Bus One Seven: Apple Pie

House reform committee shocked by MLB's reverse investigation
By Roderick Armageddon

Baseball calls in their top relief pitcher, Bernard Sandstrom as the chief of the MLB Board of Ethics and Standards shocked Capital Hill on March 22, issuing a call to fifty members of the US Congress and Senate to stand before the MLB Board on April 1, on charges of taking illicit contributions to "boost their performance heading into the next election."  

With a modest blue suit and an even more modest set of credentials, Senate Minority Whip Hardy Fitzsimons hardly fits the profile of a PAC-enabled behemoth. But in his fourteen years in the political big leagues, Fitzsimons has hit a number of policy home runs. Those homers, a combination of pro-business, pro-community and pro-environment bills, have made the former small town schoolboy famous on Capital Hill. And now they may have helped get him subpoenaed –by a Major League Baseball (MLB) committee looking into whether Capital Hill’s exploding pro-corporate policies are the result of the excessive use of illicit contributions.

Friday’s hearing, to be televised live on ESPN, CNN, FOX News and Boise public access station TVB-10, is sure to intensify the spotlight on an issue that has triggered outrage among political pundits and baseball fans alike, as well as denials from various big-league political powerhouses, including Fitzsimons. But it is also raising questions about whether senators and congressmen should be slapped with subpoenas simply because they can hit a slew of policy home runs, regardless of their potential big-money origins and motivation.

"Their letter says, "Take this opportunity to clear your name,'' said William Rondeau, a lawyer for the US Senate, referring to letters sent to his clients from the MLB committee. ``What the Hell does that mean? This smacks of the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, or even the House Committee on Government Reform . . . They destroyed people's lives and careers. I mean, Canseco can’t get a hotdog from a street vendor without getting a few giggles.''

But the MLB Board of Ethics and Standards insists it is not embarking on a witch hunt.

''This isn't an attempt to ruin anyone's career,'' said Bernard Sandstrom, a committee spokesman and the chief man behind the investigation. The MLB, he said, wants little more then to get Capital Hill’s perspective on the role of contributions in their decision making and policy development process. The other past and present congressmen and senators summoned before the committee –Mark Johnson, Leonard Conrad, John Spurman, Frank Vendosa and Harold Portman—have either admitted taking illicit contributions from PACs and corporate publicists (both Portman and Spurman), been subjected to dirty money rumors based on their changing stance on certain policies (sexual enhancement drugs, absentee paternity and child labor) and prodigious bill success totals (Conrad), or been outspokenly critical of taking illicit funds to sway political decisions (Vendosa). Johnson, a Democrat (unlike the others), has said he has no idea why he was subpoenaed, adding that the 1997 Kia he drives every day to the office is testament to his nonuse of illicit funds.

Late Tuesday, two lawyers from the MLB said Vendosa would be excused from appearing because he is a witness in a Boulder, Colorado-based investigation into black market ostrich sales.

And then there is Fitzsimons. Although his bill win rate ranks 5th in Capital Hill’s history of “big hitters,” his only direct link to taking illicit funds is a mention in Senate President Pro Tempore Dan Stevens’ recently published tell-all book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant Laws, Smash Hits, and How Big Cashola Became Big Policy. In the book, Stevens says he introduced Fitzsimons to under-the-table cash after the two became office mates in 1998.

Some have questioned Stevens’ credibility, noting that in a previous book, on relaxation and stress management techniques for congressmen and senators, he denounced the acceptance of illicit corporate funds. Fitzsimons has ''categorically denied'' Stevens’ claim, and last week he lashed out over the prospect of having to testify.

''There are more than 150 names in [Stevens’] book, not to mention references to at least 50 Fortune 500 companies,'' he told reporters. "What are they going to do? Bring in 150 people along with Mr. Clean and the Pillsbury Doughboy? I feel like a real bitch now.'' Sandstrom said he fully expected the politicians—if they appear—to be questioned about their own use of policy-enhancing corporate donations. Whether that's true or not, Friday's hearing is likely to be the second inning in a long and tortuous relationship between baseball and Congress, whose policies on the acceptance of corporate illicit funds—though recently strengthened with a four page pamphlet titled, Big Money Can be Bad—is far weaker than those of other democratic governments, and in fact, most non-democratic governments.

Sandstrom said MLB committee members saw this as a public ethics issue. So beyond the big names from Capital Hill, witnesses will include fund management experts, travel agents and the families of politicians past and present who were caught red-handed using corporate donations for everything from Disneyland vacations to a “pimped-out” 1978 El Camino (in the case of Idaho Senator Bob Rigby).

Congressional officials say they're dealing with the issue and don’t need the MLB to interfere, noting that confirmed cases of illicit fund use have gone from about 97 percent in 2003 to less than 92 percent last year. Some senators also question whether the hearing is necessary, especially considering that the Senate recently implemented a tougher policy on electronic fund transfers and check cashing policies, with punishment ranging from a two-day paid suspension for a first offense to a session-long suspension at Kennebunkport for a fourth offense. ''What if this year it's below 90 percent?'' asked Mississippi congressman Lowell Neves. ``Will we still have to go before the MLB?''

Roderick Armageddon is best known for his work producing week-long films on the plight of southern Idaho field rats and the elusive Chippewa field mouse. He can also be seen in the upcoming BBC documentary, Neutering my Spirituality: Ten Steps to Killing God. He currently writes from his perch atop a eucalyptus tree in San Francisco, California.