Simply no accountability

Tuesday defined why I vote for Mark McGwire for the Hall of Fame.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and players union chief Don Fehr appeared before Congress.

Here are excerpts of their testimony to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearings on the Mitchell Report:

Selig: "Blah, blah, blah."

Fehr: "Yada, yada, yada."

One theme weaving its way through the hearings was the lack of leadership exercised during the game's Steroids Era.

"This scandal happened under your watch," Rep. Elijah Cummings told Selig and Fehr.

When both were asked whether he accepted responsibility, each answered that yes he did.

Yet the Steroids Era's same leaders -- Selig and Fehr -- are leading in their same capacities. Apparently it's OK to be held responsible but not accountable.

This inspires the question of how persons so central to the problem can be charged with being so central to the solution.

Perception alone renders that unacceptable, don't you think?

Selig and Fehr have strengthened MLB's drug policy the past few years, but only under duress from Congress. Heck, amateurs like you and I could have replaced those two and invoked the same measures.

Nothing Selig and Fehr could say to Congress would matter because each forfeited his credibility at least a decade ago.

Many of you -- actually most of you -- are disgusted that I cast a Hall of Fame vote for McGwire both this year and last.

I decided to not penalize any player suspected of using illegal performance enhancers during baseball's Steroids Era.

My rationale is that the abuses weren't merely a player's but belonged to the entire sport, from the commissioner to union officials to owners to general managers to field managers to fringe personnel and so on.

Hardly any of them but players suffered consequences for the mess despite the collective failure to address performance enhancers during the 1990s.

So, please, explain to me why it's all right to punish players for cheating but not fire Selig and Fehr for permitting them to.

It is said that a body rots from the top -- in this case from the commissioner and the union chief.

The hearings' first question to former Sen. George Mitchell, author of the Mitchell Report, concerned the lack of consequence for those in the game who turned "a blind eye" to the prevalence of steroids.

By saying we should look to the future rather than the past, Mitchell sounded like McGwire did during his infamous appearance before Congress.

In Mitchell's preliminary remarks, however, he did point to "the poor leadership" many teams demonstrated on the issue.

Ranking committee member Rep. Tom Davis noted that baseball's hierarchy was more partial to "turnstiles clicking and home runs flying" than to cleaning up the sport. Rep. Betty McCollum went as far as to call it "a criminal conspiracy" and "cheating for profit."

Yet nobody but players and a couple of low-level employees have been cited. Baseball executives? They're like racketeers who first got wealthy and then got religion.

A CEO loses his job for corruption within his ranks. A police chief loses his job for proof of police brutality on his watch.

But a baseball commissioner and a union chief remain in place after a steroids scandal? So do owners, executives, general managers and field managers?

Seriously, but that isn't fair.