Bud Selig

Selig should toughen drug-testing program Baseball commissioner Bud Selig's token drug-testing plan will be about as effective as chasing a gorilla with a butterfly net. Even an alert donkey knows that the players' association is the real force controlling Major League Baseball. Bud Selig, wake up! You now have the Feds on your side. President Bush's appeal to team owners and players to eliminate performance-enhancing drugs creates the perfect window of opportunity to put some teeth into your feeble drug-testing program, which everybody knows panders to the players' union.

Major League Baseball won't name a commissioner until it gets a labor agreement. And it won't get a labor agreement until it names a commissioner.Only the Lords of Baseball could create their own Catch-22.Their latest stunt makes sense only to those familiar with the sport's labor history, in which nothing ever makes sense.On Wednesday, the Lords voted, 18-12, to reject a proposed settlement in their 100 Years War with the players.Randy Levine, the first owners' negotiator since 1990 to reach agreement with union chief Donald Fehr, should be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

John Steadman, the late sports columnist who wrapped up a half-century of writing in this city at The Sun, was honored yesterday as the recipient of the prestigious Red Smith Award. In the audience, Steadman's wife, Mary Lee, listened to his old friends and co-workers reminisce about her husband with tears falling down her cheeks. "It's overwhelming," she said. "There have been a lot of honors for him, but this has been the hardest one. People say to me, `You've done so well. You've done so well.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- Baseball owners overwhelmingly approved the sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers to media giant Rupert Murdoch yesterday, bringing the era of family ownership in Major League Baseball to an end.The owners voted 27-2 with one abstention to approve the $350 million deal, which transfers ownership of one of the most storied franchises in baseball history from the O'Malley family to the Fox Group, a division of Murdoch's huge News Corp....

WASHINGTON -- The D.C. Council passed emergency legislation yesterday to try to compel Comcast to begin carrying Washington Nationals games for its area cable customers. The bill says Comcast must begin broadcasting the games or face the possibility of losing the city-approved agreement that allows it to operate here. In a statement, Comcast said that the bill is not enforceable because local government efforts to require specific programming "are clearly impermissible under federal law."

NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol yesterday accused baseball officials of reneging on at least two oral pledges to protect The Baseball Network, and said the sport is in a "completely confused state."During a conference call, Ebersol suggested that baseball leadership -- including acting commissioner Bud Selig -- effectively scuttled The Baseball Network project, a joint venture among baseball, NBC and ABC, by delaying decisions on the venture's future."On two specific occasions, the bodies responsible for determining the course of baseball said words that were very specific," said Ebersol.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer created a stir at Orioles camp yesterday when his comments on baseball's drug-testing policy, aired on a Baltimore radio station, included suspicions that the franchise's single-season home run leader used steroids. In an interview with 98 Rock (WIYY-FM) that was taped Saturday and played yesterday, Palmer indicated Brady Anderson's 50-homer season in 1996 might have been tainted. Palmer cited how Anderson hadn't previously come close to that total and how his production dropped in subsequent years while he dealt with various injuries.

Keep divisions, but … Bill Shaikin Los Angeles Times This idea comes up now and again, this time because the Red Sox just dropped $300 million on Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez — keeping up with the Yankees in baseball's two-team arms race. How can it be fair, or so the theory goes, for the other teams in the American League East to have to beat out the Red Sox or Yankees — or both — to make the playoffs? A division championship is more significant in baseball than in any other sport, because the length of the season weeds out fluke teams, so let's keep the divisions intact.

If George W. Bush, who once owned the Texas Rangers, can step up to the plate and swing away for the presidency of the United States, what's to stop other baseball executives from seeking to become the next kings of clout? Jim Caple of ESPN.com suggests how other moguls would fare as leaders of the free world: Bud Selig (commissioner): Signs bill raising California state income taxes to pay for schools and highways in Mississippi, Alabama and other small-market states. Jerry Colangelo (Arizona Diamondbacks owner)

ATLANTA -- It's been a dream of Kevin Millwood's to pitch in Yankee Stadium. His turn didn't come up when the Braves visited New York during the regular season, but he was scheduled to start Game 3 of the World Series on Tuesday."