Palladino: MLB, NFL Offered Nothing But Mixed Messages This Week
By Ernie Palladino
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In one week's time, MLB and the NFL proved they just can't make up their minds. Instead of being for or against something, as they have been historically, they spent a few days vacationing on middle ground.
Baseball has made a big deal about stomping out domestic violence for a while now. Yet, when it came to Mets reliever Jeurys Familia, commissioner Rob Manfred wrapped up a three-month investigation of an Oct. 31 incident at the pitcher's Fort Lee, New Jersey, home with a suspension equal to a stay on the 15-day disabled list.
MORE: Mets' Familia Suspended 15 Games Following Domestic Violence Arrest
Football -- all the major sports leagues, for that matter -- have long held that gambling is the most mortal of sins any athlete can commit. Worse than performance-enhancing drugs. Worse than whacking around a woman. Yet, NFL owners voted 31-1 to allow the Raiders to move to Las Vegas, the gambling heart of the United States, once that city completes a new stadium a 10-yard hitch route from the Vegas Strip.
If the sporting public ever craved the mixed message, this was the week to tune in.
Most folks don't, however. Most prefer clarity; nice, clear lines drawn so everybody knows what they can expect when one crosses those lines.
What the two sports gave us this week was one big pass interference call -- a situation dictated more by judgment than written rule. And as a bonus, they threw in a serving of hypocrisy.
Before the Familia ruling, Manfred seemed to relish the sheriff's role as he handed out respective 30- and 52-game suspensions to Aroldis Chapman and Jose Reyes for their transgressions, neither of which resulted in trial nor conviction. But after three months of investigation, Familia got 15 games without pay.
Perhaps Manfred suddenly found a soft spot in his heart for a fellow who submitted to domestic violence counseling. Or perhaps he just saw value in the fast return of a closer to a team in one of MLB's major markets.
Whatever the case, Manfred let Familia off easy. Something serious enough for a 911 call obviously happened between the pitcher and his wife that night. Something that merited more than 15 games.
The problem comes with the arbitrary nature of Manfred's decision. Baseball's domestic violence policy needs a minimum punishment to avoid the mixed message. You get hauled out of your house in handcuffs, that's 30 games without pay, no questions asked. And the punishment goes up incrementally from there, depending on the severity of the incident.
MORE: Francesa: NFL Sold Its Soul By OK-ing Raiders' Las Vegas Move
Football offered an almost comical departure from its eons-long avoidance of Sin City. Without a hint of irony, it is the Raiders who make that move. Granted, this is a different team than the ones fielded in the 1970s and '80s under the late Al Davis. Just imagine turning Ben Davidson, John Matuszak, Kenny Stabler, and the rest of those renegades loose in the land of casinos and legal brothels. They'd barely have enough energy to play on Sunday, let alone the cloud they'd cast over the legitimacy of the games.
But Vegas waved enough money in the owners' faces that only one, Miami's Stephen Ross, denied the Raiders his blessing. And it wasn't because of any moral high ground. He just felt the Raiders hadn't worked hard enough to find a stadium solution in Oakland.
So the Raiders will move to Vegas in two years, which means the supposed sanctity of NFL games has about the same amount of time to continue. After the move, it will only be a matter of time before the sports books start funneling fees to the league's -- read that the owners' -- coffers, thereby enabling a $10 billion value to grow exponentially.
With the greatest of speed, the legitimacy of the games will become a secondary consideration.
The same league that continues to question whether heads banging at full speed have any real connection to the long-range effects of concussions now endangers the one rule its viewers could always count on -- that the games are on the up-and-up.
Football and baseball have both forsaken the hard line for dubious middle grounds.
No surprise there, though. As our politicians have blurred the lines of truth and comportment, the public has always looked to sports for at least a modicum of clarity.
Instead, it received this week a disappointing and potentially destructive package of mixed messages.
Follow Ernie on Twitter at @ErniePalladino
