What Took So Long?
You baaaaaad boy! No going out to play for you for 10 days, Hector Santiago. You're still starting in regular rotation, Trevor Bauer ... on the Fourth of July. In Washington, yet. At least, you were, until MLB did Friday what it should have done on Wednesday, when the details came forth, and put you on seven days' administrative leave. Until then, it looked as though Santiago took heavier immediate consequences for actual or alleged naughty sauce than Bauer did leaving a woman with head and facial trauma, a partial basilar skull fracture, and blood around where she accuses him of trying a back door slider while she was out cold and in no position to allow it. You can run the entire history of professional baseball and find players disciplined quickly and heavily for behavior a lot less grave that what Bauer's accused of having done to the lady. But then you can also still find too many people learning about Babe Ruth's penchant for partying with gangsters and hookers and thinking it's still just part of the big lout's appeal. Maybe the Dodgers couldn't discipline Bauer unilaterally at once, as Sports Illustrated's Stephanie Apstein noted Thursday afternoon. But there was no law saying manager Dave Roberts couldn't decide to hand the ball to another pitcher to start in Bauer's place, especially on the anniversary of a declaration saying we're entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness isn't supposed to leave a woman's head resembling a boxing gym's speed bag. Not even if she was looking for just a little rough and wild sex. Unless I've been led down one or another primrose path, even a little rough and wild sex isn't supposed to end in head and face trauma, a partial basilar skull fracture, and blood on the seat God provided the human anatomy. Compared to that, The Thrilla in Manila (Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier, the brutal Act III) was a dance contest. Baseball's domestic violence policy, Apstein reminded us, includes that baseball's government can put an accused player on paid administrative leave up to seven days while investigating the accusations. MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association can extend that period by mutual agreement, she observes. "Perhaps MLB is waiting until Sunday so as not to start the clock," she continued. "If they wait, that would keep him out of action until after the All-Star Break. That may make sense legally. It is indefensible morally." These people are so consumed with technicalities that they can't be bothered to do the right thing. "We are not going to start Trevor Bauer on Sunday." Not "We are going to take away Trevor Bauer's money." Not "We are going to suspend him." Not "We are going to release him." Not "We are going to throw him in prison." Just "We are not going to offer this man the privilege of striding out to a mound in front of tens of thousands of people who paid for a nice afternoon." Let's remember the word "privilege." That's what playing professional, major league baseball is. It's not a basic human right. You won't find any clause in the Supreme Law of the Land declaring you have the absolute right to any particular line of work. The document over whose anniversary baseball and the nation is about to make a red, white, and blue racket  the like of which probably hasn't been seen in long enough, after last year's pan-damn-ic rudely interrupted such things  doesn't say, "We hold this truth further, that you have the right to your particular chosen job, period, no matter what criminal behavior you might commit while thus employed." Apstein said commissioner Rob Manfred  a man who normally points the way to wisdom by standing athwart it  should have put Bauer on administrative leave immediately. She also said the Dodgers' administration should have ordered Roberts to hand the Fourth of July ball to anyone but Bauer, instead of Roberts telling reporters he's still giving Bauer the ball. While she was at it, she zapped that brass for leaving Roberts out to answer press questions by himself. "Instead," Apstein continued, "fans of the Dodgers and of the sport and of civil society have to wait days to learn whether a man accused of breaking a woman's skull will get to pitch on the Fourth of July in the nation's capital." The Athletic's Dodgers reporter Fabian Ardaya tweeted Thursday afternoon that Roberts also said the team's "direction" was to do nothing "until they get guidance from MLB." The Dodgers have their guidance now. It took only two days from The Athletic's Brittany Ghiroli's and Katie Strang's running down the literally gory details in the restraining order filing to get it. It shouldn't have taken that long. MLB was still a little too slow on the proverbial uptake. So were the Dodgers. They should have gotten ahead of it and changed Fourth of July pitchers at minimum to open. This is a look about which "ugly" would be an understatement for the team half a game out of first in the National League West. When former Cubs shortstop Addison Russell was first accused of abuse against his then-wife in 2018, MLB put him on administrative leave at once. When Yankee pitcher Domingo German was accused likewise in 2019, MLB put him on administrative leave likewise. Both were suspended in due course, but the players' union approved extensions of the administrative leaves first. Legally, that's in a court of law. Morally, you don't surrender it when you remove a pitcher from duty whose mind is occupied by matters more grave than trying to sneak fastballs or breaking balls past Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, and Juan Soto on the Fourth of July. "Would the union fight a similar extension with Bauer?" another Athletic writer, Ken Rosenthal, asked. Then, he answered at once: "Perhaps, if it believed the league was acting unfairly. The union, after all, exists to defend and assert the rights of the players. But based on the details in the domestic violence restraining order against Bauer, the union also might view a prolonged investigation into his conduct as warranted." Somehow, it's still impossible to believe that a pitcher caught with his sweat mixing to legal rosin and ending up in his glove  which, by the way, MLB turned out not to have inspected  almost faced heavier immediate consequences than a player under legal restraining order over leaving a woman injured, feeling abused, and more than a little afraid. "[H]ow ridiculous would it look for MLB to dock Santiago and not even buy time with Bauer, whose alleged offense is far more serious?" Rosenthal asked. "What exactly would Manfred's trepidation be here?" I'm still a little too trepidatious to ask. A baseball commissioner who's already threatening to set records for terrible looks took two days to do what he had to do this time. "Terrible" isn't the word for that look.