This is YOUR commish !

Jan. 2 — Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly blasts Major League Baseball's role in the Boston Red Sox sale, claiming the fabled franchise was being steered to a group of out-of-state baseball insiders despite higher offers.

Jan. 10 —

John Henry

Cablevision Chairman Charles Dolan ups his Red Sox bid by $40 million, to $740 million. Three days later, the club's limited partners vote unanimously to stand by their decision to sell the team to a group led by John Henry for $660 million plus $40 million in assumed debt.

“What Alex did was wrong and he will have to live with the damage he has done to his name and reputation. His actions are also a reminder to everyone in baseball – under our current drug program, if you are caught using steroids and/or amphetamines, you will be punished. Since 2005, every player who has tested positive for steroids has been suspended for as much as 50 games. Eradicating performance- enhancing substances from the game of baseball has been my first priority over the past decade and it is important to remember that these recent revelations relate to pre-program activity.”  Bud Selig

  June 6 (Bloomberg) -- Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said he wants Jason Giambi to cooperate with George Mitchell's steroid investigation before he disciplines the New York Yankees player for his comments about the drugs.         

Giambi should meet with Mitchell within the next two weeks, Selig said in a statement. Major League Baseball lawyers met with Giambi and his representatives two weeks ago after USA Today published a report on May 18 that quoted Giambi saying he was ``wrong for doing that stuff,'' which could be viewed as a confession that he took steroids.         

``Any admission regarding the use of illegal performance- enhancing substances, no matter how casual, must be taken seriously,'' Selig said. ``Discipline for wrongdoing is important, but it is also important to create an environment so players can feel free to honestly and completely cooperate with this important investigation.''         

Former Senator George Mitchell is a straightforward and honest man, a life-time public servant, and about as perfect a candidate to head a high-profile investigation into steroid use as Major League Baseball could have found. So why in the world did he allow his integrity to be vulnerable to attack by remaining on the Board pf Directors of the Boston Red Sox as he took over this sensitive assignment? It was an obvious conflict of interest, not only because his connection to the management and ownership of a team meant that he could not be termed a neutral party, but because that team was the Boston Red Sox. Mitchell, a Vermonter, is a life-time Red Sox fan, and while that doesn't mean that he would corrupt his investigation to stick it to the New York Yankees, he had to know that many writers and fans would accuse him of doing so if the Pinstripers took a particularly hard hit from his report. And this was always likely: already two New York stars, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield, had been sullied by the Balco. Investigation. Moreover, the Yankee franchise "winning is the only thing that matters" culture under owner George Steinbrenner was exactly the kind of pressure-cooker that could push a player to cheat.

Sure enough, a disproportional number of Yankee stars were implicated in Mitchell's report, while no equivalent status Red Sox stars were revealed as steroid or human growth hormone users during their tenure with the team. And sure enough, the sports pages in the Big Apple are full of fans and writers crying "Foul!" They say a Red Sox official used his position to besmirch the hated Yankees, while protecting his own team's steroid-using players. As proof, they offer the fact that while steroid use by prominent Yankees is heavily discussed, the only Red Sox stars implicated are those who began injecting after they abandoned the team for bigger contracts: Mo Vaughn and Roger Clemens.

This is your commish baseball fans .. Someone is going to write a best seller one day .. GAME OF SHADOWS aka the Used Car Salesman from Milwaukee who used conflict of interests to pressure baseball into the 94 strike and the Steroid Era ..