Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington tested positive for cocaine last season and if that's not weird enough (it's pretty weird, right? the guy's 57. This is baseball not the music industry), there's this:
The Rangers, as an organization, were being blackmailed because of it. Blackmailed! Seedy!
And there's this:
"According to MLB rules, disciplinary measures are only mandatory in cases of performance-enhancing drugs....Managers and coaches are not represented by the players' union, and are thus subject to testing for recreational drugs, such as cocaine. Major league players are not tested for cocaine and other recreational drugs."
Oh OK. Yeah: no tests, no unpleasantness, no blackmail. What could go wrong?
ADDED: The weirdest thing by far, though, is how the local sports media has to handle this news. First, because the story broke at SI.com, the coverage here has mostly been limited to opinion-oriented reaction pieces. The only additional news -- the blackmailing -- is exclusive to Randy Galloway of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Although the Dallas and Fort Worth papers share baseball reporters, Galloway is a columnist and is not carried in the Dallas Morning News. So: sorry Dallas sports fans. Galloway also hosts an afternoon show on the local ESPN radio affiliate, and as I listen to the other sports stations now, they're only gingerly taking up the blackmail part of the story, never crediting Galloway by name because God forbid you should mention a competitor in any way except jest. Everyone's happy to talk and talk and talk about the reasons Ron Washington should be fired. So far, to my knowledge, no one here is addressing how yet another major story -- like Parcell's retirement, like ARod's positive test, hell, like the whole Canseco steroid era -- slipped right by the DFW sports media.
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