In addition to Selig's $18.5 million salary for a legal monopoly, he expects critics to be silenced-Wallace Matthews

(3/8/09, Newsday, Matthews): "Congress had its chance in 2005 and let him off the hook. I had my chance two weeks ago and got nothing but an earful of excuses.

• In the interim, I have gotten one talking-to after another by Friends of Bud who want me to

• back off the poor, beleaguered commissioner.

Well, I think the commissioner has gotten far too easy a ride.

• If he thinks being questioned by a reporter whose only form of punishment

• is delivered in 12 inches of column space in a newspaper is tough,

• he should try being a player someday.

He should be held to the same standards he, and we, demand of them. Everyone, it seems, assumes A-Rod is lying when he says he doesn't know precisely what he was injecting into his body.

• Yet the same people assume Selig is telling the truth when he says he had no idea his game was infected with steroids in the mid-'90s.

This despite all evidence to the contrary. Despite Rick Helling standing up at a union meeting in

• 1998 and saying what no one in baseball wanted to hear:

• that the game was being overrun by steroids....

If Selig truly didn't know, shame on him. If he knew and chose not to act, double shame on him.

• If he knew but couldn't act because he was powerless in the face of his players association, then it's strike three. You're out, Bud.

The double standard is obvious and infuriating. Teams pay their players a ton of money and expect performance, honesty and accountability in return. In most cases, I believe they get it.

• The same teams pay $18.5 million a year for a commissioner, more money than is paid to all but a handful of players.

In return, they get Bud Selig. If you think the players are overpaid, what does that make him?"

• Newsday article, 3/8/09, "Overpaid Selig Should be Held Accountable"

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