Not only did he fight it, but he kicked the living shit out of the owners and they were forced to pay $280 million dollars to the free agents that they fucked over. Then came the 94 strike, where the owners wanted a salary cap imposed, and were not negotiating the CBA in good faith. They then tried to get replacement players for the regular season, and once again, Fehr fought and won. He did what none of the other major sports union reps could do and avoided a salary cap and replacement players. Some people look at it as the players being greedy, but why should they have their salaries go down so the owners can make more profit? It doesnt make sense to me why there is so much sympathy to the billionaire owners, and not the players who are trying to get fair market value.

Phew. Okay, I'm starting to ramble now. Anyways, Phil Sheridan wrote an article about a week ago painting Fehr in a bad light and I took exception to it. He pretty much says that Fehr should have told the players to get fucked, and to expose the steroid era, even though he works for them. I've talked too much now. Lets dive in, shall we.

This is the title: Fehr's legacy: More money, less ethics

Maybe the best way to explain Donald Fehr is that he was very good, maybe even too good, at his job. It's just that he could not or would not grasp what his job could have and should have been.


See what I mean with the "He did his job well, but he shouldnt have" example? I think he grasped his job very well, especially considering where players salaries are and how it took an act of congress (I still cant believe our government was so concerned with that, considering where our economy is sitting now) to get steroid testing approved. That IS his job: To carry out what the players wishes are. Not to be a moral crusader, like the members of the mainstream media, and tell us who is using steroids and condemming them.

If the union chief's sole responsibility was to pump up player salaries, then the brilliant and quick-witted Fehr was a smashing success

I would say that should be up there on his list of priorities, wouldnt you? I suppose Phil Sheridan wants his union rep to just not give a shit what his salary is. Judging the direction the newspaper industry is going, I'm going to guess its going down. Not to mention Fehrs responsibilty was also to ensure that the owners were not driving down player salaries, but they're billionaires, so we should feel sorry for them. Why do people forget so easily about collusion? Not to mention that before free agency, unless you were a star, you werent exactly getting paid big bucks.

Clearly, that is how he evaluated himself. The fact that his own income was tied directly to the average player's salary may have had something to do with his point of view.

Your right....BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT THE PLAYERS WERE PAYING HIM TO DO!!!!!

But if the head of the union had some accountability for the long-term health and well-being of both the players and the game that enriched them all, then Fehr's tenure can only be considered a wretched failure.

Here it comes....are you guys ready for it? Its time for steroids! I know we've been talking about steroids an awful lot on the blog lately, so I'm going to try to steer as far clear of it as I can. The main point I had in this is to defend Donald Fehr for doing his job.

This seeming paradox can best be explained with a single name: Alex Rodriguez.

Oh, ok. So your going to make Alex Rodriguez the face of the steroid era now, right? I assume thats what you mean when you say "long-term health and well-being of both the players and the game" the previous paragraph.

Thanks to Fehr's domination over three commissioners and the owners they represented, Rodriguez was able to command two contracts worth $525 million from the Texas Rangers and the New York Yankees.

So...............Alex Rodriguez is going to have to worry about "long term health and well being" because he makes a lot of money? I figured it might be because of steroid abuse, but I guess he could get a severe paper cut from one of the checks he receives bi-weekly.

I'm still trying to figure out why this is a bad thing. And why is this Fehrs fault? Shouldnt they be blaming Scott Boras, or the owners who were stupid enough to dish out that much money? Fuck it, I guess, lets blame the union rep who had nothing to do with the negotiations.

This is Fehr's triumph, the highest paid player in baseball history.

Again, I would say this is more Boras triumph than Fehrs.

And this is the singular failure that outweighs it: Not only was Rodriguez able to earn those big dollars while pumping himself up with illegal steroids, he has never been suspended for a minute even though he has tested positive and admitted cheating

You cant just suspend him like that after the fact. How are you going to suspend everyone else that was using at the time? He also tested positive on an anonymous test there, slappy, and hasnt tested positive since. Perhaps you, the reporter, shouldnt have been all googly eyed over the behemoths hitting homers and breaking records, and done something about it, instead of demonizing everyone after the fact.

On Fehr's watch, the majority of which coincided with the reign of commissioner Bud Selig, baseball grew its revenues while bankrupting itself ethically and morally. Ultimately, that was the calculation that will define Fehr's career: Salaries rose with the home run totals and radar-gun readings, so let the players do whatever it took to jack up those numbers.

Yeah, it bankrupted itself ethically and morally, not unlike when black people werent allowed to play the game. That was when the game was at its highest morally, right Phil? What about the use of ampehtimines? Did you know that steroid use started in the 70's? Get off your high horse, phil.

Never mind the integrity of the sport.

Good thing the media protected the integrity back in the summer of 98. Oh wait, they didnt.

Never mind the unknown toll paid by young athletes who emulated the big-leaguers by jamming needles full of illegal drugs into their own fragile bodies.

Okay, this is pretty fucking dumb. Yes, lets blame the players for teens using steroids, not their parents. That would be silly. I mean, why wouldnt a parent question their kid if he just all of a sudden gained 50lbs of muscle out of nowhere? Unless their parent is Rick Reilly, that is.
Speaking of Rick Reilly, I did a search in the SI.com vault and I searched for steroids in the 90's decade. You have to read this article I found. It only points out what huge fucking hypocrites the media are in regards to steroids. Here is another one. From a different author, but its amazing how hard the mainstream media was working back then to expose these guys. I found a bunch more, and this is just from sports illustrated.


Selig has taken a lot of criticism for presiding over the steroid era, and he deserves most of it. It is the commissioner, after all, who is charged with protecting the game. From Kenesaw Mountain Landis and the Black Sox to Bart Giamatti and Pete Rose

Landis is also known for this: "Landis perpetuated the color line and prolonged the segregation of organized baseball. His successor, Happy Chandler, said, "For twenty-four years Judge Landis wouldn't let a black man play. I had his records, and I read them, and for twenty-four years Landis consistently blocked any attempts to put blacks and whites together on a big league field." But hey, at least he protected the game.



The mishandling of those 2003 test results represent a huge mistake by the union, which was responsible for destroying them.

This is probably the one valid point he makes about Fehr being a bad union rep. If they were destroyed, then we wouldnt be worrying about steroids anymore, and Arod would still be trying to break Barry Bonds record without the steroid taint.
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The suspicion, depressing though it may seem, is that the players judge Fehr only by the number of zeros on their paychecks.

Well, the rest of us don't. Long after everyone forgets how much money A-Rod and Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds made, they will remember that the greatest players of this era were cheaters. Baseball's enormous mess is the legacy Fehr and Selig will share forever.


ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME! I CANT BELIEVE YOU...................you know what? I think I'm gonna stop here because I think I'm starting to repeat myself. I cut out a bunch of paragraphs because the guy started to make it into a "evils of steroids" column. My point is that Fehr was an awesome union rep because he did what he was supposed to do. If you were in a union, you would want someone like him representing you because he does his job well. To say he was bad for the game because he fought for players to get paid market value and to protect their request for privacy is silly to me. People may not like it, but that was his job, and he shouldnt have just ignored his players requests just because the media didnt agree with him. He may get painted in a bad light by the hypocrites in the media, but I still have a great amount of respect for Donald Fehr, and what he did for his players.