After Drug Meetings: Silence

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[i:bdfca0aedf]by Murray Chass
originally printed: The Sporting News, February 10, 1986[/i:bdfca0aedf]

NEW YORK – Commissioner Peter Ueberroth has virtually completed his meetings with players who were involved in or implicated at the Pittsburgh cocaine trials. But he has maintained total secrecy on the meetings and silence on how or when he might act against the players.

Ueberroth met with 22 players during a two-week period in January. John Milner, the lone retired player in the group, declined Ueberroth's invitation to meet with him, leaving former Oakland pitcher Mike Norris the only player left to be interviewed.

Neither Ueberroth nor members of his staff would comment on the status of the meetings. Nor would they indicate when the commissioner might make a decision on whether or not to take action against any of the players. He previously had said he would do nothing until he had met with all of the players involved.

The meetings were held in such secrecy that during the first week no one but the participants knew where they were being held. Then it was learned that Ueberroth had held court at the Citicorp Building on New York's East Side, the location of the offices of Willkie, Farr and Gallagher, the law firm that represents the National League.

During the week beginning January 5, Ueberroth met with Dave Parker, Enos Cabell, Jeff Leonard, Lonnie Smith, Tim Raines, Al Holland, Lee Lacy, Joaquin Andujar, Lary Sorensen, Dickie Noles, Dusty Baker, Gary Matthews and Rod Scurry. The following week he met with Dale Berra, Keith Hernandez, Derrel Thomas, Manny Sarmiento, Alan Wiggins, Vida Blue, Claudell Washington and Bill Madlock. The meeting with Madlock was held in Los Angeles.

The sessions, according to the people who attended at least one, lacked the drama that might have been expected. They were described as more upbeat and civilized than hostile.

The commissioner, who did the questioning, asked about the players' involvement with cocaine and also asked them for suggestions on how to deal with the drug problem in baseball. He also talked about testing players and the educational approach to combating the problem, educating players while they are in the low minors. He also asked about the efforts being made by the clubs to confront drug abuse.

Ueberroth did not ask the players to name other players they might know who have used or are using drugs. But he did express concern about the players' violating the law when they used drugs.

Not all of the players on the commissioner’s meeting list testified at or had their names linked to cocaine use at the trial of Curtis Strong, the Philadelphia caterer who was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in federal Prison for drug trafficking. Norris, Sconiers, Washington, Blue and Wiggins were summoned because of their acknowledged prior involvement with drugs. Madlock made the list because he was identified at the Strong trial as a supplier of amphetamines to other players while he played for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Steve Greenberg, Madlock's lawyer, was unhappy that Madlock was summoned, but after the January 17 session, he said he didn’t have to express his displeasure to Ueberroth.

“The commissioner pre-empted me in that regard,” he said. “I was pleasantly surprised that the commissioner was very well informed and prepared. He was taking each case on its own merits and he was up to speed in Bill’s case. His position simply was he was going to interview everyone whose name came up in the Pittsburgh trial.”

Speculation about what action, if any, Ueberroth might take against some or all of the players covered the gamut of possibilities. No one knew for certain what he would do. Some people thought he would do nothing because the players’ involvement was in the past. Some thought he would pick out one or two players as examples, lesser players, to be sure, whose absence while under suspension would not affect their teams' chances in pennant races. That kind of action, that theory went, would be the commissioner's way of appeasing that part of the baseball public that was outraged by the cocaine news that punctuated the 1985 season. Then there was the theory that he would discipline many of the players regardless of the chances that baseball's arbitrator would overturn his action after the Major League Players Association filed grievances. That way, Ueberroth would look good in the eyes of the public and if the arbitrator did overturn suspensions, the commissioner would be able to say he tried to do what he felt was right and proper.

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Could you imagine how badly a story like this could spin out of control?